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• Database-as-a-Service on Exadata Cloud

  - by Gagan Chawla

  Note – Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c DBaaS is platform agnostic and is designed to work on Exadata/non-Exadata, physical/virtual, Oracle/non Oracle platforms and it’s not a mandatory requirement to use Exadata as the base platform. Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is an important trend these days and the top business drivers motivating customers towards private database cloud model include constant pressure to reduce IT Costs and Complexity, and also to be able to improve Agility and Quality of Service. The first step many enterprises take in their journey towards cloud computing is to move to a consolidated and standardized environment and Exadata being already a proven best-in-class popular consolidation platform, we are seeing now more and more customers starting to evolve from Exadata based platform into an agile self service driven private database cloud using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. Together Exadata Database Machine and Enterprise Manager 12c provides industry’s most comprehensive and integrated solution to transform from a typical silo’ed environment into enterprise class database cloud with self service, rapid elasticity and pay-per-use capabilities.   In today’s post, I’ll list down the important steps to enable DBaaS on Exadata using Enterprise Manager 12c. These steps are chalked down based on a recent DBaaS implementation from a real customer engagement - Project Planning - First step involves defining the scope of implementation, mapping functional requirements and objectives to use cases, defining high availability, network, security requirements, and delivering the project plan. In a Cloud project you plan around technology, business and processes all together so ensure you engage your actual end users and stakeholders early on in the project right from the scoping and planning stage. Setup your EM 12c Cloud Control Site – Once the project plan approval and sign off from stakeholders is achieved, refer to EM 12c Install guide and these are some important tips to follow during the site setup phase - Review the new EM 12c Sizing paper before you get started with install Cloud, Chargeback and Trending, Exadata plug ins should be selected to deploy during install Refer to EM 12c Administrator’s guide for High Availability, Security, Network/Firewall best practices and options Your management and managed infrastructure should not be combined i.e. EM 12c repository should not be hosted on same Exadata where target Database Cloud is to be setup Setup Roles and Users – Cloud Administrator (EM_CLOUD_ADMINISTRATOR), Self Service Administrator (EM_SSA_ADMINISTRATOR), Self Service User (EM_SSA_USER) are the important roles required for cloud lifecycle management. Roles and users are managed by Super Administrator via Setup menu –> Security option. For Self Service/SSA users custom role(s) based on EM_SSA_USER should be created and EM_USER, PUBLIC roles should be revoked during SSA user account creation. Configure Software Library – Cloud Administrator logs in and in this step configures software library via Enterprise menu –> provisioning and patching option and the storage location is OMS shared filesystem. Software Library is the centralized repository that stores all software entities and is often termed as ‘local store’. Setup Self Update – Self Update is one of the most innovative and cool new features in EM 12c framework. Self update can be accessed via Setup -> Extensibility option by Super Administrator and is the unified delivery mechanism to get all new and updated entities (Agent software, plug ins, connectors, gold images, provisioning bundles etc) in EM 12c. Deploy Agents on all Compute nodes, and discover Exadata targets – Refer to Exadata discovery cookbook for detailed walkthrough to ensure successful discovery of Exadata targets. Configure Privilege Delegation Settings – This step involves deployment of privilege setting template on all the nodes by Super Administrator via Setup menu -> Security option with the option to define whether to use sudo or powerbroker for all provisioning and patching operations. Provision Grid Infrastructure with RAC Database on Compute Nodes – Software is provisioned in this step via a provisioning profile using EM 12c database provisioning. In case of Exadata, Grid Infrastructure and RAC Database software is already deployed on compute nodes via OneCommand from Oracle, so SSA Administrator just needs to discover Oracle Homes and Listener as EM targets. Databases will be created as and when users request for databases from cloud. Customize Create Database Deployment Procedure – the actual database creation steps are "templatized" in this step by Self Service Administrator and the newly saved deployment procedure will be used during service template creation in next step. This is an important step and make sure you have locked all the required variables marked as locked as ‘Y’ in this table. Setup Self Service Portal – This step involves setting up of zones, user quotas, service templates, chargeback plan. The SSA portal is setup by Self Service Administrator via Setup menu -> Cloud -> Database option and following guided workflow. Refer to DBaaS cookbook for details. You also have an option to customize SSA login page via steps documented in EM 12c Cloud Administrator’s guide Final Checks – Define and document process guidelines for SSA users and administrators. Get your SSA users trained on Self Service Portal features and overall DBaaS model and SSA administrators should be familiar with Self Service Portal setup pieces, EM 12c database lifecycle management capabilities and overall EM 12c monitoring framework. GO LIVE – Announce rollout of Database-as-a-Service to your SSA users. Users can login to the Self Service Portal and request/monitor/view their databases in Exadata based database cloud. Congratulations! You just delivered a successful database cloud implementation project! In future posts, we will cover these additional useful topics around database cloud – DBaaS Implementation tips and tricks – right from setup to self service to managing the cloud lifecycle ‘How to’ enable real production databases copies in DBaaS with rapid provisioning in database cloud Case study of a customer who recently achieved success with their transformational journey from traditional silo’ed environment on to Exadata based database cloud using Enterprise Manager 12c. More Information – Podcast on Database as a Service using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Installation and Administration guide, Cloud Administration guide DBaaS Cookbook Exadata Discovery Cookbook Screenwatch: Private Database Cloud: Set Up the Cloud Self-Service Portal Screenwatch: Private Database Cloud: Use the Cloud Self-Service Portal Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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• How to get paid and figure out if I want to keep this client [migrated]

  - by Heiner Fawkes

  I have a client who is not paying on time, but it looks like the specifics don't match similar questions on this SE site. I got a call from a client I did website work for years ago. I had not done this kind of work for many years and frankly I'm not sure I want to now, but nevertheless about a month ago I agreed to bring his website, SEO, social media, and overall marketing for his small business up to speed. Why? He has told me many times how I'm the most honest, most well-informed contractor he's had experience with. And I personally kind of like him too. So I started working on an hourly basis. I sent one very small invoice and got paid. Then we talked a whole lot about all sorts of feature he would like me to implement. I started that work, and sent a second invoice on the first of the month (one of my two stated billing days). I didn't get paid. On every invoice it states that I charge a whopping ten percent per week late. I sent many voicemails and emails asking to please let me know what's going on with payment, and didn't get replies. Then the 15th of the month rolled around (which I stated initially as one of my invoicing dates). Since I hadn't been paid for the last invoice, I simply didn't send him an invoice at that time but emailed him and said that I will combine it with the next scheduled invoice for this reason (probably a bad idea I realize). Eventually he sent a portion of the invoice payment. I emailed back to let him know that he's three weeks late and what the remaining balance is. Finally we got in touch via phone. He basically told me that he thought I hadn't done all of the work I said I did. He looked at the page source code and it didn't look complete to him. I explained why his perception would be different and what work I had done as specified. He accepted this and said that part of the reason he didn't pay in full is that he's been swamped with personal family stuff, and part of the reason is that he didn't think I did all the work. That struck me as pretty weird. He also expressed concern that he has no idea now how much all the changes he has asked for are going to cost. And once again, he told me how honest and high-quality my services are compared to others he has dealt with. He also said he would pay me more (but not all) of the now three weeks overdue invoice that day. I didn't receive any payment. Basically this is how the client relationship strikes me: He's not good at communication. He's very busy and English isn't his first language. He almost never replies to emails but phone calls are fine. He's asked me to avoid emails for communication and I've asked him to please use email. He might not have enough money to afford all the things he has asked for. But so far I have been working for an hourly fee (which is quite high). He also has started paying monthly for hosting and social media services from me. What seems very abnormal is for a client to be so overdue on payments and to actually withhold payment of an invoice without any communication because he didn't think the work was done. I told him that I will send dollar estimates of each module of remaining work so that we can decide which ones are the highest priority if he cannot afford them all. I also reiterated that in the future if he has doubts about the work or an inability to pay, he must contact me immediately to say so. I basically plan to state the following to him: I would like to work for him and help his business. I also have sympathy for his recent family difficulties. I am happy to figure out payment plans that would work better for him, but first I need to be paid in full for all outstanding invoices, especially given that I skipped one of them just to be nice. The most crucial thing I need is communication about any problems with my work or his ability to pay. Once again, he heeds to pay in full immediately before we negotiate anything else. Does the above seem like an appropriate communication? Is anything missing from it? Is anything I'm doing here really abnormal?

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• Professional Development – Difference Between Bio, CV and Resume

  - by Pinal Dave

  Applying for work can be very stressful – you want to put your best foot forward, and it can be very hard to sell yourself to a potential employer while highlighting your best characteristics and answering questions.  On top of that, some jobs require different application materials – a biography (or bio), a curriculum vitae (or CV), or a resume.  These things seem so interchangeable, so what is the difference? Let’s start with the one most of us have heard of – the resume.  A resume is a summary of your job and education history.  If you have ever applied for a job, you will have used a resume.  The ability to write a good resume that highlights your best characteristics and emphasizes your qualifications for a specific job is a skill that will take you a long way in the world.  For such an essential skill, unfortunately it is one that many people struggle with. RESUME So let’s discuss what makes a great resume.  First, make sure that your name and contact information are at the top, in large print (slightly larger font than the rest of the text, size 14 or 16 if the rest is size 12, for example).  You need to make sure that if you catch the recruiter’s attention and they know how to get a hold of you. As for qualifications, be quick and to the point.  Make your job title and the company the headline, and include your skills, accomplishments, and qualifications as bullet points.  Use good action verbs, like “finished,” “arranged,” “solved,” and “completed.”  Include hard numbers – don’t just say you “changed the filing system,” say that you “revolutionized the storage of over 250 files in less than five days.”  Doesn’t that sentence sound much more powerful? Curriculum Vitae (CV) Now let’s talk about curriculum vitae, or “CVs”.  A CV is more like an expanded resume.  The same rules are still true: put your name front and center, keep your contact info up to date, and summarize your skills with bullet points.  However, CVs are often required in more technical fields – like science, engineering, and computer science.  This means that you need to really highlight your education and technical skills. Difference between Resume and CV Resumes are expected to be one or two pages long – CVs can be as many pages as necessary.  If you are one of those people lucky enough to feel limited by the size constraint of resumes, a CV is for you!  On a CV you can expand on your projects, highlight really exciting accomplishments, and include more educational experience – including GPA and test scores from the GRE or MCAT (as applicable).  You can also include awards, associations, teaching and research experience, and certifications.  A CV is a place to really expand on all your experience and how great you will be in this particular position. Biography (Bio) Chances are, you already know what a bio is, and you have even read a few of them.  Think about the one or two paragraphs that every author includes in the back flap of a book.  Think about the sentences under a blogger’s photo on every “About Me” page.  That is a bio.  It is a way to quickly highlight your life experiences.  It is essentially the way you would introduce yourself at a party. Where a bio is required for a job, chances are they won’t want to know about where you were born and how many pets you have, though.  This is a way to summarize your entire job history in quick-to-read format – and sometimes during a job hunt, being able to get to the point and grab the recruiter’s interest is the best way to get your foot in the door.  Think of a bio as your entire resume put into words. Most bios have a standard format.  In paragraph one, talk about your most recent position and accomplishments there, specifically how they relate to the job you are applying for.  If you have teaching or research experience, training experience, certifications, or management experience, talk about them in paragraph two.  Paragraph three and four are for highlighting publications, education, certifications, associations, etc.  To wrap up your bio, provide your contact info and availability (dates and times). Where to use What? For most positions, you will know exactly what kind of application to use, because the job announcement will state what materials are needed – resume, CV, bio, cover letter, skill set, etc.  If there is any confusion, choose whatever the industry standard is (CV for technical fields, resume for everything else) or choose which of your documents is the strongest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, Professional Development, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Organization &amp; Architecture UNISA Studies &ndash; Chap 5

