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• Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 1: Exposing the on-premise service

  - by Elton Stoneman

  We're in the process of delivering an enabling project to expose on-premise WCF services securely to Internet consumers. The Azure Service Bus Relay is doing the clever stuff, we register our on-premise service with Azure, consumers call into our .servicebus.windows.net namespace, and their requests are relayed and serviced on-premise. In theory it's all wonderfully simple; by using the relay we get lots of protocol options, free HTTPS and load balancing, and by integrating to ACS we get plenty of security options. Part of our delivery is a suite of sample consumers for the service - .NET, jQuery, PHP - and this set of posts will cover setting up the service and the consumers. Part 1: Exposing the on-premise service In theory, this is ultra-straightforward. In practice, and on a dev laptop it is - but in a corporate network with firewalls and proxies, it isn't, so we'll walkthrough some of the pitfalls. Note that I'm using the "old" Azure portal which will soon be out of date, but the new shiny portal should have the same steps available and be easier to use. We start with a simple WCF service which takes a string as input, reverses the string and returns it. The Part 1 version of the code is on GitHub here: on GitHub here: IPASBR Part 1. Configuring Azure Service Bus Start by logging into the Azure portal and registering a Service Bus namespace which will be our endpoint in the cloud. Give it a globally unique name, set it up somewhere near you (if you’re in Europe, remember Europe (North) is Ireland, and Europe (West) is the Netherlands), and  enable ACS integration by ticking "Access Control" as a service: Authenticating and authorizing to ACS When we try to register our on-premise service as a listener for the Service Bus endpoint, we need to supply credentials, which means only trusted service providers can act as listeners. We can use the default "owner" credentials, but that has admin permissions so a dedicated service account is better (Neil Mackenzie has a good post On Not Using owner with the Azure AppFabric Service Bus with lots of permission details). Click on "Access Control Service" for the namespace, navigate to Service Identities and add a new one. Give the new account a sensible name and description: Let ACS generate a symmetric key for you (this will be the shared secret we use in the on-premise service to authenticate as a listener), but be sure to set the expiration date to something usable. The portal defaults to expiring new identities after 1 year - but when your year is up *your identity will expire without warning* and everything will stop working. In production, you'll need governance to manage identity expiration and a process to make sure you renew identities and roll new keys regularly. The new service identity needs to be authorized to listen on the service bus endpoint. This is done through claim mapping in ACS - we'll set up a rule that says if the nameidentifier in the input claims has the value serviceProvider, in the output we'll have an action claim with the value Listen. In the ACS portal you'll see that there is already a Relying Party Application set up for ServiceBus, which has a Default rule group. Edit the rule group and click Add to add this new rule: The values to use are: Issuer: Access Control Service Input claim type: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/nameidentifier Input claim value: serviceProvider Output claim type: net.windows.servicebus.action Output claim value: Listen When your service namespace and identity are set up, open the Part 1 solution and put your own namespace, service identity name and secret key into the file AzureConnectionDetails.xml in Solution Items, e.g: <azure namespace="sixeyed-ipasbr">    <!-- ACS credentials for the listening service (Part1):-->   <service identityName="serviceProvider"            symmetricKey="nuR2tHhlrTCqf4YwjT2RA2BZ/+xa23euaRJNLh1a/V4="/>  </azure> Build the solution, and the T4 template will generate the Web.config for the service project with your Azure details in the transportClientEndpointBehavior:           <behavior name="SharedSecret">             <transportClientEndpointBehavior credentialType="SharedSecret">               <clientCredentials>                 <sharedSecret issuerName="serviceProvider"                               issuerSecret="nuR2tHhlrTCqf4YwjT2RA2BZ/+xa23euaRJNLh1a/V4="/>               </clientCredentials>             </transportClientEndpointBehavior>           </behavior> , and your service namespace in the Azure endpoint:         <!-- Azure Service Bus endpoints -->          <endpoint address="sb://sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net/net"                   binding="netTcpRelayBinding"                   contract="Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services.IFormatService"                   behaviorConfiguration="SharedSecret">         </endpoint> The sample project is hosted in IIS, but it won't register with Azure until the service is activated. Typically you'd install AppFabric 1.1 for Widnows Server and set the service to auto-start in IIS, but for dev just navigate to the local REST URL, which will activate the service and register it with Azure. Testing the service locally As well as an Azure endpoint, the service has a WebHttpBinding for local REST access:         <!-- local REST endpoint for internal use -->         <endpoint address="rest"                   binding="webHttpBinding"                   behaviorConfiguration="RESTBehavior"                   contract="Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services.IFormatService" /> Build the service, then navigate to: http://localhost/Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services/FormatService.svc/rest/reverse?string=abc123 - and you should see the reversed string response: If your network allows it, you'll get the expected response as before, but in the background your service will also be listening in the cloud. Good stuff! Who needs network security? Onto the next post for consuming the service with the netTcpRelayBinding.  Setting up network access to Azure But, if you get an error, it's because your network is secured and it's doing something to stop the relay working. The Service Bus relay bindings try to use direct TCP connections to Azure, so if ports 9350-9354 are available *outbound*, then the relay will run through them. If not, the binding steps down to standard HTTP, and issues a CONNECT across port 443 or 80 to set up a tunnel for the relay. If your network security guys are doing their job, the first option will be blocked by the firewall, and the second option will be blocked by the proxy, so you'll get this error: System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: Unable to reach sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net via TCP (9351, 9352) or HTTP (80, 443) - and that will probably be the start of lots of discussions. Network guys don't really like giving servers special permissions for the web proxy, and they really don't like opening ports, so they'll need to be convinced about this. The resolution in our case was to put up a dedicated box in a DMZ, tinker with the firewall and the proxy until we got a relay connection working, then run some traffic which the the network guys monitored to do a security assessment afterwards. Along the way we hit a few more issues, diagnosed mainly with Fiddler and Wireshark: System.Net.ProtocolViolationException: Chunked encoding upload is not supported on the HTTP/1.0 protocol - this means the TCP ports are not available, so Azure tries to relay messaging traffic across HTTP. The service can access the endpoint, but the proxy is downgrading traffic to HTTP 1.0, which does not support tunneling, so Azure can’t make its connection. We were using the Squid proxy, version 2.6. The Squid project is incrementally adding HTTP 1.1 support, but there's no definitive list of what's supported in what version (here are some hints). System.ServiceModel.Security.SecurityNegotiationException: The X.509 certificate CN=servicebus.windows.net chain building failed. The certificate that was used has a trust chain that cannot be verified. Replace the certificate or change the certificateValidationMode. The evocation function was unable to check revocation because the revocation server was offline. - by this point we'd given up on the HTTP proxy and opened the TCP ports. We got this error when the relay binding does it's authentication hop to ACS. The messaging traffic is TCP, but the control traffic still goes over HTTP, and as part of the ACS authentication the process checks with a revocation server to see if Microsoft’s ACS cert is still valid, so the proxy still needs some clearance. The service account (the IIS app pool identity) needs access to: www.public-trust.com mscrl.microsoft.com We still got this error periodically with different accounts running the app pool. We fixed that by ensuring the machine-wide proxy settings are set up, so every account uses the correct proxy: netsh winhttp set proxy proxy-server="http://proxy.x.y.z" - and you might need to run this to clear out your credential cache: certutil -urlcache * delete If your network guys end up grudgingly opening ports, they can restrict connections to the IP address range for your chosen Azure datacentre, which might make them happier - see Windows Azure Datacenter IP Ranges. After all that you've hopefully got an on-premise service listening in the cloud, which you can consume from pretty much any technology.

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• Service Broker, not ETL

  - by jamiet

  I have been very quiet on this blog of late and one reason for that is I have been very busy on a client project that I would like to talk about a little here. The client that I have been working for has a website that runs on a distributed architecture utilising a messaging infrastructure for communication between different endpoints. My brief was to build a system that could consume these messages and produce analytical information in near-real-time. More specifically I basically had to deliver a data warehouse however it was the real-time aspect of the project that really intrigued me. This real-time requirement meant that using an Extract transformation, Load (ETL) tool was out of the question and so I had no choice but to write T-SQL code (i.e. stored-procedures) to process the incoming messages and load the data into the data warehouse. This concerned me though – I had no way to control the rate at which data would arrive into the system yet we were going to have end-users querying the system at the same time that those messages were arriving; the potential for contention in such a scenario was pretty high and and was something I wanted to minimise as much as possible. Moreover I did not want the processing of data inside the data warehouse to have any impact on the customer-facing website. As you have probably guessed from the title of this blog post this is where Service Broker stepped in! For those that have not heard of it Service Broker is a queuing technology that has been built into SQL Server since SQL Server 2005. It provides a number of features however the one that was of interest to me was the fact that it facilitates asynchronous data processing which, in layman’s terms, means the ability to process some data without requiring the system that supplied the data having to wait for the response. That was a crucial feature because on this project the customer-facing website (in effect an OLTP system) would be calling one of our stored procedures with each message – we did not want to cause the OLTP system to wait on us every time we processed one of those messages. This asynchronous nature also helps to alleviate the contention problem because the asynchronous processing activity is handled just like any other task in the database engine and hence can wait on another task (such as an end-user query). Service Broker it was then! The stored procedure called by the OLTP system would simply put the message onto a queue and we would use a feature called activation to pick each message off the queue in turn and process it into the warehouse. At the time of writing the system is not yet up to full capacity but so far everything seems to be working OK (touch wood) and crucially our users are seeing data in near-real-time. By near-real-time I am talking about latencies of a few minutes at most and to someone like me who is used to building systems that have overnight latencies that is a huge step forward! So then, am I advocating that you all go out and dump your ETL tools? Of course not, no! What this project has taught me though is that in certain scenarios there may be better ways to implement a data warehouse system then the traditional “load data in overnight” approach that we are all used to. Moreover I have really enjoyed getting to grips with a new technology and even if you don’t want to use Service Broker you might want to consider asynchronous messaging architectures for your BI/data warehousing solutions in the future. This has been a very high level overview of my use of Service Broker and I have deliberately left out much of the minutiae of what has been a very challenging implementation. Nonetheless I hope I have caused you to reflect upon your own approaches to BI and question whether other approaches may be more tenable. All comments and questions gratefully received! Lastly, if you have never used Service Broker before and want to kick the tyres I have provided below a very simple “Service Broker Hello World” script that will create all of the objects required to facilitate Service Broker communications and then send the message “Hello World” from one place to anther! This doesn’t represent a “proper” implementation per se because it doesn’t close down down conversation objects (which you should always do in a real-world scenario) but its enough to demonstrate the capabilities! @Jamiet ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /*This is a basic Service Broker Hello World app. Have fun! -Jamie */ USE MASTER GO CREATE DATABASE SBTest GO --Turn Service Broker on! ALTER DATABASE SBTest SET ENABLE_BROKER GO USE SBTest GO -- 1) we need to create a message type. Note that our message type is -- very simple and allowed any type of content CREATE MESSAGE TYPE HelloMessage VALIDATION = NONE GO -- 2) Once the message type has been created, we need to create a contract -- that specifies who can send what types of messages CREATE CONTRACT HelloContract (HelloMessage SENT BY INITIATOR) GO --We can query the metadata of the objects we just created SELECT * FROM   sys.service_message_types WHERE name = 'HelloMessage'; SELECT * FROM   sys.service_contracts WHERE name = 'HelloContract'; SELECT * FROM   sys.service_contract_message_usages WHERE  service_contract_id IN (SELECT service_contract_id FROM sys.service_contracts WHERE name = 'HelloContract') AND        message_type_id IN (SELECT message_type_id FROM sys.service_message_types WHERE name = 'HelloMessage'); -- 3) The communication is between two endpoints. Thus, we need two queues to -- hold messages CREATE QUEUE SenderQueue CREATE QUEUE ReceiverQueue GO --more querying metatda SELECT * FROM sys.service_queues WHERE name IN ('SenderQueue','ReceiverQueue'); --we can also select from the queues as if they were tables SELECT * FROM SenderQueue   SELECT * FROM ReceiverQueue   -- 4) Create the required services and bind them to be above created queues CREATE SERVICE Sender   ON QUEUE SenderQueue CREATE SERVICE Receiver   ON QUEUE ReceiverQueue (HelloContract) GO --more querying metadata SELECT * FROM sys.services WHERE name IN ('Receiver','Sender'); -- 5) At this point, we can begin the conversation between the two services by -- sending messages DECLARE @conversationHandle UNIQUEIDENTIFIER DECLARE @message NVARCHAR(100) BEGIN   BEGIN TRANSACTION;   BEGIN DIALOG @conversationHandle         FROM SERVICE Sender         TO SERVICE 'Receiver'         ON CONTRACT HelloContract WITH ENCRYPTION=OFF   -- Send a message on the conversation   SET @message = N'Hello, World';   SEND  ON CONVERSATION @conversationHandle         MESSAGE TYPE HelloMessage (@message)   COMMIT TRANSACTION END GO --check contents of queues SELECT * FROM SenderQueue   SELECT * FROM ReceiverQueue   GO -- Receive a message from the queue RECEIVE CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX), message_body) AS MESSAGE FROM ReceiverQueue GO --If no messages were received and/or you can't see anything on the queues you may wish to check the following for clues: SELECT * FROM sys.transmission_queue -- Cleanup DROP SERVICE Sender DROP SERVICE Receiver DROP QUEUE SenderQueue DROP QUEUE ReceiverQueue DROP CONTRACT HelloContract DROP MESSAGE TYPE HelloMessage GO USE MASTER GO DROP DATABASE SBTest GO

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #050

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Executing Remote Stored Procedure – Calling Stored Procedure on Linked Server In this example we see two different methods of how to call Stored Procedures remotely.  Connection Property of SQL Server Management Studio SSMS A very simple example of the how to build connection properties for SQL Server with the help of SSMS. Sample Example of RANKING Functions – ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK, NTILE SQL Server has a total of 4 ranking functions. Ranking functions return a ranking value for each row in a partition. All the ranking functions are non-deterministic. T-SQL Script to Add Clustered Primary Key Jr. DBA asked me three times in a day, how to create Clustered Primary Key. I gave him following sample example. That was the last time he asked “How to create Clustered Primary Key to table?” 2008 2008 – TRIM() Function – User Defined Function SQL Server does not have functions which can trim leading or trailing spaces of any string at the same time. SQL does have LTRIM() and RTRIM() which can trim leading and trailing spaces respectively. SQL Server 2008 also does not have TRIM() function. User can easily use LTRIM() and RTRIM() together and simulate TRIM() functionality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-hhApy6MHM 2009 Earlier I have written two different articles on the subject Remove Bookmark Lookup. This article is as part 3 of original article. Please read the first two articles here before continuing reading this article. Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup – Part 2 Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup – Part 3 Interesting Observation – Query Hint – FORCE ORDER SQL Server never stops to amaze me. As regular readers of this blog already know that besides conducting corporate training, I work on large-scale projects on query optimizations and server tuning projects. In one of the recent projects, I have noticed that a Junior Database Developer used the query hint Force Order; when I asked for details, I found out that the basic concept was not properly understood by him. Queries Waiting for Memory Allocation to Execute In one of the recent projects, I was asked to create a report of queries that are waiting for memory allocation. The reason was that we were doubtful regarding whether the memory was sufficient for the application. The following query can be useful in similar cases. Queries that do not have to wait on a memory grant will not appear in the result set of following query. 2010 Quickest Way to Identify Blocking Query and Resolution – Dirty Solution As the title suggests, this is quite a dirty solution; it’s not as elegant as you expect. However, it works totally fine. Simple Explanation of Data Type Precedence While I was working on creating a question for SQL SERVER – SQL Quiz – The View, The Table and The Clustered Index Confusion, I had actually created yet another question along with this question. However, I felt that the one which is posted on the SQL Quiz is much better than this one because what makes that more challenging question is that it has a multiple answer. Encrypted Stored Procedure and Activity Monitor I recently had received questionable if any stored procedure is encrypted can we see its definition in Activity Monitor.Answer is - No. Let us do a quick test. Let us create following Stored Procedure and then launch the Activity Monitor and check the text. Indexed View always Use Index on Table A single table can have maximum 249 non clustered indexes and 1 clustered index. In SQL Server 2008, a single table can have maximum 999 non clustered indexes and 1 clustered index. It is widely believed that a table can have only 1 clustered index, and this belief is true. I have some questions for all of you. Let us assume that I am creating view from the table itself and then create a clustered index on it. In my view, I am selecting the complete table itself. 2011 Detecting Database Case Sensitive Property using fn_helpcollations() I received a question on how to determine the case sensitivity of the database. The quick answer to this is to identify the collation of the database and check the properties of the collation. I have previously written how one can identify database collation. Once you have figured out the collation of the database, you can put that in the WHERE condition of the following T-SQL and then check the case sensitivity from the description. Server Side Paging in SQL Server CE (Compact Edition) SQL Server Denali is coming up with new T-SQL of Paging. I have written about the same earlier.SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server Denali – A Better Alternative,  SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server Denali Performance Comparison, SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server Denali – Part2 What is very interesting is that SQL Server CE 4.0 have the same feature introduced. Here is the quick example of the same. To run the script in the example, you will have to do installWebmatrix 4.0 and download sample database. Once done you can run following script. Why I am Going to Attend PASS Summit Unite 2011 The four-day event will be marked by a lot of learning, sharing, and networking, which will help me increase both my knowledge and contacts. Every year, PASS Summit provides me a golden opportunity to build my network as well as to identify and meet potential customers or employees. 2012 Manage Help Settings – CTRL + ALT + F1 This is very interesting read as my daughter once accidently came across a screen in SQL Server Management Studio. It took me 2-3 minutes to figure out how she has created the same screen. Recover the Accidentally Renamed Table “I accidentally renamed table in my SSMS. I was scrolling very fast and I made mistakes. It was either because I double clicked or clicked on F2 (shortcut key for renaming). However, I have made the mistake and now I have no idea how to fix this. If you have renamed the table, I think you pretty much is out of luck. Here are few things which you can do which can give you an idea about what your table name can be if you are lucky. Identify Numbers of Non Clustered Index on Tables for Entire Database Here is the script which will give you numbers of non clustered indexes on any table in entire database. Identify Most Resource Intensive Queries – SQL in Sixty Seconds #029 – Video Here is the complete complete script which I have used in the SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. Thanks Harsh for important Tip in the comment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kDHC_Tjrns Advanced Data Quality Services with Melissa Data – Azure Data Market For the purposes of the review, I used a database I had in an Excel spreadsheet with name and address information. Upon a cursory inspection, there are miscellaneous problems with these records; some addresses are missing ZIP codes, others missing a city, and some records are slightly misspelled or have unparsed suites. With DQS, I can easily add a knowledge base to help standardize my values, such as for state abbreviations. But how do I know that my address is correct? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Using JQuery tabs in an HTML 5 page

