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• Some notes on Reflector 7

  - by CliveT

  Both Bart and I have blogged about some of the changes that we (and other members of the team) have made to .NET Reflector for version 7, including the new tabbed browsing model, the inclusion of Jason Haley's PowerCommands add-in and some improvements to decompilation such as handling iterator blocks. The intention of this blog post is to cover all of the main new features in one place, and to describe the three new editions of .NET Reflector 7. If you'd simply like to try out the latest version of the beta for yourself you can do so here. Three new editions .NET Reflector 7 will come in three new editions: .NET Reflector .NET Reflector VS .NET Reflector VSPro The first edition is just the standalone Windows application. The latter two editions include the Windows application, but also add the power of Reflector into Visual Studio so that you can save time switching tools and quickly get to the bottom of a debugging issue that involves third-party code. Let's take a look at some of the new features in each edition. Tabbed browsing .NET Reflector now has a tabbed browsing model, in which the individual tabs have independent histories. You can open a new tab to view the selected object by using CTRL+CLICK. I've found this really useful when I'm investigating a particular piece of code but then want to focus on some other methods that I find along the way. For version 7, we wanted to implement the basic idea of tabs to see whether it is something that users will find helpful. If it is something that enhances productivity, we will add more tab-based features in a future version. PowerCommands add-in We have also included Jason Haley's PowerCommands add-in as part of version 7. This add-in provides a number of useful commands, including support for opening .xap files and extracting the constituent assemblies, and a query editor that allows C# queries to be written and executed against the Reflector object model . All of the PowerCommands features can be turned on from the options menu. We will be really interested to see what people are finding useful for further integration into the main tool in the future. My personal favourite part of the PowerCommands add-in is the query editor. You can set up as many of your own queries as you like, but we provide 25 to get you started. These do useful things like listing all extension methods in a given assembly, and displaying other lower-level information, such as the number of times that a given method uses the box IL instruction. These queries can be extracted and then executed from the 'Run Query' context menu within the assembly explorer. Moreover, the queries can be loaded, modified, and saved using the built-in editor, allowing very specific user customization and sharing of queries. The PowerCommands add-in contains many other useful utilities. For example, you can open an item using an external application, work with enumeration bit flags, or generate assembly binding redirect files. You can see Bart's earlier post for a more complete list. .NET Reflector VS .NET Reflector VS adds a brand new Reflector object browser into Visual Studio to save you time opening .NET Reflector separately and browsing for an object. A 'Decompile and Explore' option is also added to the context menu of references in the Solution Explorer, so you don't need to leave Visual Studio to look through decompiled code. We've also added some simple navigation features to allow you to move through the decompiled code as quickly and easily as you can in .NET Reflector. When this is selected, the add-in decompiles the given assembly, Once the decompilation has finished, a clone of the Reflector assembly explorer can be used inside Visual Studio. When Reflector generates the source code, it records the location information. You can therefore navigate from the source file to other decompiled source using the 'Go To Definition' context menu item. This then takes you to the definition in another decompiled assembly. .NET Reflector VSPro .NET Reflector VSPro builds on the features in .NET Reflector VS to add the ability to debug any source code you decompile. When you decompile with .NET Reflector VSPro, a matching .pdb is generated, so you can use Visual Studio to debug the source code as if it were part of the project. You can now use all the standard debugging techniques that you are used to in the Visual Studio debugger, and step through decompiled code as if it were your own. Again, you can select assemblies for decompilation. They are then decompiled. And then you can debug as if they were one of your own source code files. The future of .NET Reflector As I have mentioned throughout this post, most of the new features in version 7 are exploratory steps and we will be watching feedback closely. Although we don't want to speculate now about any other new features or bugs that will or won't be fixed in the next few versions of .NET Reflector, Bart has mentioned in a previous post that there are lots of improvements we intend to make. We plan to do this with great care and without taking anything away from the simplicity of the core product. User experience is something that we pride ourselves on at Red Gate, and it is clear that Reflector is still a long way off our usual standards. We plan for the next few versions of Reflector to be worked on by some of our top usability specialists who have been involved with our other market-leading products such as the ANTS Profilers and SQL Compare. I re-iterate the need for the really great simple mode in .NET Reflector to remain intact regardless of any other improvements we are planning to make. I really hope that you enjoy using some of the new features in version 7 and that Reflector continues to be your favourite .NET development tool for a long time to come.

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• Mocking HttpContext with JustMock

  - by mehfuzh

  In post , i will show a test code that will mock the various elements needed to complete a HTTP page request and  assert the expected page cycle steps. To begin, i have a simple enumeration that has my predefined page steps: public enum PageStep {     PreInit,     Load,     PreRender,     UnLoad } Once doing so, i  first created the page object [not mocking]. Page page = new Page(); Here, our target is to fire up the page process though ProcessRequest call, now if we take a look inside method though reflector, we will find calls stack like : ProcessRequest –> ProcessRequestWithNoAssert –> SetInstrinsics –> Finallly ProcessRequest. Inside SetIntrinsics , where it requires calls from HttpRequest, HttpResponse and HttpBrowserCababilities. With this , we can easily know what are classes / calls  we need to mock in order to get though the expected call. Accordingly, for  HttpBrowserCapabilities our required test code will look like: Mock.Arrange(() => browser.PreferredRenderingMime).Returns("text/html"); Mock.Arrange(() => browser.PreferredResponseEncoding).Returns("UTF-8"); Mock.Arrange(() => browser.PreferredRequestEncoding).Returns("UTF-8"); Now, HttpBrowserCapabilities is get though [Instance]HttpRequest.Browser. Therefore, we create the HttpRequest mock: var request = Mock.Create<HttpRequest>(); Then , add the required get call : Mock.Arrange(() => request.Browser).Returns(browser); As, [instance]Browser.PerferrredResponseEncoding and [instance]Browser.PreferredResponseEncoding  are also set to the request object and to make that they are set properly, we can add the following lines as well [not required though]. bool requestContentEncodingSet = false; Mock.ArrangeSet(() => request.ContentEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("UTF-8")).DoInstead(() =>  requestContentEncodingSet = true); Similarly, for response we can write:  var response = Mock.Create<HttpResponse>();    bool responseContentEncodingSet = false;  Mock.ArrangeSet(() => response.ContentEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("UTF-8")).DoInstead(() => responseContentEncodingSet = true); Finally , I created a mock of HttpContext and set the Request and Response properties that will returns the mocked version. var context = Mock.Create<HttpContext>();   Mock.Arrange(() => context.Request).Returns(request); Mock.Arrange(() => context.Response).Returns(response); As, Page internally calls RenderControl method , we just need to replace that with our one and optionally we can check if  invoked properly: bool rendered = false; Mock.Arrange(() => page.RenderControl(Arg.Any<HtmlTextWriter>())).DoInstead(() => rendered = true); That’s  it, the rest of the code is simple,  where  i asserted the page cycle with the PageSteps that i defined earlier: var pageSteps = new Queue<PageStep>();    page.PreInit +=      delegate      {          pageSteps.Enqueue(PageStep.PreInit);      };  page.Load +=      delegate      {          pageSteps.Enqueue(PageStep.Load);      };    page.PreRender +=      delegate      {          pageSteps.Enqueue(PageStep.PreRender);      };    page.Unload +=      delegate      {          pageSteps.Enqueue(PageStep.UnLoad);      };    page.ProcessRequest(context);    Assert.True(requestContentEncodingSet);  Assert.True(responseContentEncodingSet);  Assert.True(rendered);    Assert.Equal(pageSteps.Dequeue(), PageStep.PreInit);  Assert.Equal(pageSteps.Dequeue(), PageStep.Load);  Assert.Equal(pageSteps.Dequeue(), PageStep.PreRender);  Assert.Equal(pageSteps.Dequeue(), PageStep.UnLoad);    Mock.Assert(request);  Mock.Assert(response);   You can get the test class shown in this post here to give a try by yourself with of course JustMock. Enjoy!!

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• Amanda Todd&ndash;What Parents Can Learn From Her Story

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Amanda Todd was a bullied teenager who committed suicide this week. Her story has become headline news due in part to her You Tube video she posted telling her story:   The story is heartbreaking for so many reasons, but I wanted to talk about what we as parents can learn from this. Being the dad to two girls, one that’s 10, I’m very aware of the dangers that the internet holds. When I saw her story, one thing jumped out at me – unmonitored internet access at an early age. My daughter (then 9) came home from a friends place once and asked if she could be in a YouTube video with her friend. Apparently this friend was allowed to do whatever she wanted on the internet, including posting goofy videos. This set off warning bells and we ensured our daughter realized the dangers and that she was not to ever post videos of herself. In looking at Amanda’s story, the access to unmonitored internet time along with just being a young girl and being flattered by an online predator were the key events that ultimately led to her suicide. Yes, the reaction of her classmates and “friends” was horrible as well, I’m not diluting that. But our youth don’t fully understand yet that what they do on the internet today will follow them potentially forever. And the people they meet online aren’t necessarily who they claim to be. So what can we as parents learn from Amanda’s story? Parents Shouldn’t Feel Bad About Being Internet Police Our job as parents is in part to protect our kids and keep them safe, even if they don’t like our measures. This includes monitoring, supervising, and restricting their internet activities. In our house we have a family computer in the living room that the kids can watch videos and surf the web. It’s in plain view of everyone, so you can’t hide what you’re looking at. If our daughter goes to a friend’s place, we ask about what they did and what they played. If the computer comes up, we ask about what they did on it. Luckily our daughter is very up front and honest in telling us things, so we have very open discussions. Parents Need to Be Honest About the Dangers of the Internet I’m sure every generation says that “kids grow up so fast these days”, but in our case the internet really does push our kids to be exposed to things they otherwise wouldn’t experience. One wrong word in a Google search, a click of a link in a spam email, or just general curiosity can expose a child to things they aren’t ready for or should never be exposed to (and I’m not just talking about adult material – have you seen some of the graphic pictures from war zones posted on news sites recently?). Our stance as parents has been to be open about discussing the dangers with our kids before they encounter any content – be proactive instead of reactionary. Part of this is alerting them to the monsters that lurk on the internet as well. As kids explore the world wide web, they’re eventually going to encounter some chat room or some Facebook friend invite or other personal connection with someone. More than ever kids need to be educated on the dangers of engaging with people online and sharing personal information. You can think of it as an evolved discussion that our parents had with us about using the phone: “Don’t say ‘I’m home alone’, don’t say when mom or dad get home, don’t tell them any information, etc.” Parents Need to Talk Self Worth at Home Katie makes the point better than I ever could (one bad word towards the end): Our children need to understand their value beyond what the latest issue of TigerBeat says, or the media who continues flaunting physical attributes over intelligence and character, or a society that puts focus on status and wealth. They also have to realize that just because someone pays you a compliment, that doesn’t mean you should ignore personal boundaries and limits. What does this have to do with the internet? Well, in days past if you wanted to be social you had to go out somewhere. Now you can video chat with any number of people from the comfort of wherever your laptop happens to be – and not just text but full HD video with sound! While innocent children head online in the hopes of meeting cool people, predators with bad intentions are heading online too. As much as we try to monitor their online activity and be honest about the dangers of the internet, the human side of our kids isn’t something we can control. But we can try to influence them to see themselves as not needing to search out the acceptance of complete strangers online. Way easier said than done, but ensuring self-worth is something discussed, encouraged, and celebrated is a step in the right direction. Parental Wake Up Call This post is not a critique of Amanda’s parents. The reality is that cyber bullying/abuse is happening every day, and there are millions of parents that have no clue its happening to their children. Amanda’s story is a wake up call that our children’s online activities may be putting them in danger. My heart goes out to the parents of this girl. As a father of daughters, I can’t imagine what I would do if I found my daughter having to hide in a ditch to avoid a mob or call 911 to report my daughter had attempted suicide by drinking bleach or deal with a child turning to drugs/alcohol/cutting to cope. It would be horrendous if we as parents didn’t re-evaluate our family internet policies in light of this event. And in the end, Amanda’s video was meant to bring attention to her plight and encourage others going through the same thing. We may not be kids, but we can still honour her memory by helping safeguard our children.