  - by MarkPearl

  Learning Outcomes Describe the operation of a memory cell Explain the difference between DRAM and SRAM Discuss the different types of ROM Explain the concepts of a hard failure and a soft error respectively Describe SDRAM organization Semiconductor Main Memory The two traditional forms of RAM used in computers are DRAM and SRAM DRAM (Dynamic RAM) Divided into two technologies… Dynamic Static Dynamic RAM is made with cells that store data as charge on capacitors. The presence or absence of charge in a capacitor is interpreted as a binary 1 or 0. Because capacitors have natural tendency to discharge, dynamic RAM requires periodic charge refreshing to maintain data storage. The term dynamic refers to the tendency of the stored charge to leak away, even with power continuously applied. Although the DRAM cell is used to store a single bit (0 or 1), it is essentially an analogue device. The capacitor can store any charge value within a range, a threshold value determines whether the charge is interpreted as a 1 or 0. SRAM (Static RAM) SRAM is a digital device that uses the same logic elements used in the processor. In SRAM, binary values are stored using traditional flip flop logic configurations. SRAM will hold its data as along as power is supplied to it. Unlike DRAM, no refresh is required to retain data. SRAM vs. DRAM DRAM is simpler and smaller than SRAM. Thus it is more dense and less expensive than SRAM. The cost of the refreshing circuitry for DRAM needs to be considered, but if the machine requires a large amount of memory, DRAM turns out to be cheaper than SRAM. SRAMS are somewhat faster than DRAM, thus SRAM is generally used for cache memory and DRAM is used for main memory. Types of ROM Read Only Memory (ROM) contains a permanent pattern of data that cannot be changed. ROM is non volatile meaning no power source is required to maintain the bit values in memory. While it is possible to read a ROM, it is not possible to write new data into it. An important application of ROM is microprogramming, other applications include library subroutines for frequently wanted functions, System programs, Function tables. A ROM is created like any other integrated circuit chip, with the data actually wired into the chip as part of the fabrication process. To reduce costs of fabrication, we have PROMS. PROMS are… Written only once Non-volatile Written after fabrication Another variation of ROM is the read-mostly memory, which is useful for applications in which read operations are far more frequent than write operations, but for which non volatile storage is required. There are three common forms of read-mostly memory, namely… EPROM EEPROM Flash memory Error Correction Semiconductor memory is subject to errors, which can be classed into two categories… Hard failure – Permanent physical defect so that the memory cell or cells cannot reliably store data Soft failure – Random error that alters the contents of one or more memory cells without damaging the memory (common cause includes power supply issues, etc.) Most modern main memory systems include logic for both detecting and correcting errors. Error detection works as follows… When data is to be read into memory, a calculation is performed on the data to produce a code Both the code and the data are stored When the previously stored word is read out, the code is used to detect and possibly correct errors The error checking provides one of 3 possible results… No errors are detected – the fetched data bits are sent out An error is detected, and it is possible to correct the error. The data bits plus error correction bits are fed into a corrector, which produces a corrected set of bits to be sent out An error is detected, but it is not possible to correct it. This condition is reported Hamming Code See wiki for detailed explanation. We will probably need to know how to do a hemming code – refer to the textbook (pg. 188 – 189) Advanced DRAM organization One of the most critical system bottlenecks when using high-performance processors is the interface to main memory. This interface is the most important pathway in the entire computer system. The basic building block of main memory remains the DRAM chip. In recent years a number of enhancements to the basic DRAM architecture have been explored, and some of these are now on the market including… SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) DDR-DRAM RDRAM SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) SDRAM exchanges data with the processor synchronized to an external clock signal and running at the full speed of the processor/memory bus without imposing wait states. SDRAM employs a burst mode to eliminate the address setup time and row and column line precharge time after the first access In burst mode a series of data bits can be clocked out rapidly after the first bit has been accessed SDRAM has a multiple bank internal architecture that improves opportunities for on chip parallelism SDRAM performs best when it is transferring large blocks of data serially There is now an enhanced version of SDRAM known as double data rate SDRAM or DDR-SDRAM that overcomes the once-per-cycle limitation of SDRAM

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• Sun Ray Hardware Last Order Dates & Extension of Premier Support for Desktop Virtualization Software

  - by Adam Hawley

  In light of the recent announcement  to end new feature development for Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software (VDI), Oracle Sun Ray Software (SRS), Oracle Virtual Desktop Client (OVDC) Software, and Oracle Sun Ray Client hardware (3, 3i, and 3 Plus), there have been questions and concerns regarding what this means in terms of customers with new or existing deployments.  The following updates clarify some of these commonly asked questions. Extension of Premier Support for Software Though there will be no new feature additions to these products, customers will have access to maintenance update releases for Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Sun Ray Software, including Oracle Virtual Desktop Client and Sun Ray Operating Software (SROS) until Premier Support Ends.  To ensure that customer investments for these products are protected, Oracle  Premier Support for these products has been extended by 3 years to following dates: Sun Ray Software - November 2017 Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure - March 2017 Note that OVDC support is also extended to the above dates since OVDC is licensed by default as part the SRS and VDI products.   As a reminder, this only affects the products listed above.  Oracle Secure Global Desktop and Oracle VM VirtualBox will continue to be enhanced with new features from time-to-time and, as a result, they are not affected by the changes detailed in this message. The extension of support means that customers under a support contract will still be able to file service requests through Oracle Support, and Oracle will continue to provide the utmost level of support to our customers as expected,  until the published Premier Support end date.  Following the end of Premier Support, Sustaining Support remains an 'indefinite' period of time.   Sun Ray 3 Series Clients - Last Order Dates For Sun Ray Client hardware, customers can continue to purchase Sun Ray Client devices until the following last order dates: Product Marketing Part Number Last Order Date Last Ship Date Sun Ray 3 Plus TC3-P0Z-00, TC3-PTZ-00 (TAA) September 13, 2013 February 28, 2014 Sun Ray 3 Client TC3-00Z-00 February 28, 2014 August 31, 2014 Sun Ray 3i Client TC3-I0Z-00 February 28, 2014 August 31, 2014 Payflex Smart Cards X1403A-N, X1404A-N February 28, 2014 August 31, 2014 Note the difference in the Last Order Date for the Sun Ray 3 Plus (September 13, 2013) compared to the other products that have a Last Order Date of February 28, 2014. The rapidly approaching date for Sun Ray 3 Plus is due to a supplier phasing-out production of a key component of the 3 Plus.   Given September 13 is unfortunately quite soon, we strongly encourage you to place your last time buy as soon as possible to maximize Oracle's ability fulfill your order. Keep in mind you can schedule shipments to be delivered as late as the end of February 2014, but the last day to order is September 13, 2013. Customers wishing to purchase other models - Sun Ray 3 Clients and/or Sun Ray 3i Clients - have additional time (until February 28, 2014) to assess their needs and to allow fulfillment of last time orders.  Please note that availability of supply cannot be absolutely guaranteed up to the last order dates and we strongly recommend placing last time buys as early as possible.  Warranty replacements for Sun Ray Client hardware for customers covered by Oracle Hardware Systems Support contracts will be available beyond last order dates, per Oracle's policy found on Oracle.com here.  Per that policy, Oracle intends to provide replacement hardware for up to 5 years beyond the last ship date, but hardware may not be available beyond the 5 year period after the last ship date for reasons beyond Oracle's control. In any case, by design, Sun Ray Clients have an extremely long lifespan  and mean time between failures (MTBF) - much longer than PCs, and over the years we have continued to see first- and second generations of Sun Rays still in daily use.  This is no different for the Sun Ray 3, 3i, and 3 Plus.   Because of this, and in addition to Oracle's continued support for SRS, VDI, and SROS, Sun Ray and Oracle VDI deployments can continue to expand and exist as a viable solution for some time in the future. Continued Availability of Product Licenses and Support Oracle will continue to offer all existing software licenses, and software and hardware support including: Product licenses and Premier Support for Sun Ray Software and Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Premier Support for Operating Systems (for Sun Ray Operating Software maintenance upgrades/support)  Premier Support for Systems (for Sun Ray Operating Software maintenance upgrades/support and hardware warranty) Support renewals For More Information For more information, please refer to the following documents for specific dates and policies associated with the support of these products: Document 1478170.1 - Oracle Desktop Virtualization Software and Hardware Lifetime Support Schedule Document 1450710.1 - Sun Ray Client Hardware Lifetime schedule Document 1568808.1 - Document Support Policies for Discontinued Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Sun Ray Software and Hardware and Oracle Virtual Desktop Client Development For Sales Orders and Questions Please contact your Oracle Sales Representative or Saurabh Vijay ([email protected])

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• PASS: Board Q&amp;A at the Summit

  - by Bill Graziano

  The last two years we’ve put the Board in front of the members and taken questions.  We’re going to do that again this year.  It will be in Room 307/308 from 12:15 to 1:30 on Friday. Yes, this time overlaps with the Birds of a Feather Lunch and the start of afternoon sessions – but only partially.  You can attend the Q&A and still get to parts of both of those.  There just isn’t a great time to do this.  Every time overlaps with something. We can’t do it after the last session on Friday.  We can’t fit it between the last session and the evening events on Wednesday or Thursday.  We had some discussion around breakfast time but I didn’t think that was realistic.  This is the least bad time we could come up with. Last year we had 60-70 people attend.  These are the items that were specific things that I could work on: The first question was whether to increase transparency around individual votes of Board members.  We approved this at the Board meeting the following day.  The only caveat was that if the Board is given confidential information as a basis for their vote then we may not be able to disclose individual votes.  Putting a Director in a position where they can’t publicly defend the reason for their vote is a difficult situation.  Thanks Kendal! Can we have a Board member discretionary fund?  As background, I took a couple of people to lunch so we could have a quiet place to talk.  I bought lunch but wasn’t able to expense it back to PASS.  We just don’t have a budget item for things like this.  I think we should.  I would guess the entire Board would like it also.  It was in an earlier version of the budget but came out as part of a cost-cutting move to balance the budget.  I’d like to see it added back in but we’ll have to see. I know there were a comments about the elections.  At this point we had created the Election Review Committee.  I’ve already written at length about this process. Where does IT work go?  PASS started to publish our internal management reports starting in December 2010.  You can find them on our Governance page.  These aren’t filtered at all and include a variety of information about IT projects.  The most recent update had roughly a page of updates related to IT.  Lots of the work was related to Summit and the Orator tool that we use to manage speaker submissions. There were numerous requests that Tina Turner not be repeated.  Done.  I don’t think we’ll do anything quite like that again.  We had a request for a payment plan for Summit.  We looked into this briefly but didn’t take any action.  We didn’t think the effort was worth the small number of people that would use it.  If you disagree, submit this on our Summit Feedback site and get some votes. There were lots of suggestions around the first-timers events – especially from first timers.  You can find all our current activities related to first-timers at the First Timers page on the Summit web site.  Plus links to 34 (!) blog posts on suggestions for first-timers.  And a big THANK YOU to Confio and Red Gate for sponsoring this. I hope you get the chance to attend.  These events are very helpful to me as a Board member.  I like being able to look around the room as comments are being made and see the audience reaction.  It helps me gauge the interest in an idea. I’d also like to direct you to the Summit Feedback site.  You can submit and vote on ideas to make the Summit a better experience.  As of right now we have the suggestions from last year still up.  We may reset these prior to the Summit though.

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• Issues with ILMerge, Lambda Expressions and VS2010 merging?

  - by John Blumenauer

  A little Background For quite some time now, it’s been possible to merge multiple .NET assemblies into a single assembly using ILMerge in Visual Studio 2008.  This is especially helpful when writing wrapper assemblies for 3rd-party libraries where it’s desirable to minimize the number of assemblies for distribution.  During the merge process, ILMerge will take a set of assemblies and merge them into a single assembly.  The resulting assembly can be either an executable or a DLL and is identified as the primary assembly. Issue During a recent project, I discovered using ILMerge to merge assemblies containing lambda expressions in Visual Studio 2010 is resulting in invalid primary assemblies.  The code below is not where the initial issue was identified, I will merely use it to illustrate the problem at hand. In order to describe the issue, I created a console application and a class library for calculating a few math functions utilizing lambda expressions.  The code is available for download at the bottom of this blog entry. MathLib.cs using System; namespace MathLib { public static class MathHelpers { public static Func<double, double, double> Hypotenuse = (x, y) => Math.Sqrt(x * x + y * y); static readonly Func<int, int, bool> divisibleBy = (int a, int b) => a % b == 0; public static bool IsPrimeNumber(int x) { { for (int i = 2; i <= x / 2; i++) if (divisibleBy(x, i)) return false; return true; }; } } } Program.cs using System; using MathLib; namespace ILMergeLambdasConsole { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { int n = 19; if (MathHelpers.IsPrimeNumber(n)) { Console.WriteLine(n + " is prime"); } else { Console.WriteLine(n + " is not prime"); } Console.ReadLine(); } } } Not surprisingly, the preceding code compiles, builds and executes without error prior to running the ILMerge tool.   ILMerge Setup In order to utilize ILMerge, the following changes were made to the project. The MathLib.dll assembly was built in release configuration and copied to the MathLib folder.  The following folder hierarchy was used for this example:   The project file for ILMergeLambdasConsole project file was edited to add the ILMerge post-build configuration.  The following lines were added near the bottom of the project file:  <Target Name="AfterBuild" Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Release'"> <Exec Command="&quot;..\..\lib\ILMerge\Ilmerge.exe&quot; /ndebug /out:@(MainAssembly) &quot;@(IntermediateAssembly)&quot; @(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths->'&quot;%(FullPath)&quot;', ' ')" /> <Delete Files="@(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths->'$(OutDir)%(DestinationSubDirectory)%(Filename)%(Extension)')" /> </Target> The ILMergeLambdasConsole project was modified to reference the MathLib.dll located in the MathLib folder above. ILMerge and ILMerge.exe.config was copied into the ILMerge folder shown above.  The contents of ILMerge.exe.config are: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true"> <requiredRuntime safemode="true" imageVersion="v4.0.30319" version="v4.0.30319"/> </startup> </configuration> Post-ILMerge After compiling and building, the MathLib.dll assembly will be merged into the ILMergeLambdasConsole executable.  Unfortunately, executing ILMergeLambdasConsole.exe now results in a crash.  The ILMerge documentation recommends using PEVerify.exe to validate assemblies after merging.  Executing PEVerify.exe against the ILMergeLambdasConsole.exe assembly results in the following error:    Further investigation by using Reflector reveals the divisibleBy method in the MathHelpers class looks a bit questionable after the merge.     Prior to using ILMerge, the same divisibleBy method appeared as the following in Reflector: It’s pretty obvious something has gone awry during the merge process.  However, this is only occurring when building within the Visual Studio 2010 environment.  The same code and configuration built within Visual Studio 2008 executes fine.  I’m still investigating the issue.  If anyone has already experienced this situation and solved it, I would love to hear from you.  However, as of right now, it looks like something has gone terribly wrong when executing ILMerge against assemblies containing Lambdas in Visual Studio 2010. Solution Files ILMergeLambdaExpression