  - by nikolaosk

  In this post I will show you how to create a simple tabbed interface using JQuery,HTML 5 and CSS.Make sure you have downloaded the latest version of JQuery (minified version) from http://jquery.com/download.Please find here all my posts regarding JQuery.Also have a look at my posts regarding HTML 5.In order to be absolutely clear this is not (and could not be) a detailed tutorial on HTML 5. There are other great resources for that.Navigate to the excellent interactive tutorials of W3School.Another excellent resource is HTML 5 Doctor.Two very nice sites that show you what features and specifications are implemented by various browsers and their versions are http://caniuse.com/ and http://html5test.com/. At this times Chrome seems to support most of HTML 5 specifications.Another excellent way to find out if the browser supports HTML 5 and CSS 3 features is to use the Javascript lightweight library Modernizr.In this hands-on example I will be using Expression Web 4.0.This application is not a free application. You can use any HTML editor you like.You can use Visual Studio 2012 Express edition. You can download it here. Let me move on to the actual example.This is the sample HTML 5 page<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en">  <head>    <title>Liverpool Legends</title>    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" >    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">    <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.8.2.min.js"> </script>     <script type="text/javascript" src="tabs.js"></script>       </head>  <body>    <header>        <h1>Liverpool Legends</h1>    </header>     <section id="tabs">        <ul>            <li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=9143136#first-tab">Defenders</a></li>            <li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=9143136#second-tab">Midfielders</a></li>            <li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=9143136#third-tab">Strikers</a></li>        </ul>   <div id="first-tab">     <h3>Liverpool Defenders</h3>     <p> The best defenders that played for Liverpool are Jamie Carragher, Sami Hyypia , Ron Yeats and Alan Hansen.</p>   </div>   <div id="second-tab">     <h3>Liverpool Midfielders</h3>     <p> The best midfielders that played for Liverpool are Kenny Dalglish, John Barnes,Ian Callaghan,Steven Gerrard and Jan Molby.        </p>   </div>   <div id="third-tab">     <h3>Liverpool Strikers</h3>     <p>The best strikers that played for Liverpool are Ian Rush,Roger Hunt,Robbie Fowler and Fernando Torres.<br/>      </p>   </div> </div></section>            <footer>        <p>All Rights Reserved</p>      </footer>     </body>  </html>  This is very simple HTML markup. I have styled this markup using CSS.The contents of the style.css file follow* {    margin: 0;    padding: 0;}header{font-family:Tahoma;font-size:1.3em;color:#505050;text-align:center;}#tabs {    font-size: 0.9em;    margin: 20px 0;}#tabs ul {    float: left;    background: #777;    width: 260px;    padding-top: 24px;}#tabs li {    margin-left: 8px;    list-style: none;}* html #tabs li {    display: inline;}#tabs li, #tabs li a {    float: left;}#tabs ul li.active {    border-top:2px red solid;    background: #15ADFF;}#tabs ul li.active a {    color: #333333;}#tabs div {    background: #15ADFF;    clear: both;    padding: 15px;    min-height: 200px;}#tabs div h3 {    margin-bottom: 12px;}#tabs div p {    line-height: 26px;}#tabs ul li a {    text-decoration: none;    padding: 8px;    color:#0b2f20;    font-weight: bold;}footer{background-color:#999;width:100%;text-align:center;font-size:1.1em;color:#002233;}There are some CSS rules that style the various elements in the HTML 5 file. These are straight-forward rules. The JQuery code lives inside the tabs.js file $(document).ready(function(){$('#tabs div').hide();$('#tabs div:first').show();$('#tabs ul li:first').addClass('active'); $('#tabs ul li a').click(function(){$('#tabs ul li').removeClass('active');$(this).parent().addClass('active');var currentTab = $(this).attr('href');$('#tabs div').hide();$(currentTab).show();return false;});}); I am using some of the most commonly used JQuery functions like hide , show, addclass , removeClass I hide and show the tabs when the tab becomes the active tab. When I view my page I get the following result Hope it helps!!!!!

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• Improving Manageability of Virtual Environments

  - by Jeff Victor

  Boot Environments for Solaris 10 Branded Zones Until recently, Solaris 10 Branded Zones on Solaris 11 suffered one notable regression: Live Upgrade did not work. The individual packaging and patching tools work correctly, but the ability to upgrade Solaris while the production workload continued running did not exist. A recent Solaris 11 SRU (Solaris 11.1 SRU 6.4) restored most of that functionality, although with a slightly different concept, different commands, and without all of the feature details. This new method gives you the ability to create and manage multiple boot environments (BEs) for a Solaris 10 Branded Zone, and modify the active or any inactive BE, and to do so while the production workload continues to run. Background In case you are new to Solaris: Solaris includes a set of features that enables you to create a bootable Solaris image, called a Boot Environment (BE). This newly created image can be modified while the original BE is still running your workload(s). There are many benefits, including improved uptime and the ability to reboot into (or downgrade to) an older BE if a newer one has a problem. In Solaris 10 this set of features was named Live Upgrade. Solaris 11 applies the same basic concepts to the new packaging system (IPS) but there isn't a specific name for the feature set. The features are simply part of IPS. Solaris 11 Boot Environments are not discussed in this blog entry. Although a Solaris 10 system can have multiple BEs, until recently a Solaris 10 Branded Zone (BZ) in a Solaris 11 system did not have this ability. This limitation was addressed recently, and that enhancement is the subject of this blog entry. This new implementation uses two concepts. The first is the use of a ZFS clone for each BE. This makes it very easy to create a BE, or many BEs. This is a distinct advantage over the Live Upgrade feature set in Solaris 10, which had a practical limitation of two BEs on a system, when using UFS. The second new concept is a very simple mechanism to indicate the BE that should be booted: a ZFS property. The new ZFS property is named com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe (isn't that creative? ). It's important to note that the property is inherited from the original BE's file system to any BEs you create. In other words, all BEs in one zone have the same value for that property. When the (Solaris 11) global zone boots the Solaris 10 BZ, it boots the BE that has the name that is stored in the activebe property. Here is a quick summary of the actions you can use to manage these BEs: To create a BE: Create a ZFS clone of the zone's root dataset To activate a BE: Set the ZFS property of the root dataset to indicate the BE To add a package or patch to an inactive BE: Mount the inactive BE Add packages or patches to it Unmount the inactive BE To list the available BEs: Use the "zfs list" command. To destroy a BE: Use the "zfs destroy" command. Preparation Before you can use the new features, you will need a Solaris 10 BZ on a Solaris 11 system. You can use these three steps - on a real Solaris 11.1 server or in a VirtualBox guest running Solaris 11.1 - to create a Solaris 10 BZ. The Solaris 11.1 environment must be at SRU 6.4 or newer. Create a flash archive on the Solaris 10 system s10# flarcreate -n s10-system /net/zones/archives/s10-system.flar Configure the Solaris 10 BZ on the Solaris 11 system s11# zonecfg -z s10z Use 'create' to begin configuring a new zone. zonecfg:s10z create -t SYSsolaris10 zonecfg:s10z set zonepath=/zones/s10z zonecfg:s10z exit s11# zoneadm list -cv ID NAME STATUS PATH BRAND IP 0 global running / solaris shared - s10z configured /zones/s10z solaris10 excl Install the zone from the flash archive s11# zoneadm -z s10z install -a /net/zones/archives/s10-system.flar -p You can find more information about the migration of Solaris 10 environments to Solaris 10 Branded Zones in the documentation. The rest of this blog entry demonstrates the commands you can use to accomplish the aforementioned actions related to BEs. New features in action Note that the demonstration of the commands occurs in the Solaris 10 BZ, as indicated by the shell prompt "s10z# ". Many of these commands can be performed in the global zone instead, if you prefer. If you perform them in the global zone, you must change the ZFS file system names. Create The only complicated action is the creation of a BE. In the Solaris 10 BZ, create a new "boot environment" - a ZFS clone. You can assign any name to the final portion of the clone's name, as long as it meets the requirements for a ZFS file system name. s10z# zfs snapshot rpool/ROOT/zbe-0@snap s10z# zfs clone -o mountpoint=/ -o canmount=noauto rpool/ROOT/zbe-0@snap rpool/ROOT/newBE cannot mount 'rpool/ROOT/newBE' on '/': directory is not empty filesystem successfully created, but not mounted You can safely ignore that message: we already know that / is not empty! We have merely told ZFS that the default mountpoint for the clone is the root directory. List the available BEs and active BE Because each BE is represented by a clone of the rpool/ROOT dataset, listing the BEs is as simple as listing the clones. s10z# zfs list -r rpool/ROOT NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT rpool/ROOT 3.55G 42.9G 31K legacy rpool/ROOT/zbe-0 1K 42.9G 3.55G / rpool/ROOT/newBE 3.55G 42.9G 3.55G / The output shows that two BEs exist. Their names are "zbe-0" and "newBE". You can tell Solaris that one particular BE should be used when the zone next boots by using a ZFS property. Its name is com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe. The value of that property is the name of the clone that contains the BE that should be booted. s10z# zfs get com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe rpool/ROOT NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE rpool/ROOT com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe zbe-0 local Change the active BE When you want to change the BE that will be booted next time, you can just change the activebe property on the rpool/ROOT dataset. s10z# zfs get com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe rpool/ROOT NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE rpool/ROOT com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe zbe-0 local s10z# zfs set com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe=newBE rpool/ROOT s10z# zfs get com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe rpool/ROOT NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE rpool/ROOT com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe newBE local s10z# shutdown -y -g0 -i6 After the zone has rebooted: s10z# zfs get com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe rpool/ROOT rpool/ROOT com.oracle.zones.solaris10:activebe newBE local s10z# zfs mount rpool/ROOT/newBE / rpool/export /export rpool/export/home /export/home rpool /rpool Mount the original BE to see that it's still there. s10z# zfs mount -o mountpoint=/mnt rpool/ROOT/zbe-0 s10z# ls /mnt Desktop export platform Documents export.backup.20130607T214951Z proc S10Flar home rpool TT_DB kernel sbin bin lib system boot lost+found tmp cdrom mnt usr dev net var etc opt Patch an inactive BE At this point, you can modify the original BE. If you would prefer to modify the new BE, you can restore the original value to the activebe property and reboot, and then mount the new BE to /mnt (or another empty directory) and modify it. Let's mount the original BE so we can modify it. (The first command is only needed if you haven't already mounted that BE.) s10z# zfs mount -o mountpoint=/mnt rpool/ROOT/zbe-0 s10z# patchadd -R /mnt -M /var/sadm/spool 104945-02 Note that the typical usage will be: Create a BE Mount the new (inactive) BE Use the package and patch tools to update the new BE Unmount the new BE Reboot Delete an inactive BE ZFS clones are children of their parent file systems. In order to destroy the parent, you must first "promote" the child. This reverses the parent-child relationship. (For more information on this, see the documentation.) The original rpool/ROOT file system is the parent of the clones that you create as BEs. In order to destroy an earlier BE that is that parent of other BEs, you must first promote one of the child BEs to be the ZFS parent. Only then can you destroy the original BE. Fortunately, this is easier to do than to explain: s10z# zfs promote rpool/ROOT/newBE s10z# zfs destroy rpool/ROOT/zbe-0 s10z# zfs list -r rpool/ROOT NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT rpool/ROOT 3.56G 269G 31K legacy rpool/ROOT/newBE 3.56G 269G 3.55G / Documentation This feature is so new, it is not yet described in the Solaris 11 documentation. However, MOS note 1558773.1 offers some details. Conclusion With this new feature, you can add and patch packages to boot environments of a Solaris 10 Branded Zone. This ability improves the manageability of these zones, and makes their use more practical. It also means that you can use the existing P2V tools with earlier Solaris 10 updates, and modify the environments after they become Solaris 10 Branded Zones.

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• SQL SERVER – Data Sources and Data Sets in Reporting Services SSRS

  - by Pinal Dave

  This example is from the Beginning SSRS by Kathi Kellenberger. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. This example is from the Beginning SSRS. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. Connecting to Your Data? When I was a child, the telephone book was an important part of my life. Maybe I was just a nerd, but I enjoyed getting a new book every year to page through to learn about the businesses in my small town or to discover where some of my school acquaintances lived. It was also the source of maps to my town’s neighborhoods and the towns that surrounded me. To make a phone call, I would need a telephone number. In order to find a telephone number, I had to know how to use the telephone book. That seems pretty simple, but it resembles connecting to any data. You have to know where the data is and how to interact with it. A data source is the connection information that the report uses to connect to the database. You have two choices when creating a data source, whether to embed it in the report or to make it a shared resource usable by many reports. Data Sources and Data Sets A few basic terms will make the upcoming choses make more sense. What database on what server do you want to connect to? It would be better to just ask… “what is your data source?” The connection you need to make to get your reports data is called a data source. If you connected to a data source (like the JProCo database) there may be hundreds of tables. You probably only want data from just a few tables. This means you want to write a specific query against this data source. A query on a data source to get just the records you need for an SSRS report is called a Data Set. Creating a local Data Source You can connect embed a connection from your report directly to your JProCo database which (let’s say) is installed on a server named Reno. If you move JProCo to a new server named Tampa then you need to update the Data Set. If you have 10 reports in one project that were all pointing to the JProCo database on the Reno server then they would all need to be updated at once. It’s possible to make a project level Data Source and have each report use that. This means one change can fix all 10 reports at once. This would be called a Shared Data Source. Creating a Shared Data Source The best advice I can give you is to create shared data sources. The reason I recommend this is that if a database moves to a new server you will have just one place in Report Manager to make the server name change. That one change will update the connection information in all the reports that use that data source. To get started, you will start with a fresh project. Go to Start > All Programs > SQL Server 2012 > Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools to launch SSDT. Once SSDT is running, click New Project to create a new project. Once the New Project dialog box appears, fill in the form, as shown in. Be sure to select Report Server Project this time – not the wizard. Click OK to dismiss the New Project dialog box. You should now have an empty project, as shown in the Solution Explorer. A report is meant to show you data. Where is the data? The first task is to create a Shared Data Source. Right-click on the Shared Data Sources folder and choose Add New Data Source. The Shared Data Source Properties dialog box will launch where you can fill in a name for the data source. By default, it is named DataSource1. The best practice is to give the data source a more meaningful name. It is possible that you will have projects with more than one data source and, by naming them, you can tell one from another. Type the name JProCo for the data source name and click the Edit button to configure the database connection properties. If you take a look at the types of data sources you can choose, you will see that SSRS works with many data platforms including Oracle, XML, and Teradata. Make sure SQL Server is selected before continuing. For this post, I am assuming that you are using a local SQL Server and that you can use your Windows account to log in to the SQL Server. If, for some reason you must use SQL Server Authentication, choose that option and fill in your SQL Server account credentials. Otherwise, just accept Windows Authentication. If your database server was installed locally and with the default instance, just type in Localhost for the Server name. Select the JProCo database from the database list. At this point, the connection properties should look like. If you have installed a named instance of SQL Server, you will have to specify the server name like this: Localhost\InstanceName, replacing the InstanceName with whatever your instance name is. If you are not sure about the named instance, launch the SQL Server Configuration Manager found at Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2012 > Configuration Tools. If you have a named instance, the name will be shown in parentheses. A default instance of SQL Server will display MSSQLSERVER; a named instance will display the name chosen during installation. Once you get the connection properties filled in, click OK to dismiss the Connection Properties dialog box and OK again to dismiss the Shared Data Source properties. You now have a data source in the Solution Explorer. What’s next I really need to thank Kathi Kellenberger and Rick Morelan for sharing this material for this 5 day series of posts on SSRS. To get really comfortable with SSRS you will get to know the different SSDT windows, Build reports on your own (without the wizards),  Add report headers and footers, Accept user input,  create levels, charts, or even maps for visual appeal. You might be surprise to know a small 230 page book starts from the very beginning and covers the steps to do all these items. Beginning SSRS 2012 is a small easy to follow book so you can learn SSRS for less than $20. See Joes2Pros.com for more on this and other books. If you want to learn SSRS in easy to simple words – I strongly recommend you to get Beginning SSRS book from Joes 2 Pros. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Reporting Services, SSRS

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• T-SQL Tuesday #31 - Logging Tricks with CONTEXT_INFO