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• J2EE Applications, SPARC T4, Solaris Containers, and Resource Pools

  - by user12620111

  I've obtained a substantial performance improvement on a SPARC T4-2 Server running a J2EE Application Server Cluster by deploying the cluster members into Oracle Solaris Containers and binding those containers to cores of the SPARC T4 Processor. This is not a surprising result, in fact, it is consistent with other results that are available on the Internet. See the "references", below, for some examples. Nonetheless, here is a summary of my configuration and results. (1.0) Before deploying a J2EE Application Server Cluster into a virtualized environment, many decisions need to be made. I'm not claiming that all of the decisions that I have a made will work well for every environment. In fact, I'm not even claiming that all of the decisions are the best possible for my environment. I'm only claiming that of the small sample of configurations that I've tested, this is the one that is working best for me. Here are some of the decisions that needed to be made: (1.1) Which virtualization option? There are several virtualization options and isolation levels that are available. Options include: Hard partitions:  Dynamic Domains on Sun SPARC Enterprise M-Series Servers Hypervisor based virtualization such as Oracle VM Server for SPARC (LDOMs) on SPARC T-Series Servers OS Virtualization using Oracle Solaris Containers Resource management tools in the Oracle Solaris OS to control the amount of resources an application receives, such as CPU cycles, physical memory, and network bandwidth. Oracle Solaris Containers provide the right level of isolation and flexibility for my environment. To borrow some words from my friends in marketing, "The SPARC T4 processor leverages the unique, no-cost virtualization capabilities of Oracle Solaris Zones"  (1.2) How to associate Oracle Solaris Containers with resources? There are several options available to associate containers with resources, including (a) resource pool association (b) dedicated-cpu resources and (c) capped-cpu resources. I chose to create resource pools and associate them with the containers because I wanted explicit control over the cores and virtual processors.  (1.3) Cluster Topology? Is it best to deploy (a) multiple application servers on one node, (b) one application server on multiple nodes, or (c) multiple application servers on multiple nodes? After a few quick tests, it appears that one application server per Oracle Solaris Container is a good solution. (1.4) Number of cluster members to deploy? I chose to deploy four big 64-bit application servers. I would like go back a test many 32-bit application servers, but that is left for another day. (2.0) Configuration tested. (2.1) I was using a SPARC T4-2 Server which has 2 CPU and 128 virtual processors. To understand the physical layout of the hardware on Solaris 10, I used the OpenSolaris psrinfo perl script available at http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/download/Community+Group+performance/files/psrinfo.pl: test# ./psrinfo.pl -pv The physical processor has 8 cores and 64 virtual processors (0-63) The core has 8 virtual processors (0-7)   The core has 8 virtual processors (8-15)   The core has 8 virtual processors (16-23)   The core has 8 virtual processors (24-31)   The core has 8 virtual processors (32-39)   The core has 8 virtual processors (40-47)   The core has 8 virtual processors (48-55)   The core has 8 virtual processors (56-63)     SPARC-T4 (chipid 0, clock 2848 MHz) The physical processor has 8 cores and 64 virtual processors (64-127)   The core has 8 virtual processors (64-71)   The core has 8 virtual processors (72-79)   The core has 8 virtual processors (80-87)   The core has 8 virtual processors (88-95)   The core has 8 virtual processors (96-103)   The core has 8 virtual processors (104-111)   The core has 8 virtual processors (112-119)   The core has 8 virtual processors (120-127)     SPARC-T4 (chipid 1, clock 2848 MHz) (2.2) The "before" test: without processor binding. I started with a 4-member cluster deployed into 4 Oracle Solaris Containers. Each container used a unique gigabit Ethernet port for HTTP traffic. The containers shared a 10 gigabit Ethernet port for JDBC traffic. (2.3) The "after" test: with processor binding. I ran one application server in the Global Zone and another application server in each of the three non-global zones (NGZ):  (3.0) Configuration steps. The following steps need to be repeated for all three Oracle Solaris Containers. (3.1) Stop AppServers from the BUI. (3.2) Stop the NGZ. test# ssh test-z2 init 5 (3.3) Enable resource pools: test# svcadm enable pools (3.4) Create the resource pool: test# poolcfg -dc 'create pool pool-test-z2' (3.5) Create the processor set: test# poolcfg -dc 'create pset pset-test-z2' (3.6) Specify the maximum number of CPU's that may be addd to the processor set: test# poolcfg -dc 'modify pset pset-test-z2 (uint pset.max=32)' (3.7) bash syntax to add Virtual CPUs to the processor set: test# (( i = 64 )); while (( i < 96 )); do poolcfg -dc "transfer to pset pset-test-z2 (cpu $i)"; (( i = i + 1 )) ; done (3.8) Associate the resource pool with the processor set: test# poolcfg -dc 'associate pool pool-test-z2 (pset pset-test-z2)' (3.9) Tell the zone to use the resource pool that has been created: test# zonecfg -z test-z1 set pool=pool-test-z2 (3.10) Boot the Oracle Solaris Container test# zoneadm -z test-z2 boot (3.11) Save the configuration to /etc/pooladm.conf test# pooladm -s (4.0) Results. Using the resource pools improves both throughput and response time: (5.0) References: System Administration Guide: Oracle Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Oracle Solaris Zones Capitalizing on large numbers of processors with WebSphere Portal on Solaris WebSphere Application Server and T5440 (Dileep Kumar's Weblog)  http://www.brendangregg.com/zones.html Reuters Market Data System, RMDS 6 Multiple Instances (Consolidated), Performance Test Results in Solaris, Containers/Zones Environment on Sun Blade X6270 by Amjad Khan, 2009.

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• Using Sitecore RenderingContext Parameters as MVC controller action arguments

  - by Kyle Burns

  I have been working with the Technical Preview of Sitecore 6.6 on a project and have been for the most part happy with the way that Sitecore (which truly is an MVC implementation unto itself) has been expanded to support ASP.NET MVC. That said, getting up to speed with the combined platform has not been entirely without stumbles and today I want to share one area where Sitecore could have really made things shine from the "it just works" perspective. A couple days ago I was asked by a colleague about the usage of the "Parameters" field that is defined on Sitecore's Controller Rendering data template. Based on the standard way that Sitecore handles a field named Parameters, I was able to deduce that the field expected key/value pairs separated by the "&" character, but beyond that I wasn't sure and didn't see anything from a documentation perspective to guide me, so it was time to dig and find out where the data in the field was made available. My first thought was that it would be really nice if Sitecore handled the parameters in this field consistently with the way that ASP.NET MVC handles the various parameter collections on the HttpRequest object and automatically maps them to parameters of the action method executing. Being the hopeful sort, I configured a name/value pair on one of my renderings, added a parameter with matching name to the controller action and fired up the bugger to see... that the parameter was not populated. Having established that the field's value was not going to be presented to me the way that I had hoped it would, the next assumption that I would work on was that Sitecore would handle this field similar to how they handle other similar data and would plug it into some ambient object that I could reference from within the controller method. After a considerable amount of guessing, testing, and cracking code open with Redgate's Reflector (a must-have companion to Sitecore documentation), I found that the most direct way to access the parameter was through the ambient RenderingContext object using code similar to: string myArgument = string.Empty; var rc = Sitecore.Mvc.Presentation.RenderingContext.CurrentOrNull; if (rc != null) {     var parms = rc.Rendering.Parameters;     myArgument = parms["myArgument"]; } At this point, we know how this field is used out of the box from Sitecore and can provide information from Sitecore's Content Editor that will be available when the controller action is executing, but it feels a little dirty. In order to properly test the action method I would have to do a lot of setup work and possible use an isolation framework such as Pex and Moles to get at a value that my action method is dependent upon. Notice I said that my method is dependent upon the value but in order to meet that dependency I've accepted another dependency upon Sitecore's RenderingContext.  I'm a big believer in, when possible, ensuring that any piece of code explicitly advertises dependencies using the method signature, so I found myself still wanting this to work the same as if the parameters were in the request route, querystring, or form by being able to add a myArgument parameter to the action method and have this parameter populated by the framework. Lucky for us, the ASP.NET MVC framework is extremely flexible and provides some easy to grok and use extensibility points. ASP.NET MVC is able to provide information from the request as input parameters to controller actions because it uses objects which implement an interface called IValueProvider and have been registered to service the application. The most basic statement of responsibility for an IValueProvider implementation is "I know about some data which is indexed by key. If you hand me the key for a piece of data that I know about I give you that data". When preparing to invoke a controller action, the framework queries registered IValueProvider implementations with the name of each method argument to see if the ValueProvider can supply a value for the parameter. (the rest of this post will assume you're working along and make a lot more sense if you do) Let's pull Sitecore out of the equation for a second to simplify things and create an extremely simple IValueProvider implementation. For this example, I first create a new ASP.NET MVC3 project in Visual Studio, selecting "Internet Application" and otherwise taking defaults (I'm assuming that anyone reading this far in the post either already knows how to do this or will need to take a quick run through one of the many available basic MVC tutorials such as the MVC Music Store). Once the new project is created, go to the Index action of HomeController.  This action sets a Message property on the ViewBag to "Welcome to ASP.NET MVC!" and invokes the View, which has been coded to display the Message. For our example, we will remove the hard coded message from this controller (although we'll leave it just as hard coded somewhere else - this is sample code). For the first step in our exercise, add a string parameter to the Index action method called welcomeMessage and use the value of this argument to set the ViewBag.Message property. The updated Index action should look like: public ActionResult Index(string welcomeMessage) {     ViewBag.Message = welcomeMessage;     return View(); } This represents the entirety of the change that you will make to either the controller or view.  If you run the application now, the home page will display and no message will be presented to the user because no value was supplied to the Action method. Let's now write a ValueProvider to ensure this parameter gets populated. We'll start by creating a new class called StaticValueProvider. When the class is created, we'll update the using statements to ensure that they include the following: using System.Collections.Specialized; using System.Globalization; using System.Web.Mvc; With the appropriate using statements in place, we'll update the StaticValueProvider class to implement the IValueProvider interface. The System.Web.Mvc library already contains a pretty flexible dictionary-like implementation called NameValueCollectionValueProvider, so we'll just wrap that and let it do most of the real work for us. The completed class looks like: public class StaticValueProvider : IValueProvider {     private NameValueCollectionValueProvider _wrappedProvider;     public StaticValueProvider(ControllerContext controllerContext)     {         var parameters = new NameValueCollection();         parameters.Add("welcomeMessage", "Hello from the value provider!");         _wrappedProvider = new NameValueCollectionValueProvider(parameters, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);     }     public bool ContainsPrefix(string prefix)     {         return _wrappedProvider.ContainsPrefix(prefix);     }     public ValueProviderResult GetValue(string key)     {         return _wrappedProvider.GetValue(key);     } } Notice that the only entry in the collection matches the name of the argument to our HomeController's Index action.  This is the important "secret sauce" that will make things work. We've got our new value provider now, but that's not quite enough to be finished. Mvc obtains IValueProvider instances using factories that are registered when the application starts up. These factories extend the abstract ValueProviderFactory class by initializing and returning the appropriate implementation of IValueProvider from the GetValueProvider method. While I wouldn't do so in production code, for the sake of this example, I'm going to add the following class definition within the StaticValueProvider.cs source file: public class StaticValueProviderFactory : ValueProviderFactory {     public override IValueProvider GetValueProvider(ControllerContext controllerContext)     {         return new StaticValueProvider(controllerContext);     } } Now that we have a factory, we can register it by adding the following line to the end of the Application_Start method in Global.asax.cs: ValueProviderFactories.Factories.Add(new StaticValueProviderFactory()); If you've done everything right to this point, you should be able to run the application and be presented with the home page reading "Hello from the value provider!". Now that you have the basics of the IValueProvider down, you have everything you need to enhance your Sitecore MVC implementation by adding an IValueProvider that exposes values from the ambient RenderingContext's Parameters property. I'll provide the code for the IValueProvider implementation (which should look VERY familiar) and you can use the work we've already done as a reference to create and register the factory: public class RenderingContextValueProvider : IValueProvider {     private NameValueCollectionValueProvider _wrappedProvider = null;     public RenderingContextValueProvider(ControllerContext controllerContext)     {         var collection = new NameValueCollection();         var rc = RenderingContext.CurrentOrNull;         if (rc != null && rc.Rendering != null)         {             foreach(var parameter in rc.Rendering.Parameters)             {                 collection.Add(parameter.Key, parameter.Value);             }         }         _wrappedProvider = new NameValueCollectionValueProvider(collection, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);         }     public bool ContainsPrefix(string prefix)     {         return _wrappedProvider.ContainsPrefix(prefix);     }     public ValueProviderResult GetValue(string key)     {         return _wrappedProvider.GetValue(key);     } } In this post I've discussed the MVC IValueProvider used to map data to controller action method arguments and how this can be integrated into your Sitecore 6.6 MVC solution.

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• Using Hadooop (HDInsight) with Microsoft - Two (OK, Three) Options

  - by BuckWoody

  Microsoft has many tools for “Big Data”. In fact, you need many tools – there’s no product called “Big Data Solution” in a shrink-wrapped box – if you find one, you probably shouldn’t buy it. It’s tempting to want a single tool that handles everything in a problem domain, but with large, complex data, that isn’t a reality. You’ll mix and match several systems, open and closed source, to solve a given problem. But there are tools that help with handling data at large, complex scales. Normally the best way to do this is to break up the data into parts, and then put the calculation engines for that chunk of data right on the node where the data is stored. These systems are in a family called “Distributed File and Compute”. Microsoft has a couple of these, including the High Performance Computing edition of Windows Server. Recently we partnered with Hortonworks to bring the Apache Foundation’s release of Hadoop to Windows. And as it turns out, there are actually two (technically three) ways you can use it. (There’s a more detailed set of information here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/business-intelligence/big-data.aspx, I’ll cover the options at a general level below)  First Option: Windows Azure HDInsight Service  Your first option is that you can simply log on to a Hadoop control node and begin to run Pig or Hive statements against data that you have stored in Windows Azure. There’s nothing to set up (although you can configure things where needed), and you can send the commands, get the output of the job(s), and stop using the service when you are done – and repeat the process later if you wish. (There are also connectors to run jobs from Microsoft Excel, but that’s another post)   This option is useful when you have a periodic burst of work for a Hadoop workload, or the data collection has been happening into Windows Azure storage anyway. That might be from a web application, the logs from a web application, telemetrics (remote sensor input), and other modes of constant collection.   You can read more about this option here:  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2012/10/24/getting-started-with-windows-azure-hdinsight-service.aspx Second Option: Microsoft HDInsight Server Your second option is to use the Hadoop Distribution for on-premises Windows called Microsoft HDInsight Server. You set up the Name Node(s), Job Tracker(s), and Data Node(s), among other components, and you have control over the entire ecostructure.   This option is useful if you want to  have complete control over the system, leave it running all the time, or you have a huge quantity of data that you have to bulk-load constantly – something that isn’t going to be practical with a network transfer or disk-mailing scheme. You can read more about this option here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/business-intelligence/big-data.aspx Third Option (unsupported): Installation on Windows Azure Virtual Machines  Although unsupported, you could simply use a Windows Azure Virtual Machine (we support both Windows and Linux servers) and install Hadoop yourself – it’s open-source, so there’s nothing preventing you from doing that.   Aside from being unsupported, there are other issues you’ll run into with this approach – primarily involving performance and the amount of configuration you’ll need to do to access the data nodes properly. But for a single-node installation (where all components run on one system) such as learning, demos, training and the like, this isn’t a bad option. Did I mention that’s unsupported? :) You can learn more about Windows Azure Virtual Machines here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/virtual-machines/ And more about Hadoop and the installation/configuration (on Linux) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Hadoop And more about the HDInsight installation here: http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/install.aspx?appid=HDINSIGHT-PREVIEW Choosing the right option Since you have two or three routes you can go, the best thing to do is evaluate the need you have, and place the workload where it makes the most sense.  My suggestion is to install the HDInsight Server locally on a test system, and play around with it. Read up on the best ways to use Hadoop for a given workload, understand the parts, write a little Pig and Hive, and get your feet wet. Then sign up for a test account on HDInsight Service, and see how that leverages what you know. If you're a true tinkerer, go ahead and try the VM route as well. Oh - there’s another great reference on the Windows Azure HDInsight that just came out, here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2012/11/16/hadoop-on-azure-introduction.aspx  