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• Day 1 - Finding Like Minds

  - by dapostolov

  So, is being a Game Developer any different from being an IT Developer? I picture a poorly lit environment where I get to purchase my own desk lamp; I'm thinking one of those huge lava lamps that pump out so much heat you could fry an egg on it. To my right: a "great wall" of empty coke cans dwarf me. Eating my last slice of pizza I look across my desk to see a fellow developer with a smug look on his face;  he's just coded his latest module for the game and it looks like he's in nirvana. My duty, of course, is to remind him to keep focused on the job at hand. So, picking up my trusty elastic and aerodynamically crafted paper bullet I begin a 10 minute war of welts and laughter which is promptly abrupted by our Project Manager demanding more details from our morning Scrum meeting. After providing about 5 minutes of geek speak and several words of comfort to make his eyes glaze over...it hits me, the idea for the module...beckoning my developer friend over, we quickly shoo the Project Manager away and begin our brainstorming frenzy ... now, where'd I put that full can of coke? OK. OK. This isn't probably the most ideal game developer environment, but it definitely sounds fun to me...and from what I gather is nothing like most game development companies. But I'm not doing this blog series to "go pro"; like I stated in my first post I want to make a 2D game from an idea my best friend and I drummed up long, long ago. I'm in this for the passion AND I want to see how easy it is for us .Net Developers to create a game. So where do I start? Where can I find like minded individuals? What technologies are there? What do I need to make a video game? The questions are endless....AND...since I already have an idea ... lets start with ... Technology (yes, I'm a geek, live with it...) Technology OK. Predominantly, games are still made in C++ or even C. I'm not sure how much assembly code is floating around lately, however, that is not my concern. I do know C / C++ from my past, enough to even get me by, but I'm mainly interested in a recent, not-so-new, technology called XNA. What is XNA? XNA allows us .Net Developers to make 2D / 3D games for windows, Xbox*, and Windows Mobile 7*. * = for a nominal fee *cough* The following link is your one stop shop to XNA game development: http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/gettingstarted The above site hosts information such as: - getting started - a sample/instructional shooter game in 2D / 3D with code (if I'm taking too long for you in this blog series) - downloads - starter kits... http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/starterkits/ And of course...forums. You can also subscribe and pay for their premium membership which gets you some pretty awesome tutorials, resources, downloads, and premium community support. Some general Wiki information about XNA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNA_%28Microsoft%29 Community Support OK. Let's move on to industry and community support. Apart from XNA, there are some really cool sites out there, I just haven't found all of them yet. However, I found a really cool Game Development website called Gamastura. You can click on the following link to get you there: http://www.gamasutra.com/ The site is 100% dedicated to "The Art & Business of Making Games". Armed with blogs, twitter, jobs/resumes and most importantly industry news; one could subscribe to the feed and got lost in the wealth of information it provides. On a side note: I remember Gamasutra being around when my best friend and I wanted to make a video game...meaning, they've been around for a while now. I think the most beneficial aspect of this site is to understand the industry you want to get into. Otherwise, it's just a cool site to keep up to date with the industry in general. Another Community Support option is LinkedIn. Amongst the land of extremely bloated achievements and responsibilities lay 3 groups (that I have found) that deal with game development.: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=59205 - Game Developers http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=824817 - DirectX Game Developer Network http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=756587 - DirectX Developers The Game Developers group in LinkedIn is by far the most active of the three and could possibly provide a wealth of support. What I've done thus far: - I lightly researched the XNA technology - I looked around for some community sites to assist me - I downloaded the XNA Game Studio 3.1 on my PC and installed it on my IDE - I even tried both tutorials! http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/gettingstarted/bgintro/chapter1   Best Regards D.

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• Cardinality Estimation Bug with Lookups in SQL Server 2008 onward

  - by Paul White

  Cost-based optimization stands or falls on the quality of cardinality estimates (expected row counts).  If the optimizer has incorrect information to start with, it is quite unlikely to produce good quality execution plans except by chance.  There are many ways we can provide good starting information to the optimizer, and even more ways for cardinality estimation to go wrong.  Good database people know this, and work hard to write optimizer-friendly queries with a schema and metadata (e.g. statistics) that reduce the chances of poor cardinality estimation producing a sub-optimal plan.  Today, I am going to look at a case where poor cardinality estimation is Microsoft’s fault, and not yours. SQL Server 2005 SELECT th.ProductID, th.TransactionID, th.TransactionDate FROM Production.TransactionHistory AS th WHERE th.ProductID = 1 AND th.TransactionDate BETWEEN '20030901' AND '20031231'; The query plan on SQL Server 2005 is as follows (if you are using a more recent version of AdventureWorks, you will need to change the year on the date range from 2003 to 2007): There is an Index Seek on ProductID = 1, followed by a Key Lookup to find the Transaction Date for each row, and finally a Filter to restrict the results to only those rows where Transaction Date falls in the range specified.  The cardinality estimate of 45 rows at the Index Seek is exactly correct.  The table is not very large, there are up-to-date statistics associated with the index, so this is as expected. The estimate for the Key Lookup is also exactly right.  Each lookup into the Clustered Index to find the Transaction Date is guaranteed to return exactly one row.  The plan shows that the Key Lookup is expected to be executed 45 times.  The estimate for the Inner Join output is also correct – 45 rows from the seek joining to one row each time, gives 45 rows as output. The Filter estimate is also very good: the optimizer estimates 16.9951 rows will match the specified range of transaction dates.  Eleven rows are produced by this query, but that small difference is quite normal and certainly nothing to worry about here.  All good so far. SQL Server 2008 onward The same query executed against an identical copy of AdventureWorks on SQL Server 2008 produces a different execution plan: The optimizer has pushed the Filter conditions seen in the 2005 plan down to the Key Lookup.  This is a good optimization – it makes sense to filter rows out as early as possible.  Unfortunately, it has made a bit of a mess of the cardinality estimates. The post-Filter estimate of 16.9951 rows seen in the 2005 plan has moved with the predicate on Transaction Date.  Instead of estimating one row, the plan now suggests that 16.9951 rows will be produced by each clustered index lookup – clearly not right!  This misinformation also confuses SQL Sentry Plan Explorer: Plan Explorer shows 765 rows expected from the Key Lookup (it multiplies a rounded estimate of 17 rows by 45 expected executions to give 765 rows total). Workarounds One workaround is to provide a covering non-clustered index (avoiding the lookup avoids the problem of course): CREATE INDEX nc1 ON Production.TransactionHistory (ProductID) INCLUDE (TransactionDate); With the Transaction Date filter applied as a residual predicate in the same operator as the seek, the estimate is again as expected: We could also force the use of the ultimate covering index (the clustered one): SELECT th.ProductID, th.TransactionID, th.TransactionDate FROM Production.TransactionHistory AS th WITH (INDEX(1)) WHERE th.ProductID = 1 AND th.TransactionDate BETWEEN '20030901' AND '20031231'; Summary Providing a covering non-clustered index for all possible queries is not always practical, and scanning the clustered index will rarely be optimal.  Nevertheless, these are the best workarounds we have today. In the meantime, watch out for poor cardinality estimates when a predicate is applied as part of a lookup. The worst thing is that the estimate after the lookup join in the 2008+ plans is wrong.  It’s not hopelessly wrong in this particular case (45 versus 16.9951 is not the end of the world) but it easily can be much worse, and there’s not much you can do about it.  Any decisions made by the optimizer after such a lookup could be based on very wrong information – which can only be bad news. If you think this situation should be improved, please vote for this Connect item. © 2012 Paul White – All Rights Reserved twitter: @SQL_Kiwi email: [email protected]

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• Implications of Java 6 End of Public Updates for EBS Users

  - by Steven Chan (Oracle Development)

  The Support Roadmap for Oracle Java is published here: Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap The latest updates to that page (as of Sept. 19, 2012) state (emphasis added): Java SE 6 End of Public Updates Notice After February 2013, Oracle will no longer post updates of Java SE 6 to its public download sites. Existing Java SE 6 downloads already posted as of February 2013 will remain accessible in the Java Archive on Oracle Technology Network. Developers and end-users are encouraged to update to more recent Java SE versions that remain available for public download. For enterprise customers, who need continued access to critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for Java SE 6 or older versions, long term support is available through Oracle Java SE Support . What does this mean for Oracle E-Business Suite users? EBS users fall under the category of "enterprise users" above.  Java is an integral part of the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack, so EBS users will continue to receive Java SE 6 updates after February 2013. In other words, nothing will change for EBS users after February 2013.  EBS users will continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for Java SE 6. These Java SE 6 updates will be made available to EBS users for the Extended Support periods documented in the Oracle Lifetime Support policy document for Oracle Applications (PDF): EBS 11i Extended Support ends November 2013 EBS 12.0 Extended Support ends January 2015 EBS 12.1 Extended Support ends December 2018 Will EBS users be forced to upgrade to JRE 7 for Windows desktop clients? No. This upgrade will be highly recommended but currently remains optional. JRE 6 will be available to Windows users to run with EBS for the duration of your respective EBS Extended Support period.  Updates will be delivered via My Oracle Support, where you can continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for JRE 6 desktop clients.  The certification of Oracle E-Business Suite with JRE 7 (for desktop clients accessing EBS Forms-based content) is in its final stages.  If you plan to upgrade your EBS desktop clients to JRE 7 when that certification is released, you can get a head-start on that today. Coexistence of JRE 6 and JRE 7 on Windows desktops The upgrade to JRE 7 will be highly recommended for EBS users, but some users may need to run both JRE 6 and 7 on their Windows desktops for reasons unrelated to the E-Business Suite. Most EBS configurations with IE and Firefox use non-static versioning by default. JRE 7 will be invoked instead of JRE 6 if both are installed on a Windows desktop. For more details, see "Appendix B: Static vs. Non-static Versioning and Set Up Options" in Notes 290801.1 and 393931.1. Applying Updates to JRE 6 and JRE 7 to Windows desktops Auto-update will keep JRE 7 up-to-date for Windows users with JRE 7 installed. Auto-update will only keep JRE 7 up-to-date for Windows users with both JRE 6 and 7 installed.  JRE 6 users are strongly encouraged to apply the latest Critical Patch Updates as soon as possible after each release. The Jave SE CPUs will be available via My Oracle Support.  EBS users can find more information about JRE 6 and 7 updates here: Information Center: Installation & Configuration for Oracle Java SE (Note 1412103.2) The dates for future Java SE CPUs can be found on the Critical Patch Updates, Security Alerts and Third Party Bulletin.  An RSS feed is available on that site for those who would like to be kept up-to-date. What will Mac users need? Oracle will provide updates to JRE 7 for Mac OS X users. EBS users running Macs will need to upgrade to JRE 7 to receive JRE updates. The certification of Oracle E-Business Suite with JRE 7 for Mac-based desktop clients accessing EBS Forms-based content is underway. Mac users waiting for that certification may find this article useful: How to Reenable Apple Java 6 Plug-in for Mac EBS Users Will EBS users be forced to upgrade to JDK 7 for EBS application tier servers? No. This upgrade will be highly recommended but will be optional for EBS application tier servers running on Windows, Linux, and Solaris.  You can choose to remain on JDK 6 for the duration of your respective EBS Extended Support period.  If you remain on JDK 6, you will continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for JDK 6. The certification of Oracle E-Business Suite with JDK 7 for EBS application tier servers on Windows, Linux, and Solaris as well as other platforms such as IBM AIX and HP-UX is planned.  Customers running platforms other than Windows, Linux, and Solaris should refer to their Java vendors's sites for more information about their support policies. Related Articles Planning Bulletin for JRE 7: What EBS Customers Can Do Today EBS 11i and 12.1 Support Timeline Changes Frequently Asked Questions about Latest EBS Support Changes Critical Patch Updates During EBS 11i Exception to Sustaining Support Period