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  This month's T-SQL Tuesday is being hosted by Aaron Nelson [b | t], fellow Atlantan (the city in Georgia, not the famous sunken city, or the resort in the Bahamas) and covers the topic of logging (the recording of information, not the harvesting of trees) and maintains the fine T-SQL Tuesday tradition begun by Adam Machanic [b | t] (the SQL Server guru, not the guy who fixes cars, check the spelling again, there will be a quiz later). This is a trick I learned from Fernando Guerrero [b | t] waaaaaay back during the PASS Summit 2004 in sunny, hurricane-infested Orlando, during his session on Secret SQL Server (not sure if that's the correct title, and I haven't used parentheses in this paragraph yet).  CONTEXT_INFO is a neat little feature that's existed since SQL Server 2000 and perhaps even earlier.  It lets you assign data to the current session/connection, and maintains that data until you disconnect or change it.  In addition to the CONTEXT_INFO() function, you can also query the context_info column in sys.dm_exec_sessions, or even sysprocesses if you're still running SQL Server 2000, if you need to see it for another session. While you're limited to 128 bytes, one big advantage that CONTEXT_INFO has is that it's independent of any transactions.  If you've ever logged to a table in a transaction and then lost messages when it rolled back, you can understand how aggravating it can be.  CONTEXT_INFO also survives across multiple SQL batches (GO separators) in the same connection, so for those of you who were going to suggest "just log to a table variable, they don't get rolled back":  HA-HA, I GOT YOU!  Since GO starts a new batch all variable declarations are lost. Here's a simple example I recently used at work.  I had to test database mirroring configurations for disaster recovery scenarios and measure the network throughput.  I also needed to log how long it took for the script to run and include the mirror settings for the database in question.  I decided to use AdventureWorks as my database model, and Adam Machanic's Big Adventure script to provide a fairly large workload that's repeatable and easily scalable.  My test would consist of several copies of AdventureWorks running the Big Adventure script while I mirrored the databases (or not). Since Adam's script contains several batches, I decided CONTEXT_INFO would have to be used.  As it turns out, I only needed to grab the start time at the beginning, I could get the rest of the data at the end of the process.   The code is pretty small: declare @time binary(128)=cast(getdate() as binary(8)) set context_info @time   ... rest of Big Adventure code ...   go use master; insert mirror_test(server,role,partner,db,state,safety,start,duration) select @@servername, mirroring_role_desc, mirroring_partner_instance, db_name(database_id), mirroring_state_desc, mirroring_safety_level_desc, cast(cast(context_info() as binary(8)) as datetime), datediff(s,cast(cast(context_info() as binary(8)) as datetime),getdate()) from sys.database_mirroring where db_name(database_id) like 'Adv%';   I declared @time as a binary(128) since CONTEXT_INFO is defined that way.  I couldn't convert GETDATE() to binary(128) as it would pad the first 120 bytes as 0x00.  To keep the CAST functions simple and avoid using SUBSTRING, I decided to CAST GETDATE() as binary(8) and let SQL Server do the implicit conversion.  It's not the safest way perhaps, but it works on my machine. :) As I mentioned earlier, you can query system views for sessions and get their CONTEXT_INFO.  With a little boilerplate code this can be used to monitor long-running procedures, in case you need to kill a process, or are just curious  how long certain parts take.  In this example, I added code to Adam's Big Adventure script to set CONTEXT_INFO messages at strategic places I want to monitor.  (His code is in UPPERCASE as it was in the original, mine is all lowercase): declare @msg binary(128) set @msg=cast('Altering bigProduct.ProductID' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg go ALTER TABLE bigProduct ALTER COLUMN ProductID INT NOT NULL GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg1 binary(128) set @msg1=cast('Adding pk_bigProduct Constraint' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg1 go ALTER TABLE bigProduct ADD CONSTRAINT pk_bigProduct PRIMARY KEY (ProductID) GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg2 binary(128) set @msg2=cast('Altering bigTransactionHistory.TransactionID' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg2 go ALTER TABLE bigTransactionHistory ALTER COLUMN TransactionID INT NOT NULL GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg3 binary(128) set @msg3=cast('Adding pk_bigTransactionHistory Constraint' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg3 go ALTER TABLE bigTransactionHistory ADD CONSTRAINT pk_bigTransactionHistory PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED(TransactionID) GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg4 binary(128) set @msg4=cast('Creating IX_ProductId_TransactionDate Index' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg4 go CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_ProductId_TransactionDate ON bigTransactionHistory(ProductId,TransactionDate) INCLUDE(Quantity,ActualCost) GO set context_info 0x0   This doesn't include the entire script, only those portions that altered a table or created an index.  One annoyance is that SET CONTEXT_INFO requires a literal or variable, you can't use an expression.  And since GO starts a new batch I need to declare a variable in each one.  And of course I have to use CAST because it won't implicitly convert varchar to binary.  And even though context_info is a nullable column, you can't SET CONTEXT_INFO NULL, so I have to use SET CONTEXT_INFO 0x0 to clear the message after the statement completes.  And if you're thinking of turning this into a UDF, you can't, although a stored procedure would work. So what does all this aggravation get you?  As the code runs, if I want to see which stage the session is at, I can run the following (assuming SPID 51 is the one I want): select CAST(context_info as varchar(128)) from sys.dm_exec_sessions where session_id=51   Since SQL Server 2005 introduced the new system and dynamic management views (DMVs) there's not as much need for tagging a session with these kinds of messages.  You can get the session start time and currently executing statement from them, and neatly presented if you use Adam's sp_whoisactive utility (and you absolutely should be using it).  Of course you can always use xp_cmdshell, a CLR function, or some other tricks to log information outside of a SQL transaction.  All the same, I've used this trick to monitor long-running reports at a previous job, and I still think CONTEXT_INFO is a great feature, especially if you're still using SQL Server 2000 or want to supplement your instrumentation.  If you'd like an exercise, consider adding the system time to the messages in the last example, and an automated job to query and parse it from the system tables.  That would let you track how long each statement ran without having to run Profiler. #TSQL2sDay

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• Configuration "diff" across Oracle WebCenter Sites instances

  - by Mark Fincham-Oracle

  Problem Statement With many Oracle WebCenter Sites environments - how do you know if the various configuration assets and settings are in sync across all of those environments? Background At Oracle we typically have a "W" shaped set of environments.  For the "Production" environments we typically have a disaster recovery clone as well and sometimes additional QA environments alongside the production management environment. In the case of www.java.com we have 10 different environments. All configuration assets/settings (CSElements, Templates, Start Menus etc..) start life on the Development Management environment and are then published downstream to other environments as part of the software development lifecycle. Ensuring that each of these 10 environments has the same set of Templates, CSElements, StartMenus, TreeTabs etc.. is impossible to do efficiently without automation. Solution Summary  The solution comprises of two components. A JSON data feed from each environment. A simple HTML page that consumes these JSON data feeds.  Data Feed: Create a JSON WebService on each environment. The WebService is no more than a SiteEntry + CSElement. The CSElement queries various DB tables to obtain details of the assets/settings returning this data in a JSON feed. Report: Create a simple HTML page that uses JQuery to fetch the JSON feed from each environment and display the results in a table. Since all assets (CSElements, Templates etc..) are published between environments they will have the same last modified date. If the last modified date of an asset is different in the JSON feed or is mising from an environment entirely then highlight that in the report table. Example Solution Details Step 1: Create a Site Entry + CSElement that outputs JSON Site Entry & CSElement Setup  The SiteEntry should be uncached so that the most recent configuration information is returned at all times. In the CSElement set the contenttype accordingly: Step 2: Write the CSElement Logic The basic logic, that we repeat for each asset or setting that we are interested in, is to query the DB using <ics:sql> and then loop over the resultset with <ics:listloop>. For example: <ics:sql sql="SELECT name,updateddate FROM Template WHERE status != 'VO'" listname="TemplateList" table="Template" /> "templates": [ <ics:listloop listname="TemplateList"> {"name":"<ics:listget listname="TemplateList"  fieldname="name"/>", "modified":"<ics:listget listname="TemplateList"  fieldname="updateddate"/>"}, </ics:listloop> ], A comprehensive list of SQL queries to fetch each configuration asset/settings can be seen in the appendix at the end of this article. For the generation of the JSON data structure you could use Jettison (the library ships with the 11.1.1.8 version of the product), native Java 7 capabilities or (as the above example demonstrates) you could roll-your-own JSON output but that is not advised. Step 3: Create an HTML Report The JavaScript logic looks something like this.. 1) Create a list of JSON feeds to fetch: ENVS['dev-mgmngt'] = 'http://dev-mngmnt.example.com/sites/ContentServer?d=&pagename=settings.json'; ENVS['dev-dlvry'] = 'http://dev-dlvry.example.com/sites/ContentServer?d=&pagename=settings.json';  ENVS['test-mngmnt'] = 'http://test-mngmnt.example.com/sites/ContentServer?d=&pagename=settings.json';  ENVS['test-dlvry'] = 'http://test-dlvry.example.com/sites/ContentServer?d=&pagename=settings.json';   2) Create a function to get the JSON feeds: function getDataForEnvironment(url){ return $.ajax({ type: 'GET', url: url, dataType: 'jsonp', beforeSend: function (jqXHR, settings){ jqXHR.originalEnv = env; jqXHR.originalUrl = url; }, success: function(json, status, jqXHR) { console.log('....success fetching: ' + jqXHR.originalUrl); // store the returned data in ALLDATA ALLDATA[jqXHR.originalEnv] = json; }, error: function(jqXHR, status, e) { console.log('....ERROR: Failed to get data from [' + url + '] ' + status + ' ' + e); } }); } 3) Fetch each JSON feed: for (var env in ENVS) { console.log('Fetching data for env [' + env +'].'); var promisedData = getDataForEnvironment(ENVS[env]); promisedData.success(function (data) {}); }  4) For each configuration asset or setting create a table in the report For example, CSElements: 1) Get a list of unique CSElement names from all of the returned JSON data. 2) For each unique CSElement name, create a row in the table  3) Select 1 environment to represent the master or ideal state (e.g. "Everything should be like Production Delivery") 4) For each environment, compare the last modified date of this envs CSElement to the master. Highlight any differences in last modified date or missing CSElements. 5) Repeat...    Appendix This section contains various SQL statements that can be used to retrieve configuration settings from the DB.  Templates  <ics:sql sql="SELECT name,updateddate FROM Template WHERE status != 'VO'" listname="TemplateList" table="Template" /> CSElements <ics:sql sql="SELECT name,updateddate FROM CSElement WHERE status != 'VO'" listname="CSEList" table="CSElement" /> Start Menus <ics:sql sql="select sm.id, sm.cs_name, sm.cs_description, sm.cs_assettype, sm.cs_assetsubtype, sm.cs_itemtype, smr.cs_rolename, p.name from StartMenu sm, StartMenu_Sites sms, StartMenu_Roles smr, Publication p where sm.id=sms.ownerid and sm.id=smr.cs_ownerid and sms.pubid=p.id order by sm.id" listname="startList" table="Publication,StartMenu,StartMenu_Roles,StartMenu_Sites"/>  Publishing Configurations <ics:sql sql="select id, name, description, type, dest, factors from PubTarget" listname="pubTargetList" table="PubTarget" /> Tree Tabs <ics:sql sql="select tt.id, tt.title, tt.tooltip, p.name as pubname, ttr.cs_rolename, ttsect.name as sectname from TreeTabs tt, TreeTabs_Roles ttr, TreeTabs_Sect ttsect,TreeTabs_Sites ttsites LEFT JOIN Publication p  on p.id=ttsites.pubid where p.id is not null and tt.id=ttsites.ownerid and ttsites.pubid=p.id and tt.id=ttr.cs_ownerid and tt.id=ttsect.ownerid order by tt.id" listname="treeTabList" table="TreeTabs,TreeTabs_Roles,TreeTabs_Sect,TreeTabs_Sites,Publication" />  Filters <ics:sql sql="select name,description,classname from Filters" listname="filtersList" table="Filters" /> Attribute Types <ics:sql sql="select id,valuetype,name,updateddate from AttrTypes where status != 'VO'" listname="AttrList" table="AttrTypes" /> WebReference Patterns <ics:sql sql="select id,webroot,pattern,assettype,name,params,publication from WebReferencesPatterns" listname="WebRefList" table="WebReferencesPatterns" /> Device Groups <ics:sql sql="select id,devicegroupsuffix,updateddate,name from DeviceGroup" listname="DeviceList" table="DeviceGroup" /> Site Entries <ics:sql sql="select se.id,se.name,se.pagename,se.cselement_id,se.updateddate,cse.rootelement from SiteEntry se LEFT JOIN CSElement cse on cse.id = se.cselement_id where se.status != 'VO'" listname="SiteList" table="SiteEntry,CSElement" /> Webroots <ics:sql sql="select id,name,rooturl,updatedby,updateddate from WebRoot" listname="webrootList" table="WebRoot" /> Page Definitions <ics:sql sql="select pd.id, pd.name, pd.updatedby, pd.updateddate, pd.description, pdt.attributeid, pa.name as nameattr, pdt.requiredflag, pdt.ordinal from PageDefinition pd, PageDefinition_TAttr pdt, PageAttribute pa where pd.status != 'VO' and pa.id=pdt.attributeid and pdt.ownerid=pd.id order by pd.id,pdt.ordinal" listname="pageDefList" table="PageDefinition,PageAttribute,PageDefinition_TAttr" /> FW_Application <ics:sql sql="select id,name,updateddate from FW_Application where status != 'VO'" listname="FWList" table="FW_Application" /> Custom Elements <ics:sql sql="select elementname from ElementCatalog where elementname like 'CustomElements%'" listname="elementList" table="ElementCatalog" />

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• More Great Improvements to the Windows Azure Management Portal

  - by ScottGu

  Over the last 3 weeks we’ve released a number of enhancements to the new Windows Azure Management Portal.  These new capabilities include: Localization Support for 6 languages Operation Log Support Support for SQL Database Metrics Virtual Machine Enhancements (quick create Windows + Linux VMs) Web Site Enhancements (support for creating sites in all regions, private github repo deployment) Cloud Service Improvements (deploy from storage account, configuration support of dedicated cache) Media Service Enhancements (upload, encode, publish, stream all from within the portal) Virtual Networking Usability Enhancements Custom CNAME support with Storage Accounts All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately.  Below are more details on them: Localization Support The Windows Azure Portal now supports 6 languages – English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese. You can easily switch between languages by clicking on the Avatar bar on the top right corner of the Portal: Selecting a different language will automatically refresh the UI within the portal in the selected language: Operation Log Support The Windows Azure Portal now supports the ability for administrators to review the “operation logs” of the services they manage – making it easy to see exactly what management operations were performed on them.  You can query for these by selecting the “Settings” tab within the Portal and then choosing the “Operation Logs” tab within it.  This displays a filter UI that enables you to query for operations by date and time: As of the most recent release we now show logs for all operations performed on Cloud Services and Storage Accounts.  You can click on any operation in the list and click the “Details” button in the command bar to retrieve detailed status about it.  This now makes it possible to retrieve details about every management operation performed. In future updates you’ll see us extend the operation log capability to apply to all Windows Azure Services – which will enable great post-mortem and audit support. Support for SQL Database Metrics You can now monitor the number of successful connections, failed connections and deadlocks in your SQL databases using the new “Dashboard” view provided on each SQL Database resource: Additionally, if the database is added as a “linked resource” to a Web Site or Cloud Service, monitoring metrics for the linked SQL database are shown along with the Web Site or Cloud Service metrics in the dashboard. This helps with viewing and managing aggregated information across both resources in your application. Enhancements to Virtual Machines The most recent Windows Azure Portal release brings with it some nice usability improvements to Virtual Machines: Integrated Quick Create experience for Windows and Linux VMs Creating a new Windows or Linux VM is now easy using the new “Quick Create” experience in the Portal: In addition to Windows VM templates you can also now select Linux image templates in the quick create UI: This makes it incredibly easy to create a new Virtual Machine in only a few seconds. Enhancements to Web Sites Prior to this past month’s release, users were forced to choose a single geographical region when creating their first site.  After that, subsequent sites could only be created in that same region.  This restriction has now been removed, and you can now create sites in any region at any time and have up to 10 free sites in each supported region: One of the new regions we’ve recently opened up is the “East Asia” region.  This allows you to now deploy sites to North America, Europe and Asia simultaneously.  Private GitHub Repository Support This past week we also enabled Git based continuous deployment support for Web Sites from private GitHub and BitBucket repositories (previous to this you could only enable this with public repositories).  Enhancements to Cloud Services Experience The most recent Windows Azure Portal release brings with it some nice usability improvements to Cloud Services: Deploy a Cloud Service from a Windows Azure Storage Account The Windows Azure Portal now supports deploying an application package and configuration file stored in a blob container in Windows Azure Storage. The ability to upload an application package from storage is available when you custom create, or upload to, or update a cloud service deployment. To upload an application package and configuration, create a Cloud Service, then select the file upload dialog, and choose to upload from a Windows Azure Storage Account: To upload an application package from storage, click the “FROM STORAGE” button and select the application package and configuration file to use from the new blob storage explorer in the portal. Configure Windows Azure Caching in a caching enabled cloud service If you have deployed the new dedicated cache within a cloud service role, you can also now configure the cache settings in the portal by navigating to the configuration tab of for your Cloud Service deployment. The configuration experience is similar to the one in Visual Studio when you create a cloud service and add a caching role.  The portal now allows you to add or remove named caches and change the settings for the named caches – all from within the Portal and without needing to redeploy your application. Enhancements to Media Services You can now upload, encode, publish, and play your video content directly from within the Windows Azure Portal.  This makes it incredibly easy to get started with Windows Azure Media Services and perform common tasks without having to write any code. Simply navigate to your media service and then click on the “Content” tab.  All of the media content within your media service account will be listed here: Clicking the “upload” button within the portal now allows you to upload a media file directly from your computer: This will cause the video file you chose from your local file-system to be uploaded into Windows Azure.  Once uploaded, you can select the file within the content tab of the Portal and click the “Encode” button to transcode it into different streaming formats: The portal includes a number of pre-set encoding formats that you can easily convert media content into: Once you select an encoding and click the ok button, Windows Azure Media Services will kick off an encoding job that will happen in the cloud (no need for you to stand-up or configure a custom encoding server).  When it’s finished, you can select the video in the “Content” tab and then click PUBLISH in the command bar to setup an origin streaming end-point to it: Once the media file is published you can point apps against the public URL and play the content using Windows Azure Media Services – no need to setup or run your own streaming server.  You can also now select the file and click the “Play” button in the command bar to play it using the streaming endpoint directly within the Portal: This makes it incredibly easy to try out and use Windows Azure Media Services and test out an end-to-end workflow without having to write any code.  Once you test things out you can of course automate it using script or code – providing you with an incredibly powerful Cloud Media platform that you can use. Enhancements to Virtual Network Experience Over the last few months, we have received feedback on the complexity of the Virtual Network creation experience. With these most recent Portal updates, we have added a Quick Create experience that makes the creation experience very simple. All that an administrator now needs to do is to provide a VNET name, choose an address space and the size of the VNET address space. They no longer need to understand the intricacies of the CIDR format or walk through a 4-page wizard or create a VNET / subnet. This makes creating virtual networks really simple: The portal also now has a “Register DNS Server” task that makes it easy to register DNS servers and associate them with a virtual network. Enhancements to Storage Experience The portal now lets you register custom domain names for your Windows Azure Storage Accounts.  To enable this, select a storage resource and then go to the CONFIGURE tab for a storage account, and then click MANAGE DOMAIN on the command bar: Clicking “Manage Domain” will bring up a dialog that allows you to register any CNAME you want: Summary The above features are all now live in production and available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. One of the other cool features that is now live within the portal is our new Windows Azure Store – which makes it incredibly easy to try and purchase developer services from a variety of partners.  It is an incredibly awesome new capability – and something I’ll be doing a dedicated post about shortly. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Merge Records in Session bean by using ADF Drag/Drop