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• SOA Suite 11g Dynamic Payload Testing with soapUI Free Edition

  - by Greg Mally

  Overview Many web service developers use soapUI for various tests like: smoke test, unit test, and load testing because you can get a free edition that is fairly robust. However, if you need to venture into more complex testing that requires a dynamic payload, then the free edition doesn't necessarily make it easy. This feature does exist in soapUI, but for obvious reasons it is in the Pro version. In this blog I will show you how to use soapUI free edition for dynamic payloads in a simplified example. Hopefully this will open the doors for you to expand into more complex scenarios. The following assumes that you have a working knowledge of soapUI and will not go into concepts like setting up a project etc. For the basics, please review the documentation for soapUI: http://www.soapui.org/Getting-Started/. Additionally, we will be using asynchronous web services and you can review the setup for this in my blog: SOA Suite 11g Asynchronous Testing with soapUI. Features in soapUI Free Edition Relating to this Topic The soapUI test tool provides a very feature rich environment that can do many things provided you are willing to go beyond point and click. For this example, we will be leveraging just a couple features for our dynamic payload example: Test Case Properties Scripting with Groovy Basically, we will be using a property as a global variable and we will manipulate that property using a Groovy script. Setting Up Our Property Properties are available throughout soapUI and here is a snippet from the soapUI website defining the locations: Projects : for handling Project scope values, for example a subscription ID TestSuite : for handling TestSuite scoped values, can be seen as "arguments" to a TestSuite TestCases : for handling TestCase scoped values, can be seen as "arguments" to a TestCase Properties TestStep : for providing local values/state within a TestCase Local TestStep properties : several TestStep types maintain their own list of properties specific to their functionality : DataSource, DataSink, Run TestCase MockServices : for handling MockService scoped values/arguments MockResponses : for handling MockResponse scoped values Global Properties : for handling Global properties, optionally from an external source For our example, we will be defining a custom property in a TestCase called SimpleAsyncPayload. The property can be created in either the Custom Properties tab located at the bottom of the Navigator panel when the TestCase is selected in the Navigator or the Properties label in the TestCase editor: Navigator Panel TestCase Editor You will notice that I set a value of “0” for the custom property. For this simplified example, we will need to retrieve that value and manipulate it prior to making the web service request invocation. In order to accomplish this, we will need to get Groovy ;) Let's Get Groovy We will now add a new Groovy Script step to the TestCase called Manipulate Payload: TestCase Editor > Append Step > Groovy Script Once we have added the Groovy Script step to our TestCase, we can open the Groovy Script editor to add the code to: Get the current value of the property we created called SimpleAsyncPayload. Convert the value of the property to an integer. Increment the value. Store the incremented value back into the TestCase property called SimpleAsyncPayload. The script should look something like the following: Groovy Script Editor – Manipulate Payload At this point we can test the script to see if it is working by simply running the TestCase (left-click on the green triangle in the upper left-hand corner of the TestCase editor). To verify if it ran correctly, we can look at the value of the SimpleAsyncPayload property which should now be 1: TestCase Editor – Run Results All that is left to complete the TestCase is to append another step of type Test Request. The information required to append the request is a name and an operation to invoke. In this example we will use the default name and select the SimpleAsyncBPELProcessBingd -> process as the operation (any other information being requested, simply use the defaults unless you are calling an asynchronous operation then do not add any assertions). We are now in familiar ground with the Test Request editor. Depending upon the type of operation you are invoking (synchronous or asynchronous), please update the request with the necessary information (e.g., callback information for asynchronous operations). We will now tweak the Test Request payload to retrieve the value of the SimpleAsyncPayload property. The soapUI editor makes this very simple: right-click in the payload and navigate to the property (e.g., right-click > Get Data.. > TestCase: [Groovy TestCase] > Property [SimpleAsyncPayload]): Test Request Editor – Insert Property Value Your payload should now look something like the following: Test Request Editor – Inserted Property Value Just like before, we are now ready to run the TestCase. If everything goes as expected we should see a response like the following: Message Viewer – Results of TestCase Run We are now setup to be able to run a stress test where the payload will change for each request. This simple example can be expanded to include multiple payload values, complex calculations in the scripts, or whatever can be done via the soapUI scripting. Hopefully you have found this useful and happy testing to you :)

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• How to create a PeopleCode Application Package/Application Class using PeopleTools Tables

  - by Andreea Vaduva

  This article describes how - in PeopleCode (Release PeopleTools 8.50) - to enable a grid without enabling each static column, using a dynamic Application Class. The goal is to disable the following grid with three columns “Effort Date”, ”Effort Amount” and “Charge Back” , when the Check Box “Finished with task” is selected , without referencing each static column; this PeopleCode could be used dynamically with any grid. If the check box “Finished with task” is cleared, the content of the grid columns is editable (and the buttons “+” and “-“ are available): So, you create an Application Package “CLASS_EXTENSIONS” that contains an Application Class “EWK_ROWSET”. This Application Class is defined with Class extends “ Rowset” and you add two news properties “Enabled” and “Visible”: After creating this Application Class, you use it in two PeopleCode Events : Rowinit and FieldChange : This code is very ‘simple’, you write only one command : ” &ERS2.Enabled = False” → and the entire grid is “Enabled”… and you can use this code with any Grid! So, the complete PeopleCode to create the Application Package is (with explanation in [….]) : ******Package CLASS_EXTENSIONS : [Name of the Package: CLASS_EXTENSIONS] --Beginning of the declaration part------------------------------------------------------------------------------ class EWK_ROWSET extends Rowset; [Definition Class EWK_ROWSET as a subclass of Class Rowset] method EWK_ROWSET(&RS As Rowset); [Constructor is the Method with the same name of the Class] property boolean Visible get set; property boolean Enabled get set; [Definition of the property “Enabled” in read/write] private [Before the word “private”, all the declarations are publics] method SetDisplay(&DisplaySW As boolean, &PropName As string, &ChildSW As boolean); instance boolean &EnSW; instance boolean &VisSW; instance Rowset &NextChildRS; instance Row &NextRow; instance Record &NextRec; instance Field &NextFld; instance integer &RowCnt, &RecCnt, &FldCnt, &ChildRSCnt; instance integer &i, &j, &k; instance CLASS_EXTENSIONS:EWK_ROWSET &ERSChild; [For recursion] Constant &VisibleProperty = "VISIBLE"; Constant &EnabledProperty = "ENABLED"; end-class; --End of the declaration part------------------------------------------------------------------------------ method EWK_ROWSET [The Constructor] /+ &RS as Rowset +/ %Super = &RS; end-method; get Enabled /+ Returns Boolean +/; Return &EnSW; end-get; set Enabled /+ &NewValue as Boolean +/; &EnSW = &NewValue; %This.InsertEnabled=&EnSW; %This.DeleteEnabled=&EnSW; %This.SetDisplay(&EnSW, &EnabledProperty, False); [This method is called when you set this property] end-set; get Visible /+ Returns Boolean +/; Return &VisSW; end-get; set Visible /+ &NewValue as Boolean +/; &VisSW = &NewValue; %This.SetDisplay(&VisSW, &VisibleProperty, False); end-set; method SetDisplay [The most important PeopleCode Method] /+ &DisplaySW as Boolean, +/ /+ &PropName as String, +/ /+ &ChildSW as Boolean +/ [Not used in our example] &RowCnt = %This.ActiveRowCount; &NextRow = %This.GetRow(1); [To know the structure of a line ] &RecCnt = &NextRow.RecordCount; For &i = 1 To &RowCnt [Loop for each Line] &NextRow = %This.GetRow(&i); For &j = 1 To &RecCnt [Loop for each Record] &NextRec = &NextRow.GetRecord(&j); &FldCnt = &NextRec.FieldCount; For &k = 1 To &FldCnt [Loop for each Field/Record] &NextFld = &NextRec.GetField(&k); Evaluate Upper(&PropName) When = &VisibleProperty &NextFld.Visible = &DisplaySW; Break; When = &EnabledProperty; &NextFld.Enabled = &DisplaySW; [Enable each Field/Record] Break; When-Other Error "Invalid display property; Must be either VISIBLE or ENABLED" End-Evaluate; End-For; End-For; If &ChildSW = True Then [If recursion] &ChildRSCnt = &NextRow.ChildCount; For &j = 1 To &ChildRSCnt [Loop for each Rowset child] &NextChildRS = &NextRow.GetRowset(&j); &ERSChild = create CLASS_EXTENSIONS:EWK_ROWSET(&NextChildRS); &ERSChild.SetDisplay(&DisplaySW, &PropName, &ChildSW); [For each Rowset child, call Method SetDisplay with the same parameters used with the Rowset parent] End-For; End-If; End-For; end-method; ******End of the Package CLASS_EXTENSIONS:[Name of the Package: CLASS_EXTENSIONS] About the Author: Pascal Thaler joined Oracle University in 2005 where he is a Senior Instructor. His area of expertise is Oracle Peoplesoft Technology and he delivers the following courses: For Developers: PeopleTools Overview, PeopleTools I &II, Batch Application Engine, Language Oriented Object PeopleCode, Administration Security For Administrators : Server Administration & Installation, Database Upgrade & Data Management Tools For Interface Users: Integration Broker (Web Service)

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• How to Use RDA to Generate WLS Thread Dumps At Specified Intervals?

  - by Daniel Mortimer

  Introduction There are many ways to generate a thread dump of a WebLogic Managed Server. For example, take a look at: Taking Thread Dumps - [an excellent blog post on the Middleware Magic site]or  Different ways to take thread dumps in WebLogic Server (Document 1098691.1) There is another method - use Remote Diagnostic Agent! The solution described below is not documented, but it is relatively straightforward to execute. One advantage of using RDA to collect the thread dumps is RDA will also collect configuration, log files, network, system, performance information at the same time. Instructions 1. Not familiar with Remote Diagnostic Agent? Take a look at my previous blog "Resolve SRs Faster Using RDA - Find the Right Profile" 2. Choose a profile, which includes the WebLogic Server data collection modules (for example the profile "WebLogicServer"). At RDA setup time you should see the prompt below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- S301WLS: Collects Oracle WebLogic Server Information ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter the location of the directory where the domains to analyze are located (For example in UNIX, <BEA Home>/user_projects/domains or <Middleware Home>/user_projects/domains) Hit 'Return' to accept the default (/oracle/11AS/Middleware/user_projects/domains) > For a successful WLS connection, ensure that the domain Admin Server is up and running. Data Collection Type:   1  Collect for a single server (offline mode)   2  Collect for a single server (using WLS connection)   3  Collect for multiple servers (using WLS connection) Enter the item number Hit 'Return' to accept the default (1) > 2 Choose option 2 or 3. Note: Collect for a single server or multiple servers using WLS connection means that RDA will attempt to connect to execute online WLST commands against the targeted server(s). The thread dumps are collected using the WLST function - "threadDumps()". If WLST cannot connect to the managed server, RDA will proceed to collect other data and ignore the request to collect thread dumps. If in the final output you see no Thread Dump menu item, then it's likely that the managed server is in a state which prevents new connections to it. If faced with this scenario, you would have to employ alternative methods for collecting thread dumps. 3. The RDA setup will create a setup.cfg file in the RDA_HOME directory. Open this file in an editor. You will find the following parameters which govern the number of thread dumps and thread dump interval. #N.Number of thread dumps to capture WREQ_THREAD_DUMP=10 #N.Thread dump interval WREQ_THREAD_DUMP_INTERVAL=5000 The example lines above show the default settings. In other words, RDA will collect 10 thread dumps at 5000 millisecond (5 second) intervals. You may want to change this to something like: #N.Number of thread dumps to capture WREQ_THREAD_DUMP=10 #N.Thread dump interval WREQ_THREAD_DUMP_INTERVAL=30000 However, bear in mind, that such change will increase the total amount of time it takes for RDA to complete its run. 4. Once you are happy with the setup.cfg, run RDA. RDA will collect, render, generate and package all files in the output directory. 5. For ease of viewing, open up the RDA Start html file - "xxxx__start.htm". The thread dumps can be found under the WLST Collections for the target managed server(s). See screenshots belowScreenshot 1:RDA Start Page - Main Index Screenshot 2: Managed Server Sub Index Screenshot 3: WLST Collections Screenshot 4: Thread Dump Page - List of dump file links Screenshot 5: Thread Dump Dat File Link Additional Comment: A) You can view the thread dump files within the RDA Start Page framework, but most likely you will want to download the dat files for in-depth analysis via thread dump analysis tools such as: Thread Dump Analyzer -  Samurai - a GUI based tail , thread dump analysis tool If you are new to thread dump analysis - take a look at this recorded Support Advisor Webcast  Oracle WebLogic Server: Diagnosing Performance Issues through Java Thread Dumps[Slidedeck from webcast in PDF format]B) I have logged a couple of enhancement requests for the RDA Development Team to consider: Add timestamp to dump file links, dat filename and at the top of the body of the dat file Package the individual thread dumps in a zip so all dump files can be conveniently downloaded in one go.