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• SQL Table stored as a Heap - the dangers within

  - by MikeD

  Nearly all of the time I create a table, I include a primary key, and often that PK is implemented as a clustered index. Those two don't always have to go together, but in my world they almost always do. On a recent project, I was working on a data warehouse and a set of SSIS packages to import data from an OLTP database into my data warehouse. The data I was importing from the business database into the warehouse was mostly new rows, sometimes updates to existing rows, and sometimes deletes. I decided to use the MERGE statement to implement the insert, update or delete in the data warehouse, I found it quite performant to have a stored procedure that extracted all the new, updated, and deleted rows from the source database and dump it into a working table in my data warehouse, then run a stored proc in the warehouse that was the MERGE statement that took the rows from the working table and updated the real fact table. Use Warehouse CREATE TABLE Integration.MergePolicy (PolicyId int, PolicyTypeKey int, Premium money, Deductible money, EffectiveDate date, Operation varchar(5)) CREATE TABLE fact.Policy (PolicyKey int identity primary key, PolicyId int, PolicyTypeKey int, Premium money, Deductible money, EffectiveDate date) CREATE PROC Integration.MergePolicy as begin begin tran Merge fact.Policy as tgtUsing Integration.MergePolicy as SrcOn (tgt.PolicyId = Src.PolicyId) When not matched by Target then Insert (PolicyId, PolicyTypeKey, Premium, Deductible, EffectiveDate)values (src.PolicyId, src.PolicyTypeKey, src.Premium, src.Deductible, src.EffectiveDate) When matched and src.Operation = 'U' then Update set PolicyTypeKey = src.PolicyTypeKey,Premium = src.Premium,Deductible = src.Deductible,EffectiveDate = src.EffectiveDate When matched and src.Operation = 'D' then Delete ;delete from Integration.WorkPolicy commit end Notice that my worktable (Integration.MergePolicy) doesn't have any primary key or clustered index. I didn't think this would be a problem, since it was relatively small table and was empty after each time I ran the stored proc. For one of the work tables, during the initial loads of the warehouse, it was getting about 1.5 million rows inserted, processed, then deleted. Also, because of a bug in the extraction process, the same 1.5 million rows (plus a few hundred more each time) was getting inserted, processed, and deleted. This was being sone on a fairly hefty server that was otherwise unused, and no one was paying any attention to the time it was taking. This week I received a backup of this database and loaded it on my laptop to troubleshoot the problem, and of course it took a good ten minutes or more to run the process. However, what seemed strange to me was that after I fixed the problem and happened to run the merge sproc when the work table was completely empty, it still took almost ten minutes to complete. I immediately looked back at the MERGE statement to see if I had some sort of outer join that meant it would be scanning the target table (which had about 2 million rows in it), then turned on the execution plan output to see what was happening under the hood. Running the stored procedure again took a long time, and the plan output didn't show me much - 55% on the MERGE statement, and 45% on the DELETE statement, and table scans on the work table in both places. I was surprised at the relative cost of the DELETE statement, because there were really 0 rows to delete, but I was expecting to see the table scans. (I was beginning now to suspect that my problem was because the work table was being stored as a heap.) Then I turned on STATS_IO and ran the sproc again. The output was quite interesting.Table 'Worktable'. Scan count 0, logical reads 0, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.Table 'Policy'. Scan count 0, logical reads 0, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.Table 'MergePolicy'. Scan count 1, logical reads 433276, physical reads 60, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0. I've reproduced the above from memory, the details aren't exact, but the essential bit was the very high number of logical reads on the table stored as a heap. Even just doing a SELECT Count(*) from Integration.MergePolicy incurred that sort of output, even though the result was always 0. I suppose I should research more on the allocation and deallocation of pages to tables stored as a heap, but I haven't, and my original assumption that a table stored as a heap with no rows would only need to read one page to answer any query was definitely proven wrong. It's likely that some sort of physical defragmentation of the table may have cleaned that up, but it seemed that the easiest answer was to put a clustered index on the table. After doing so, the execution plan showed a cluster index scan, and the IO stats showed only a single page read. (I aborted my first attempt at adding a clustered index on the table because it was taking too long - instead I ran TRUNCATE TABLE Integration.MergePolicy first and added the clustered index, both of which took very little time). I suspect I may not have noticed this if I had used TRUNCATE TABLE Integration.MergePolicy instead of DELETE FROM Integration.MergePolicy, since I'm guessing that the truncate operation does some rather quick releasing of pages allocated to the heap table. In the future, I will likely be much more careful to have a clustered index on every table I use, even the working tables. Mike  

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• Using Windows Previous Versions to access ZFS Snapshots (July 14, 2009)

  - by user12612012

  The Previous Versions tab on the Windows desktop provides a straightforward, intuitive way for users to view or recover files from ZFS snapshots.  ZFS snapshots are read-only, point-in-time instances of a ZFS dataset, based on the same copy-on-write transactional model used throughout ZFS.  ZFS snapshots can be used to recover deleted files or previous versions of files and they are space efficient because unchanged data is shared between the file system and its snapshots.  Snapshots are available locally via the .zfs/snapshot directory and remotely via Previous Versions on the Windows desktop. Shadow Copies for Shared Folders was introduced with Windows Server 2003 but subsequently renamed to Previous Versions with the release of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.  Windows shadow copies, or snapshots, are based on the Volume Snapshot Service (VSS) and, as the [Shared Folders part of the] name implies, are accessible to clients via SMB shares, which is good news when using the Solaris CIFS Service.  And the nice thing is that no additional configuration is required - it "just works". On Windows clients, snapshots are accessible via the Previous Versions tab in Windows Explorer using the Shadow Copy client, which is available by default on Windows XP SP2 and later.  For Windows 2000 and pre-SP2 Windows XP, the client software is available for download from Microsoft: Shadow Copies for Shared Folders Client. Assuming that we already have a shared ZFS dataset, we can create ZFS snapshots and view them from a Windows client. zfs snapshot tank/home/administrator@snap101zfs snapshot tank/home/administrator@snap102 To view the snapshots on Windows, map the dataset on the client then right click on a folder or file and select Previous Versions.  Note that Windows will only display previous versions of objects that differ from the originals.  So you may have to modify files after creating a snapshot in order to see previous versions of those files. The screenshot above shows various snapshots in the Previous Versions window, created at different times.  On the left panel, the .zfs folder is visible, illustrating that this is a ZFS share.  The .zfs setting can be toggled as desired, it makes no difference when using previous versions.  To make the .zfs folder visible: zfs set snapdir=visible tank/home/administrator To hide the .zfs folder: zfs set snapdir=hidden tank/home/administrator The following screenshot shows the Previous Versions panel when a file has been selected.  In this case the user is prompted to view, copy or restore the file from one of the available snapshots. As can be seen from the screenshots above, the Previous Versions window doesn't display snapshot names: snapshots are listed by snapshot creation time, sorted in time order from most recent to oldest.  There's nothing we can do about this, it's the way that the interface works.  Perhaps one point of note, to avoid confusion, is that the ZFS snapshot creation time isnot the same as the root directory creation timestamp. In ZFS, all object attributes in the original dataset are preserved when a snapshot is taken, including the creation time of the root directory.  Thus the root directory creation timestamp is the time that the directory was created in the original dataset. # ls -d% all /home/administrator         timestamp: atime         Mar 19 15:40:23 2009         timestamp: ctime         Mar 19 15:40:58 2009         timestamp: mtime         Mar 19 15:40:58 2009         timestamp: crtime         Mar 19 15:18:34 2009 # ls -d% all /home/administrator/.zfs/snapshot/snap101         timestamp: atime         Mar 19 15:40:23 2009         timestamp: ctime         Mar 19 15:40:58 2009         timestamp: mtime         Mar 19 15:40:58 2009         timestamp: crtime         Mar 19 15:18:34 2009 The snapshot creation time can be obtained using the zfs command as shown below. # zfs get all tank/home/administrator@snap101NAME                             PROPERTY  VALUEtank/home/administrator@snap101  type      snapshottank/home/administrator@snap101  creation  Mon Mar 23 18:21 2009 In this example, the dataset was created on March 19th and the snapshot was created on March 23rd. In conclusion, Shadow Copies for Shared Folders provides a straightforward way for users to view or recover files from ZFS snapshots.  The Windows desktop provides an easy to use, intuitive GUI and no configuration is required to use or access previous versions of files or folders. REFERENCES FOR MORE INFORMATION ZFS ZFS Learning Center Introduction to Shadow Copies of Shared Folders Shadow Copies for Shared Folders Client

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• The Joy Of Hex

  - by Jim Giercyk

  While working on a mainframe integration project, it occurred to me that some basic computer concepts are slipping into obscurity. For example, just about anyone can tell you that a 64-bit processor is faster than a 32-bit processer. A grade school child could tell you that a computer “speaks” in ‘1’s and ‘0’s. Some people can even tell you that there are 8 bits in a byte. However, I have found that even the most seasoned developers often can’t explain the theory behind those statements. That is not a knock on programmers; in the age of IntelliSense, what reason do we have to work with data at the bit level? Many computer theory classes treat bit-level programming as a thing of the past, no longer necessary now that storage space is plentiful. The trouble with that mindset is that the world is full of legacy systems that run programs written in the 1970’s.  Today our jobs require us to extract data from those systems, regardless of the format, and that often involves low-level programming. Because it seems knowledge of the low-level concepts is waning in recent times, I thought a review would be in order.       CHARACTER: See Spot Run HEX: 53 65 65 20 53 70 6F 74 20 52 75 6E DECIMAL: 83 101 101 32 83 112 111 116 32 82 117 110 BINARY: 01010011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01010011 01110000 01101111 01110100 00100000 01010010 01110101 01101110 In this example, I have broken down the words “See Spot Run” to a level computers can understand – machine language.     CHARACTER:  The character level is what is rendered by the computer.  A “Character Set” or “Code Page” contains 256 characters, both printable and unprintable.  Each character represents 1 BYTE of data.  For example, the character string “See Spot Run” is 12 Bytes long, exclusive of the quotation marks.  Remember, a SPACE is an unprintable character, but it still requires a byte.  In the example I have used the default Windows character set, ASCII, which you can see here:  http://www.asciitable.com/ HEX:  Hex is short for hexadecimal, or Base 16.  Humans are comfortable thinking in base ten, perhaps because they have 10 fingers and 10 toes; fingers and toes are called digits, so it’s not much of a stretch.  Computers think in Base 16, with numeric values ranging from zero to fifteen, or 0 – F.  Each decimal place has a possible 16 values as opposed to a possible 10 values in base 10.  Therefore, the number 10 in Hex is equal to the number 16 in Decimal.  DECIMAL:  The Decimal conversion is strictly for us humans to use for calculations and conversions.  It is much easier for us humans to calculate that [30 – 10 = 20] in decimal than it is for us to calculate [1E – A = 14] in Hex.  In the old days, an error in a program could be found by determining the displacement from the entry point of a module.  Since those values were dumped from the computers head, they were in hex. A programmer needed to convert them to decimal, do the equation and convert back to hex.  This gets into relative and absolute addressing, a topic for another day.  BINARY:  Binary, or machine code, is where any value can be expressed in 1s and 0s.  It is really Base 2, because each decimal place can have a possibility of only 2 characters, a 1 or a 0.  In Binary, the number 10 is equal to the number 2 in decimal. Why only 1s and 0s?  Very simply, computers are made up of lots and lots of transistors which at any given moment can be ON ( 1 ) or OFF ( 0 ).  Each transistor is a bit, and the order that the transistors fire (or not fire) is what distinguishes one value from  another in the computers head (or CPU).  Consider 32 bit vs 64 bit processing…..a 64 bit processor has the capability to read 64 transistors at a time.  A 32 bit processor can only read half as many at a time, so in theory the 64 bit processor should be much faster.  There are many more factors involved in CPU performance, but that is the fundamental difference.    DECIMAL HEX BINARY 0 0 0000 1 1 0001 2 2 0010 3 3 0011 4 4 0100 5 5 0101 6 6 0110 7 7 0111 8 8 1000 9 9 1001 10 A 1010 11 B 1011 12 C 1100 13 D 1101 14 E 1110 15 F 1111   Remember that each character is a BYTE, there are 2 HEX characters in a byte (called nibbles) and 8 BITS in a byte.  I hope you enjoyed reading about the theory of data processing.  This is just a high-level explanation, and there is much more to be learned.  It is safe to say that, no matter how advanced our programming languages and visual studios become, they are nothing more than a way to interpret bits and bytes.  There is nothing like the joy of hex to get the mind racing.