  - by shantala.sankeshwar

  This article describes how to merge multiple selected records in Session Bean using ADF drag & drop feature. Below described is simple use case that shows how exactly this can be achieved. Here we will have table & user input field.Table shows  EMP records & user input field accepts Salary.When we drag & drop multiple records on user input field,the selected records get updated with the new Salary provided. Steps: Let us suppose that we have created Java EE Web Application with Entities from Emp table.Then create EJB Session Bean & generate Data control for the same. Write a simple code in sessionEJBBean & expose this method to local interface :  public void updateEmprecords(List empList, Object sal) {       Emp emp = null;       for (int i = 0; i < empList.size(); i++)       {        emp = em.find(Emp.class, empList.get(i));         emp.setSal((BigDecimal)sal);       }      em.merge(emp);   } Now let us create updateEmpRecords.jspx page in viewController project & Drop empFindAll object as ADF Table Define custom SelectionListener method for the table :   public void selectionListener(SelectionEvent selectionEvent)     {     // This method gets the Empno of the selected record & stores in the list object      UIXTable table = (UIXTable)selectionEvent.getComponent();      FacesCtrlHierNodeBinding fcr      =(FacesCtrlHierNodeBinding)table.getSelectedRowData();      Number empNo = (Number)fcr.getAttribute("empno") ;      this.getSelectedRowsList().add(empNo);     }Set table's selectedRowKeys to #{bindings.empFindAll.collectionModel.selectedRow}"Drop inputText on the same jspx page that accepts Salary .Now we would like to drag records from the above table & drop that on the inputtext field.This feature can be achieved by inserting dragSource operation inside the table & dropTraget operation inside the inputText:<af:dragSource discriminant="tab"/> //Insert this inside the table<af:inputText label="Enter Salary" id="it13" autoSubmit="true"       binding="# {test.deptValue}">       <af:dropTarget dropListener="#{test.handleTableDrop}">       <af:dataFlavor        flavorClass="org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.model.RowKeySet"    discriminant="tab"/>       </af:dropTarget>       <af:convertNumber/> </af:inputText> In the above code when the user drags & drops multiple records on inputText,the dropListener method gets called.Goto the respective page definition file & create updateEmprecords method action& execute action dropListener method code:        public DnDAction handleTableDrop(DropEvent dropEvent)        {          //Below code gets the updateEmprecords method,passes parameters & executes method            DataFlavor<RowKeySet> df = DataFlavor.getDataFlavor(RowKeySet.class);            RowKeySet droppedKeySet = dropEvent.getTransferable().getData(df);            if (droppedKeySet != null && droppedKeySet.size() > 0)           {                  DCBindingContainer bindings =                  (DCBindingContainer)BindingContext.getCurrent().getCurrentBindingsEntry();                  OperationBinding updateEmp;                  updateEmp= bindings.getOperationBinding("updateEmprecords");                  updateEmp.getParamsMap().put("sal",                  this.getDeptValue().getAttributes().get("value"));                            updateEmp.getParamsMap().put("empList", this.getSelectedRowsList());                  updateEmp.execute(); //Below code performs execute operation to refresh the updated records                 OperationBinding executeBinding;                 executeBinding= bindings.getOperationBinding("Execute");                 executeBinding.execute(); AdfFacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addPartialTarget(dropEvent.getDragComponent());                this.getSelectedRowsList().clear();          }                 return DnDAction.NONE;        }Run updateEmpRecords.jspx page & enter any Salary say '5000'.Select multiple records in table & drop these selected records on the inputText Salary. Note that all the selected records salary value gets updated to 5000.Technorati Tags: ADF Drag and drop,EJB Session bean,ADF table,inputText,DropEvent  

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• Design for complex ATG applications

  - by Glen Borkowski

  Overview Needless to say, some ATG applications are more complex than others.  Some ATG applications support a single site, single language, single catalog, single currency, have a single development staff, single business team, and a relatively simple business model.  The real complex applications have to support multiple sites, multiple languages, multiple catalogs, multiple currencies, a couple different development teams, multiple business teams, and a highly complex business model (and processes to go along with it).  While it's still important to implement a proper design for simple applications, it's absolutely critical to do this for the complex applications.  Why?  It's all about time and money.  If you are unable to manage your complex applications in an efficient manner, the cost of managing it will increase dramatically as will the time to get things done (time to market).  On the positive side, your competition is most likely in the same situation, so you just need to be more efficient than they are. This article is intended to discuss a number of key areas to think about when designing complex applications on ATG.  Some of this can get fairly technical, so it may help to get some background first.  You can get enough of the required background information from this post.  After reading that, come back here and follow along. Application Design Of all the various types of ATG applications out there, the most complex tend to be the ones in the telecommunications industry - especially the ones which operate in multiple countries.  To get started, let's assume that we are talking about an application like that.  One that has these properties: Operates in multiple countries - must support multiple sites, catalogs, languages, and currencies The organization is fairly loosely-coupled - single brand, but different businesses across different countries There is some common functionality across all sites in all countries There is some common functionality across different sites within the same country Sites within a single country may have some unique functionality - relative to other sites in the same country Complex product catalog (mostly in terms of bundles, eligibility, and compatibility) At this point, I'll assume you have read through the required reading and have a decent understanding of how ATG modules work... Code / configuration - assemble into modules When it comes to defining your modules for a complex application, there are a number of goals: Divide functionality between the modules in a way that maps to your business Group common functionality 'further down in the stack of modules' Provide a good balance between shared resources and autonomy for countries / sites Now I'll describe a high level approach to how you could accomplish those goals...  Let's start from the bottom and work our way up.  At the very bottom, you have the modules that ship with ATG - the 'out of the box' stuff.  You want to make sure that you are leveraging all the modules that make sense in order to get the most value from ATG as possible - and less stuff you'll have to write yourself.  On top of the ATG modules, you should create what we'll refer to as the Corporate Foundation Module described as follows: Sits directly on top of ATG modules Used by all applications across all countries and sites - this is the foundation for everyone Contains everything that is common across all countries / all sites Once established and settled, will change less frequently than other 'higher' modules Encapsulates as many enterprise-wide integrations as possible Will provide means of code sharing therefore less development / testing - faster time to market Contains a 'reference' web application (described below) The next layer up could be multiple modules for each country (you could replace this with region if that makes more sense).  We'll define those modules as follows: Sits on top of the corporate foundation module Contains what is unique to all sites in a given country Responsible for managing any resource bundles for this country (to handle multiple languages) Overrides / replaces corporate integration points with any country-specific ones Finally, we will define what should be a fairly 'thin' (in terms of functionality) set of modules for each site as follows: Sits on top of the country it resides in module Contains what is unique for a given site within a given country Will mostly contain configuration, but could also define some unique functionality as well Contains one or more web applications The graphic below should help to indicate how these modules fit together: Web applications As described in the previous section, there are many opportunities for sharing (minimizing costs) as it relates to the code and configuration aspects of ATG modules.  Web applications are also contained within ATG modules, however, sharing web applications can be a bit more difficult because this is what the end customer actually sees, and since each site may have some degree of unique look & feel, sharing becomes more challenging.  One approach that can help is to define a 'reference' web application at the corporate foundation layer to act as a solid starting point for each site.  Here's a description of the 'reference' web application: Contains minimal / sample reference styling as this will mostly be addressed at the site level web app Focus on functionality - ensure that core functionality is revealed via this web application Each individual site can use this as a starting point There may be multiple types of web apps (i.e. B2C, B2B, etc) There are some techniques to share web application assets - i.e. multiple web applications, defined in the web.xml, and it's worth investigating, but is out of scope here. Reference infrastructure In this complex environment, it is assumed that there is not a single infrastructure for all countries and all sites.  It's more likely that different countries (or regions) could have their own solution for infrastructure.  In this case, it will be advantageous to define a reference infrastructure which contains all the hardware and software that make up the core environment.  Specifications and diagrams should be created to outline what this reference infrastructure looks like, as well as it's baseline cost and the incremental cost to scale up with volume.  Having some consistency in terms of infrastructure will save time and money as new countries / sites come online.  Here are some properties of the reference infrastructure: Standardized approach to setup of hardware Type and number of servers Defines application server, operating system, database, etc... - including vendor and specific versions Consistent naming conventions Provides a consistent base of terminology and understanding across environments Defines which ATG services run on which servers Production Staging BCC / Preview Each site can change as required to meet scale requirements Governance / organization It should be no surprise that the complex application we're talking about is backed by an equally complex organization.  One of the more challenging aspects of efficiently managing a series of complex applications is to ensure the proper level of governance and organization.  Here are some ideas and goals to work towards: Establish a committee to make enterprise-wide decisions that affect all sites Representation should be evenly distributed Should have a clear communication procedure Focus on high level business goals Evaluation of feature / function gaps and how that relates to ATG release schedule / roadmap Determine when to upgrade & ensure value will be realized Determine how to manage various levels of modules Who is responsible for maintaining corporate / country / site layers Determine a procedure for controlling what goes in the corporate foundation module Standardize on source code control, database, hardware, OS versions, J2EE app servers, development procedures, etc only use tested / proven versions - this is something that should be centralized so that every country / site does not have to worry about compatibility between versions Create a innovation team Quickly develop new features, perform proof of concepts All teams can benefit from their findings Summary At this point, it should be clear why the topics above (design, governance, organization, etc) are critical to being able to efficiently manage a complex application.  To summarize, it's all about competitive advantage...  You will need to reduce costs and improve time to market with the goal of providing a better experience for your end customers.  You can reduce cost by reducing development time, time allocated to testing (don't have to test the corporate foundation module over and over again - do it once), and optimizing operations.  With an efficient design, you can improve your time to market and your business will be more flexible  and agile.  Over time, you'll find that you're becoming more focused on offering functionality that is new to the market (creativity) and this will be rewarded - you're now a leader. In addition to the above, you'll realize soft benefits as well.  Your staff will be operating in a culture based on sharing.  You'll want to reward efforts to improve and enhance the foundation as this will benefit everyone.  This culture will inspire innovation, which can only lend itself to your competitive advantage.

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• Developing a Cost Model for Cloud Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Note - please pay attention to the date of this post. As much as I attempt to make the information below accurate, the nature of distributed computing means that components, units and pricing will change over time. The definitive costs for Microsoft Windows Azure and SQL Azure are located here, and are more accurate than anything you will see in this post: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/  When writing software that is run on a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering like Windows Azure / SQL Azure, one of the questions you must answer is how much the system will cost. I will not discuss the comparisons between on-premise costs (which are nigh impossible to calculate accurately) versus cloud costs, but instead focus on creating a general model for estimating costs for a given application. You should be aware that there are (at this writing) two billing mechanisms for Windows and SQL Azure: “Pay-as-you-go” or consumption, and “Subscription” or commitment. Conceptually, you can consider the former a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan, where you pay by the unit used (at a slightly higher rate) and the latter as a standard cell phone plan where you commit to a contract and thus pay lower rates. In this post I’ll stick with the pay-as-you-go mechanism for simplicity, which should be the maximum cost you would pay. From there you may be able to get a lower cost if you use the other mechanism. In any case, the model you create should hold. Developing a good cost model is essential. As a developer or architect, you’ll most certainly be asked how much something will cost, and you need to have a reliable way to estimate that. Businesses and Organizations have been used to paying for servers, software licenses, and other infrastructure as an up-front cost, and power, people to the systems and so on as an ongoing (and sometimes not factored) cost. When presented with a new paradigm like distributed computing, they may not understand the true cost/value proposition, and that’s where the architect and developer can guide the conversation to make a choice based on features of the application versus the true costs. The two big buckets of use-types for these applications are customer-based and steady-state. In the customer-based use type, each successful use of the program results in a sale or income for your organization. Perhaps you’ve written an application that provides the spot-price of foo, and your customer pays for the use of that application. In that case, once you’ve estimated your cost for a successful traversal of the application, you can build that into the price you charge the user. It’s a standard restaurant model, where the price of the meal is determined by the cost of making it, plus any profit you can make. In the second use-type, the application will be used by a more-or-less constant number of processes or users and no direct revenue is attached to the system. A typical example is a customer-tracking system used by the employees within your company. In this case, the cost model is often created “in reverse” - meaning that you pilot the application, monitor the use (and costs) and that cost is held steady. This is where the comparison with an on-premise system becomes necessary, even though it is more difficult to estimate those on-premise true costs. For instance, do you know exactly how much cost the air conditioning is because you have a team of system administrators? This may sound trivial, but that, along with the insurance for the building, the wiring, and every other part of the system is in fact a cost to the business. There are three primary methods that I’ve been successful with in estimating the cost. None are perfect, all are demand-driven. The general process is to lay out a matrix of: components units cost per unit and then multiply that times the usage of the system, based on which components you use in the program. That sounds a bit simplistic, but using those metrics in a calculation becomes more detailed. In all of the methods that follow, you need to know your application. The components for a PaaS include computing instances, storage, transactions, bandwidth and in the case of SQL Azure, database size. In most cases, architects start with the first model and progress through the other methods to gain accuracy. Simple Estimation The simplest way to calculate costs is to architect the application (even UML or on-paper, no coding involved) and then estimate which of the components you’ll use, and how much of each will be used. Microsoft provides two tools to do this - one is a simple slider-application located here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing-calculator/  The other is a tool you download to create an “Return on Investment” (ROI) spreadsheet, which has the advantage of leading you through various questions to estimate what you plan to use, located here: https://roianalyst.alinean.com/msft/AutoLogin.do?d=176318219048082115  You can also just create a spreadsheet yourself with a structure like this: Program Element Azure Component Unit of Measure Cost Per Unit Estimated Use of Component Total Cost Per Component Cumulative Cost               Of course, the consideration with this model is that it is difficult to predict a system that is not running or hasn’t even been developed. Which brings us to the next model type. Measure and Project A more accurate model is to actually write the code for the application, using the Software Development Kit (SDK) which can run entirely disconnected from Azure. The code should be instrumented to estimate the use of the application components, logging to a local file on the development system. A series of unit and integration tests should be run, which will create load on the test system. You can use standard development concepts to track this usage, and even use Windows Performance Monitor counters. The best place to start with this method is to use the Windows Azure Diagnostics subsystem in your code, which you can read more about here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sumitm/archive/2009/11/18/introducing-windows-azure-diagnostics.aspx This set of API’s greatly simplifies tracking the application, and in fact you can use this information for more than just a cost model. After you have the tracking logs, you can plug the numbers into ay of the tools above, which should give a representative cost or in some cases a unit cost. The consideration with this model is that the SDK fabric is not a one-to-one comparison with performance on the actual Windows Azure fabric. Those differences are usually smaller, but they do need to be considered. Also, you may not be able to accurately predict the load on the system, which might lead to an architectural change, which changes the model. This leads us to the next, most accurate method for a cost model. Sample and Estimate Using standard statistical and other predictive math, once the application is deployed you will get a bill each month from Microsoft for your Azure usage. The bill is quite detailed, and you can export the data from it to do analysis, and using methods like regression and so on project out into the future what the costs will be. I normally advise that the architect also extrapolate a unit cost from those metrics as well. This is the information that should be reported back to the executives that pay the bills: the past cost, future projected costs, and unit cost “per click” or “per transaction”, as your case warrants. The challenge here is in the model itself - statistical methods are not foolproof, and the larger the sample (in this case I recommend the entire population, not a smaller sample) is key. References and Tools Articles: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/patrick_butler_monterde/archive/2010/02/10/windows-azure-billing-overview.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg213848.aspx http://blog.codingoutloud.com/2011/06/05/azure-faq-how-much-will-it-cost-me-to-run-my-application-on-windows-azure/ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/johnalioto/archive/2010/08/25/10054193.aspx http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable/archive/2010/02/08/qampa-how-can-i-calculate-the-tco-and-roi-when.aspx   Other Tools: http://cloud-assessment.com/ http://communities.quest.com/community/cloud_tools

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• SQL SERVER – Create a Very First Report with the Report Wizard

  - by Pinal Dave

  This example is from the Beginning SSRS by Kathi Kellenberger. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. What is the report Wizard? In today’s world automation is all around you. Henry Ford began building his Model T automobiles on a moving assembly line a century ago and changed the world. The moving assembly line allowed Ford to build identical cars quickly and cheaply. Henry Ford said in his autobiography “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Today you can buy a car straight from the factory with your choice of several colors and with many options like back up cameras, built-in navigation systems and heated leather seats. The assembly lines now use robots to perform some tasks along with human workers. When you order your new car, if you want something special, not offered by the manufacturer, you will have to find a way to add it later. In computer software, we also have “assembly lines” called wizards. A wizard will ask you a series of questions, often branching to specific questions based on earlier answers, until you get to the end of the wizard. These wizards are used for many things, from something simple like setting up a rule in Outlook to performing administrative tasks on a server. Often, a wizard will get you part of the way to the end result, enough to get much of the tedious work out of the way. Once you get the product from the wizard, if the wizard is not capable of doing something you need, you can tweak the results. Create a Report with the Report Wizard Let’s get started with your first report!  Launch SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) from the Start menu under SQL Server 2012. Once SSDT is running, click New Project to launch the New Project dialog box. On the left side of the screen expand Business Intelligence and select Reporting Services. Configure the properties as shown in . Be sure to select Report Server Project Wizard as the type of report and to save the project in the C:\Joes2Pros\SSRSCompanionFiles\Chapter3\Project folder. Click OK and wait for the Report Wizard to launch. Click Next on the Welcome screen.  On the Select the Data Source screen, make sure that New data source is selected. Type JProCo as the data source name. Make sure that Microsoft SQL Server is selected in the Type dropdown. Click Edit to configure the connection string on the Connection Properties dialog box. If your SQL Server database server is installed on your local computer, type in localhost for the Server name and select the JProCo database from the Select or enter a database name dropdown. Click OK to dismiss the Connection Properties dialog box. Check Make this a shared data source and click Next. On the Design the Query screen, you can use the query builder to build a query if you wish. Since this post is not meant to teach you T-SQL queries, you will copy all queries from files that have been provided for you. In the C:\Joes2Pros\SSRSCompanionFiles\Chapter3\Resources folder open the sales by employee.sql file. Copy and paste the code from the file into the Query string Text Box. Click Next. On the Select the Report Type screen, choose Tabular and click Next. On the Design the Table screen, you have to figure out the groupings of the report. How do you do this? Well, you often need to know a bit about the data and report requirements. I often draw the report out on paper first to help me determine the groups. In the case of this report, I could group the data several ways. Do I want to see the data grouped by Year and Month? Do I want to see the data grouped by Employee or Category? The only thing I know for sure about this ahead of time is that the TotalSales goes in the Details section. Let’s assume that the CIO asked to see the data grouped first by Year and Month, then by Category. Let’s move the fields to the right-hand side. This is done by selecting Page > Group or Details >, as shown in, and click Next. On the Choose the Table Layout screen, select Stepped and check Include subtotals and Enable drilldown, as shown in. On the Choose the Style screen, choose any color scheme you wish (unlike the Model T) and click Next. I chose the default, Slate. On the Choose the Deployment Location screen, change the Deployment folder to Chapter 3 and click Next. At the Completing the Wizard screen, name your report Employee Sales and click Finish. After clicking Finish, the report and a shared data source will appear in the Solution Explorer and the report will also be visible in Design view. Click the Preview tab at the top. This report expects the user to supply a year which the report will then use as a filter. Type in a year between 2006 and 2013 and click View Report. Click the plus sign next to the Sales Year to expand the report to see the months, then expand again to see the categories and finally the details. You now have the assembly line report completed, and you probably already have some ideas on how to improve the report. Tomorrow’s Post Tomorrow’s blog post will show how to create your own data sources and data sets in SSRS. If you want to learn SSRS in easy to simple words – I strongly recommend you to get Beginning SSRS book from Joes 2 Pros. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Reporting Services, SSRS