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• ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0

  - by James Michael Hare

  I had always been a fan of ANTS products (Reflector is absolutely invaluable, and their performance profiler is great as well – very easy to use!), so I was curious to see what the ANTS Memory Profiler could show me. Background While a performance profiler will track how much time is typically spent in each unit of code, a memory profiler gives you much more detail on how and where your memory is being consumed and released in a program. As an example, I’d been working on a data access layer at work to call a market data web service.  This web service would take a list of symbols to quote and would return back the quote data.  To help consolidate the thousands of web requests per second we get and reduce load on the web services, we implemented a 5-second cache of quote data.  Not quite long enough to where customers will typically notice a quote go “stale”, but just long enough to be able to collapse multiple quote requests for the same symbol in a short period of time. A 5-second cache may not sound like much, but it actually pays off by saving us roughly 42% of our web service calls, while still providing relatively up-to-date information.  The question is whether or not the extra memory involved in maintaining the cache was worth it, so I decided to fire up the ANTS Memory Profiler and take a look at memory usage. First Impressions The main thing I’ve always loved about the ANTS tools is their ease of use.  Pretty much everything is right there in front of you in a way that makes it easy for you to find what you need with little digging required.  I’ve worked with other, older profilers before (that shall remain nameless other than to hint it was created by a very large chip maker) where it was a mind boggling experience to figure out how to do simple tasks. Not so with AMP.  The opening dialog is very straightforward.  You can choose from here whether to debug an executable, a web application (either in IIS or from VS’s web development server), windows services, etc. So I chose a .NET Executable and navigated to the build location of my test harness.  Then began profiling. At this point while the application is running, you can see a chart of the memory as it ebbs and wanes with allocations and collections.  At any given point in time, you can take snapshots (to compare states) zoom in, or choose to stop at any time.  Snapshots Taking a snapshot also gives you a breakdown of the managed memory heaps for each generation so you get an idea how many objects are staying around for extended periods of time (as an object lives and survives collections, it gets promoted into higher generations where collection becomes less frequent). Generating a snapshot brings up an analysis view with very handy graphs that show your generation sizes.  Almost all my memory is in Generation 1 in the managed memory component of the first graph, which is good news to me, because Gen 2 collections are much rarer.  I once3 made the mistake once of caching data for 30 minutes and found it didn’t get collected very quick after I released my reference because it had been promoted to Gen 2 – doh! Analysis It looks like (from the second pie chart) that the majority of the allocations were in the string class.  This also is expected for me because the majority of the memory allocated is in the web service responses, so it doesn’t seem the entities I’m adapting to (to prevent being too tightly coupled to the web service proxy classes, which can change easily out from under me) aren’t taking a significant portion of memory. I also appreciate that they have clear summary text in key places such as “No issues with large object heap fragmentation were detected”.  For novice users, this type of summary information can be critical to getting them to use a tool and develop a good working knowledge of it. There is also a handy link at the bottom for “What to look for on the summary” which loads a web page of help on key points to look for. Clicking over to the session overview, it’s easy to compare the samples at each snapshot to see how your memory is growing, shrinking, or staying relatively the same.  Looking at my snapshots, I’m pretty happy with the fact that memory allocation and heap size seems to be fairly stable and in control: Once again, you can check on the large object heap, generation one heap, and generation two heap across each snapshot to spot trends. Back on the analysis tab, we can go to the [Class List] button to get an idea what classes are making up the majority of our memory usage.  As was little surprise to me, System.String was the clear majority of my allocations, though I found it surprising that the System.Reflection.RuntimeMehtodInfo came in second.  I was curious about this, so I selected it and went into the [Instance Categorizer].  This view let me see where these instances to RuntimeMehtodInfo were coming from. So I scrolled back through the graph, and discovered that these were being held by the System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactoryRefCache and I was satisfied this was just an artifact of my WCF proxy. I also like that down at the bottom of the Instance Categorizer it gives you a series of filters and offers to guide you on which filter to use based on the problem you are trying to find.  For example, if I suspected a memory leak, I might try to filter for survivors in growing classes.  This means that for instances of a class that are growing in memory (more are being created than cleaned up), which ones are survivors (not collected) from garbage collection.  This might allow me to drill down and find places where I’m holding onto references by mistake and not freeing them! Finally, if you want to really see all your instances and who is holding onto them (preventing collection), you can go to the “Instance Retention Graph” which creates a graph showing what references are being held in memory and who is holding onto them. Visual Studio Integration Of course, VS has its own profiler built in – and for a free bundled profiler it is quite capable – but AMP gives a much cleaner and easier-to-use experience, and when you install it you also get the option of letting it integrate directly into VS. So once you go back into VS after installation, you’ll notice an ANTS menu which lets you launch the ANTS profiler directly from Visual Studio.   Clicking on one of these options fires up the project in the profiler immediately, allowing you to get right in.  It doesn’t integrate with the Visual Studio windows themselves (like the VS profiler does), but still the plethora of information it provides and the clear and concise manner in which it presents it makes it well worth it. Summary If you like the ANTS series of tools, you shouldn’t be disappointed with the ANTS Memory Profiler.  It was so easy to use that I was able to jump in with very little product knowledge and get the information I was looking it for. I’ve used other profilers before that came with 3-inch thick tomes that you had to read in order to get anywhere with the tool, and this one is not like that at all.  It’s built for your everyday developer to get in and find their problems quickly, and I like that! Tweet Technorati Tags: Influencers,ANTS,Memory,Profiler

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• PeopleSoft at Alliance 2012 Executive Forum

  - by John Webb

  Guest Posting From Rebekah Jackson This week I jointed over 4,800 Higher Ed and Public Sector customers and partners in Nashville at our annual Alliance conference.   I got lost easily in the hallways of the sprawling Gaylord Opryland Hotel. I carried the resort map with me, and I would still stand for several minutes at a very confusing junction, studying the map and the signage on the walls. Hallways led off in many directions, some with elevators going down here and stairs going up there. When I took a wrong turn I would instantly feel stuck, lose my bearings, and occasionally even have to send out a call for help.    It strikes me that the theme for the Executive Forum this year outlines a less tangible but equally disorienting set of challenges that our higher education customer’s CIOs are facing: Making Decisions at the Intersection of Business Value, Strategic Investment, and Enterprise Technology. The forces acting upon higher education institutions today are not neat, straight-forward decision points, where one can glance to the right, glance to the left, and then quickly choose the best course of action. The operational, technological, and strategic factors that must be considered are complex, interrelated, messy…and the stakes are high. Michael Horn, co-author of “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns”, set the tone for the day. He introduced the model of disruptive innovation, which grew out of the research he and his colleagues have done on ‘Why Successful Organizations Fail’. Highly simplified, the pattern he shared is that things start out decentralized, take a leap to extreme centralization, and then experience progressive decentralization. Using computers as an example, we started with a slide rule, then developed the computer which centralized in the form of mainframes, and gradually decentralized to mini-computers, desktop computers, laptops, and now mobile devices. According to Michael, you have more computing power in your cell phone than existed on the planet 60 years ago, or was on the first rocket that went to the moon. Applying this pattern to Higher Education means the introduction of expensive and prestigious private universities, followed by the advent of state schools, then by community colleges, and now online education. Michael shared statistics that indicate 50% of students will be taking at least one on line course by 2014…and by some measures, that’s already the case today. The implication is that technology moves from being the backbone of the campus, the IT department’s domain, and pushes into the academic core of the institution. Innovative programs are underway at many schools like Bellevue and BYU Idaho, joined by startups and disruptive new players like the Khan Academy.   This presents both threat and opportunity for higher education institutions, and means that IT decisions cannot afford to be disconnected from the institution’s strategic plan. Subsequent sessions explored this theme.    Theo Bosnak, from Attain, discussed the model they use for assessing the complete picture of an institution’s financial health. Compounding the issue are the dramatic trends occurring in technology and the vendors that provide it. Ovum analyst Nicole Engelbert, shared her insights next and suggested that incremental changes are no longer an option, instead fundamental changes are affecting the landscape of enterprise technology in higher ed.    Nicole closed with her recommendation that institutions focus on the trends in higher education with an eye towards the strategic requirements and business value first. Technology then is the enabler.   The last presentation of the day was from Tom Fisher, Sr. Vice President of Cloud Services at Oracle. Tom runs the delivery arm of the Cloud Services group, and shared his thoughts candidly about his experiences with cloud deployments as well as key issues around managing costs and security in cloud deployments. Okay, we’ve covered a lot of ground at this point, from financials planning, business strategy, and cloud computing, with the possibility that half of the institutions in the US might not be around in their current form 10 years from now. Did I forget to mention that was raised in the morning session? Seems a little hard to believe, and yet Michael Horn made a compelling point. Apparently 100 years ago, 8 of the top 10 education institutions in the world were German. Today, the leading German school is ranked somewhere in the 40’s or 50’s. What will the landscape be 100 years from now? Will there be an institution from China, India, or Brazil in the top 10? As Nicole suggested, maybe US parents will be sending their children to schools overseas much sooner, faced with the ever-increasing costs of a US based education. Will corporations begin to view skill-based certification from an online provider as a viable alternative to a 4 year degree from an accredited institution, fundamentally altering the education industry as we know it?

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• Trigger Happy

  - by Tim Dexter

  Its been a while, I know, we’ll say no more OK? I’ll just write …In the latest BIP 11.1.1.6 release and if I’m really honest; the release before this (we'll call it dot 5 for brevity.) The boys and gals in the engine room have been real busy enhancing BIP with some new functionality. Those of you that use the scheduling engine in OBIEE may already know and use the ‘conditional scheduling’ feature. This allows you to be more intelligent about what reports get run and sent to folks on a scheduled basis. You create a ‘trigger’ analysis (answer) that is executed at schedule time prior to the main report. When the schedule rolls around, the trigger is run, if it returns rows, then the main report is run and delivered. If there are no rows returned, then the main report is not run. Useful right? Your users are not bombarded with 20 reports in their inbox every week that they need to wade throu. They get a handful that they know they need to look at. If you ensure you use conditional formatting in the report then they can find the anomalous data in the reports very quickly and move on to the rest of their day more quickly. You could even think of OBIEE as a virtual team member, scouring the data on your behalf 24/7 and letting you know when its found an issue.BI Publisher, wanting the team t-shirt and the khaki pants, has followed suit. You can now set up ‘triggers’ for it to execute before it runs the main report. Just like its big brother, if the scheduled report trigger returns rows of data; it then executes the main report. Otherwise, the report is skipped until the next schedule time rolls around. Sound familiar?BIP differs a little, in that you only need to construct a query to act as the trigger rather than a complete report. Let assume we have a monthly wage by department report on a schedule. We only want to send the report to managers if their departmental wages reach and/or exceed a certain amount. The toughest part about this is coming up with the SQL to test the business rule you want to implement. For my example, its not that tough: select d.department_name, sum(e.salary) as wage_total from employees e, departments d where d.department_id = e.department_id group by d.department_name having sum(e.salary) > 230000 We're looking for departments where the wage cost is greater than 230,000 Dexter Dollars! With a bit of messing I found out you can parametrize the query. Users can then set a value at schedule time if they need to. To create the trigger is straightforward enough. You can create multiple triggers for users to select at schedule time. Notice I also used a parameter in the query, :wamount. Note the matching parameter in the tree on the left. You also dont need to return multiple columns, one is fine, the key is if there are rows returned. You can build the rest of your report as usual. At scheduling time the Schedule tab has a bit more on it. If your users want to set the trigger, they check the Use Trigger box. The page will then pop fields to pick the appropriate trigger they want to use, even a trigger on another data model if needed. Note it will also ask for the parameter value associated with the trigger. At this point you should note that the data model does not make a distinction between trigger and data model (extract) parameters. So users will see the parameters on the General and Schedule tabs. If per chance you do need to just have a trigger parameters. You can just hide them from the report using the Parameters popup in the report designer, just un-check the 'Show' box I have tested the opposite case where you do not want main report parameters seen in the trigger section. BIP handles that for you! Once the report hits its allotted schedule time, the trigger is executed. Based on the results the report will either run or be 'skipped.' Now, you have a smarter scheduler that will only deliver reports when folks need to see them and take action on the contents. More official info here for developers and here for users.