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• JavaOne Latin America Opening Keynotes

  - by Tori Wieldt

  Originally published on blogs.oracle.com/javaone It was a great first day at JavaOne Brazil, which included the Java Strategy and Java Technical keynotes. Henrik Stahl, Senior Director, Product Management for Java opened the keynotes by saying that this is the third year for JavaOne Latin America. He explained, "You know what they say, the first time doesn't count, the second time is a habit and the third time it's a tradition!" He mentioned that he was thrilled that this is largest JavaOne in Brazil to date, and he wants next year to be larger. He said that Oracle knows Latin America is an important hub for development.  "We continually come back to Latin America because of the dedication the community has with driving the continued innovation for Java," he said. Stahl explained that Oracle and the Java community must continue to innovate and Make the Future Java together. The success of Java depends on three important factors: technological innovation, Oracle as a strong steward of Java, and community participation. "The Latin American Java Community (especially in Brazil) is a shining example of how to be positive contributor to Java," Stahl said. Next, George Saab, VP software dev, Java Platform Group at Oracle, discussed some of the recent and upcoming changes to Java. "In addition to the incremental improvements to Java 7, we have also increased the set of platforms supported by Oracle from Linux, Windows, and Solaris to now also include Mac OS X and Linux/ARM for ARM-based PCs such as the Raspberry Pi and emerging ARM based microservers."  Saab announced that EA builds for Linux ARM Hard Float ABI will be available by the end of the year.  Staffan Friberg, Product Manager, Java Platform Group, provided an overview of some of the language coming in Java 8, including Lambda, remove of PermGen, improved data and time APIs and improved security, Java 8 development is moving along. He reminded the audience that they can go to OpenJDK to see this development being done in real-time, and that there are weekly early access builds of OracleJDK 8 that developers can download and try today. Judson Althoff, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Alliances and Channels and Embedded Sales, was invited to the stage, and the audience was told that "even though he is wearing a suit, he is still pretty technical." Althoff started off with a bang: "The Internet of Things is on a collision course with big data and this is a huge opportunity for developers."  For example, Althoff said, today cars are more a data device than a mechanical device. A car embedded with sensors for fuel efficiency, temperature, tire pressure, etc. can generate a petabyte of data A DAY. There are similar examples in healthcare (patient monitoring and privacy requirements creates a complex data problem) and transportation management (sending a package around the world with sensors for humidity, temperature and light). Althoff then brought on stage representatives from three companies that are successful with Java today, first Axel Hansmann, VP Strategy & Marketing Communications, Cinterion. Mr. Hansmann explained that Cinterion, a market leader in Latin America, enables M2M services with Java. At JavaOne San Francisco, Cinterion launched the EHS5, the smallest 3g solderable module, with Java installed on it. This provides Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) with a cost effective, flexible platform for bringing advanced M2M technology to market.Next, Steve Nelson, Director of Marketing for the Americas, at Freescale explained that Freescale is #1 in Embedded Processors in Wired and Wireless Communications, and #1 in Automotive Semiconductors in the Americas. He said that Java provides a mature, proven platform that is uniquely suited to meet the requirements of almost any type of embedded device. He encouraged University students to get involved in the Freescale Cup, a global competition where student teams build, program, and race a model car around a track for speed.Roberto Franco, SBTVD Forum President, SBTVD, talked about Ginga, a Java-based standard for television in Brazil. He said there are 4 million Ginga TV sets in Brazil, and they expect over 20 million TV sets to be sold by the end of 2014. Ginga is also being adopted in other 11 countries in Latin America. Ginga brings interactive services not only at TV set, but also on other devices such as tablets,  PCs or smartphones, as the main or second screen. "Interactive services is already a reality," he said, ' but in a near future, we foresee interactivity enhanced TV content, convergence with OTT services and a big participation from the audience,  all integrated on TV, tablets, smartphones and second screen devices."Before he left the stage, Nandini Ramani thanked Judson for being part of the Java community and invited him to the next Geek Bike Ride in Brazil. She presented him an official geek bike ride jersey.For the Technical Keynote, a "blue screen of death" appeared. With mock concern, Stephin Chin asked the rest of the presenters if they could go on without slides. What followed was a interesting collection of demos, including JavaFX on a tablet, a look at Project Easel in NetBeans, and even Simon Ritter controlling legos with his brainwaves! Stay tuned for more dispatches.

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• JavaOne Latin America Opening Keynotes

  - by Tori Wieldt

  It was a great first day at JavaOne Brazil, which included the Java Strategy and Java Technical keynotes. Henrik Stahl, Senior Director, Product Management for Java opened the keynotes by saying that this is the third year for JavaOne Latin America. He explained, "You know what they say, the first time doesn't count, the second time is a habit and the third time it's a tradition!" He mentioned that he was thrilled that this is largest JavaOne in Brazil to date, and he wants next year to be larger. He said that Oracle knows Latin America is an important hub for development.  "We continually come back to Latin America because of the dedication the community has with driving the continued innovation for Java," he said. Stahl explained that Oracle and the Java community must continue to innovate and Make the Future Java together. The success of Java depends on three important factors: technological innovation, Oracle as a strong steward of Java, and community participation. "The Latin American Java Community (especially in Brazil) is a shining example of how to be positive contributor to Java," Stahl said. Next, George Saab, VP software dev, Java Platform Group at Oracle, discussed some of the recent and upcoming changes to Java. "In addition to the incremental improvements to Java 7, we have also increased the set of platforms supported by Oracle from Linux, Windows, and Solaris to now also include Mac OS X and Linux/ARM for ARM-based PCs such as the Raspberry Pi and emerging ARM based microservers."  Saab announced that EA builds for Linux ARM Hard Float ABI will be available by the end of the year.  Staffan Friberg, Product Manager, Java Platform Group, provided an overview of some of the language coming in Java 8, including Lambda, remove of PermGen, improved data and time APIs and improved security, Java 8 development is moving along. He reminded the audience that they can go to OpenJDK to see this development being done in real-time, and that there are weekly early access builds of OracleJDK 8 that developers can download and try today. Judson Althoff, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Alliances and Channels and Embedded Sales, was invited to the stage, and the audience was told that "even though he is wearing a suit, he is still pretty technical." Althoff started off with a bang: "The Internet of Things is on a collision course with big data and this is a huge opportunity for developers."  For example, Althoff said, today cars are more a data device than a mechanical device. A car embedded with sensors for fuel efficiency, temperature, tire pressure, etc. can generate a petabyte of data A DAY. There are similar examples in healthcare (patient monitoring and privacy requirements creates a complex data problem) and transportation management (sending a package around the world with sensors for humidity, temperature and light). Althoff then brought on stage representatives from three companies that are successful with Java today, first Axel Hansmann, VP Strategy & Marketing Communications, Cinterion. Mr. Hansmann explained that Cinterion, a market leader in Latin America, enables M2M services with Java. At JavaOne San Francisco, Cinterion launched the EHS5, the smallest 3g solderable module, with Java installed on it. This provides Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) with a cost effective, flexible platform for bringing advanced M2M technology to market.Next, Steve Nelson, Director of Marketing for the Americas, at Freescale explained that Freescale is #1 in Embedded Processors in Wired and Wireless Communications, and #1 in Automotive Semiconductors in the Americas. He said that Java provides a mature, proven platform that is uniquely suited to meet the requirements of almost any type of embedded device. He encouraged University students to get involved in the Freescale Cup, a global competition where student teams build, program, and race a model car around a track for speed.Roberto Franco, SBTVD Forum President, SBTVD, talked about Ginga, a Java-based standard for television in Brazil. He said there are 4 million Ginga TV sets in Brazil, and they expect over 20 million TV sets to be sold by the end of 2014. Ginga is also being adopted in other 11 countries in Latin America. Ginga brings interactive services not only at TV set, but also on other devices such as tablets,  PCs or smartphones, as the main or second screen. "Interactive services is already a reality," he said, ' but in a near future, we foresee interactivity enhanced TV content, convergence with OTT services and a big participation from the audience,  all integrated on TV, tablets, smartphones and second screen devices."Before he left the stage, Nandini Ramani thanked Judson for being part of the Java community and invited him to the next Geek Bike Ride in Brazil. She presented him an official geek bike ride jersey.For the Technical Keynote, a "blue screen of death" appeared. With mock concern, Stephin Chin asked the rest of the presenters if they could go on without slides. What followed was a interesting collection of demos, including JavaFX on a tablet, a look at Project Easel in NetBeans, and even Simon Ritter controlling legos with his brainwaves! Stay tuned for more dispatches.

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• Using Transaction Logging to Recover Post-Archived Essbase data

  - by Keith Rosenthal

  Data recovery is typically performed by restoring data from an archive.  Data added or removed since the last archive took place can also be recovered by enabling transaction logging in Essbase.  Transaction logging works by writing transactions to a log store.  The information in the log store can then be recovered by replaying the log store entries in sequence since the last archive took place.  The following information is recorded within a transaction log entry: Sequence ID Username Start Time End Time Request Type A request type can be one of the following categories: Calculations, including the default calculation as well as both server and client side calculations Data loads, including data imports as well as data loaded using a load rule Data clears as well as outline resets Locking and sending data from SmartView and the Spreadsheet Add-In.  Changes from Planning web forms are also tracked since a lock and send operation occurs during this process. You can use the Display Transactions command in the EAS console or the query database MAXL command to view the transaction log entries. Enabling Transaction Logging Transaction logging can be enabled at the Essbase server, application or database level by adding the TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION essbase.cfg setting.  The following is the TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION syntax: TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION [appname [dbname]] LOGLOCATION NATIVE ENABLE | DISABLE Note that you can have multiple TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION entries in the essbase.cfg file.  For example: TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION Hyperion/trlog NATIVE ENABLE TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION Sample Hyperion/trlog NATIVE DISABLE The first statement will enable transaction logging for all Essbase applications, and the second statement will disable transaction logging for the Sample application.  As a result, transaction logging will be enabled for all applications except the Sample application. A location on a physical disk other than the disk where ARBORPATH or the disk files reside is recommended to optimize overall Essbase performance. Configuring Transaction Log Replay Although transaction log entries are stored based on the LOGLOCATION parameter of the TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION essbase.cfg setting, copies of data load and rules files are stored in the ARBORPATH/app/appname/dbname/Replay directory to optimize the performance of replaying logged transactions.  The default is to archive client data loads, but this configuration setting can be used to archive server data loads (including SQL server data loads) or both client and server data loads. To change the type of data to be archived, add the TRANSACTIONLOGDATALOADARCHIVE configuration setting to the essbase.cfg file.  Note that you can have multiple TRANSACTIONLOGDATALOADARCHIVE entries in the essbase.cfg file to adjust settings for individual applications and databases. Replaying the Transaction Log and Transaction Log Security Considerations To replay the transactions, use either the Replay Transactions command in the EAS console or the alter database MAXL command using the replay transactions grammar.  Transactions can be replayed either after a specified log time or using a range of transaction sequence IDs. The default when replaying transactions is to use the security settings of the user who originally performed the transaction.  However, if that user no longer exists or that user's username was changed, the replay operation will fail. Instead of using the default security setting, add the REPLAYSECURITYOPTION essbase.cfg setting to use the security settings of the administrator who performs the replay operation.  REPLAYSECURITYOPTION 2 will explicitly use the security settings of the administrator performing the replay operation.  REPLAYSECURITYOPTION 3 will use the administrator security settings if the original user’s security settings cannot be used. Removing Transaction Logs and Archived Replay Data Load and Rules Files Transaction logs and archived replay data load and rules files are not automatically removed and are only removed manually.  Since these files can consume a considerable amount of space, the files should be removed on a periodic basis. The transaction logs should be removed one database at a time instead of all databases simultaneously.  The data load and rules files associated with the replayed transactions should be removed in chronological order from earliest to latest.  In addition, do not remove any data load and rules files with a timestamp later than the timestamp of the most recent archive file. Partitioned Database Considerations For partitioned databases, partition commands such as synchronization commands cannot be replayed.  When recovering data, the partition changes must be replayed manually and logged transactions must be replayed in the correct chronological order. If the partitioned database includes any @XREF commands in the calc script, the logged transactions must be selectively replayed in the correct chronological order between the source and target databases. References For additional information, please see the Oracle EPM System Backup and Recovery Guide.  For EPM 11.1.2.2, the link is http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/epm_backup_recovery_1112200.pdf