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• Configuring Oracle HTTP Server 12c for WebLogic Server Domain

  - by Emin Askerov

  Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 12c 12.1.2 which was released in July 2013 as a part of Oracle Web Tier 12c is the web server component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. In essence this is Apache HTTP Server 2.2.22 (with critical bug fixes from higher versions) which includes modules developed specifically by Oracle. It provides a listener functionality for Oracle WebLogic Server and the framework for hosting static pages, dynamic pages, and applications over the Web. OHS can be easily managed by Weblogic Management Framework, a set of tools which provides administrative capabilities (start, stop, lifecycle operations, etc.) for Oracle Fusion Middleware products. In other words all tools which are familiar to us (Node Manager, WLST, Administration Console, Fusion Middleware Control etc.) presented as a part of Weblogic Management Framework and using for managing Java and System Components both for Weblogic Server and Standalone Domain types. You can familiarize yourself with these terms using related documentation: 1. Introduction to Oracle HTTP Server: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/webtier/index.html 2. Weblogic Management Framework: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/core/ASCON/terminology.htm#ASCON11260 In the given post I would like to cover rather simple use case how to configure OHS as web proxy in Weblogic Cluster environment. For example, we have existing Weblogic Domain where some managed servers have been joined to cluster and host business applications. We need to configure web proxy component which will act as entry point, load balancer for our cluster for user requests. Of course, we could install old good Apache HTTP Server and configure mod_wl plugin. However this solution not optimal from manageability perspective: we need to install Apache, install additional plugin then configure it by editing configuration file which is not really convenient for FMW Administrators and often increase time of performing of simple administrative task. Alternatively, we could use OHS as System Component within Weblogic Domain and use full power of Weblogic Management Framework in order to configure, manage and monitor it! I like this idea! What about you? I hope after reading this post you will agree with me. First of all it is necessary to download OHS binaries. You can use this link for downloading: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/webtier/downloads/index2-303202.html As we will use Fusion Middleware Control for managing OHS instances it is necessary to extend your domain with Enterprise Manager and Oracle ADF and JRF templates. This is not topic for focusing in this post, but you could get more information from documentation or one of my previous posts: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/wls/WLDTR/fmw_templates.htm#sthref64 https://blogs.oracle.com/imc/entry/the_specifics_of_adf_12c Note: you should have properly configured Node Manager utility for managing OHS instances Let’s consider configuration process step by step: 1. Shut down all Weblogic instances of existing domain including Admin Server; 2. Install Oracle HTTP Server. You should use your Fusion Middleware Home Path (e.g. /u01/Oracle/FMW12) for Installation Location and select Colocated HTTP Server option as Installation Type. I will not focus on this topic in this post. All information related to OHS installation you could find here: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/webtier/WTINS/install_gui.htm#i1082009 3. Next we need to extend our existing domain with OHS component. In order to do this you should do the following: a. Run Fusion Middleware Configuration Wizard (ORACLE_HOME/oracle_common/common/bin/config.sh); b. On the step 1 select Update an existing domain option and point your Fusion Middleware Home Path; c. On the step 2 check Oracle HTTP Server, Oracle Enterprise Manager Plugin for WEBTIER templates; d. Go through other steps without any changes and finish configuration process. 4. Start Admin Server and all managed servers related to your cluster 5. Log in to Enterprise Manager FMW Control using http://<hostname>:<port>/em URL 6. Now we will create OHS instance within our Weblogic Domain Infrastructure. Navigate to Weblogic Domain -> Administration -> Create/Delete OHS menu item; 7. Enter to edit mode, clicking Changes -> Lock&Edit menu item; 8. Create new OHS instance clicking Create button; 9. Define Instance Name (e.g. DevOSH) and Machine parameters; 10. Now we need to define listen port. By default OHS will use 7777 port number for income HTTP requests. We could change it to any free port number we would like to use. In order to do it, right click on our created OHS instance (left hand panel) and navigate to Administration -> Port Configuration; 11. Click on record with port number 7777 and then click Edit button; 12. Change port number value (in our case this will be 8080) and then click OK button; 13. Now we need to edit mod_wl_ohs configuration in order to enable OHS to act as proxy for WebLogic Server Instances/Cluster; 14. In order to do it right click on our created OHS instance (left panel) and navigate to Administration -> mod_wl_ohs Configuration; a. In Weblogic Cluster you should enter cluster address (define <host:port> for all managed servers which participated in cluster), e.g: 192.168.56.2:7004,192.168.56.2:7005 b. Define Weblogic Port parameter at which the Oracle WebLogic Server host is listening for connection requests from the module (or from other servers); c. Check Dynamic Server List option. This will dynamically update cluster list for every request; d. In the Location table define list of endpoint locations which you would like to process. In order to do this click Add Row button and define Location, Weblogic Cluster, Path Trim and Path Prefix parameters (if required); e. Click Apply button in order to save changes. 15. Activate changes clicking Changes ? Activate Changes menu item; 16. Finally we will start configured OHS instance. Right click on OHS instance tree item under Web Tier folder, select Control -> Start Up menu item; 17. Ensure that OHS instance up and running and then test your environment. Run deployed application to your Weblogic Cluster accessing via OHS web proxy; Normal 0 false false false RU X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

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• Developing Mobile Applications: Web, Native, or Hybrid?

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  Authors: Joe Huang, Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle Mobile Application Development Framework  and Carlos Chang, Senior Principal Product Director The proliferation of mobile devices and platforms represents a game-changing technology shift on a number of levels. Companies must decide not only the best strategic use of mobile platforms, but also how to most efficiently implement them. Inevitably, this conversation devolves to the developers, who face the task of developing and supporting mobile applications—not a simple task in light of the number of devices and platforms. Essentially, developers can choose from the following three different application approaches, each with its own set of pros and cons. Native Applications: This refers to apps built for and installed on a specific platform, such as iOS or Android, using a platform-specific software development kit (SDK).  For example, apps for Apple’s iPhone and iPad are designed to run specifically on iOS and are written in Xcode/Objective-C. Android has its own variation of Java, Windows uses C#, and so on.  Native apps written for one platform cannot be deployed on another. Native apps offer fast performance and access to native-device services but require additional resources to develop and maintain each platform, which can be expensive and time consuming. Mobile Web Applications: Unlike native apps, mobile web apps are not installed on the device; rather, they are accessed via a Web browser.  These are server-side applications that render HTML, typically adjusting the design depending on the type of device making the request.  There are no program coding constraints for writing server-side apps—they can be written in Java, C, PHP, etc., it doesn’t matter.  Instead, the server detects what type of mobile browser is pinging the server and adjusts accordingly. For example, it can deliver fully JavaScript and CSS-enabled content to smartphone browsers, while downgrading gracefully to basic HTML for feature phone browsers. Mobile apps work across platforms, but are limited to what you can do through a browser and require Internet connectivity. For certain types of applications, these constraints may not be an issue. Oracle supports mobile web applications via ADF Faces (for tablets) and ADF Mobile browser (Trinidad) for smartphone and feature phones. Hybrid Applications: As the name implies, hybrid apps combine technologies from native and mobile Web apps to gain the benefits each. For example, these apps are installed on a device, like their pure native app counterparts, while the user interface (UI) is based on HTML5.  This UI runs locally within the native container, which usually leverages the device’s browser engine.  The advantage of using HTML5 is a consistent, cross-platform UI that works well on most devices.  Combining this with the native container, which is installed on-device, provides mobile users with access to local device services, such as camera, GPS, and local device storage.  Native apps may offer greater flexibility in integrating with device native services.  However, since hybrid applications already provide device integrations that typical enterprise applications need, this is typically less of an issue.  The new Oracle ADF Mobile release is an HTML5 and Java hybrid framework that targets mobile app development to iOS and Android from one code base. So, Which is the Best Approach? The short answer is – the best choice depends on the type of application you are developing.  For instance, animation-intensive apps such as games would favor native apps, while hybrid applications may be better suited for enterprise mobile apps because they provide multi-platform support. Just for starters, the following issues must be considered when choosing a development path. Application Complexity: How complex is the application? A quick app that accesses a database or Web service for some data to display?  You can keep it simple, and a mobile Web app may suffice. However, for a mobile/field worker type of applications that supports mission critical functionality, hybrid or native applications are typically needed. Richness of User Interactivity: What type of user experience is required for the application?  Mobile browser-based app that’s optimized for mobile UI may suffice for quick lookup or productivity type of applications.  However, hybrid/native application would typically be required to deliver highly interactive user experiences needed for field-worker type of applications.  For example, interactive BI charts/graphs, maps, voice/email integration, etc.  In the most extreme case like gaming applications, native applications may be necessary to deliver the highly animated and graphically intensive user experience. Performance: What type of performance is required by the application functionality?  For instance, for real-time look up of data over the network, mobile app performance depends on network latency and server infrastructure capabilities.  If consistent performance is required, data would typically need to be cached, which is supported on hybrid or native applications only. Connectivity and Availability: What sort of connectivity will your application require? Does the app require Web access all the time in order to always retrieve the latest data from the server? Or do the requirements dictate offline support? While native and hybrid apps can be built to operate offline, Web mobile apps require Web connectivity. Multi-platform Requirements: The terms “consumerization of IT” and BYOD (bring your own device) effectively mean that the line between the consumer and the enterprise devices have become blurred. Employees are bringing their personal mobile devices to work and are often expecting that they work in the corporate network and access back-office applications.  Even if companies restrict access to the big dogs: (iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, possibly Windows Phone and tablets), trying to support each platform natively will require increasing resources and domain expertise with each new language/platform. And let’s not forget the maintenance costs, involved in upgrading new versions of each platform.   Where multi-platform support is needed, Web mobile or hybrid apps probably have the advantage. Going native, and trying to support multiple operating systems may be cost prohibitive with existing resources and developer skills. Device-Services Access:  If your app needs to access local device services, such as the camera, contacts app, accelerometer, etc., then your choices are limited to native or hybrid applications.   Fragmentation: Apple controls Apple iOS and the only concern is what version iOS is running on any given device.   Not so Android, which is open source. There are many, many versions and variants of Android running on different devices, which can be a nightmare for app developers trying to support different devices running different flavors of Android.  (Is it an Amazon Kindle Fire? a Samsung Galaxy?  A Barnes & Noble Nook?) This is a nightmare scenario for native apps—on the other hand, a mobile Web or hybrid app, when properly designed, can shield you from these complexities because they are based on common frameworks.  Resources: How many developers can you dedicate to building and supporting mobile application development?  What are their existing skills sets?  If you’re considering native application development due to the complexity of the application under development, factor the costs of becoming proficient on a each platform’s OS and programming language. Add another platform, and that’s another language, another SDK. On the other side of the equation, Web mobile or hybrid applications are simpler to make, and readily support more platforms, but there may be performance trade-offs. Conclusion This only scratches the surface. However, I hope to have suggested some food for thought in choosing your mobile development strategy.  Do your due diligence, search the Web, read up on mobile, talk to peers, attend events. The development team at Oracle is working hard on mobile technologies to help customers extend enterprise applications to mobile faster and effectively.  To learn more on what Oracle has to offer, check out the Oracle ADF Mobile (hybrid) and ADF Faces/ADF Mobile browser (Web Mobile) solutions from Oracle.   Additional Information Blog: ADF Blog Product Information on OTN: ADF Mobile Product Information on Oracle.com: Oracle Fusion Middleware Follow us on Twitter and Facebook Subscribe to our regular Fusion Middleware Newsletter

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• Navigating Libgdx Menu with arrow keys or controller

  - by Phil Royer

  I'm attempting to make my menu navigable with the arrow keys or via the d-pad on a controller. So Far I've had no luck. The question is: Can someone walk me through how to make my current menu or any libgdx menu keyboard accessible? I'm a bit noobish with some stuff and I come from a Javascript background. Here's an example of what I'm trying to do: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39448/webgl/qb/qb.html For a simple menu that you can just add a few buttons to and it run out of the box use this: http://www.sadafnoor.com/blog/how-to-create-simple-menu-in-libgdx/ Or you can use my code but I use a lot of custom styles. And here's an example of my code: import aurelienribon.tweenengine.Timeline; import aurelienribon.tweenengine.Tween; import aurelienribon.tweenengine.TweenManager; import com.badlogic.gdx.Game; import com.badlogic.gdx.Gdx; import com.badlogic.gdx.Screen; import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.GL20; import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.Texture; import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.Sprite; import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.SpriteBatch; import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.TextureAtlas; import com.badlogic.gdx.math.Vector2; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.Actor; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.InputEvent; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.InputListener; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.Stage; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.ui.Skin; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.ui.Table; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.ui.TextButton; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.utils.Align; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.utils.ClickListener; import com.project.game.tween.ActorAccessor; public class MainMenu implements Screen { private SpriteBatch batch; private Sprite menuBG; private Stage stage; private TextureAtlas atlas; private Skin skin; private Table table; private TweenManager tweenManager; @Override public void render(float delta) { Gdx.gl.glClearColor(0, 0, 0, 1); Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); batch.begin(); menuBG.draw(batch); batch.end(); //table.debug(); stage.act(delta); stage.draw(); //Table.drawDebug(stage); tweenManager.update(delta); } @Override public void resize(int width, int height) { menuBG.setSize(width, height); stage.setViewport(width, height, false); table.invalidateHierarchy(); } @Override public void resume() { } @Override public void show() { stage = new Stage(); Gdx.input.setInputProcessor(stage); batch = new SpriteBatch(); atlas = new TextureAtlas("ui/atlas.pack"); skin = new Skin(Gdx.files.internal("ui/menuSkin.json"), atlas); table = new Table(skin); table.setBounds(0, 0, Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), Gdx.graphics.getHeight()); // Set Background Texture menuBackgroundTexture = new Texture("images/mainMenuBackground.png"); menuBG = new Sprite(menuBackgroundTexture); menuBG.setSize(Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), Gdx.graphics.getHeight()); // Create Main Menu Buttons // Button Play TextButton buttonPlay = new TextButton("START", skin, "inactive"); buttonPlay.addListener(new ClickListener() { @Override public void clicked(InputEvent event, float x, float y) { ((Game) Gdx.app.getApplicationListener()).setScreen(new LevelMenu()); } }); buttonPlay.addListener(new InputListener() { public boolean keyDown (InputEvent event, int keycode) { System.out.println("down"); return true; } }); buttonPlay.padBottom(12); buttonPlay.padLeft(20); buttonPlay.getLabel().setAlignment(Align.left); // Button EXTRAS TextButton buttonExtras = new TextButton("EXTRAS", skin, "inactive"); buttonExtras.addListener(new ClickListener() { @Override public void clicked(InputEvent event, float x, float y) { ((Game) Gdx.app.getApplicationListener()).setScreen(new ExtrasMenu()); } }); buttonExtras.padBottom(12); buttonExtras.padLeft(20); buttonExtras.getLabel().setAlignment(Align.left); // Button Credits TextButton buttonCredits = new TextButton("CREDITS", skin, "inactive"); buttonCredits.addListener(new ClickListener() { @Override public void clicked(InputEvent event, float x, float y) { ((Game) Gdx.app.getApplicationListener()).setScreen(new Credits()); } }); buttonCredits.padBottom(12); buttonCredits.padLeft(20); buttonCredits.getLabel().setAlignment(Align.left); // Button Settings TextButton buttonSettings = new TextButton("SETTINGS", skin, "inactive"); buttonSettings.addListener(new ClickListener() { @Override public void clicked(InputEvent event, float x, float y) { ((Game) Gdx.app.getApplicationListener()).setScreen(new Settings()); } }); buttonSettings.padBottom(12); buttonSettings.padLeft(20); buttonSettings.getLabel().setAlignment(Align.left); // Button Exit TextButton buttonExit = new TextButton("EXIT", skin, "inactive"); buttonExit.addListener(new ClickListener() { @Override public void clicked(InputEvent event, float x, float y) { Gdx.app.exit(); } }); buttonExit.padBottom(12); buttonExit.padLeft(20); buttonExit.getLabel().setAlignment(Align.left); // Adding Heading-Buttons to the cue table.add().width(190); table.add().width((table.getWidth() / 10) * 3); table.add().width((table.getWidth() / 10) * 5).height(140).spaceBottom(50); table.add().width(190).row(); table.add().width(190); table.add(buttonPlay).spaceBottom(20).width(460).height(110); table.add().row(); table.add().width(190); table.add(buttonExtras).spaceBottom(20).width(460).height(110); table.add().row(); table.add().width(190); table.add(buttonCredits).spaceBottom(20).width(460).height(110); table.add().row(); table.add().width(190); table.add(buttonSettings).spaceBottom(20).width(460).height(110); table.add().row(); table.add().width(190); table.add(buttonExit).width(460).height(110); table.add().row(); stage.addActor(table); // Animation Settings tweenManager = new TweenManager(); Tween.registerAccessor(Actor.class, new ActorAccessor()); // Heading and Buttons Fade In Timeline.createSequence().beginSequence() .push(Tween.set(buttonPlay, ActorAccessor.ALPHA).target(0)) .push(Tween.set(buttonExtras, ActorAccessor.ALPHA).target(0)) .push(Tween.set(buttonCredits, ActorAccessor.ALPHA).target(0)) .push(Tween.set(buttonSettings, ActorAccessor.ALPHA).target(0)) .push(Tween.set(buttonExit, ActorAccessor.ALPHA).target(0)) .push(Tween.to(buttonPlay, ActorAccessor.ALPHA, .5f).target(1)) .push(Tween.to(buttonExtras, ActorAccessor.ALPHA, .5f).target(1)) .push(Tween.to(buttonCredits, ActorAccessor.ALPHA, .5f).target(1)) .push(Tween.to(buttonSettings, ActorAccessor.ALPHA, .5f).target(1)) .push(Tween.to(buttonExit, ActorAccessor.ALPHA, .5f).target(1)) .end().start(tweenManager); tweenManager.update(Gdx.graphics.getDeltaTime()); } public static Vector2 getStageLocation(Actor actor) { return actor.localToStageCoordinates(new Vector2(0, 0)); } @Override public void dispose() { stage.dispose(); atlas.dispose(); skin.dispose(); menuBG.getTexture().dispose(); } @Override public void hide() { dispose(); } @Override public void pause() { } }