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• Contracting as a Software Developer in the UK

  - by Frez

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB 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;} Having had some 15 years’ experience of working as a software contractor, I am often asked by developers who work as permanent employees (permies) about the pros and cons of working as a software consultant through my own limited company and whether the move would be a good one for them. Whilst it is possible to contract using other financial vehicles such as umbrella companies, this article will only consider limited companies as that is what I have experience of using. Contracting or consultancy requires a different mind-set from being a permanent member of staff, and not all developers are capable of this shift in attitude. Whilst you can look forward to an increase in the money you take home, there are real risks and expenses you would not normally be exposed to as a permie. So let us have a look at the pros and cons: Pros: More money There is no doubt that whilst you are working on contracts you will earn significantly more than you would as a permanent employee. Furthermore, working through a limited company is more tax efficient. Less politics You really have no need to involve yourself in office politics. When the end of the day comes you can go home and not think or worry about the power struggles within the company you are contracted to. Your career progression is not tied to the company. Expenses from gross income All your expenses of trading as a business will come out of your company’s gross income, i.e. before tax. This covers travelling expenses provided you have not been at the same client/location for more than two years, internet subscriptions, professional subscriptions, software, hardware, accountancy services and so on. Cons: Work is more transient Contracts typically range from a couple of weeks to a year, although will most likely start at 3 months. However, most contracts are extended either because the project you have been brought in to help with takes longer to deliver than expected, the client decides they can use you on other aspects of the project, or the client decides they would like to use you on other projects. The temporary nature of the work means that you will have down-time between contracts while you secure new opportunities during which time your company will have no income. You may need to attend several interviews before securing a new contract. Accountancy expenses Your company is a separate entity and there are accountancy requirements which, unless you like paperwork, means your company will need to appoint an accountant to prepare your company’s accounts. It may also be worth purchasing some accountancy software, so talk to your accountant about this as they may prefer you to use a particular software package so they can integrate it with their systems. VAT You will need to register your company for VAT. This is tax neutral for you as the VAT you charge your clients you will pass onto the government less any VAT you are reclaiming from expenses, but it is additional paperwork to undertake each quarter. It is worth checking out the Fixed Rate VAT Scheme that is available, particularly after the initial expenses of setting up your company are over. No training Clients take you on based on your skills, not to train you when they will lose that investment at the end of the contract, so understand that it is unlikely you will receive any training funded by a client. However, learning new skills during a contract is possible and you may choose to accept a contract on a lower rate if this is guaranteed as it will help secure future contracts. No financial extras You will have no free pension, life, accident, sickness or medical insurance unless you choose to purchase them yourself. A financial advisor can give you all the necessary advice in this area, and it is worth taking seriously. A year after I started as a consultant I contracted a serious illness, this kept me off work for over two months, my client was very understanding and it could have been much worse, so it is worth considering what your options might be in the case of illness, death and retirement. Agencies Whilst it is possible to work directly for end clients there are pros and cons of working through an agency.  The main advantage is cash flow, you invoice the agency and they typically pay you within a week, whereas working directly for a client could have you waiting up to three months to be paid. The downside of working for agencies, especially in the current difficult times, is that they may go out of business and you then have difficulty getting the money you are owed. Tax investigation It is possible that the Inland Revenue may decide to investigate your company for compliance with tax law. Insurance is available to cover you for this. My personal recommendation would be to join the PCG as this insurance is included as a benefit of membership, Professional Indemnity Some agencies require that you are covered by professional indemnity insurance; this is a cost you would not incur as a permie. Travel Unless you live in an area that has an abundance of opportunities, such as central London, it is likely that you will be travelling further, longer and with more expense than if you were permanently employed at a local company. This not only affects you monetarily, but also your quality of life and the ability to keep fit and healthy. Obtaining finance If you want to secure a mortgage on a property it can be more difficult or expensive, especially if you do not have three years of audited accounts to show a mortgage lender.   Caveat This post is my personal opinion and should not be used as a definitive guide or recommendation to contracting and whether it is suitable for you as an individual, i.e. I accept no responsibility if you decide to take up contracting based on this post and you fare badly for whatever reason.

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• Take Advantage of Oracle's Ongoing Assurance Effort!

  - by eric.maurice

  Hi, this is Eric Maurice again! A few years ago, I posted a blog entry, which discussed the psychology of patching. The point of this blog entry was that a natural tendency existed for systems and database administrators to be reluctant to apply patches, even security patches, because of the fear of "breaking" the system. Unfortunately, this belief in the principle "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" creates significant risks for organizations. Running systems without applying the proper security patches can greatly compromise the security posture of the organization because the security controls available in the affected system may be compromised as a result of the existence of the unfixed vulnerabilities. As a result, Oracle continues to strongly recommend that customers apply all security fixes as soon as possible. Most recently, I have had a number of conversations with customers who questioned the need to upgrade their highly stable but otherwise unsupported Oracle systems. These customers wanted to know more about the kind of security risks they were exposed to, by running obsolete versions of Oracle software. As per Oracle Support Policies, Critical Patch Updates are produced for currently supported products. In other words, Critical Patch Updates are not created by Oracle for product versions that are no longer covered under the Premier Support or Extended Support phases of the Lifetime Support Policy. One statement used in each Critical Patch Update Advisory is particularly important: "We recommend that customers upgrade to a supported version of Oracle products in order to obtain patches. Unsupported products, releases and versions are not tested for the presence of vulnerabilities addressed by this Critical Patch Update. However, it is likely that earlier versions of affected releases are also affected by these vulnerabilities." The purpose of this warning is to inform Oracle customers that a number of the vulnerabilities fixed in each Critical Patch Update may affect older versions of a specific product line. In other words, each Critical Patch Update provides a number of fixes for currently supported versions of a given product line (this information is listed for each bug in the Risk Matrices of the Critical Patch Update Advisory), but the unsupported versions in the same product line, while they may be affected by the vulnerabilities, will not receive the fixes, and are therefore vulnerable to attacks. The risk assumed by organizations wishing to remain on unsupported versions is amplified by the behavior of malicious hackers, who typically will attempt to, and sometimes succeed in, reverse-engineering the content of vendors' security fixes. As a result, it is not uncommon for exploits to be published soon after Oracle discloses vulnerabilities with the release of a Critical Patch Update or Security Alert. Let's consider now the nature of the vulnerabilities that may exist in obsolete versions of Oracle software. A number of severe vulnerabilities have been fixed by Oracle over the years. While Oracle does not test unsupported products, releases and versions for the presence of vulnerabilities addressed by each Critical Patch Update, it should be assumed that a number of the vulnerabilities fixed with the Critical Patch Update program do exist in unsupported versions (regardless of the product considered). The most severe vulnerabilities fixed in past Critical Patch Updates may result in full compromise of the targeted systems, down to the OS level, by remote and unauthenticated users (these vulnerabilities receive a CVSS Base Score of 10.0) or almost as critically, may result in the compromise of the affected systems (without compromising the underlying OS) by a remote and unauthenticated users (these vulnerabilities receive a CVSS Base Score of 7.5). Such vulnerabilities may result in complete takeover of the targeted machine (for the CVSS 10.0), or may result in allowing the attacker the ability to create a denial of service against the affected system or even hijacking or stealing all the data hosted by the compromised system (for the CVSS 7.5). The bottom line is that organizations should assume the worst case: that the most critical vulnerabilities are present in their unsupported version; therefore, it is Oracle's recommendation that all organizations move to supported systems and apply security patches in a timely fashion. Organizations that currently run supported versions but may be late in their security patch release level can quickly catch up because most Critical Patch Updates are cumulative. With a few exceptions noted in Oracle's Critical Patch Update Advisory, the application of the most recent Critical Patch Update will bring these products to current security patch level and provide the organization with the best possible security posture for their patch level. Furthermore, organizations are encouraged to upgrade to most recent versions as this will greatly improve their security posture. At Oracle, our security fixing policies state that security fixes are produced for the main code line first, and as a result, our products benefit from the mistakes made in previous version(s). Our ongoing assurance effort ensures that we work diligently to fix the vulnerabilities we find, and aim at constantly improving the security posture our products provide by default. Patch sets include numerous in-depth fixes in addition to those delivered through the Critical Patch Update and, in certain instances, important security fixes require major architectural changes that can only be included in new product releases (and cannot be backported through the Critical Patch Update program). For More Information: • Mary Ann Davidson is giving a webcast interview on Oracle Software Security Assurance on February 24th. The registration link for attending this webcast is located at http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=280304&s=1&k=6A7152F62313CA09F77EBCEEA9B6294F&partnerref=EricMblog • A blog entry discussing Oracle's practices for ensuring the quality of Critical patch Updates can be found at http://blogs.oracle.com/security/2009/07/ensuring_critical_patch_update_quality.html • The blog entry "To patch or not to patch" is located at http://blogs.oracle.com/security/2008/01/to_patch_or_not_to_patch.html • Oracle's Support Policies are located at http://www.oracle.com/us/support/policies/index.html • The Critical Patch Update & Security Alert page is located at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alerts-086861.html

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• How to Tell a Hardware Problem From a Software Problem

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Your computer seems to be malfunctioning — it’s slow, programs are crashing or Windows may be blue-screening. Is your computer’s hardware failing, or does it have a software problem that you can fix on your own? This can actually be a bit tricky to figure out. Hardware problems and software problems can lead to the same symptoms — for example, frequent blue screens of death may be caused by either software or hardware problems. Computer is Slow We’ve all heard the stories — someone’s computer slows down over time because they install too much software that runs at startup or it becomes infected with malware. The person concludes that their computer is slowing down because it’s old, so they replace it. But they’re wrong. If a computer is slowing down, it has a software problem that can be fixed. Hardware problems shouldn’t cause your computer to slow down. There are some rare exceptions to this — perhaps your CPU is overheating and it’s downclocking itself, running slower to stay cooler — but most slowness is caused by software issues. Blue Screens Modern versions of Windows are much more stable than older versions of Windows. When used with reliable hardware with well-programmed drivers, a typical Windows computer shouldn’t blue-screen at all. If you are encountering frequent blue screens of death, there’s a good chance your computer’s hardware is failing. Blue screens could also be caused by badly programmed hardware drivers, however. If you just installed or upgraded hardware drivers and blue screens start, try uninstalling the drivers or using system restore — there may be something wrong with the drivers. If you haven’t done anything with your drivers recently and blue screens start, there’s a very good chance you have a hardware problem. Computer Won’t Boot If your computer won’t boot, you could have either a software problem or a hardware problem. Is Windows attempting to boot and failing part-way through the boot process, or does the computer no longer recognize its hard drive or not power on at all? Consult our guide to troubleshooting boot problems for more information. When Hardware Starts to Fail… Here are some common components that can fail and the problems their failures may cause: Hard Drive: If your hard drive starts failing, files on your hard drive may become corrupted. You may see long delays when you attempt to access files or save to the hard drive. Windows may stop booting entirely. CPU: A failing CPU may result in your computer not booting at all. If the CPU is overheating, your computer may blue-screen when it’s under load — for example, when you’re playing a demanding game or encoding video. RAM: Applications write data to your RAM and use it for short-term storage. If your RAM starts failing, an application may write data to part of the RAM, then later read it back and get an incorrect value. This can result in application crashes, blue screens, and file corruption. Graphics Card: Graphics card problems may result in graphical errors while rendering 3D content or even just while displaying your desktop. If the graphics card is overheating, it may crash your graphics driver or cause your computer to freeze while under load — for example, when playing demanding 3D games. Fans: If any of the fans fail in your computer, components may overheat and you may see the above CPU or graphics card problems. Your computer may also shut itself down abruptly so it doesn’t overheat any further and damage itself. Motherboard: Motherboard problems can be extremely tough to diagnose. You may see occasional blue screens or similar problems. Power Supply: A malfunctioning power supply is also tough to diagnose — it may deliver too much power to a component, damaging it and causing it to malfunction. If the power supply dies completely, your computer won’t power on and nothing will happen when you press the power button. Other common problems — for example, a computer slowing down — are likely to be software problems. It’s also possible that software problems can cause many of the above symptoms — malware that hooks deep into the Windows kernel can cause your computer to blue-screen, for example. The Only Way to Know For Sure We’ve tried to give you some idea of the difference between common software problems and hardware problems with the above examples. But it’s often tough to know for sure, and troubleshooting is usually a trial-and-error process. This is especially true if you have an intermittent problem, such as your computer blue-screening a few times a week. You can try scanning your computer for malware and running System Restore to restore your computer’s system software back to its previous working state, but these aren’t  guaranteed ways to fix software problems. The best way to determine whether the problem you have is a software or hardware one is to bite the bullet and restore your computer’s software back to its default state. That means reinstalling Windows or using the Refresh or reset feature on Windows 8. See whether the problem still persists after you restore its operating system to its default state. If you still see the same problem – for example, if your computer is blue-screening and continues to blue-screen after reinstalling Windows — you know you have a hardware problem and need to have your computer fixed or replaced. If the computer crashes or freezes while reinstalling Windows, you definitely have a hardware problem. Even this isn’t a completely perfect method — for example, you may reinstall Windows and install the same hardware drivers afterwards. If the hardware drivers are badly programmed, the blue-screens may continue. Blue screens of death aren’t as common on Windows these days — if you’re encountering them frequently, you likely have a hardware problem. Most blue screens you encounter will likely be caused by hardware issues. On the other hand, other common complaints like “my computer has slowed down” are easily fixable software problems. When in doubt, back up your files and reinstall Windows. Image Credit: Anders Sandberg on Flickr, comedy_nose on Flickr     

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• Oracle Tutor: Top 10 to Implement Sustainable Policies and Procedures