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• Can not print after upgrading from 12.x to 14.04

  - by user318889

  After upgrading from V12.04 to V14.04 I am not able to print. I am using an HP LaserJet 400 M451dn. The printer troubleshooter told me that there is no solution to the problem. This is the output of the advanced diagnositc output. (Due to limited space I cut the output!) Can anybody tell me what is going wrong. I am using the printer via USB ? Page 1 (Scheduler not running?): {'cups_connection_failure': False} Page 2 (Is local server publishing?): {'local_server_exporting_printers': False} Page 3 (Choose printer): {'cups_dest': , 'cups_instance': None, 'cups_queue': u'HP-LaserJet-400-color-M451dn', 'cups_queue_listed': True} Page 4 (Check printer sanity): {'cups_device_uri_scheme': u'hp', 'cups_printer_dict': {'device-uri': u'hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_400_color_M451dn?serial=CNFF308670', 'printer-info': u'Hewlett-Packard HP LaserJet 400 color M451dn', 'printer-is-shared': True, 'printer-location': u'Pinatubo', 'printer-make-and-model': u'HP LJ 300-400 color M351-M451 Postscript (recommended)', 'printer-state': 4, 'printer-state-message': u'', 'printer-state-reasons': [u'none'], 'printer-type': 8556636, 'printer-uri-supported': u'ipp://localhost:631/printers/HP-LaserJet-400-color-M451dn'}, 'cups_printer_remote': False, 'hplip_output': (['', '\x1b[01mHP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.14.6)\x1b[0m', '\x1b[01mDevice Information Utility ver. 5.2\x1b[0m', '', 'Copyright (c) 2001-13 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP', 'This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.', 'This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it', 'under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.', '', '', '\x1b[01mhp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_400_color_M451dn?serial=CNFF308670\x1b[0m', '', '\x1b[01mDevice Parameters (dynamic data):\x1b[0m', '\x1b[01m Parameter Value(s) \x1b[0m', ' ---------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------', ' back-end hp ', " cups-printers ['HP-LaserJet-400-color-M451dn'] ", ' cups-uri hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_400_color_M451dn?serial=CNFF308670 ', ' dev-file ', ' device-state -1 ', ' device-uri hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_400_color_M451dn?serial=CNFF308670 ', ' deviceid ', ' error-state 101 ', ' host ', ' is-hp True ', ' panel 0 ', ' panel-line1 ', ' panel-line2 ', ' port 1 ', ' serial CNFF308670 ', ' status-code 5002 ', ' status-desc ', '\x1b[01m', 'Model Parameters (static data):\x1b[0m', '\x1b[01m Parameter Value(s) \x1b[0m', ' ---------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------', ' align-type 0 ', ' clean-type 0 ', ' color-cal-type 0 ', ' copy-type 0 ', ' embedded-server-type 0 ', ' fax-type 0 ', ' fw-download False ', ' icon hp_color_laserjet_cp2025.png ', ' io-mfp-mode 1 ', ' io-mode 1 ', ' io-support 6 ', ' job-storage 0 ', ' linefeed-cal-type 0 ', ' model HP_LaserJet_400_color_M451dn ', ' model-ui HP LaserJet 400 Color m451dn ', ' model1 HP LaserJet 400 Color M451dn ', ' monitor-type 0 ', ' panel-check-type 0 ', ' pcard-type 0 ', ' plugin 0 ', ' plugin-reason 0 ', ' power-settings 0 ', ' ppd-name lj_300_400_color_m351_m451 ', ' pq-diag-type 0 ', ' r-type 0 ', ' r0-agent1-kind 4 ', ' r0-agent1-sku CE410A/CE410X ', ' r0-agent1-type 1 ', ' r0-agent2-kind 4 ', ' r0-agent2-sku CE411A ', ' r0-agent2-type 4 ', ' r0-agent3-kind 4 ', ' r0-agent3-sku CE413A ', ' r0-agent3-type 5 ', ' r0-agent4-kind 4 ', ' r0-agent4-sku CE412A ', ' r0-agent4-type 6 ', ' scan-src 0 ', ' scan-type 0 ', ' status-battery-check 0 ', ' status-dynamic-counters 0 ', ' status-type 3 ', ' support-released True ', ' support-subtype 2202411 ', ' support-type 2 ', ' support-ver 3.12.2 ', " tech-class ['Postscript'] ", " tech-subclass ['Normal'] ", ' tech-type 4 ', ' usb-pid 3882 ', ' usb-vid 1008 ', ' wifi-config 0 ', '\x1b[01m', 'Status History (most recent first):\x1b[0m', '\x1b[01m Date/Time Code Status Description User Job ID \x1b[0m', ' -------------------- ----- ---------------------------------------- -------- --------', ' 08/21/14 00:07:25 5012 Device communication error richard 0 ', ' 08/20/14 13:42:44 500 Started a print job richard 4214 ', '', '', 'Done.', ''], ['\x1b[35;01mwarning: No display found.\x1b[0m', '\x1b[31;01merror: hp-info -u/--gui requires Qt4 GUI support. Entering interactive mode.\x1b[0m', '\x1b[31;01merror: Unable to communicate with device (code=12): hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_400_color_M451dn?serial=CNFF308670\x1b[0m', '\x1b[31;01merror: Error opening device (Device not found).\x1b[0m', ''], 0), 'is_cups_class': False, 'local_cups_queue_attributes': {'charset-configured': u'utf-8', 'charset-supported': [u'us-ascii', u'utf-8'], 'color-supported': True, 'compression-supported': [u'none', u'gzip'], 'copies-default': 1, 'copies-supported': (1, 9999), 'cups-version': u'1.7.2', 'device-uri': u'hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_400_color_M451dn?serial=CNFF308670', 'document-format-default': u'application/octet-stream', 'document-format-supported': [u'application/octet-stream', u'application/pdf', u'application/postscript', u'application/vnd.adobe-reader-postscript', u'application/vnd.cups-command', u'application/vnd.cups-pdf', u'application/vnd.cups-pdf-banner', u'application/vnd.cups-postscript', u'application/vnd.cups-raw', u'application/vnd.samsung-ps', u'application/x-cshell', u'application/x-csource', u'application/x-perl', u'application/x-shell', u'image/gif', u'image/jpeg', u'image/png', u'image/tiff', u'image/urf', u'image/x-bitmap', u'image/x-photocd', u'image/x-portable-anymap', u'image/x-portable-bitmap', u'image/x-portable-graymap', u'image/x-portable-pixmap', u'image/x-sgi-rgb', u'image/x-sun-raster', u'image/x-xbitmap', u'image/x-xpixmap', u'image/x-xwindowdump', u'text/css', u'text/html', u'text/plain'], 'finishings-default': 3, 'finishings-supported': [3], 'generated-natural-language-supported': [u'en-us'], 'ipp-versions-supported': [u'1.0', u'1.1', u'2.0', u'2.1'], 'ippget-event-life': 15, 'job-creation-attributes-supported': [u'copies', u'finishings', u'ipp-attribute-fidelity', u'job-hold-until', u'job-name', u'job-priority', u'job-sheets', u'media', u'media-col', u'multiple-document-handling', u'number-up', u'output-bin', u'orientation-requested', u'page-ranges', u'print-color-mode', u'print-quality', u'printer-resolution', u'sides'], 'job-hold-until-default': u'no-hold', 'job-hold-until-supported': [u'no-hold', u'indefinite', u'day-time', u'evening', u'night', u'second-shift', u'third-shift', u'weekend'], 'job-ids-supported': True, 'job-k-limit': 0, 'job-k-octets-supported': (0, 470914416), 'job-page-limit': 0, 'job-priority-default': 50, 'job-priority-supported': [100], 'job-quota-period': 0, 'job-settable-attributes-supported': [u'copies', u'finishings', u'job-hold-until', u'job-name', u'job-priority', u'media', u'media-col', u'multiple-document-handling', u'number-up', u'output-bin', u'orientation-requested', u'page-ranges', u'print-color-mode', u'print-quality', u'printer-resolution', u'sides'], 'job-sheets-default': (u'none', u'none'), 'job-sheets-supported': [u'none', u'classified', u'confidential', u'form', u'secret', u'standard', u'topsecret', u'unclassified'], 'jpeg-k-octets-supported': (0, 470914416), 'jpeg-x-dimension-supported': (0, 65535), 'jpeg-y-dimension-supported': (1, 65535), 'marker-change-time': 0, 'media-bottom-margin-supported': [423], 'media-col-default': u'(unknown IPP value tag 0x34)', 'media-col-supported': [u'media-bottom-margin', u'media-left-margin', u'media-right-margin', u'media-size', u'media-source', u'media-top-margin', u'media-type'], 'media-default': u'iso_a4_210x297mm', 'media-left-margin-supported': [423], 'media-right-margin-supported': [423],

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• How to tell whether your programmers are under-performing?

  - by A Team Lead

  I am a team lead with 5+ developers. I have a developer (let's call him A) who is a good programmer, who writes good clean, easy to understand code. However he is somewhat difficult to manage, and sometimes I wonder whether he is really under-performing or not. Our company requires the developers to indicate the work progress in the bug tracker we use, not so much as to monitor the programmers but to let the stackholders know the progress. The thing is, A only updates a task progress when it is done ( maybe 3 weeks after it is first worked on) and this leaves everyone wondering what is going on in the middle of the development week. He wouldn't change his habit despite repeated probing. ( It's OK, developers hate paperwork, I do, too) Recent 2-3 months he on leave quite often due to various events-- either he is sick, or have to attend a lot of personal events etc. ( It's OK, bad things happen in a string. It's just a coincidence) We define sprints, or roadmaps for each month. And in the beginning of the sprint, we will discuss the amount of work each of the developers have to do in a sprint and the developers get to set the amount of time they need for each task. He usually won't be able to complete all of them. (It's OK, the developers are regularly missing deadlines not due to their fault). If only one or two of the above events happen, I won't feel that A is under-performing, but they all happen together. So I have the feeling that A is under-performing and maybe-- God forbid--- slacking off. This is just a feeling based on my years of experience as programmer. But I could be wrong. It is notoriously hard to measure the work of a programmer, given that not all two tasks are alike, and there lacks a standard objective to measure the commitment of a programmer to your company. It is downright impossible to tell whether the programmer is doing his job or slacking off. All you can do, is to trust them-- yeah, trusting and giving them autonomy is the best way for programmers to work, I know that, so don't start a lecture on why you need to trust your programmers, thank you every much-- but if they abuse your trust, can you know? My question is, how can you tell whether your programmers are under-performing? Surely there are experience team leads who know better than me on this? Outcome: I've a straight talk with him regarding my perception on his performance. He was indignant when I suggested that I had the feeling that he wasn't performing at his best level. He felt that this was a completely unfair feeling. I then replied that this was my feeling and I didn't know whether my feeling was right or not. He would have none of this and ended the discussion immediately. Before he left he said that he "would try to give more to the company" in a very cold tone. I was taken aback by his reaction. I am sure that I offended him in some ways. Not too sure whether that was the right thing to do for me to be so frank with him, though. Extra notes: I hate micromanaging. So all that we have for our software process is Sprint ( where tasks get prioritized and assigned, and at the end of the month, a review of the amount of work done). Developers would require to update the tasks as they go along everyday. There is no standup meeting, or anything of the sort. Mainly because we have the freedom to work from home and everyone cherishes this freedom. Although I am the one who sets the deadline, but the developers will provide the estimate for each tasks and I will decide-- based on the estimate-- the tasks that go into a particular sprint. If they can't finish the tasks at the end of the sprint, I will push them to the next. So theoretically one can just do only 1 or 2 tasks during the whole sprint and then push the remaining 99 tasks to the next sprint and still he will be fine as long as justifies this-- in the form of daily work progress updates

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• Changing the Game: Why Oracle is in the IT Operations Management Business