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• Expectations + Rewards = Innovation

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  “Innovation” is a heavy word. We regard those that embrace it as “Innovators”. We describe organizations as being “Innovative”. We hold those associated with the word in high regard, even though its dictionary definition is very simple: Introducing something new. What our culture has done is wrapped Innovation in white robes and a gold crown. Innovation is rarely just introducing something new. Innovations and innovators are typically associated with other terms: groundbreaking, genius, industry-changing, creative, leading. Being a true innovator and creating innovations are a big deal, and something companies try to strive for…or at least say they strive for. There’s huge value in being recognized as an innovator in an industry, since the idea is that innovation equates to increased profitability. IBM ran an ad a few years back that showed what their view of innovation is: “The point of innovation is to make actual money.” If the money aspect makes you feel uneasy, consider it another way: the point of innovation is to <insert payoff here>. Companies that innovate will be more successful. Non-profits that innovate can better serve their target clients. Governments that innovate can better provide services to their citizens. True innovation is not easy to come by though. As with anything in business, how well an organization will innovate is reliant on the employees it retains, the expectations placed on those employees, and the rewards available to them. In a previous blog post I talked about one formula: Right Employees + Happy Employees = Productive Employees I want to introduce a new one, that builds upon the previous one: Expectations + Rewards = Innovation  The level of innovation your organization will realize is directly associated with the expectations you place on your staff and the rewards you make available to them. Expectations We may feel uncomfortable with the idea of placing expectations on our staff, mainly because expectation has somewhat of a negative or cold connotation to it: “I expect you to act this way or else!” The problem is in the or-else part…we focus on the negative aspects of failing to meet expectations instead of looking at the positive side. “I expect you to act this way because it will produce <insert benefit here>”. Expectations should not be set to punish but instead be set to ensure quality. At a recent conference I spoke with some Microsoft employees who told me that you have five years from starting with the company to reach a “Senior” level. If you don’t, then you’re let go. The expectation Microsoft placed on their staff is that they should be working towards improving themselves, taking more responsibility, and thus ensure that there is a constant level of quality in the workforce. Rewards Let me be clear: a paycheck is not a reward. A paycheck is simply the employer’s responsibility in the employee/employer relationship. A paycheck will never be the key motivator to drive innovation. Offering employees something over and above their required compensation can spur them to greater performance and achievement. Working in the food service industry, this tactic was used again and again: whoever has the highest sales over lunch will receive a free lunch/gift certificate/entry into a draw/etc. There was something to strive for, to try beyond the baseline of what our serving jobs were. It was through this that innovative sales techniques would be tried and honed, with key servers being top sellers time and time again. At a code camp I spoke at, I was amazed to see that all the employees from one company receive $100 Visa gift cards as a thank you for taking time to speak. Again, offering something over and above that can give that extra push for employees. Rewards work. But what about the fairness angle? In the restaurant example I gave, there were servers that would never win the competition. They just weren’t good enough at selling and never seemed to get better. So should those that did work at performing better and produce more sales for the restaurant not get rewarded because those who weren’t working at performing better might get upset? Of course not! Organizations succeed because of their top performers and those that strive to join their ranks. The Expectation/Reward Graph While the Expectations + Rewards = Innovation formula may seem like a simple mathematics formula, there’s much more going under the hood. In fact there are three different outcomes that could occur based on what you put in as values for Expectations and Rewards. Consider the graph below and the descriptions that follow: Disgruntled – High Expectation, Low Reward I worked at a company where the mantra was “Company First, Because We Pay You”. Even today I still hear stories of how this sentiment continues to be perpetuated: They provide you a paycheck and a means to live, therefore you should always put them as your top priority. Of course, this is a huge imbalance in the expectation/reward equation. Why would anyone willingly meet high expectations of availability, workload, deadlines, etc. when there is no reward other than a paycheck to show for it? Remember: paychecks are not rewards! Instead, you see employees be disgruntled which not only affects the level of production but also the level of quality within an organization. It also means that you see higher turnover. Complacent – Low Expectation, Low Reward Complacency is a systemic problem that typically exists throughout all levels of an organization. With no real expectations or rewards, nobody needs to excel. In fact, those that do try to innovate, improve, or introduce new things into the organization might be shunned or pushed out by the rest of the staff who are just doing things the same way they’ve always done it. The bigger issue for the organization with low/low values is that at best they’ll never grow beyond their current size (and may shrink actually), and at worst will cease to exist. Entitled – Low Expectation, High Reward It’s one thing to say you have the best people and reward them as such, but its another thing to actually have the best people and reward them as such. Organizations with Entitled employees are the former: their organization provides them with all types of comforts, benefits, and perks. But there’s no requirement before the rewards are dolled out, and there’s no short-list of who receives the rewards. Everyone in the company is treated the same and is given equal share of the spoils. Entitlement is actually almost identical with Complacency with one notable difference: just try to introduce higher expectations into an entitled organization! Entitled employees have been spoiled for so long that they can’t fathom having rewards taken from them, or having to achieve specific levels of performance before attaining them. Those running the organization also buy in to the Entitled sentiment, feeling that they must persist the same level of comforts to appease their staff…even though the quality of the employee pool may be suspect. Innovative – High Expectation, High Reward Finally we have the Innovative organization which places high expectations but also provides high rewards. This organization gets it: if you truly want the best employees you need to apply equal doses of pressure and praise. Realize that I’m not suggesting crazy overtime or un-realistic working conditions. I do not agree with the “Glengary-Glenross” method of encouragement. But as anyone who follows sports can tell you, the teams that win are the ones where the coaches push their players to be their best; to achieve new levels of performance that they didn’t know they could receive. And the result for the players is more money, fame, and opportunity. It’s in this environment that organizations can focus on innovation – true innovation that builds the business and allows everyone involved to truly benefit. In Closing Organizations love to use the word “Innovation” and its derivatives, but very few actually do innovate. For many, the term has just become another marketing buzzword to lump in with all the other business terms that get overused. But for those organizations that truly get the value of innovation, they will be the ones surging forward while other companies simply fade into the background. And they will be the organizations that expect more from their employees, and give them their just rewards.

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• DRY and SRP

  - by Timothy Klenke

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/06/11/dry-and-srp.aspxKent Beck’s XP Simplicity Rules (aka Four Rules of Simple Design) are a prioritized list of rules that when applied to your code generally yield a great design.  As you’ll see from the above link the list has slightly evolved over time.  I find today they are usually listed as: All Tests Pass Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) Express Intent Minimalistic These are prioritized.  If your code doesn’t work (rule 1) then everything else is forfeit.  Go back to rule one and get the code working before worrying about anything else. Over the years the community have debated whether the priority of rules 2 and 3 should be reversed.  Some say a little duplication in the code is OK as long as it helps express intent.  I’ve debated it myself.  This recent post got me thinking about this again, hence this post.   I don’t think it is fair to compare “Expressing Intent” against “DRY”.  This is a comparison of apples to oranges.  “Expressing Intent” is a principal of code quality.  “Repeating Yourself” is a code smell.  A code smell is merely an indicator that there might be something wrong with the code.  It takes further investigation to determine if a violation of an underlying principal of code quality has actually occurred. For example “using nouns for method names”, “using verbs for property names”, or “using Booleans for parameters” are all code smells that indicate that code probably isn’t doing a good job at expressing intent.  They are usually very good indicators.  But what principle is the code smell of Duplication pointing to and how good of an indicator is it? Duplication in the code base is bad for a couple reasons.  If you need to make a change and that needs to be made in a number of locations it is difficult to know if you have caught all of them.  This can lead to bugs if/when one of those locations is overlooked.  By refactoring the code to remove all duplication there will be left with only one place to change, thereby eliminating this problem. With most projects the code becomes the single source of truth for a project.  If a production code base is inconsistent with a five year old requirements or design document the production code that people are currently living with is usually declared as the current reality (or truth).  Requirement or design documents at this age in a project life cycle are usually of little value. Although comparing production code to external documentation is usually straight forward, duplication within the code base muddles this declaration of truth.  When code is duplicated small discrepancies will creep in between the two copies over time.  The question then becomes which copy is correct?  As different factions debate how the software should work, trust in the software and the team behind it erodes. The code smell of Duplication points to a violation of the “Single Source of Truth” principle.  Let me define that as: A stakeholder’s requirement for a software change should never cause more than one class to change. Violation of the Single Source of Truth principle will always result in duplication in the code.  However, the inverse is not always true.  Duplication in the code does not necessarily indicate that there is a violation of the Single Source of Truth principle. To illustrate this, let’s look at a retail system where the system will (1) send a transaction to a bank and (2) print a receipt for the customer.  Although these are two separate features of the system, they are closely related.  The reason for printing the receipt is usually to provide an audit trail back to the bank transaction.  Both features use the same data:  amount charged, account number, transaction date, customer name, retail store name, and etcetera.  Because both features use much of the same data, there is likely to be a lot of duplication between them.  This duplication can be removed by making both features use the same data access layer. Then start coming the divergent requirements.  The receipt stakeholder wants a change so that the account number has the last few digits masked out to protect the customer’s privacy.  That can be solve with a small IF statement whilst still eliminating all duplication in the system.  Then the bank wants to take a picture of the customer as well as capture their signature and/or PIN number for enhanced security.  Then the receipt owner wants to pull data from a completely different system to report the customer’s loyalty program point total. After a while you realize that the two stakeholders have somewhat similar, but ultimately different responsibilities.  They have their own reasons for pulling the data access layer in different directions.  Then it dawns on you, the Single Responsibility Principle: There should never be more than one reason for a class to change. In this example we have two stakeholders giving two separate reasons for the data access class to change.  It is clear violation of the Single Responsibility Principle.  That’s a problem because it can often lead the project owner pitting the two stakeholders against each other in a vein attempt to get them to work out a mutual single source of truth.  But that doesn’t exist.  There are two completely valid truths that the developers need to support.  How is this to be supported and honour the Single Responsibility Principle?  The solution is to duplicate the data access layer and let each stakeholder control their own copy. The Single Source of Truth and Single Responsibility Principles are very closely related.  SST tells you when to remove duplication; SRP tells you when to introduce it.  They may seem to be fighting each other, but really they are not.  The key is to clearly identify the different responsibilities (or sources of truth) over a system.  Sometimes there is a single person with that responsibility, other times there are many.  This can be especially difficult if the same person has dual responsibilities.  They might not even realize they are wearing multiple hats. In my opinion Single Source of Truth should be listed as the second rule of simple design with Express Intent at number three.  Investigation of the DRY code smell should yield to the proper application SST, without violating SRP.  When necessary leave duplication in the system and let the class names express the different people that are responsible for controlling them.  Knowing all the people with responsibilities over a system is the higher priority because you’ll need to know this before you can express it.  Although it may be a code smell when there is duplication in the code, it does not necessarily mean that the coder has chosen to be expressive over DRY or that the code is bad.

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• Securing WebSocket applications on Glassfish

  - by Pavel Bucek

  Today we are going to cover deploying secured WebSocket applications on Glassfish and access to these services using WebSocket Client API. WebSocket server application setup Our server endpoint might look as simple as this: @ServerEndpoint("/echo") public class EchoEndpoint { @OnMessage   public String echo(String message) {     return message + " (from your server)";   } } Everything else must be configured on container level. We can start with enabling SSL, which will require web.xml to be added to your project. For starters, it might look as following: <web-app version="3.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee">   <security-constraint>     <web-resource-collection>       <web-resource-name>Protected resource</web-resource-name>       <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>       <http-method>GET</http-method>     </web-resource-collection>     <!-- https -->     <user-data-constraint>       <transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>     </user-data-constraint>   </security-constraint> </web-app> This is minimal web.xml for this task - web-resource-collection just defines URL pattern and HTTP method(s) we want to put a constraint on and user-data-constraint defines that constraint, which is in our case transport-guarantee. More information about these properties and security settings for web application can be found in Oracle Java EE 7 Tutorial. I have some simple webpage attached as well, so I can test my endpoint right away. You can find it (along with complete project) in Tyrus workspace: [webpage] [whole project]. After deploying this application to Glassfish Application Server, you should be able to hit it using your favorite browser. URL where my application resides is https://localhost:8181/sample-echo-https/ (may be different, depends on other configuration). My browser warns me about untrusted certificate (I use what freshly built Glassfish provides - self signed certificates) and after adding an exception for this site, I can see my webpage and I am able to securely connect to wss://localhost:8181/sample-echo-https/echo. WebSocket client Already mentioned demo application also contains test client, but execution of this is skipped for normal build. Reason for this is that Glassfish uses these self-signed "random" untrusted certificates and you are (in most cases) not able to connect to these services without any additional settings. Creating test WebSocket client is actually quite similar to server side, only difference is that you have to somewhere create client container and invoke connect with some additional info. Java API for WebSocket allows you to use annotated and programmatic way to construct endpoints. Server side shows the annotated case, so let's see how the programmatic approach will look. final WebSocketContainer client = ContainerProvider.getWebSocketContainer(); client.connectToServer(new Endpoint() {   @Override   public void onOpen(Session session, EndpointConfig EndpointConfig) {     try {       // register message handler - will just print out the       // received message on standard output.       session.addMessageHandler(new MessageHandler.Whole<String>() {       @Override         public void onMessage(String message) {          System.out.println("### Received: " + message);         }       });       // send a message       session.getBasicRemote().sendText("Do or do not, there is no try.");     } catch (IOException e) {       // do nothing     }   } }, ClientEndpointConfig.Builder.create().build(),    URI.create("wss://localhost:8181/sample-echo-https/echo")); This client should work with some secured endpoint with valid certificated signed by some trusted certificate authority (you can try that with wss://echo.websocket.org). Accessing our Glassfish instance will require some additional settings. You can tell Java which certificated you trust by adding -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore property (and few others in case you are using linked sample). Complete command line when you are testing your service might need to look somewhat like: mvn clean test -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=$AS_MAIN/domains/domain1/config/cacerts.jks\ -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=changeit -Dtyrus.test.host=localhost\ -DskipTests=false Where AS_MAIN points to your Glassfish instance. Note: you might need to setup keyStore and trustStore per client instead of per JVM; there is a way how to do it, but it is Tyrus proprietary feature: http://tyrus.java.net/documentation/1.2.1/user-guide.html#d0e1128. And that's it! Now nobody is able to "hear" what you are sending to or receiving from your WebSocket endpoint. There is always room for improvement, so the next step you might want to take is introduce some authentication mechanism (like HTTP Basic or Digest). This topic is more about container configuration so I'm not going to go into details, but there is one thing worth mentioning: to access services which require authorization, you might need to put this additional information to HTTP headers of first (Upgrade) request (there is not (yet) any direct support even for these fundamental mechanisms, user need to register Configurator and add headers in beforeRequest method invocation). I filed related feature request as TYRUS-228; feel free to comment/vote if you need this functionality.