  - by emily.chorba(at)oracle.com

  Overview Your organization (executives, managers, and employees) understands the value of having written business process documents (process maps, procedures, instructions, reference documents, and form abstracts). Policies and procedures should be documented because they help to reduce the range of individual decisions and encourage management by exception: the manager only needs to give special attention to unusual problems, not covered by a specific policy or procedure. As more and more procedures are written to cover recurring situations, managers will begin to make decisions which will be consistent from one functional area to the next.Companies should take a project management approach when implementing an environment for a sustainable documentation program and do the following:1. Identify an Executive Champion2. Put together a winning team3. Assign ownership4. Centralize publishing5. Establish the Document Maintenance Process Up Front6. Document critical activities only7. Document actual practice8. Minimize documentation9. Support continuous improvement10. Keep it simple 1. Identify an Executive ChampionAppoint a top down driver. Select one key individual to be a mentor for the procedure planning team. The individual should be a senior manager, such as your company president, CIO, CFO, the vice-president of quality, manufacturing, or engineering. Written policies and procedures can be important supportive aids when known to express the thinking for the chief executive officer and / or the president and to have his or her full support. 2. Put Together a Winning TeamChoose a strong Project Management Leader and staff the procedure planning team with management members from cross functional groups. Make sure team members have the responsibility - and the authority - to make things happen.The winning team should consist of the Documentation Project Manager, Document Owners (one for each functional area), a Document Controller, and Document Specialists (as needed). The Tutor Implementation Guide has complete job descriptions for these roles. 3. Assign Ownership It is virtually impossible to keep process documentation simple and meaningful if employees who are far removed from the activity itself create it. It is impossible to keep documentation up-to-date when responsibility for the document is not clearly understood.Key to the Tutor methodology, therefore, is the concept of ownership. Each document has a single owner, who is responsible for ensuring that the document is necessary and that it reflects actual practice. The owner must be a person who is knowledgeable about the activity and who has the authority to build consensus among the persons who participate in the activity as well as the authority to define or change the way an activity is performed. The owner must be an advocate of the performers and negotiate, not dictate practices.In the Tutor environment, a document's owner is the only person with the authority to approve an update to that document. 4. Centralize Publishing Although it is tempting (especially in a networked environment and with document management software solutions) to decentralize the control of all documents -- with each owner updating and distributing his own -- Tutor promotes centralized publishing by assigning the Document Administrator (gate keeper) to manage the updates and distribution of the procedures library. 5. Establish a Document Maintenance Process Up Front (and stick to it) Everyone in your organization should know they are invited to suggest changes to procedures and should understand exactly what steps to take to do so. Tutor provides a set of procedures to help your company set up a healthy document control system. There are many document management products available to automate some of the document change and maintenance steps. Depending on the size of your organization, a simple document management system can reduce the effort it takes to track and distribute document changes and updates. Whether your company decides to store the written policies and procedures on a file server or in a database, the essential tasks for maintaining documents are the same, though some tasks are automated. 6. Document Critical Activities Only The best way to keep your documentation simple is to reduce the number of process documents to a bare minimum and to include in those documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary. The first step to reducing process documentation is to document only those activities that are deemed critical. Not all activities require documentation. In fact, some critical activities cannot and should not be standardized. Others may be sufficiently documented with an instruction or a checklist and may not require a procedure. A document should only be created when it enhances the performance of the employee performing the activity. If it does not help the employee, then there is no reason to maintain the document. Activities that represent little risk (such as project status), activities that cannot be defined in terms of specific tasks (such as product research), and activities that can be performed in a variety of ways (such as advertising) often do not require documentation. Sometimes, an activity will evolve to the point where documentation is necessary. For example, an activity performed by single employee may be straightforward and uncomplicated -- that is, until the activity is performed by multiple employees. Sometimes, it is the interaction between co-workers that necessitates documentation; sometimes, it is the complexity or the diversity of the activity.7. Document Actual Practices The only reason to maintain process documentation is to enhance the performance of the employee performing the activity. And documentation can only enhance performance if it reflects reality -- that is, current best practice. Documentation that reflects an unattainable ideal or outdated practices will end up on the shelf, unused and forgotten.Documenting actual practice means (1) auditing the activity to understand how the work is really performed, (2) identifying best practices with employees who are involved in the activity, (3) building consensus so that everyone agrees on a common method, and (4) recording that consensus.8. Minimize Documentation One way to keep it simple is to document at the highest level possible. That is, include in your documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary.When writing a document, you should ask yourself, What is the purpose of this document? That is, what problem will it solve?By focusing on this question, you can target the critical information.• What questions are the end users likely to have?• What level of detail is required?• Is any of this information extraneous to the document's purpose? Short, concise documents are user friendly and they are easier to keep up to date. 9. Support Continuous Improvement Employees who perform an activity are often in the best position to identify improvements to the process. In other words, continuous improvement is a natural byproduct of the work itself -- but only if the improvements are communicated to all employees who are involved in the process, and only if there is consensus among those employees.Traditionally, process documentation has been used to dictate performance, to limit employees' actions. In the Tutor environment, process documents are used to communicate improvements identified by employees. How does this work? The Tutor methodology requires a process document to reflect actual practice, so the owner of a document must routinely audit its content -- does the document match what the employees are doing? If it doesn't, the owner has the responsibility to evaluate the process, to build consensus among the employees, to identify "best practices," and to communicate these improvements via a document update. Continuous improvement can also be an outgrowth of corrective action -- but only if the solutions to problems are communicated effectively. The goal should be to solve a problem once and only once, which means not only identifying the solution, but ensuring that the solution becomes part of the process. The Tutor system provides the method through which improvements and solutions are documented and communicated to all affected employees in a cost-effective, timely manner; it ensures that improvements are not lost or confined to a single employee. 10. Keep it Simple Process documents don't have to be complex and unfriendly. In fact, the simpler the format and organization, the more likely the documents will be used. And the simpler the method of maintenance, the more likely the documents will be kept up-to-date. Keep it simply by:• Minimizing skills and training required• Following the established Tutor document format and layout• Avoiding technology just for technology's sake No other rule has as major an impact on the success of your internal documentation as -- keep it simple. Learn More For more information about Tutor, visit Oracle.Com or the Tutor Blog. Post your questions at the Tutor Forum.   Emily Chorba Principle Product Manager Oracle Tutor & BPM 

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• Package Manager Console For More Than Managing Packages

  - by Steve Michelotti

  Like most developers, I prefer to not have to pick up the mouse if I don’t have to. I use the Executor launcher for almost everything so it’s extremely rare for me to ever click the “Start” button in Windows. I also use shortcuts keys when I can so I don’t have to pick up the mouse. By now most people know that the Package Manager Console that comes with NuGet is PowerShell embedded inside of Visual Studio. It is based on its PowerConsole predecessor which was the first (that I’m aware of) to embed PowerShell inside of Visual Studio and give access to the Visual Studio automation DTE object. It does this through an inherent $dte variable that is automatically available and ready for use. This variable is also available inside of the NuGet Package Manager console. Adding a new class file to a Visual Studio project is one of those mundane tasks that should be easier. First I have to pick up the mouse. Then I have to right-click where I want it file to go and select “Add –> New Item…” or “Add –> Class…”   If you know the Ctrl+Shift+A shortcut, then you can avoid the mouse for adding a new item but you have to manually assign a shortcut for adding a new class. At this point it pops up a dialog just so I can enter the name of the class I want. Since this is one of the most common tasks developers do, I figure there has to be an easier way and a way that avoids picking up the mouse and popping up dialogs. This is where your embedded PowerShell prompt in Visual Studio comes in. The first thing you should do is to assign a keyboard shortcut so that you can get a PowerShell prompt (i.e., the Package Manager console) quickly without ever picking up the mouse. I assign “Ctrl+P, Ctrl+M” because “P + M” stands for “Package Manager” so it is easy to remember:   At this point I can type this command to add a new class: PM> $dte.ItemOperations.AddNewItem("Code\Class", "Foo.cs") which will result in the class being added: At this point I’ve satisfied my original goal of not having to pick up a mouse and not having the “Add New Item” dialog pop up. However, having to remember that $dte method call is not very user-friendly at all. The best thing to do is to make this a re-usable function that always loads when Visual Studio starts up. There is a $profile variable that you can use to figure out where that location is for your machine: PM> $profile C:\Users\steve.michelotti\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\NuGet_profile.ps1 If the NuGet_profile.ps1 file does not already exist, you can just create it yourself and place it in the directory. Now you can put a function inside like this: 1: function addClass($className) 2: { 3: if ($className.EndsWith(".cs") -eq $false) { 4: $className = $className + ".cs" 5: } 6: 7: $dte.ItemOperations.AddNewItem("Code\Class", $className) 8: } Since it’s in the NuGet_profile.ps1 file, this function will automatically always be available for me after starting Visual Studio. Now I can simply do this: PM> addClass Foo At this point, we have a *very* nice developer experience. All I did to add a new class was: “Ctrl-P, Ctrl-M”, then “addClass Foo”. No mouse, no pop up dialogs, no complex commands to remember. In fact, PowerShell gives you auto-completion as well. If I type “addc” followed by [TAB], then intellisense pops up: You can see my custom function appear in intellisense above. Now I can type the next letter “c” and [TAB] to auto-complete the command. And if that’s still too many key strokes for you, then you can create your own PowerShell custom alias for your function like this: PM> Set-Alias addc addClass PM> addc Foo While all this is very useful, I did run into some issues which prompted me to make even further customization. This command will add the new class file to the current active directory. Depending on your context, this may not be what you want. For example, by convention all view model objects go in the “Models” folder in an MVC project. So if the current document is in the Controllers folder, it will add your class to that folder which is not what you want. You want it to always add it to the “Models” folder if you are adding a new model in an MVC project. For this situation, I added a new function called “addModel” which looks like this: 1: function addModel($className) 2: { 3: if ($className.EndsWith(".cs") -eq $false) { 4: $className = $className + ".cs" 5: } 6: 7: $modelsDir = $dte.ActiveSolutionProjects[0].UniqueName.Replace(".csproj", "") + "\Models" 8: $dte.Windows.Item([EnvDTE.Constants]::vsWindowKindSolutionExplorer).Activate() 9: $dte.ActiveWindow.Object.GetItem($modelsDir).Select([EnvDTE.vsUISelectionType]::vsUISelectionTypeSelect) 10: $dte.ItemOperations.AddNewItem("Code\Class", $className) 11: } First I figure out the path to the Models directory on line #7. Then I activate the Solution Explorer window on line #8. Then I make sure the Models directory is selected so that my context is correct when I add the new class and it will be added to the Models directory as desired. These are just a couple of examples for things you can do with the PowerShell prompt that you have available in the Package Manager console. As developers we spend so much time in Visual Studio, why would you not customize it so that you can work in whatever way you want to work?! The next time you’re not happy about the way Visual Studio makes you do a particular task – automate it! The sky is the limit.

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• Whoosh: PASS Board Year 1, Q4

  - by Denise McInerney

  "Whoosh". That's the sound the last quarter of 2012 made as it rushed by. My first year on the PASS Board is complete, and the last three months of it were probably the busiest. PASS Summit 2012 Much of October was devoted to preparing for Summit. Every Board  member, HQ staffer and dozens of volunteers were busy in the run-up to our flagship event. It takes a lot of work to put on the Summit. The community meetings,  first-timers program, keynotes, sessions and that fabulous Community Appreciation party are the result of many hours of preparation. Virtual Chapters at the Summit With a lot of help from Karla Landrum, Michelle Nalliah, Lana Montgomery and others at HQ the VCs had a good presence at Summit. We started the week with a VC leaders meeting. I shared some information about the activities and growth during the first part of the year.   From January - September 2012: The number of VCs increased from 14 to 20 VC membership  grew from 55,200 to 80,100 Total attendance at VC meetings increased from 1,480 to 2,198 Been part of PASS Global Growth with language-based VC- including Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese. We also heard from some VC leaders and volunteers. Ryan Adams (Performance VC) shared his tips for successful marketing of VC events. Amy Lewis (Business Intelligence VC) described how the BI chapter has expanded to support PASS' global growth by finding volunteers to organize events at times that are convenient for people in Europe and Australia. Felipe Ferreira (Portuguese language VC) described the experience of building a user group first in Brazil, then expanding to work with Portuguese-speaking data professionals around the world. Virtual Chapter leaders and volunteers were in evidence throughout Summit, beginning with the Welcome Reception. For the past several years VCs have had an organized presence at this event, signing up new members and advertising their meetings. Many VC leaders also spent time at the Community Zone. This new addition to the Summit proved to be a vibrant spot were new members and volunteers could network with others and find out how to start a chapter or host a SQL Saturday. Women In Technology 2012 was the 10th WIT Luncheon to be held at Summit. I was honored to be asked to be on the panel to discuss the topic "Where Have We Been and Where are We Going?" The PASS community has come a long way in our understanding of issues facing women in tech and our support of women in the organization. It was great to hear from panelists Stefanie Higgins and Kevin Kline who were there at the beginning as well as Kendra Little and Jen Stirrup who are part of the progress being made by women in our community today. Bylaw Changes The Board spent a good deal of time in 2012 discussing how to move our global growth initiatives forward. An important component of this is a proposed change to how the Board is elected with some seats representing geographic regions. At the end of December we voted on these proposed bylaw changes which have been published for review. The member review and feedback is open until February 8. I encourage all members to review these changes and send any feedback to [email protected]  In addition to reading the bylaws, I recommend reading Bill Graziano's blog post on the subject. Business Analytics Conference At Summit we announced a new event: the PASS Business Analytics Conference. The inaugural event will be April 10-12, 2013 in Chicago. The world of data is changing rapidly. More and more businesses want to extract value and insight from their data. Data professionals who provide these insights or enable others to do so are in demand. The BA Conference offers expert content on predictive analytics, data exploration and visualization, content delivery strategies and more. By holding this new event PASS is participating in important discussions happening in our industry, offering our members more educational value and reaching out to data professionals who are not currently part of our organization. New Year, New Portfolio In addition to my work with the Virtual Chapters I am also now responsible for the 24 Hours of PASS portfolio. Since the first 24HOP of 2013 is scheduled for January 30 we started the transition of the portfolio work from Rob Farley to me right after Summit. Work immediately started to secure speakers for the January event. We have also been evaluating webinar platforms that can be used for 24HOP as well as the Virtual Chapters. Next Up 24 Hours of PASS: Business Analytics Edition will be held on January 30. I'll be there and will moderate one or two sessions. The 24HOP topics are a sneak peek into the type of content that will be offered at the Business Analytics Conference. I hope to see some of you there. The Virtual Chapters have hit the ground running in 2013; many of them have events scheduled. The Application Development VC is getting restarted  and a new Business Analytics VC will be starting soon. Check out the lineup and join the VCs that interest you. And watch the Events page and Connector for announcements of upcoming meetings. At the end of January I will be attending a Board meeting in Seattle, and February 23 I will be at SQL Saturday #177 in Silicon Valley.