  - by DanKoloski

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Next week, in Orlando, is the annual Gartner IT Operations Management Summit. Oracle is a premier sponsor of this annual event, which brings together IT executives for several days of high level talks about the state of operational management of enterprise IT. This year, Sushil Kumar, VP Product Strategy and Business Development for Oracle’s Systems & Applications Management, will be presenting on the transformation in IT Operations required to support enterprise cloud computing. IT Operations transformation is an important subject, because year after year, we hear essentially the same refrain – large enterprises spend an average of two-thirds (67%!) of their IT resources (budget, energy, time, people, etc.) on running the business, with far too little left over to spend on growing and transforming the business (which is what the business actually needs and wants). In the thirtieth year of the distributed computing revolution (give or take, depending on how you count it), it’s amazing that we have still not moved the needle on the single biggest component of enterprise IT resource utilization. Oracle is in the IT Operations Management business because when management is engineered together with the technology under management, the resulting efficiency gains can be truly staggering. To put it simply – what if you could turn that 67% of IT resources spent on running the business into 50%? Or 40%? Imagine what you could do with those resources. It’s now not just possible, but happening. This seems like a simple idea, but it is a radical change from “business as usual” in enterprise IT Operations. For the last thirty years, management has been a bolted-on afterthought – we pick and deploy our technology, then figure out how to manage it. This pervasive dysfunction is a broken cycle that guarantees high ongoing operating costs and low agility. If we want to break the cycle, we need to take a more tightly-coupled approach. As a complete applications-to-disk platform provider, Oracle is engineering management together with technology across our stack and hooking that on-premise management up live to My Oracle Support. Let’s examine the results with just one piece of the Oracle stack – the Oracle Database. Oracle began this journey with the Oracle Database 9i many years ago with the introduction of low-impact instrumentation in the database kernel (“tell me what’s wrong”) and through Database 10g, 11g and 11gR2 has successively added integrated advisory (“tell me how to fix what’s wrong”) and lifecycle management and automated self-tuning (“fix it for me, and do it on an ongoing basis for all my assets”). When enterprises take advantage of this tight-coupling, the results are game-changing. Consider the following (for a full list of public references, visit this link): British Telecom improved database provisioning time 1000% (from weeks to minutes) which allows them to provide a new DBaaS service to their internal customers with no additional resources Cerner Corporation Saved $9.5 million in CapEx and OpEx AND launched a brand-new cloud business at the same time Vodafone Group plc improved response times 50% and reduced maintenance planning times 50-60% while serving 391 million registered mobile customers Or the recent Database Manageability and Productivity Cost Comparisons: Oracle Database 11g Release 2 vs. SAP Sybase ASE 15.7, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and IBM DB2 9.7 as conducted by independent analyst firm ORC. In later entries, we’ll discuss similar results across other portions of the Oracle stack and how these efficiency gains are required to achieve the agility benefits of Enterprise Cloud. Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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• What to "CRM" in San Francisco? CRM Highlights for OpenWorld '12

  - by Tony Berk

  There is plenty to SEE for CRM during OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 30 - October 4! As I mentioned in my earlier post about some of the keynote sessions, Is There a Cloud Over OpenWorld?, I'm going try to highlight some key sessions to help you find the best sessions for you. Interested to find out where Oracle CRM products are headed, then find your "roadmap" session. Here are some of the sessions in the CRM Track that you might want to consider attending for products you currently own or might consider for the future. I think you'll agree, there is quite a bit of investment going on across Oracle CRM. Please use OpenWorld Schedule Builder or check the OpenWorld Content Catalog for all of the session details and any time or location changes. Tip: Pre-enrolled session registrants via Schedule Builder are allowed into the session rooms before anyone else, so Schedule Builder will guarantee you a seat. Many of the sessions below will likely be at capacity. General Session: Oracle Fusion CRM—Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use (Session ID: GEN9674) - Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM. Anthony Lye, Senior VP, Oracle leads this general session focused on Oracle Fusion CRM. Oracle Fusion CRM optimizes territories, combines quota management and incentive compensation, integrates sales and marketing, and cleanses and enriches data—all within a single application platform. Oracle Fusion can be configured, changed, and extended at runtime by end users, business managers, IT, and developers. Oracle Fusion CRM can be used from the Web, from a smartphone, from Microsoft Outlook, or from an iPad. Deloitte, sponsor of the CRM Track, will also present key concepts on CRM implementations. Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap (CON9407) - Oct 1, 3:15PM - 4:15PM. In this session, learn how Oracle Fusion CRM enables companies to create better sales plans, generate more quality leads, and achieve higher win rates and find out why customers are adopting Oracle Fusion CRM. Gain a deeper understanding of the unique capabilities only Oracle Fusion CRM provides, and learn how Oracle’s commitment to CRM innovation is driving a wide range of future enhancements. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Vision and Roadmap (CON9764) - Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service combines Web, social, and contact center experiences for a unified, cross-channel service solution in the cloud, enabling organizations to increase sales and adoption, build trust, strengthen relationships, and reduce costs and effort. Come to this session to hear from Oracle experts about where the product is going and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Siebel CRM Overview, Strategy, and Roadmap (CON9700) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. The world’s most complete CRM solution, Oracle’s Siebel CRM helps organizations differentiate their businesses. Come to this session to learn about the Siebel product roadmap and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value for its customers on this platform. Additionally, the session covers how Siebel customers can leverage many Oracle assets such as Oracle WebCenter Sites; InQuira, RightNow, and ATG/Endeca applications, and Oracle Policy Automation in conjunction with their current Siebel investments. Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement (CON9750) - Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM. Social is changing the customer experience! Come find out how Oracle can help you know your customers better, encourage brand affinity, and improve collaboration within your ecosystem. This session reviews Oracle’s social media solution and shows how you can discover hidden insights buried in your enterprise and social data. Also learn how Oracle Social Network revolutionizes how enterprise users work, collaborate, and share to achieve successful outcomes. Oracle CRM On Demand Strategy and Roadmap (CON9727) - Oct 1, 10:45AM - 11:45AM. Oracle CRM On Demand is a powerful cloud-based customer relationship management solution. Come to this session to learn directly from Oracle experts about future product plans and hear how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Knowledge Management Roadmap and Strategy (CON9776) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Learn how to harness the knowledge created as a natural byproduct of day-to-day interactions to lower costs and improve customer experience by delivering the right answer at the right time across channels. This session includes an overview of Oracle’s product roadmap and vision for knowledge management for both the Oracle RightNow and Oracle Knowledge (formerly InQuira) product families. Oracle Policy Automation Roadmap: Supercharging the Customer Experience (CON9655) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Oracle Policy Automation delivers rapid customer value by streamlining the capture, analysis, and deployment of policies across every facet of the customer experience. This session discusses recent Oracle Policy Automation enhancements for policy analytics; the latest Oracle Policy Automation Connector for Siebel; and planned new capabilities, including availability with the Oracle RightNow product line. There is much more, so stay tuned for more highlights or check out the Content Catalog and search for your areas of interest. Which session are you most interested in? Make your suggestions! But no voting for Pearl Jam or Kings of Leon. Those are after hours! 

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• JustCode Provides Reflector Alternative

  - by Joe Mayo

  If you've been a loyal Reflector user, you've probably been exposed to the debacle surrounding RedGate's decision to no longer offer a free version.  Since then, the race has begun for a replacement with a provider that would stand by their promises to the community.  Mono has an ongoing free alternative, which has been available for a long time.  However, other vendors are stepping up to the plate, with their own offerings. If Not Reflector, Then What? One of these vendors is Telerik.  In their recent Q1 2011 release of JustCode, Telerik offers a decompilation utility rivaling what we've become accustomed to in Reflector.  Not only does Telerik offer a usable replacement, but they've (in my opinion), produced a product that integrates more naturally with visual Studio than any other product ever has.  Telerik's decompilation process is so easy that the accompanying demo in this post is blindingly short (except for the presence of verbose narrative). If you want to follow along with this demo, you'll need to have Telerik JustCode installed.  If you don't have JustCode yet, you can buy it or download a trial at the Telerik Web site . A Tall Tale; Prove It! With JustCode, you can view code in the .NET Framework or any other 3rd party library (that isn't well obfuscated).  This demo depends on LINQ to Twitter, which you can download from CodePlex.com and create a reference or install the package online as described in my previous post on NuGet.  Regardless of the method, you'll have a project with a reference to LINQ to Twitter.  Use a Console Project if you want to follow along with this demo. Note:  If you've created a Console project, remember to ensure that the Target Framework is set to .NET Framework 4.  The default is .NET Framework 4 Client Profile, which doesn't work with LINQ to Twitter.  You can check by double-clicking the Properties folder on the project and inspecting the Target Framework setting. Next, you'll need to add some code to your program that you want to inspect. Here, I add code to instantiate a TwitterContext, which is like a LINQ to SQL DataContext, but works with Twitter: var l2tCtx = new TwitterContext(); If you're following along add the code above to the Main method, which will look similar to this: using LinqToTwitter; namespace NuGetInstall { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var l2tCtx = new TwitterContext(); } } } The code above doesn't really do anything, but it does give something that I can show and demonstrate how JustCode decompilation works. Once the code is in place, click on TwitterContext and press the F12 (Go to Definition) key.  As expected, Visual Studio opens a metadata file with prototypes for the TwitterContext class.  Here's the result: Opening a metadata file is the normal way that Visual Studio works when navigating to the definition of a type where you don't have the code.  The scenario with TwitterContext happens because you don't have the source code to the file.  Visual Studio has always done this and you can experiment by selecting any .NET type, i.e. a string type, and observing that Visual Studio opens a metadata file for the .NET String type. The point I'm making here is that JustCode works the way Visual Studio works and you'll see how this can make your job easier. In the previous figure, you only saw prototypes associated with the code. i.e. Notice that the default constructor is empty.  Again, this is normal because Visual Studio doesn't have the ability to decompile code.  However, that's the purpose of this post; showing you how JustCode fills that gap. To decompile code, right click on TwitterContext in the metadata file and select JustCode Navigate -> Decompile from the context menu.  The shortcut keys are Ctrl+1.  After a brief pause, accompanied by a progress window, you'll see the metadata expand into full decompiled code. Notice below how the default constructor now has code as opposed to the empty member prototype in the original metadata: And Why is This So Different? Again, the big deal is that Telerik JustCode decompilation works in harmony with the way that Visual Studio works.  The navigate to functionality already exists and you can use that, along with a simple context menu option (or shortcut key) to transform prototypes into decompiled code. Telerik is filling the the Reflector/Red Gate gap by providing a supported alternative to decompiling code.  Many people, including myself, used Reflector to decompile code when we were stuck with buggy libraries or insufficient documentation.  Now we have an alternative that's officially supported by a company with an excellent track record for customer (developer) service, Telerik.  Not only that, JustCode has several other IDE productivity tools that make the deal even sweeter. Joe

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• The Sound of Two Toilets Flushing: Constructive Criticism for Virgin Atlantic Complaints Department

  - by Geertjan

  I recently had the experience of flying from London to Johannesburg and back with Virgin Atlantic. The good news was that it was the cheapest flight available and that the take off and landing were absolutely perfect. Hence I really have no reason to complain. Instead, I'd like to offer some constructive criticism which hopefully Richard Branson will find sometime while googling his name. Or maybe someone from the Virgin Atlantic Complaints Department will find it, whatever, just want to put this information out there. Arrangement of restroom facilities. Maybe next time you design an airplane, consider not putting your toilets at a right angle right next to your rows of seats. Being able to reach, without even needing to stretch your arm, from your seat to close, yet again, a toilet door that someone, someone obviously sitting very far from the toilets, carelessly forgot to close is not an indicator of quality interior design. Have you noticed how all other airplanes have their toilets in a cubicle separated from the rows of seats? On those airplanes, people sitting in the seats near the toilets are not constantly being woken up throughout the night whenever someone enters/exits the toilet, whenever the light in the toilet is suddenly switched on, and whenever one of the toilets flushes. Bonus points for Virgin Atlantic passengers in the seats adjoining the toilets is when multiple toilets are flushed simultaneously and multiple passengers enter/exit them at the same time, a bit like an unasked for low budget musical of suddenly illuminated grumpy people in crumpled clothes. What joy that brings at 3 AM is hard to describe. Seats with extra leg room. You know how other airplanes have the seats with the extra leg room? You know what those seats tend to have? Extra leg room. It's really interesting how Virgin Atlantic's seats with extra leg room actually have no extra leg room at all. It should have been a give away, the fact that these special seats are found in the same rows as the standard seats, rather than on the cusp of real glory which is where most airlines put their extra leg room seats, with the only actual difference being that they have a slightly different color. Had you called them "seats with a different color" (i.e., almost not quite green, rather than something vaguely hinting at blue), at least I'd have known what I was getting. Picture the joy at 3 AM, rudely awakened from nightmarish slumber, partly grateful to have been released from a grayish dream of faceless zombies resembling one or two of those in a recent toilet line, by multiple adjoining toilets flushing simultaneously, while you're sitting in a seat with extra leg room that has exactly as much leg room as the seats in neighboring rows. You then have a choice of things to be sincerely annoyed about. Food from the '80's. In the '80's, airplane food came in soggy containers and even breakfast, the most important meal of the day, was a sad heap of vaguely gray colors. The culinary highlight tended to be a squashed tomato, which must have been mashed to a pulp with a brick prior to being regurgitated by a small furry animal, and there was also always a piece of immensely horrid pumpkin, as well as a slice of spongy something you'd never seen before. Sausages and mash at 6 AM on an airplane was always a heavy lump of horribleness. Thankfully, all airlines throughout the world changed from this puke inducing strategy around 1987 sometime. Not Virgin Atlantic, of course. The fatty sausages and mash are still there, bringing you flashbacks to Duran Duran, which is what you were listening to (on your walkman) the last time you saw it in an airplane. Even the golden oldie "squashed tomato attached by slime to three wet peas" is on the menu. How wonderful to have all this in a cramped seat with a long row of early morning bleariness lined up for the toilets, right at your side, bumping into your elbow, groggily, one by one, one after another, more and more, fumble-open-door-silence-flush-fumble-open-door, and on and on, while you tentatively push your fork through a soggy pile of colorless mush, fighting the urge to throw up on the stinky socks of whatever nightmarish zombie is bumping into your elbow at the time. But, then again, the plane landed without a hitch, in fact, extremely smoothly, so I'm certainly not blaming the pilots.