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• Unlocking Productivity

  - by Michael Snow

  Unlocking Productivity in Life Sciences with Consolidated Content Management by Joe Golemba, Vice President, Product Management, Oracle WebCenter As life sciences organizations look to become more operationally efficient, the ability to effectively leverage information is a competitive advantage. Whether data mining at the drug discovery phase or prepping the sales team before a product launch, content management can play a key role in developing, organizing, and disseminating vital information. The goal of content management is relatively straightforward: put the information that people need where they can find it. A number of issues can complicate this; information sits in many different systems, each of those systems has its own security, and the information in those systems exists in many different formats. Identifying and extracting pertinent information from mountains of farflung data is no simple job, but the alternative—wasted effort or even regulatory compliance issues—is worse. An integrated information architecture can enable health sciences organizations to make better decisions, accelerate clinical operations, and be more competitive. Unstructured data matters Often when we think of drug development data, we think of structured data that fits neatly into one or more research databases. But structured data is often directly supported by unstructured data such as experimental protocols, reaction conditions, lot numbers, run times, analyses, and research notes. As life sciences companies seek integrated views of data, they are typically finding diverse islands of data that seemingly have no relationship to other data in the organization. Information like sales reports or call center reports can be locked into siloed systems, and unavailable to the discovery process. Additionally, in the increasingly networked clinical environment, Web pages, instant messages, videos, scientific imaging, sales and marketing data, collaborative workspaces, and predictive modeling data are likely to be present within an organization, and each source potentially possesses information that can help to better inform specific efforts. Historically, content management solutions that had 21CFR Part 11 capabilities—electronic records and signatures—were focused mainly on content-enabling manufacturing-related processes. Today, life sciences companies have many standalone repositories, requiring different skills, service level agreements, and vendor support costs to manage them. With the amount of content doubling every three to six months, companies have recognized the need to manage unstructured content from the beginning, in order to increase employee productivity and operational efficiency. Using scalable and secure enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, organizations can better manage their unstructured content. These solutions can also be integrated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or research systems, making content available immediately, in the context of the application and within the flow of the employee’s typical business activity. Administrative safeguards—such as content de-duplication—can also be applied within ECM systems, so documents are never recreated, eliminating redundant efforts, ensuring one source of truth, and maintaining content standards in the organization. Putting it in context Consolidating structured and unstructured information in a single system can greatly simplify access to relevant information when it is needed through contextual search. Using contextual filters, results can include therapeutic area, position in the value chain, semantic commonalities, technology-specific factors, specific researchers involved, or potential business impact. The use of taxonomies is essential to organizing information and enabling contextual searches. Taxonomy solutions are composed of a hierarchical tree that defines the relationship between different life science terms. When overlaid with additional indexing related to research and/or business processes, it becomes possible to effectively narrow down the amount of data that is returned during searches, as well as prioritize results based on specific criteria and/or prior search history. Thus, search results are more accurate and relevant to an employee’s day-to-day work. For example, a search for the word "tissue" by a lab researcher would return significantly different results than a search for the same word performed by someone in procurement. Of course, diverse data repositories, combined with the immense amounts of data present in an organization, necessitate that the data elements be regularly indexed and cached beforehand to enable reasonable search response times. In its simplest form, indexing of a single, consolidated data warehouse can be expected to be a relatively straightforward effort. However, organizations require the ability to index multiple data repositories, enabling a single search to reference multiple data sources and provide an integrated results listing. Security and compliance Beyond yielding efficiencies and supporting new insight, an enterprise search environment can support important security considerations as well as compliance initiatives. For example, the systems enable organizations to retain the relevance and the security of the indexed systems, so users can only see the results to which they are granted access. This is especially important as life sciences companies are working in an increasingly networked environment and need to provide secure, role-based access to information across multiple partners. Although not officially required by the 21 CFR Part 11 regulation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administraiton has begun to extend the type of content considered when performing relevant audits and discoveries. Having an ECM infrastructure that provides centralized management of all content enterprise-wide—with the ability to consistently apply records and retention policies along with the appropriate controls, validations, audit trails, and electronic signatures—is becoming increasingly critical for life sciences companies. Making the move Creating an enterprise-wide ECM environment requires moving large amounts of content into a single enterprise repository, a daunting and risk-laden initiative. The first key is to focus on data taxonomy, allowing content to be mapped across systems. The second is to take advantage new tools which can dramatically speed and reduce the cost of the data migration process through automation. Additional content need not be frozen while it is migrated, enabling productivity throughout the process. The ability to effectively leverage information into success has been gaining importance in the life sciences industry for years. The rapid adoption of enterprise content management, both in operational processes as well as in scientific management, are clear indicators that the companies are looking to use all available data to be better informed, improve decision making, minimize risk, and increase time to market, to maintain profitability and be more competitive. As more and more varieties and sources of information are brought under the strategic management umbrella, the ability to divine knowledge from the vast pool of information is increasingly difficult. Simple search engines and basic content management are increasingly unable to effectively extract the right information from the mountains of data available. By bringing these tools into context and integrating them with business processes and applications, we can effectively focus on the right decisions that make our organizations more profitable. More Information Oracle will be exhibiting at DIA 2012 in Philadelphia on June 25-27. Stop by our booth 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:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} (#2825) to learn more about the advantages of a centralized ECM strategy and see the Oracle WebCenter Content solution, our 21 CFR Part 11 compliant content management platform.

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• Combining Shared Secret and Username Token – Azure Service Bus

  - by Michael Stephenson

  As discussed in the introduction article this walkthrough will explain how you can implement WCF security with the Windows Azure Service Bus to ensure that you can protect your endpoint in the cloud with a shared secret but also flow through a username token so that in your listening WCF service you will be able to identify who sent the message. This could either be in the form of an application or a user depending on how you want to use your token. Prerequisites Before going into the walk through I want to explain a few assumptions about the scenario we are implementing but to keep the article shorter I am not going to walk through all of the steps in how to setup some of this. In the solution we have a simple console application which will represent the client application. There is also the services WCF application which contains the WCF service we will expose via the Windows Azure Service Bus. The WCF Service application in this example was hosted in IIS 7 on Windows 2008 R2 with AppFabric Server installed and configured to auto-start the WCF listening services. I am not going to go through significant detail around the IIS setup because it should not matter in relation to this article however if you want to understand more about how to configure WCF and IIS for such a scenario please refer to the following paper which goes into a lot of detail about how to configure this. The link is: http://tinyurl.com/8s5nwrz   The Service Component To begin with let's look at the service component and how it can be configured to listen to the service bus using a shared secret but to also accept a username token from the client. In the sample the service component is called Acme.Azure.ServiceBus.Poc.UN.Services. It has a single service which is the Visual Studio template for a WCF service when you add a new WCF Service Application so we have a service called Service1 with its Echo method. Nothing special so far!.... The next step is to look at the web.config file to see how we have configured the WCF service. In the services section of the WCF configuration you can see I have created my service and I have created a local endpoint which I simply used to do a little bit of diagnostics and to check it was working, but more importantly there is the Windows Azure endpoint which is using the ws2007HttpRelayBinding (note that this should also work just the same if your using netTcpRelayBinding). The key points to note on the above picture are the service behavior called MyServiceBehaviour and the service bus endpoints behavior called MyEndpointBehaviour. We will go into these in more detail later.   The Relay Binding The relay binding for the service has been configured to use the TransportWithMessageCredential security mode. This is the important bit where the transport security really relates to the interaction between the service and listening to the Azure Service Bus and the message credential is where we will use our username token like we have specified in the message/clientCrentialType attribute. Note also that we have left the relayClientAuthenticationType set to RelayAccessToken. This means that authentication will be made against ACS for accessing the service bus and messages will not be accepted from any sender who has not been authenticated by ACS.   The Endpoint Behaviour In the below picture you can see the endpoint behavior which is configured to use the shared secret client credential for accessing the service bus and also for diagnostic purposes I have included the service registry element. Hopefully if you are familiar with using Windows Azure Service Bus relay feature the above is very familiar to you and this is a very common setup for this section. There is nothing specific to the username token implementation here. The Service Behaviour Now we come to the bit with most of the username token bits in it. When you configure the service behavior I have included the serviceCredentials element and then setup to use userNameAuthentication and you can see that I have created my own custom username token validator.   This setup means that WCF will hand off to my class for validating the username token details. I have also added the serviceSecurityAudit element to give me a simple auditing of access capability. My UsernamePassword Validator The below picture shows you the details of the username password validator class I have implemented. WCF will hand off to this class when validating the token and give me a nice way to check the token credentials against an on-premise store. You have all of the validation features with a non-service bus WCF implementation available such as validating the username password against active directory or ASP.net membership features or as in my case above something much simpler.   The Client Now let's take a look at the client side of this solution and how we can configure the client to authenticate against ACS but also send a username token over to the service component so it can implement additional security checks on-premise. I have a console application and in the program class I want to use the proxy generated with Add Service Reference to send a message via the Azure Service Bus. You can see in my WCF client configuration below I have setup my details for the azure service bus url and am using the ws2007HttpRelayBinding. Next is my configuration for the relay binding. You can see below I have configured security to use TransportWithMessageCredential so we will flow the username token with the message and also the RelayAccessToken relayClientAuthenticationType which means the component will validate against ACS before being allowed to access the relay endpoint to send a message.     After the binding we need to configure the endpoint behavior like in the below picture. This is the normal configuration to use a shared secret for accessing a Service Bus endpoint.   Finally below we have the code of the client in the console application which will call the service bus. You can see that we have created our proxy and then made a normal call to a WCF service but this time we have also set the ClientCredentials to use the appropriate username and password which will be flown through the service bus and to our service which will validate them.     Conclusion As you can see from the above walkthrough it is not too difficult to configure a service to use both a shared secret and username token at the same time. This gives you the power and protection offered by the access control service in the cloud but also the ability to flow additional tokens to the on-premise component for additional security features to be implemented. Sample The sample used in this post is available at the following location: https://s3.amazonaws.com/CSCBlogSamples/Acme.Azure.ServiceBus.Poc.UN.zip

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• Diving into OpenStack Network Architecture - Part 2 - Basic Use Cases

  - by Ronen Kofman

    rkofman Normal rkofman 4 138 2014-06-05T03:38:00Z 2014-06-05T05:04:00Z 3 2735 15596 Oracle Corporation 129 36 18295 12.00 Clean Clean false false false false EN-US X-NONE HE /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;} In the previous post we reviewed several network components including Open vSwitch, Network Namespaces, Linux Bridges and veth pairs. In this post we will take three simple use cases and see how those basic components come together to create a complete SDN solution in OpenStack. With those three use cases we will review almost the entire network setup and see how all the pieces work together. The use cases we will use are: 1.       Create network – what happens when we create network and how can we create multiple isolated networks 2.       Launch a VM – once we have networks we can launch VMs and connect them to networks. 3.       DHCP request from a VM – OpenStack can automatically assign IP addresses to VMs. This is done through local DHCP service controlled by OpenStack Neutron. We will see how this service runs and how does a DHCP request and response look like. In this post we will show connectivity, we will see how packets get from point A to point B. We first focus on how a configured deployment looks like and only later we will discuss how and when the configuration is created. Personally I found it very valuable to see the actual interfaces and how they connect to each other through examples and hands on experiments. After the end game is clear and we know how the connectivity works, in a later post, we will take a step back and explain how Neutron configures the components to be able to provide such connectivity.  We are going to get pretty technical shortly and I recommend trying these examples on your own deployment or using the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview. Understanding these three use cases thoroughly and how to look at them will be very helpful when trying to debug a deployment in case something does not work. Use case #1: Create Network Create network is a simple operation it can be performed from the GUI or command line. When we create a network in OpenStack the network is only available to the tenant who created it or it could be defined as “shared” and then it can be used by all tenants. A network can have multiple subnets but for this demonstration purpose and for simplicity we will assume that each network has exactly one subnet. Creating a network from the command line will look like this: # neutron net-create net1 Created a new network: +---------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | Field                     | Value                                | +---------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | admin_state_up            | True                                 | | id                        | 5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c | | name                      | net1                                 | | provider:network_type     | vlan                                 | | provider:physical_network | default                              | | provider:segmentation_id  | 1000                                 | | shared                    | False                                | | status                    | ACTIVE                               | | subnets                   |                                      | | tenant_id                 | 9796e5145ee546508939cd49ad59d51f     | +---------------------------+--------------------------------------+ Creating a subnet for this network will look like this: # neutron subnet-create net1 10.10.10.0/24 Created a new subnet: +------------------+------------------------------------------------+ | Field            | Value                                          | +------------------+------------------------------------------------+ | allocation_pools | {"start": "10.10.10.2", "end": "10.10.10.254"} | | cidr             | 10.10.10.0/24                                  | | dns_nameservers  |                                                | | enable_dhcp      | True                                           | | gateway_ip       | 10.10.10.1                                     | | host_routes      |                                                | | id               | 2d7a0a58-0674-439a-ad23-d6471aaae9bc           | | ip_version       | 4                                              | | name             |                                                | | network_id       | 5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c           | | tenant_id        | 9796e5145ee546508939cd49ad59d51f               | +------------------+------------------------------------------------+ We now have a network and a subnet, on the network topology view this looks like this: Now let’s dive in and see what happened under the hood. Looking at the control node we will discover that a new namespace was created: # ip netns list qdhcp-5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c   The name of the namespace is qdhcp-<network id> (see above), let’s look into the namespace and see what’s in it: # ip netns exec qdhcp-5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c ip addr 1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN     link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00     inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo     inet6 ::1/128 scope host        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever 12: tap26c9b807-7c: <BROADCAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN     link/ether fa:16:3e:1d:5c:81 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff     inet 10.10.10.3/24 brd 10.10.10.255 scope global tap26c9b807-7c     inet6 fe80::f816:3eff:fe1d:5c81/64 scope link        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever   We see two interfaces in the namespace, one is the loopback and the other one is an interface called “tap26c9b807-7c”. This interface has the IP address of 10.10.10.3 and it will also serve dhcp requests in a way we will see later. Let’s trace the connectivity of the “tap26c9b807-7c” interface from the namespace.  First stop is OVS, we see that the interface connects to bridge  “br-int” on OVS: # ovs-vsctl show 8a069c7c-ea05-4375-93e2-b9fc9e4b3ca1     Bridge "br-eth2"         Port "br-eth2"             Interface "br-eth2"                 type: internal         Port "eth2"             Interface "eth2"         Port "phy-br-eth2"             Interface "phy-br-eth2"     Bridge br-ex         Port br-ex             Interface br-ex                 type: internal     Bridge br-int         Port "int-br-eth2"             Interface "int-br-eth2"         Port "tap26c9b807-7c"             tag: 1             Interface "tap26c9b807-7c"                 type: internal         Port br-int             Interface br-int                 type: internal     ovs_version: "1.11.0"   In the picture above we have a veth pair which has two ends called “int-br-eth2” and "phy-br-eth2", this veth pair is used to connect two bridge in OVS "br-eth2" and "br-int". In the previous post we explained how to check the veth connectivity using the ethtool command. It shows that the two are indeed a pair: # ethtool -S int-br-eth2 NIC statistics:      peer_ifindex: 10 . .   #ip link . . 10: phy-br-eth2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000 . . Note that “phy-br-eth2” is connected to a bridge called "br-eth2" and one of this bridge's interfaces is the physical link eth2. This means that the network which we have just created has created a namespace which is connected to the physical interface eth2. eth2 is the “VM network” the physical interface where all the virtual machines connect to where all the VMs are connected. About network isolation: OpenStack supports creation of multiple isolated networks and can use several mechanisms to isolate the networks from one another. The isolation mechanism can be VLANs, VxLANs or GRE tunnels, this is configured as part of the initial setup in our deployment we use VLANs. When using VLAN tagging as an isolation mechanism a VLAN tag is allocated by Neutron from a pre-defined VLAN tags pool and assigned to the newly created network. By provisioning VLAN tags to the networks Neutron allows creation of multiple isolated networks on the same physical link.  The big difference between this and other platforms is that the user does not have to deal with allocating and managing VLANs to networks. The VLAN allocation and provisioning is handled by Neutron which keeps track of the VLAN tags, and responsible for allocating and reclaiming VLAN tags. In the example above net1 has the VLAN tag 1000, this means that whenever a VM is created and connected to this network the packets from that VM will have to be tagged with VLAN tag 1000 to go on this particular network. This is true for namespace as well, if we would like to connect a namespace to a particular network we have to make sure that the packets to and from the namespace are correctly tagged when they reach the VM network. In the example above we see that the namespace interface “tap26c9b807-7c” has vlan tag 1 assigned to it, if we examine OVS we see that it has flows which modify VLAN tag 1 to VLAN tag 1000 when a packet goes to the VM network on eth2 and vice versa. We can see this using the dump-flows command on OVS for packets going to the VM network we see the modification done on br-eth2: #  ovs-ofctl dump-flows br-eth2 NXST_FLOW reply (xid=0x4):  cookie=0x0, duration=18669.401s, table=0, n_packets=857, n_bytes=163350, idle_age=25, priority=4,in_port=2,dl_vlan=1 actions=mod_vlan_vid:1000,NORMAL  cookie=0x0, duration=165108.226s, table=0, n_packets=14, n_bytes=1000, idle_age=5343, hard_age=65534, priority=2,in_port=2 actions=drop  cookie=0x0, duration=165109.813s, table=0, n_packets=1671, n_bytes=213304, idle_age=25, hard_age=65534, priority=1 actions=NORMAL   For packets coming from the interface to the namespace we see the following modification: #  ovs-ofctl dump-flows br-int NXST_FLOW reply (xid=0x4):  cookie=0x0, duration=18690.876s, table=0, n_packets=1610, n_bytes=210752, idle_age=1, priority=3,in_port=1,dl_vlan=1000 actions=mod_vlan_vid:1,NORMAL  cookie=0x0, duration=165130.01s, table=0, n_packets=75, n_bytes=3686, idle_age=4212, hard_age=65534, priority=2,in_port=1 actions=drop  cookie=0x0, duration=165131.96s, table=0, n_packets=863, n_bytes=160727, idle_age=1, hard_age=65534, priority=1 actions=NORMAL   To summarize we can see that when a user creates a network Neutron creates a namespace and this namespace is connected through OVS to the “VM network”. OVS also takes care of tagging the packets from the namespace to the VM network with the correct VLAN tag and knows to modify the VLAN for packets coming from VM network to the namespace. Now let’s see what happens when a VM is launched and how it is connected to the “VM network”. Use case #2: Launch a VM Launching a VM can be done from Horizon or from the command line this is how we do it from Horizon: Attach the network: And Launch Once the virtual machine is up and running we can see the associated IP using the nova list command : # nova list +--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------+-------------+-----------------+ | ID                                   | Name         | Status | Task State | Power State | Networks        | +--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------+-------------+-----------------+ | 3707ac87-4f5d-4349-b7ed-3a673f55e5e1 | Oracle Linux | ACTIVE | None       | Running     | net1=10.10.10.2 | +--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------+-------------+-----------------+ The nova list command shows us that the VM is running and that the IP 10.10.10.2 is assigned to this VM. Let’s trace the connectivity from the VM to VM network on eth2 starting with the VM definition file. The configuration files of the VM including the virtual disk(s), in case of ephemeral storage, are stored on the compute node at/var/lib/nova/instances/<instance-id>/. Looking into the VM definition file ,libvirt.xml,  we see that the VM is connected to an interface called “tap53903a95-82” which is connected to a Linux bridge called “qbr53903a95-82”: <interface type="bridge">       <mac address="fa:16:3e:fe:c7:87"/>       <source bridge="qbr53903a95-82"/>       <target dev="tap53903a95-82"/>     </interface>   Looking at the bridge using the brctl show command we see this: # brctl show bridge name     bridge id               STP enabled     interfaces qbr53903a95-82          8000.7e7f3282b836       no              qvb53903a95-82                                                         tap53903a95-82    The bridge has two interfaces, one connected to the VM (“tap53903a95-82 “) and another one ( “qvb53903a95-82”) connected to “br-int” bridge on OVS: # ovs-vsctl show 83c42f80-77e9-46c8-8560-7697d76de51c     Bridge "br-eth2"         Port "br-eth2"             Interface "br-eth2"                 type: internal         Port "eth2"             Interface "eth2"         Port "phy-br-eth2"             Interface "phy-br-eth2"     Bridge br-int         Port br-int             Interface br-int                 type: internal         Port "int-br-eth2"             Interface "int-br-eth2"         Port "qvo53903a95-82"             tag: 3             Interface "qvo53903a95-82"     ovs_version: "1.11.0"   As we showed earlier “br-int” is connected to “br-eth2” on OVS using the veth pair int-br-eth2,phy-br-eth2 and br-eth2 is connected to the physical interface eth2. The whole flow end to end looks like this: VM è tap53903a95-82 (virtual interface)è qbr53903a95-82 (Linux bridge) è qvb53903a95-82 (interface connected from Linux bridge to OVS bridge br-int) è int-br-eth2 (veth one end) è phy-br-eth2 (veth the other end) è eth2 physical interface. The purpose of the Linux Bridge connecting to the VM is to allow security group enforcement with iptables. Security groups are enforced at the edge point which are the interface of the VM, since iptables nnot be applied to OVS bridges we use Linux bridge to apply them. In the future we hope to see this Linux Bridge going away rules.  VLAN tags: As we discussed in the first use case net1 is using VLAN tag 1000, looking at OVS above we see that qvo41f1ebcf-7c is tagged with VLAN tag 3. The modification from VLAN tag 3 to 1000 as we go to the physical network is done by OVS  as part of the packet flow of br-eth2 in the same way we showed before. To summarize, when a VM is launched it is connected to the VM network through a chain of elements as described here. During the packet from VM to the network and back the VLAN tag is modified. Use case #3: Serving a DHCP request coming from the virtual machine In the previous use cases we have shown that both the namespace called dhcp-<some id> and the VM end up connecting to the physical interface eth2  on their respective nodes, both will tag their packets with VLAN tag 1000.We saw that the namespace has an interface with IP of 10.10.10.3. Since the VM and the namespace are connected to each other and have interfaces on the same subnet they can ping each other, in this picture we see a ping from the VM which was assigned 10.10.10.2 to the namespace: The fact that they are connected and can ping each other can become very handy when something doesn’t work right and we need to isolate the problem. In such case knowing that we should be able to ping from the VM to the namespace and back can be used to trace the disconnect using tcpdump or other monitoring tools. To serve DHCP requests coming from VMs on the network Neutron uses a Linux tool called “dnsmasq”,this is a lightweight DNS and DHCP service you can read more about it here. If we look at the dnsmasq on the control node with the ps command we see this: dnsmasq --no-hosts --no-resolv --strict-order --bind-interfaces --interface=tap26c9b807-7c --except-interface=lo --pid-file=/var/lib/neutron/dhcp/5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c/pid --dhcp-hostsfile=/var/lib/neutron/dhcp/5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c/host --dhcp-optsfile=/var/lib/neutron/dhcp/5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c/opts --leasefile-ro --dhcp-range=tag0,10.10.10.0,static,120s --dhcp-lease-max=256 --conf-file= --domain=openstacklocal The service connects to the tap interface in the namespace (“--interface=tap26c9b807-7c”), If we look at the hosts file we see this: # cat  /var/lib/neutron/dhcp/5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c/host fa:16:3e:fe:c7:87,host-10-10-10-2.openstacklocal,10.10.10.2   If you look at the console output above you can see the MAC address fa:16:3e:fe:c7:87 which is the VM MAC. This MAC address is mapped to IP 10.10.10.2 and so when a DHCP request comes with this MAC dnsmasq will return the 10.10.10.2.If we look into the namespace at the time we initiate a DHCP request from the VM (this can be done by simply restarting the network service in the VM) we see the following: # ip netns exec qdhcp-5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c tcpdump -n 19:27:12.191280 IP 0.0.0.0.bootpc > 255.255.255.255.bootps: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from fa:16:3e:fe:c7:87, length 310 19:27:12.191666 IP 10.10.10.3.bootps > 10.10.10.2.bootpc: BOOTP/DHCP, Reply, length 325   To summarize, the DHCP service is handled by dnsmasq which is configured by Neutron to listen to the interface in the DHCP namespace. Neutron also configures dnsmasq with the combination of MAC and IP so when a DHCP request comes along it will receive the assigned IP. Summary In this post we relied on the components described in the previous post and saw how network connectivity is achieved using three simple use cases. These use cases gave a good view of the entire network stack and helped understand how an end to end connection is being made between a VM on a compute node and the DHCP namespace on the control node. One conclusion we can draw from what we saw here is that if we launch a VM and it is able to perform a DHCP request and receive a correct IP then there is reason to believe that the network is working as expected. We saw that a packet has to travel through a long list of components before reaching its destination and if it has done so successfully this means that many components are functioning properly. In the next post we will look at some more sophisticated services Neutron supports and see how they work. We will see that while there are some more components involved for the most part the concepts are the same. @RonenKofman