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• iPack -The iOS Application Packager

  - by user13277780

  iOS applications are distributed in .ipa archive files. These files are regular zip files which contain application resources and executable-s. To protect them from unauthorized modifications and to provide identification of their sources, the content of the archives is signed. The signature is included in the application executable of an.ipa archive and protects the executable file itself and the associated resource files. Apple provides native Mac OS tools for signing iOS executable-s (which are actually generic Mach-O code signing tools), but these tools are not generally available on other platforms. To provide a multi-platform development environment for JavaFX based iOS applications, we ported iOS signing and packaging to Java and created a dedicated ipack tool for it. The iPack tool can be used as a last step of creating .ipa package on various operating systems. Prototype has been tested by creating a final distributable for JavaFX application that runs on iPad, all done on Windows 7. Source Code The source code of iPac tool is in OpenJFX project repository. You can find it in: <openjfx root>/rt/tools/ios/Maven/ipack To build the iPack tool use: rt/tools/ios/Maven/ipack$ mvn package After building, you can run the tool: java -jar <path to ipack.jar> <arguments>  Signing keystore The tool uses a java key store to read the signing certificate and the associated private key. To prepare such keystore users can use keytool from JDK. One possible scenario is to import an existing private key and the certificate from a key store used on Mac OS: To list the content of an existing key store and identify the source alias: keytool -list -keystore <src keystore>.p12 -storetype pkcs12 -storepass <src keystore password> To create Java key store and import the private key with its certificate to the keys store: keytool -importkeystore \ -destkeystore <dst keystore> -deststorepass <dst keystore password> \ -srckeystore <src keystore>.p12 -srcstorepass <src keystore password> -srcstoretype pkcs12 \ -srcalias <src alias> -destalias <dst alias> -destkeypass <dst key password> Another scenario would be to generate a private / public key pair directly in a Java key store and create a certificate request from it. After sending the request to Apple one can then import the certificate response back to the Java key store and complete the signing certificate entry. In both scenarios the resulting alias in the Java key store will contain only a single (leaf) certificate. This can be verified with the following command: keytool -list -v -keystore <ipack keystore> -storepass <keystore password> When looking at the Certificate chain length entry, the number next to it is 1. When an executable file is signed on Mac OS, the resulting signature (in CMS format) includes the whole certificate chain up to the Apple Root CA. The ipack tool includes only the chain which is stored under the alias specified on the command line. So to have the whole chain in the signature we need to replace the single certificate entry under the alias with the corresponding full certificate chain. To do that we need first to create the chain in a separate file. It is easy to create such chain when working with certificates in Base-64 encoded PEM format. A certificate chain can be created by concatenating PEM certificates, which should form the chain, into a single file. For iOS signing we need the following certificates in our chain: Apple Root CA Apple Worldwide Developer Relations CA Our signing leaf certificate To convert a certificate from the binary DER format (.der, .cer) to PEM format: keytool -importcert -noprompt -keystore temp.ks -storepass temppwd -alias tempcert -file <certificate>.cer keytool -exportcert -keystore temp.ks -storepass temppwd -alias tempcert -rfc -file <certificate>.pem To export the signing certificate into PEM format: keytool -exportcert -keystore <ipack keystore> -storepass <keystore password> -alias <signing alias> -rfc -file SigningCert.pem After constructing a chain from AppleIncRootCertificate.pem, AppleWWDRCA.pem andSigningCert.pem, it can be imported back into the keystore with: keytool -importcert -noprompt -keystore <ipack keystore> -storepass <keystore password> -alias <signing alias> -keypass <key password> -file SigningCertChain.pem To summarize, the following example shows the full certificate chain replacement process: keytool -importcert -noprompt -keystore temp.ks -storepass temppwd -alias tempcert1 -file AppleIncRootCertificate.cer keytool -exportcert -keystore temp.ks -storepass temppwd -alias tempcert1 -rfc -file AppleIncRootCertificate.pem keytool -importcert -noprompt -keystore temp.ks -storepass temppwd -alias tempcert2 -file AppleWWDRCA.cer keytool -exportcert -keystore temp.ks -storepass temppwd -alias tempcert2 -rfc -file AppleWWDRCA.pem keytool -exportcert -keystore ipack.ks -storepass keystorepwd -alias mycert -rfc -file SigningCert.pem cat SigningCert.pem AppleWWDRCA.pem AppleIncRootCertificate.pem >SigningCertChain.pem keytool -importcert -noprompt -keystore ipack.ks -storepass keystorepwd -alias mycert -keypass keypwd -file SigningCertChain.pem keytool -list -v -keystore ipack.ks -storepass keystorepwd Usage When the ipack tool is started with no arguments it prints the following usage information: -appname MyApplication -appid com.myorg.MyApplication     Usage: ipack <archive> <signing opts> <application opts> [ <application opts> ... ] Signing options: -keystore <keystore> keystore to use for signing -storepass <password> keystore password -alias <alias> alias for the signing certificate chain and the associated private key -keypass <password> password for the private key Application options: -basedir <directory> base directory from which to derive relative paths -appdir <directory> directory with the application executable and resources -appname <file> name of the application executable -appid <id> application identifier Example: ipack MyApplication.ipa -keystore ipack.ks -storepass keystorepwd -alias mycert -keypass keypwd -basedir mysources/MyApplication/dist -appdir Payload/MyApplication.app -appname MyApplication -appid com.myorg.MyApplication    

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• How to label a cuboid?

  - by usha

  Hi this is how my 3dcuboid looks, I have attached the complete code. I want to label this cuboid using different names across sides, how is this possible using opengl on android? public class MyGLRenderer implements Renderer { Context context; Cuboid rect; private float mCubeRotation; // private static float angleCube = 0; // Rotational angle in degree for cube (NEW) // private static float speedCube = -1.5f; // Rotational speed for cube (NEW) public MyGLRenderer(Context context) { rect = new Cuboid(); this.context = context; } public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL10.GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); gl.glLoadIdentity(); // Reset the model-view matrix gl.glTranslatef(0.2f, 0.0f, -8.0f); // Translate right and into the screen gl.glScalef(0.8f, 0.8f, 0.8f); // Scale down (NEW) gl.glRotatef(mCubeRotation, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // gl.glRotatef(angleCube, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // rotate about the axis (1,1,1) (NEW) rect.draw(gl); mCubeRotation -= 0.15f; //angleCube += speedCube; } public void onSurfaceChanged(GL10 gl, int width, int height) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub if (height == 0) height = 1; // To prevent divide by zero float aspect = (float)width / height; // Set the viewport (display area) to cover the entire window gl.glViewport(0, 0, width, height); // Setup perspective projection, with aspect ratio matches viewport gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_PROJECTION); // Select projection matrix gl.glLoadIdentity(); // Reset projection matrix // Use perspective projection GLU.gluPerspective(gl, 45, aspect, 0.1f, 100.f); gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_MODELVIEW); // Select model-view matrix gl.glLoadIdentity(); // Reset } public void onSurfaceCreated(GL10 gl, EGLConfig config) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub gl.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); // Set color's clear-value to black gl.glClearDepthf(1.0f); // Set depth's clear-value to farthest gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_DEPTH_TEST); // Enables depth-buffer for hidden surface removal gl.glDepthFunc(GL10.GL_LEQUAL); // The type of depth testing to do gl.glHint(GL10.GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL10.GL_NICEST); // nice perspective view gl.glShadeModel(GL10.GL_SMOOTH); // Enable smooth shading of color gl.glDisable(GL10.GL_DITHER); // Disable dithering for better performance }} public class Cuboid{ private FloatBuffer mVertexBuffer; private FloatBuffer mColorBuffer; private ByteBuffer mIndexBuffer; private float vertices[] = { //width,height,depth -2.5f, -1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f, -2.5f, 1.0f, -1.0f, -2.5f, -1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, -2.5f, 1.0f, 1.0f }; private float colors[] = { // R,G,B,A COLOR 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.5f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.5f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f }; private byte indices[] = { // VERTEX 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 REPRESENTATION FOR FACES 0, 4, 5, 0, 5, 1, 1, 5, 6, 1, 6, 2, 2, 6, 7, 2, 7, 3, 3, 7, 4, 3, 4, 0, 4, 7, 6, 4, 6, 5, 3, 0, 1, 3, 1, 2 }; public Cuboid() { ByteBuffer byteBuf = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(vertices.length * 4); byteBuf.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder()); mVertexBuffer = byteBuf.asFloatBuffer(); mVertexBuffer.put(vertices); mVertexBuffer.position(0); byteBuf = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(colors.length * 4); byteBuf.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder()); mColorBuffer = byteBuf.asFloatBuffer(); mColorBuffer.put(colors); mColorBuffer.position(0); mIndexBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(indices.length); mIndexBuffer.put(indices); mIndexBuffer.position(0); } public void draw(GL10 gl) { gl.glFrontFace(GL10.GL_CW); gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, mVertexBuffer); gl.glColorPointer(4, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, mColorBuffer); gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_COLOR_ARRAY); gl.glDrawElements(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, 36, GL10.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, mIndexBuffer); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_COLOR_ARRAY); } } public class Draw3drect extends Activity { private GLSurfaceView glView; // Use GLSurfaceView // Call back when the activity is started, to initialize the view @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); glView = new GLSurfaceView(this); // Allocate a GLSurfaceView glView.setRenderer(new MyGLRenderer(this)); // Use a custom renderer this.setContentView(glView); // This activity sets to GLSurfaceView } // Call back when the activity is going into the background @Override protected void onPause() { super.onPause(); glView.onPause(); } // Call back after onPause() @Override protected void onResume() { super.onResume(); glView.onResume(); } }

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• Limiting Audit Exposure and Managing Risk – Q&A and Follow-Up Conversation

  - by Tanu Sood

  Thanks to all who attended the live ISACA webcast on Limiting Audit Exposure and Managing Risk with Metrics-Driven Identity Analytics. We were really fortunate to have Don Sparks from ISACA moderate the webcast featuring Stuart Lincoln, Vice President, IT P&L Client Services, BNP Paribas, North America and Neil Gandhi, Principal Product Manager, Oracle Identity Analytics. Stuart’s insights given the team’s role in providing IT for P&L Client Services and his tremendous experience in identity management and establishing sustainable compliance programs were true value-add at yesterday’s webcast. And if you are a healthcare organization looking to solve your compliance and security challenges, we recommend you join us for a live webcast on Tuesday, November 29 at 10 am PT. The webcast will feature experts from Kaiser Permanente, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Oracle and the focus of the discussion will be around the compliance challenges a healthcare organization faces and best practices for tackling those. Here are the details: Healthcare IT News Webcast: Managing Risk and Enforcing Compliance in Healthcare with Identity Analytics Tuesday, November 29, 201110:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET Register Today The ISACA webcast replay is now available on-demand and the slides are also available for download. Since we didn’t have time to address all the questions we received during the live Q&A portion of the webcast, we have captured responses to the remaining questions here. Please continue to provide us your feedback and insights from your experience in deploying identity compliance solutions. Q. Can you please clarify the mechanism utilized to populate the Identity Warehouse from each individual application's access management function / files? A. Oracle Identity Analytics (OIA) supports direct imports from applications. Data collection is based on Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) that eliminates the need to write connectors to different applications. Oracle Identity Analytics’ import engine supports complex entitlement feeds saved as either text files or XML. The imports can be scheduled on a periodic basis or triggered as needed. If the applications are synchronized with a user provisioning solution like Oracle Identity Manager, Oracle Identity Analytics has a seamless integration to pull in data from Oracle Identity Manager. Q.  Can you provide a short summary of the new features in your latest release of Oracle Identity Analytics? A. Oracle recently announced availability of enhanced Oracle Identity Analytics. This release focused on easing the certification process by offering risk analytics driven certification, advanced certification screens, business centric views and significant improvement in performance including 3X faster data imports, 3X faster certification campaign generation and advanced auto-certification features, that  will allow organizations to improve user productivity by up to 80%. Closed-loop risk feedback and IT policy monitoring with Oracle Identity Manager, a leading user provisioning solution, allows for more accurate certification reviews. And, OIA's improved performance enables customers to scale compliance initiatives supporting millions of user entitlements across thousands of applications, whether on premise or in the cloud, without compromising speed or integrity. Q. Will ISACA grant a CPE credit for attending this ISACA-sponsored webinar today? A. From ISACA: Hello and thank you for your interest in the 2011 ISACA Webinar Program!  Unfortunately, there are no CPEs offered for this program, archived or live.  We will be looking into the feasibility of offering them in the future.  Q. Would you be able to use this to help manage licenses for software? That is to say - could it track software that is not used by a user, thus eliminating the software license? A. OIA’s integration with Oracle Identity Manager, a leading user provisioning solution, allows organizations to detect ghost accounts or unused accounts via account reconciliation. Based on company’s policies, this could trigger an automated workflow for account deletion or asking for further investigation. Closed-loop feedback between the two solutions would then allow visibility into the complete audit trail of when the account was detected, the action taken, by whom, when and the current status. Q. We have quarterly attestations and .xls mechanisms are not working. Once the identity data is correlated in Identity Analytics, do you then automate access certification? A. OIA’s identity warehouse analyzes and correlates identity data across various resources that allows OIA to determine a user’s risk profile, who the access review request should go to, along with all the relevant access details of the user. The access certification manager gets notification on what to review, when and the relevant data is presented in a business friendly screen. Based on the result of the access certification process, actions are triggered and results recorded and archived. Access review managers have visual risk indicators that also allow them to prioritize access certification tasks and efforts. Q. How does Oracle Identity Analytics work with Cloud Security? A. For enterprises looking to build their own cloud(s), Oracle offers a set of security services that cloud developers can leverage including Oracle Identity Analytics.  For enterprises looking to manage their compliance requirements but without hosting those in-house and instead having a hosting provider offer managed Identity Management services to the organizations, Oracle Identity Analytics can be leveraged much the same way as you’d in an on-premise (within the enterprise) environment. In fact, organizations today are leveraging Oracle Identity Analytics to manage identity compliance in both these ways. Q. Would you recommend this as a cost effective solution for a smaller organization with @ 2,500 users? A. The key return-on-investment (ROI) on Oracle Identity Analytics is derived from automating compliance processes thereby eliminating administrative overhead, minimizing errors, maintaining cost- and time-effective sustainable compliance processes and minimizing audit exposures and penalties.  Of course, there are other tangible benefits that are derived from an Oracle Identity Analytics implementation as outlined in the webcast. For a quantitative analysis of your requirements and potential ROI calculation, we recommend you refer to the Forrester Study on Total Economic Impact of Oracle Identity Analytics. For an in-person discussion, please email Richard Caldwell.