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• Yippy &ndash; the F# MVVM Pattern

  - by MarkPearl

  I did a recent post on implementing WPF with F#. Today I would like to expand on this posting to give a simple implementation of the MVVM pattern in F#. A good read about this topic can also be found on Dean Chalk’s blog although my example of the pattern is possibly simpler. With the MVVM pattern one typically has 3 segments, the view, viewmodel and model. With the beauty of WPF binding one is able to link the state based viewmodel to the view. In my implementation I have kept the same principles. I have a view (MainView.xaml), and and a ViewModel (MainViewModel.fs).     What I would really like to illustrate in this posting is the binding between the View and the ViewModel so I am going to jump to that… In Program.fs I have the following code… module Program open System open System.Windows open System.Windows.Controls open System.Windows.Markup open myViewModels // Create the View and bind it to the View Model let myView = Application.LoadComponent(new System.Uri("/FSharpWPF;component/MainView.xaml", System.UriKind.Relative)) :?> Window myView.DataContext <- new MainViewModel() :> obj // Application Entry point [<STAThread>] [<EntryPoint>] let main(_) = (new Application()).Run(myView) You can see that I have simply created the view (myView) and then created an instance of my viewmodel (MainViewModel) and then bound it to the data context with the code… myView.DataContext <- new MainViewModel() :> obj If I have a look at my viewmodel (MainViewModel) it looks like this… module myViewModels open System open System.Windows open System.Windows.Input open System.ComponentModel open ViewModelBase type MainViewModel() = // private variables let mutable _title = "Bound Data to Textbox" // public properties member x.Title with get() = _title and set(v) = _title <- v // public commands member x.MyCommand = new FuncCommand ( (fun d -> true), (fun e -> x.ShowMessage) ) // public methods member public x.ShowMessage = let msg = MessageBox.Show(x.Title) () I have exposed a few things, namely a property called Title that is mutable, a command and a method called ShowMessage that simply pops up a message box when called. If I then look at my view which I have created in xaml (MainView.xaml) it looks as follows… <Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="F# WPF MVVM" Height="350" Width="525"> <Grid> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="*"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Title, Mode=TwoWay}" Grid.Row="0"/> <Button Command="{Binding MyCommand}" Grid.Row="1"> <TextBlock Text="Click Me"/> </Button> </Grid> </Window>   It is also very simple. It has a button that’s command is bound to the MyCommand and a textbox that has its text bound to the Title property. One other module that I have created is my ViewModelBase. Right now it is used to store my commanding function but I would look to expand on it at a later stage to implement other commonly used functions… module ViewModelBase open System open System.Windows open System.Windows.Input open System.ComponentModel type FuncCommand (canExec:(obj -> bool),doExec:(obj -> unit)) = let cecEvent = new DelegateEvent<EventHandler>() interface ICommand with [<CLIEvent>] member x.CanExecuteChanged = cecEvent.Publish member x.CanExecute arg = canExec(arg) member x.Execute arg = doExec(arg) Put this all together and you have a basic project that implements the MVVM pattern in F#. For me this is quite exciting as it turned out to be a lot simpler to do than I originally thought possible. Also because I have my view in XAML I can use the XAML designer to design forms in F# which I believe is a much cleaner way to go rather than implementing it all in code. Finally if I look at my viewmodel code, it is actually quite clean and compact…

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• Windows in StreamInsight: Hopping vs. Snapshot

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  Three weeks ago, we explained the basic concept of windows in StreamInsight: defining sets of events that serve as arguments for set-based operations, like aggregations. Today, we want to discuss the so-called Hopping Windows and compare them with Snapshot Windows. We will compare these two, because they can serve similar purposes with different behaviors; we will discuss the remaining window type, Count Windows, another time. Hopping (and its syntactic-sugar-sister Tumbling) windows are probably the most straightforward windowing concept in StreamInsight. A hopping window is defined by its length, and the offset from one window to the next. They are aligned with some absolute point on the timeline (which can also be given as a parameter to the window) and create sets of events. The diagram below shows an example of a hopping window with length of 1h and hop size (the offset) of 15 minutes, hence creating overlapping windows:   Two aspects in this diagram are important: Since this window is overlapping, an event can fall into more than one windows. If an (interval) event spans a window boundary, its lifetime will be clipped to the window, before it is passed to the set-based operation. That’s the default and currently only available window input policy. (This should only concern you if you are using a time-sensitive user-defined aggregate or operator.) The set-based operation will be applied to each of these sets, yielding a result. This result is: A single scalar value in case of built-in or user-defined aggregates. A subset of the input payloads, in case of the TopK operator. Arbitrary events, when using a user-defined operator. The timestamps of the result are almost always the ones of the windows. Only the user-defined  operator can create new events with timestamps. (However, even these event lifetimes are subject to the window’s output policy, which is currently always to clip to the window end.) Let’s assume we were calculating the sum over some payload field: var result = from window in source.HoppingWindow( TimeSpan.FromHours(1), TimeSpan.FromMinutes(15), HoppingWindowOutputPolicy.ClipToWindowEnd) select new { avg = window.Avg(e => e.Value) }; Now each window is reflected by one result event:   As you can see, the window definition defines the output frequency. No matter how many or few events we got from the input, this hopping window will produce one result every 15 minutes – except for those windows that do not contain any events at all, because StreamInsight window operations are empty-preserving (more about that another time). The “forced” output for every window can become a performance issue if you have a real-time query with many events in a wide group & apply – let me explain: imagine you have a lot of events that you group by and then aggregate within each group – classical streaming pattern. The hopping window produces a result in each group at exactly the same point in time for all groups, since the window boundaries are aligned with the timeline, not with the event timestamps. This means that the query output will become very bursty, delivering the results of all the groups at the same point in time. This becomes especially obvious if the events are long-lasting, spanning multiple windows each, so that the produced result events do not change their value very often. In such a case, a snapshot window can remedy. Snapshot windows are more difficult to explain than hopping windows: they represent those periods in time, when no event changes occur. In other words, if you mark all event start and and times on your timeline, then you are looking at all snapshot window boundaries:   If your events are never overlapping, the snapshot window will not make much sense. It is commonly used together with timestamp modification, which make it a very powerful tool. Or as Allan Mitchell expressed in in a recent tweet: “I used to look at SnapshotWindow() with disdain. Now she is my mistress, the one I turn to in times of trouble and need”. Let’s look at a simple example: I want to compute the average of some value in my events over the last minute. I don’t want this output be produced at fixed intervals, but at soon as it changes (that’s the true event-driven spirit!). The snapshot window will include all currently active event at each point in time, hence we need to extend our original events’ lifetimes into the future: Applying the Snapshot window on these events, it will appear to be “looking back into the past”: If you look at the result produced in this diagram, you can easily prove that, at each point in time, the current event value represents the average of all original input event within the last minute. Here is the LINQ representation of that query, applying the lifetime extension before the snapshot window: var result = from window in source .AlterEventDuration(e => TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1)) .SnapshotWindow(SnapshotWindowOutputPolicy.Clip) select new { avg = window.Avg(e => e.Value) }; With more complex modifications of the event lifetimes you can achieve many more query patterns. For instance “running totals” by keeping the event start times, but snapping their end times to some fixed time, like the end of the day. Each snapshot then “sees” all events that have happened in the respective time period so far. Regards, The StreamInsight Team

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• XBRL - Moving from Production to Consumption

  - by jmorourke

  Here's an update on what’s new with XBRL and how it can actually benefit your organization versus adding extra time and costs to financial reporting.  On February 29th (leap day) of 2012 I attended the XBRL and Financial Analysis Technology Conference at Baruch College in NYC.  The event, which attracted over 300 XBRL gurus and fans was presented by XBRL US, The New York Society of Security Analysts’ Improved Corporate Reporting Committee, and Baruch College’s Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity.  The event featured keynotes from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the CFA Institute as well as panels covering alternative research tools and data, corporate reporting to stakeholders and a demonstration of XBRL analysis tools.  The program culminated in a presentation of the finalists and the winner of the $20,000 XBRL Challenge.    Some of the key points made in the sessions included: The focus of XBRL tools is moving from production to consumption. As of February 2012, over 9000 companies are reporting in XBRL, with over 10 million facts filed to date XBRL taxonomy extensions have dropped from 27% to 11% making comparisons easier The SEC reports that XBRL makes it easier to analyze disclosures, focus on accounting issues XBRL is helping standards-setters like the FASB speed their analysis of impacts of proposed accounting rule changes Companies like Thomson Reuters report that XBRL is helping speed the delivery of data to clients The most interesting part of the program though, was the session highlighting the 5 finalists in the XBRL Challenge competition and the winning solution.  The XBRL Challenge was launched in 2011 as a means of spurring the development of more end-user tools to help with the consumption of XBRL-based financial information.       Over an 8-month process handled by 5 judges, there were 84 registrants, 15 completed submissions, 5 finalists and one winner of the challenge.  All of the solutions are open-sourced tools and most of them focus on consuming XBRL-based data.  The 5 finalists included: Advanced XBRL Processing from Oxide solutions – XBRL viewer for taxonomies, filings and company data with peer comparison capabilities. Arrelle – API for XBRL processes, supports SEC Validations, RSS Feeds to access filings etc. Calcbench – XBRL data analysis tool that can be embedded in other web applications.  This tool can combine XBRL filings with real-time market data. XBRL to XL – allows the importing of XBRL data into Microsoft Excel for analysis, comparisons.  Users start on the web and populate Excel with XBRL data. XBurble – allows users to search and view XBRL filings, export to Excel, merge for comparison, and includes a workflow interface. The winner of the $20,000 XBRL Challenge prize was CalcBench.  More information about the XBRL Challenge and the finalists can be found at www.XBRLUS.org/challenge XBRL for Sustainability Reporting – other recent news on the XBRL front was the announcement by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) of an XBRL taxonomy for Sustainability Reporting.  This taxonomy was co-developed by the GRI and Deloitte and is designed to make the consumption of data found in Sustainability Reports much easier.  Although there is no government mandate to file Sustainability Reports in XBRL format, organizations that do use the GRI guidelines for Sustainability Reporting are encouraged to tag and submit their data voluntarily to the GRI – who will populate a database with Sustainability Reporting data and make this available to the public.  For more information about this initiative, you can go to the GRI web site:  www.globalreporting.org. So how does all of this benefit corporate filers and investors?  Since its introduction, the consensus in the market is that XBRL has mainly benefited the regulators and investment analysts who need to consume and analyze large volumes of financial data.  But with the emergence of more end-user tools for consuming and analyzing XBRL-based data, and the ability to perform quick comparisons of one company versus its peers and competitors in an industry group, will soon accelerate the benefits to corporate finance staff, as well as individual investors.  This could apply to financial results tagged in XBRL, as well as non-financial information such as Sustainability Reporting – which over the long-term will likely be integrated with financial reporting.   And as multiple regulators and agencies in a country adopt the XBRL standard for corporate filings, more benefits will accrue as companies will be able to leverage one set of XBRL-based financial data for multiple regulatory filings.     For more information about the latest developments in XBRL, check out the XBRL US or XBRL International web sites:  www.xbrl.org, www.xbrlus.org. For more information about what Oracle is doing to support XBRL, here are some links: http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/ent-performance-bi/disclosure-management-065892.html http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/xmldb/index-087631.html Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need more information:  [email protected]

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