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• Exalogic 2.0.1 Tea Break Snippets - Creating a ModifyJeOS VirtualBox

  - by The Old Toxophilist

  Following on from my previous blog entry "Modifying the Base Template" I decided to put together a quick blog to show how to create a small VirtualBox, guest, that can be used to execute the ModifyJeOS and hence edit you templates. One of the main advantages of this is that Templates can be created away from the Exalogic Environment. For the Guest OS I chose OEL 6u3 and decided to create it as a basic server because I did not require a graphical interface but it's a simple change to create it with a GUI. Required Software Virtual Box. Oracle Enterprise Linux. Creating the VM I'll assume that the reader is experienced with Virtual Box and installing OEL and hence will make this section brief. Create VirtualBox Guest Create a new VirtualBox Guest and select oracle Linux 64 bit. Follow through the create process and select Dynamic Disk Size and the default 12GB disk size. The actual image will be a lot smaller than this but the OEL install will fail with insufficient disk space if you attempt a smaller size. Once the guest has been created attach the previously downloaded OEL 6u3 iso to the cd drive and start the guest. Install OEL On starting the guest the system will boot off the associated OEL 6u3 iso and take you through the standard installation process. Select all the appropriate information but when you reach the installation type select Basic Server because we do not need that additional packages and only need to access through the command line interface. Complete the installation and reboot the Guest. At this point we now have a basic OEL server running. Installing Guest Add-ons Before we can easily access the Guest we will need to add the VirtualBox guest add-ons. These will provide better keyboard and mouse integration and allow access the shared folders on the host machine. Before we can do this we will need to do the following: Enable Networking. Install additional rpms.  To enable the networking (eth0), that appears to be disabled by default, we can execute: ifup eth0 This will start the eth0 connection but once the Guest is rebooted the network will be down again. To resolve this you will need to edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file and change the ONBOOT parameter to "yes". Now we have enabled the network we will need to install a number of addition rpm. First we will need to configure the yum repository as follows: [ol6_latest] name=Oracle Linux $releasever Latest ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/latest/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 [ol6_ga_base] name=Oracle Linux $releasever GA installation media copy ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/0/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 [ol6_u1_base] name=Oracle Linux $releasever Update 1 installation media copy ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/1/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 [ol6_u2_base] name=Oracle Linux $releasever Update 2 installation media copy ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/2/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 [ol6_u3_base] name=Oracle Linux $releasever Update 3 installation media copy ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/3/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 [ol6_UEK_latest] name=Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux $releasever ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEK/latest/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 [ol6_UEK_base] name=Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux $releasever ($basearch) baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEK/base/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 Once the repository has been edited we will need to execute the following yum commands: yum update yum install gcc yum install kernel-uek-devel yum install kernel-devel yum install createrepo At this point we now have all the additional packages required to install the VirtualBox Guest Add-ons. So select Devices->InstallGuest Additions on you running guest: This will simply place the VirtualBoxGuestAdditions.iso in the virtual cd and we will need to execute the following before we can run them. mkdir /media/cdrom mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom cd /media/cdrom/ ls ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run This will initiate the install and kernel rebuild. What you will notice is that during the installation a Failed will be displayed but this is simply because we have no graphical components. At this point we the installation will also have added the vboxsf group to the system and to access any shared folders we will create our user will need to be a member of this group an so the next stage is to add the root user to this group as follows: usermod -G vboxsf root cat /etc/group cat /etc/passwd init 0 Now simply shutdown the guest and add the Shared folder within your guests settings. Install ModifyJeOS Once the shared folder has been added restart the guest and change directory into the shared folder (/media/sf_<folder name>). For the next step I am assuming the ModifyJeOS rpms are located in the shared folder. We can simply execute: rpm -ivh ovm-modify-jeos-1.1.0-17.el5.noarch.rpm # Test with modifyjeos Using ModifyJeOS I have a modified MountSystemImg.sh script that should be copied into the /root/bin directory (you may need to create this) and from here it can be executed from any location: MountSystemImg.sh #!/bin/sh # The script assumes it's being run from the directory containing the System.img # Export for later i.e. during unmount export LOOP=`losetup -f` export SYSTEMIMG=/mnt/elsystem export TEMPLATEDIR=`pwd` # Make Temp Mount Directory mkdir -p $SYSTEMIMG # Create Loop for the System Image losetup $LOOP System.img kpartx -a $LOOP mount /dev/mapper/`basename $LOOP`p2 $SYSTEMIMG #Change Dir into mounted Image cd $SYSTEMIMG echo "######################################################################" echo "### ###" echo "### Starting Bash shell for editing. When completed log out to ###" echo "### Unmount the System.img file. ###" echo "### ###" echo "######################################################################" echo bash cd ~ cd $TEMPLATEDIR umount $SYSTEMIMG kpartx -d $LOOP losetup -d $LOOP rm -rf $SYSTEMIMG This script will simple create a mount directory, mount the System.img and then start a new shell in the mounted directory. On exiting the shell it will unmount the System.img. It only requires that you execute the script in the directory containing the System.img. These can be created under the mounted shared directory. In the example below I have extracted the Base template within the shared folder and then renamed it OEL_40GB_ROOT before changing into that directory and executing the script.

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• ApiChange Is Released!

  - by Alois Kraus

  I have been working on little tool to simplify my life and perhaps yours as developer as well. It is basically a command line tool that allows you to execute queries on your compiled .NET code base. The main purpose is to find out how big the impact of an api change would be if you changed this or that.  Now you can do high level operations like Diff public types for breaking changes. Who uses a method? Who uses a type? Who uses implements an interface? Who references me? What format has the binary  (32/64, Managed C++, Pure IL, Unmanaged)? Search for all event subscribers and unsubscribers. A unique feature is to check for event subscription imbalances. Forgotten event subscriptions are the 90% cause of managed memory leaks. It is done at a per class level. If one class does subscribe to one event more often than it does unsubscribe it is treated as possible event subscription imbalance. Another unique ability is to search for users of string literals which allows you to track users of a string constant which is not possible otherwise. For incremental builds the ShowRebuildTargets command can be used to identify the dependant targets that need a rebuild after you did compile one assembly. It has some heuristics in place to determine the impact of breaking changes and finds out which targets need to be recompiled as well. It has a ton of other features and a an API to access these things programmatically so you can build upon these simple queries create even better tools. Perhaps we get a Visual Studio plug in? You can download it from CodePlex here. It works via XCopy deployment. Simply let it run and check the command line help out. The best feature in my opinion is that the output of nearly all commands can be piped to Excel for further analysis. Since it does read also the pdbs it can show you the source file name and line number as well for all matches. The following picture shows the output of a –WhousesType query. The following command checks where type from BaseLibraryV1.dll are used inside DependantLibV1.dll. All matches are printed out with the reason and matching item along with file and line number. There is even a hyper link to the match which will open Visual Studio. ApiChange -whousestype "*" BaseLibraryV1.dll -in DependantLibV1.dll –excel The "*” is the actual query which means all types. The syntax is the same like in C# just that placeholders are allowed ;-). More info's can be found at the Codeplex Documentation.     The tool was developed in a TDD style manner which means that it is heavily tested and already used by a quite large user base inside the company I do work for. Luckily for you I got the permission to make it public so you take advantage of it. It is fully instrumented with tracing. If you find bugs simply add the –trace command line switch to find out what is failing and send me the output. How is it done? Your first guess might be that it uses reflection. Wrong. It is based on Mono Cecil a free IL parser with a fantastic API to access all internals of a managed assembly. The speed is awesome and to make it even faster I did make the tool heavily multi threaded. The query above did execute in 1.8s with the Excel output. On a rather slow machine I can analyze over 1500 assemblies in less than 40s with a very low memory consumption. The true power of Mono Cecil is that I can load an assembly like any other data file. I have no problems unloading a file but if I would have used reflection I would need to unload a whole AppDomain just to get rid of one assembly in my memory. Just to give you a glimpse how ApiChange.Api.dll can be used I show you one of the unit tests:           public void Can_Find_GenericMethodInvocations_With_Type_Parameters()         { // 1. Create an aggregator to collect our matches             UsageQueryAggregator agg = new UsageQueryAggregator();   // 2. This is the type we want to search for. Load it via the type query             var decimalType = TypeQuery.GetTypeByName(TestConstants.MscorlibAssembly, "System.Decimal");   // 3. register the type query which searches for uses of the Decimal type             new WhoUsesType(agg, decimalType);   // 4. Search for all users of the Decimal type in the DependandLibV1Assembly             agg.Analyze(TestConstants.DependandLibV1Assembly);   // Extract matches and assert             Assert.AreEqual(2, agg.MethodMatches.Count, "Method match count");             Assert.AreEqual("UseGenericMethod", agg.MethodMatches[0].Match.Name);             Assert.AreEqual("UseGenericMethod", agg.MethodMatches[1].Match.Name);         } Many thanks go from here to Jb Evian for the creation of Mono.Cecil. Without this fantastic piece of code it would have been much much harder. There are other options around like the Common Compiler Infrastructure  Metadata Api which should do the same thing but it was not a real option since the Microsoft reader did fail on even simple assemblies (at least in September 2009 this was the case). Besides this I found the CCI Apis much harder to use. The only real competitor was Reflector which does support many things but does not let me access his cool high level analyze commands. So I decided to dig into the IL specs and as a result you can query your compiled binaries from the command line or programmatically. The best thing is you try it out for yourself and give me some feedback what you miss. If you want to contribute or have a cool idea what should be added drop me a mail at A Kraus1@___No [email protected]. There is much more inside the tool I did not talk about it (yet).

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• BizTalk: Internals: the Partner Direct Ports and the Orchestration Chains

  - by Leonid Ganeline

  Partner Direct Port is one of the BizTalk hidden gems. It opens simple ways to the several messaging patterns. This article based on the Kevin Lam’s blog article. The article is pretty detailed but it still leaves several unclear pieces. So I have created a sample and will show how it works from different perspectives. Requirements We should create an orchestration chain where the messages should be routed from the first stage to the second stage. The messages should not be modified. All messages has the same message type. Common artifacts Source code can be downloaded here. It is interesting but all orchestrations use only one port type. It is possible because all ports are one-way ports and use only one operation. I have added a B orchestration. It helps to test the sample, showing all test messages in channel. The Receive shape Filter is empty. A Receive Port (R_Shema1Direct) is a plain Direct Port. As you can see, a subscription expression of this direct port has only one part, the MessageType for our test schema: A Filer is empty but, as you know, a link from the Receive shape to the Port creates this MessageType expression. I use only one Physical Receive File port to send a message to all processes. Each orchestration outputs a Trace.WriteLine(“<Orchestration Name>”). Forward Binding This sample has three orchestrations: A_1, A_21 and A_22. A_1 is a sender, A_21 and A_22 are receivers. Here is a subscription of the A_1 orchestration: It has two parts A MessageType. The same was for the B orchestration. A ReceivePortID. There was no such parameter for the B orchestration. It was created because I have bound the orchestration port with Physical Receive File port. This binding means the PortID parameter is added to the subscription. How to set up the ports? All ports involved in the message exchange should be the same port type. It forces us to use the same operation and the same message type for the bound ports. This step as absolutely contra-intuitive. We have to choose a Partner Orchestration parameter for the sending orchestration, A_1. The first strange thing is it is not a partner orchestration we have to choose but an orchestration port. But the most strange thing is we have to choose exactly this orchestration and exactly this port.It is not a port from the partner, receive orchestrations, A_21 or A_22, but it is A_1 orchestration and S_SentFromA_1 port. Now we have to choose a Partner Orchestration parameter for the received orchestrations, A_21 and A_22. Nothing strange is here except a parameter name. We choose the port of the sender, A_1 orchestration and S_SentFromA_1 port. As you can see the Partner Orchestration parameter for the sender and receiver orchestrations is the same. Testing I dropped a test file in a file folder. There we go: A dropped file was received by B and by A_1 A_1 sent a message forward. A message was received by B, A_21, A_22 Let’s look at a context of a message sent by A_1 on the second step: A MessageType part. It is quite expected. A PartnerService, a ParnerPort, an Operation. All those parameters were set up in the Partner Orchestration parameter on both bound ports.     Now let’s see a subscription of the A_21 and A_22 orchestrations. Now it makes sense. That’s why we have chosen such a strange value for the Partner Orchestration parameter of the sending orchestration. Inverse Binding This sample has three orchestrations: A_11, A_12 and A_2. A_11 and A_12 are senders, A_2 is receiver. How to set up the ports? All ports involved in the message exchange should be the same port type. It forces us to use the same operation and the same message type for the bound ports. This step as absolutely contra-intuitive. We have to choose a Partner Orchestration parameter for a receiving orchestration, A_2. The first strange thing is it is not a partner orchestration we have to choose but an orchestration port. But the most strange thing is we have to choose exactly this orchestration and exactly this port.It is not a port from the partner, sent orchestrations, A_11 or A_12, but it is A_2 orchestration and R_SentToA_2 port. Now we have to choose a Partner Orchestration parameter for the sending orchestrations, A_11 and A_12. Nothing strange is here except a parameter name. We choose the port of the sender, A_2 orchestration and R_SentToA_2 port. Testing I dropped a test file in a file folder. There we go: A dropped file was received by B, A_11 and by A_12 A_11 and A_12 sent two messages forward. The messages were received by B, A_2 Let’s see what was a context of a message sent by A_1 on the second step: A MessageType part. It is quite expected. A PartnerService, a ParnerPort, an Operation. All those parameters were set up in the Partner Orchestration parameter on both bound ports. Here is a subscription of the A_2 orchestration. Models I had a hard time trying to explain the Partner Direct Ports in simple terms. I have finished with this model: Forward Binding Receivers know a Sender. Sender doesn’t know Receivers. Publishers know a Subscriber. Subscriber doesn’t know Publishers. 1 –> 1 1 –> M Inverse Binding Senders know a Receiver. Receiver doesn’t know Senders. Subscribers know a Publisher. Publisher doesn’t know Subscribers. 1 –> 1 M –> 1 Notes   Orchestration chain It’s worth to note, the Partner Direct Port Binding creates a chain opened from one side and closed from another. The Forward Binding: A new Receiver can be added at run-time. The Sender can not be changed without design-time changes in Receivers. The Inverse Binding: A new Sender can be added at run-time. The Receiver can not be changed without design-time changes in Senders.

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