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• Blog Buzz - Devoxx 2011

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  Some day I will make it to Devoxx – for now, I’m content to vicariously follow the blogs of attendees and pick up on what’s happening.  I’ve been doing more blog "fishing," looking for the best commentary on 2011 Devoxx. There’s plenty of food for thought – and the ideas are not half-baked.The bloggers are out in full, offering useful summaries and commentary on Devoxx goings-on.Constantin Partac, a Java developer and a member of Transylvania JUG, a community from Cluj-Napoca/Romania, offers an excellent summary of the Devoxx keynotes. Here’s a sample:“Oracle Opening Keynote and JDK 7, 8, and 9 Presentation•    Oracle is committed to Java and wants to provide support for it on any device.•    JSE 7 for Mac will be released next week.•    Oracle would like Java developers to be involved in JCP, to adopt a JSR and to attend local JUG meetings.•    JEE 7 will be released next year.•    JEE 7 is focused on cloud integration, some of the features are already implemented in glassfish 4 development branch.•    JSE 8 will be release in summer of 2013 due to “enterprise community request” as they can not keep the pace with an 18    month release cycle.•    The main features included in JSE8 are lambda support, project Jigsaw, new Date/Time API, project Coin++ and adding   support for sensors. JSE 9 probably will focus on some of these features:1.    self tuning JVM2.    improved native language integration3.    processing enhancement for big data4.    reification (adding runtime class type info for generic types)5.    unification of primitive and corresponding object classes6.    meta-object protocol in order to use type and methods define in other JVM languages7.    multi-tenancy8.    JVM resource management” Thanks Constantin! Ivan St. Ivanov, of SAP Labs Bulgaria, also commented on the keynotes with a different focus.  He summarizes Henrik Stahl’s look ahead to Java SE 8 and JavaFX 3.0; Cameron Purdy on Java EE and the cloud; celebrated Java Champion Josh Bloch on what’s good and bad about Java; Mark Reinhold’s quick look ahead to Java SE 9; and Brian Goetz on lambdas and default methods in Java SE 8. Here’s St. Ivanov’s account of Josh Bloch’s comments on the pluses of Java:“He started with the virtues of the platform. To name a few:    Tightly specified language primitives and evaluation order – int is always 32 bits and operations are executed always from left  to right, without compilers messing around    Dynamic linking – when you change a class, you need to recompile and rebuild just the jar that has it and not the whole application    Syntax  similarity with C/C++ – most existing developers at that time felt like at home    Object orientations – it was cool at that time as well as functional programming is today    It was statically typed language – helps in faster runtime, better IDE support, etc.    No operator overloading – well, I’m not sure why it is good. Scala has it for example and that’s why it is far better for defining DSLs. But I will not argue with Josh.”It’s worth checking out St. Ivanov’s summary of Bloch’s views on what’s not so great about Java as well. What's Coming in JAX-RS 2.0Marek Potociar, Principal Software Engineer at Oracle and currently specification lead of Java EE RESTful web services API (JAX-RS), blogged on his talk about what's coming in JAX-RS 2.0, scheduled for final release in mid-2012.  Here’s a taste:“Perhaps the most wanted addition to the JAX-RS is the Client API, that would complete the JAX-RS story, that is currently server-side only. In JAX-RS 2.0 we are adding a completely interface-based and fluent client API that blends nicely in with the existing fluent response builder pattern on the server-side. When we started with the client API, the first proposal contained around 30 classes. Thanks to the feedback from our Expert Group we managed to reduce the number of API classes to 14 (2 of them being exceptions)! The resulting is compact while at the same time we still managed to create an API that reflects the method invocation context flow (e.g. once you decide on the target URI and start setting headers on the request, your IDE will not try to offer you a URI setter in the code completion). This is a subtle but very important usability aspect of an API…” Obviously, Devoxx is a great Java conference, one that is hitting this year at a time when much is brewing in the platform and beginning to be anticipated.

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• Windows Phone Developer Spotlight: Nikolai Joukov

  - by Lori Lalonde

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/lorilalonde/archive/2014/06/04/windows-phone-developer-spotlight-nikolai-joukov.aspxAs part of an ongoing series, I plan to include a spotlight post on people within the community that are stars in their field and area of expertise. For my first spotlight post, I interviewed Nikolai Joukov, who is a regular attendee at my local area .NET User Group (CTTDNUG), and has also participated in many of the Mobile and Cloud workshops we have hosted over the past few years. Nikolai stood out immediately, because of his passion for developing mobile apps, his interest in continuous learning, and his drive to publish quality apps that people will find useful and entertaining. Background: Nikolai immigrated to Canada in 1995, and has been working in IT since 1997. He moved on to become an independent contractor in 2005, and has worked at various large scale organizations over the course of his career, including BMO, Enbridge, Economical Insurance, Equitable Life, Manulife and Sun Life. Nikolai is an accomplished Windows Phone and Windows Store publisher, with 11 published Windows Phone apps, and 8 published Windows Store apps. He has almost 6000 downloads and favourable reviews. Q & A with Nikolai How many years have you been developing Windows Phone apps? 2 years When did you develop your very first Windows Phone app, and what was it about? Actually, the very first app I wrote was for the Microsoft “Smart Phone” back in 2004. This phone was given to me by Microsoft during the Developers Days Conference in Toronto. It was some kind of experimental model named Smart Phone, but you had to use VB 3 to develop the applications. Needless to say, this was not very successful at that time. My app was a Stock Trades Calculator. Very primitive, but it was working for me. The phone was heavy and the battery barely lasted 4 hours. Microsoft stopped supporting it few months later and the phone stopped working shortly after, but I still have it as a souvenir. For Windows Phone, my first app was “Trip Packing Assistant”. This is a simple trip packing check list that allows you to list items by category, set required quantity of items, and mark off the item in the list when it is packed. I designed it for me and my wife Galina, since we love to travel and this program helps manage our list for us. How did you get started in Windows Phone development? I have to say thanks to our .NET User Group for introducing me to Windows Phone development. I was intrigued and decided to give it a try. In October 2012 during a 2 day training event that ObjectSharp hosted in London, I met Bruce Johnson. On his advice, I registered for Developer Movement, and it is was a good push to actually complete the apps that I started. You have a great series of travel guide apps both for Windows Phone and Windows Store. Tell us about how you came up with the idea to develop those apps and what process you went through to put it all together. Like I said earlier, my wife and I love to travel. Before I created Trip Packing Assistant, every time we were planning to travel somewhere new, Galina would spend 3-4 weeks doing research. She would create a Word document with all of the information. We didn’t want to have to carry our laptop with us all the time, so we printed out the Word document she created, and would take it with us. After we returned from the trip, we would bring back tons of pictures and materials. Then our friends started to ask us about our materials before they planned their trips to the same places we had visited. So I decided to give it a try and started making apps for Windows Phone and for Windows 8. I hope these applications will help people who are planning to travel. So, all of the pictures used in the travel apps you created were actually taken by you during these amazing trips? Yes Do you have another Windows Store/Windows Phone project in development right now? If so, can you give us a hint at what it will be about? I want to stay with travel apps for now. But this time I will try to write an app for us (Galina and I). Usually we go on the trip, then I write the apps after we have all this beautiful pictures in our hands. We are planning a trip to Rome. This app will not have the pictures, but I want to add a map with points of interest and all information that can be useful for us. Then we will go on our trip and test it on location. As well I am planning to work on my existing apps to make them better. What learning resources would you recommend for other developers that want to get started in Window Store and Windows Phone development? I would start with dev.windowsphone.com to get all tools and samples, also links to training materials. I like MVA (Microsoft Virtual Academy). Their videos are really useful and it is free. Pluralsight is good too but it is not free and I do not have a subscription anymore. Our .NET User Group meetings give good insights too. I went to all meetings and full day training events. When you start to develop your app, you need to do research for specific questions that arise during development. The Developer Portal and Nokia Developer are good resources too. Wrap Up Thanks Nikolai for participating in my first Spotlight blog post! Shown below is Nikolai’s publisher page in the Windows Phone Store and his publisher page in the Windows Store. Simply click on it to be taken to there to check out his portfolio of apps. Be sure to download his apps and try them out! They are all free! Nikolai’s Windows Phone apps   Nikolai’s Windows Store Apps

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• LA SPÉCIALISATION POUR SE DIFFÉRENCIER ET ÊTRE VALORISÉ

  - by michaela.seika(at)oracle.com

  Software. Hardware. Complete. inside the Click Here The order you must follow to make the colored link appear in browsers. If not the default window link will appear 1. Select the word you want to use for the link 2. Select the desired color, Red, Black, etc 3. Select bold if necessary ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Templates use two sizes of fonts and the sans-serif font tag for the email. All Fonts should be (Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif) tags Normal size reading body fonts should be set to the size of 2. Small font sizes should be set to 1 !!!!!!!DO NOT USE ANY OTHER SIZE FONT FOR THE EMAILS!!!!!!!! ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ --     LA SPÉCIALISATION  POUR SE DIFFÉRENCIER ET ÊTRE VALORISÉ       Le marché nous demande de plus en plus de solutions et d’engagements. Pour bâtir ces solutions nous nous appuyons sur vous, Partenaires Oracle. En matière d’engagements, Oracle se doit de communiquer auprès du marché quant à la spécialisation de ses partenaires, sur leurs compétences en fonction des projets que les clients nous demandent d’adresser. Plus de 50 spécialisations sont à ce jour disponibles pour les partenaires Gold, Platinum et Diamond : • Sur les produits Technologiques tels que la Base de Données, les options de la Base, la SOA, la Business Intelligence, … • Sur les produits Applicatifs, tels que l’ERP, le CRM, … • Sur les produits Hardware, les Systèmes d’exploitation. Afin de vous aider à vous spécialiser et donc à vous certifier, nos 2 distributeurs à valeur ajoutée, Altimate et Arrow ECS, vous assistent dans cette démarche. ALTIMATE vous propose de participer Lunch & Spécialisation tour Profitez de ces dispositifs qui sont mis en place pour vous afin de vous spécialiser et profiter de tous les bénéfices auxquels vous donne accès la spécialisation. ARROW ECS vous propose de participer : L'Ecole de la spécialisation Oracle by Arrow Profitez de ces dispositifs qui sont mis en place pour vous afin de vous spécialiser et profiter de tous les bénéfices auxquels vous donne accès la spécialisation. Oracle Solutions Tour Découvrez la solution Oracle lors de ce tour de France. Au programme :  roadmaps, ateliers produits et solutions, certifications     BÉNÉFICES en savoir + • l’engagement d’Oracle aux côtés des partenaires pour adresser les grands dossiers • la visibilité auprès des clients pour être identifié comme Expert sur une offre, reconnu et validé par Oracle • le support (accès support gratuit), Oracle University (vouchers pour certifier gratuitement vos équipes de Consultants Implementation) • les budgets Marketing (lead generation, création de campagnes Marketing, être sponsor d’événements clients)   Différenciez-vous en vous spécialisant sur votre domaine d’expertise et accélérez votre succès ! Oracle et ses Distributeurs à Valeur Ajoutée     Eric Fontaine Directeur Alliances & Channel Technologie Europe du Sud vous présente en vidéo la spécialisation et ses avantages.                                         CONTACTS : ORACLE Jean-Jacques PanissiéOracle Partner Development A&C Technology +33 157 60 28 52 ALTIMATE Sophie Daval +33 1 34 58 47 68 ARROW [email protected] +33 1 49 97 59 63          

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• Playing with http page cycle using JustMock

  - by mehfuzh

  In this post , I will cover a test code that will mock the various elements needed to complete a HTTP page request and  assert the expected page cycle steps. To begin, i have a simple enumeration that has my predefined page steps: public enum PageStep {     PreInit,     Load,     PreRender,     UnLoad } Once doing so, i  first created the page object [not mocking]. Page page = new Page(); Here, our target is to fire up the page process through ProcessRequest call, now if we take a look inside the method with reflector.net,  the call trace will go like : ProcessRequest –> ProcessRequestWithNoAssert –> SetInstrinsics –> Finallly ProcessRequest. Inside SetInstrinsics ,  it requires calls from HttpRequest, HttpResponse and HttpBrowserCababilities. With this clue at hand, we can easily know the classes / calls  we need to mock in order to get through the expected call. Accordingly, for  HttpBrowserCapabilities our required test code will look like: Mock.Arrange(() => browser.PreferredRenderingMime).Returns("text/html"); Mock.Arrange(() => browser.PreferredResponseEncoding).Returns("UTF-8"); Mock.Arrange(() => browser.PreferredRequestEncoding).Returns("UTF-8"); Now, HttpBrowserCapabilities is get though [Instance]HttpRequest.Browser. Therefore, we create the HttpRequest mock: var request = Mock.Create<HttpRequest>(); Then , add the required get call : Mock.Arrange(() => request.Browser).Returns(browser); As, [instance]Browser.PerferrredResponseEncoding and [instance]Browser.PreferredResponseEncoding  are also set to the request object and to make that they are set properly, we can add the following lines as well [not required though]. bool requestContentEncodingSet = false; Mock.ArrangeSet(() => request.ContentEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("UTF-8")).DoInstead(() =>  requestContentEncodingSet = true); Similarly, for response we can write:  var response = Mock.Create<HttpResponse>();    bool responseContentEncodingSet = false;  Mock.ArrangeSet(() => response.ContentEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("UTF-8")).DoInstead(() => responseContentEncodingSet = true); Finally , I created a mock of HttpContext and set the Request and Response properties that will returns the mocked version. var context = Mock.Create<HttpContext>();   Mock.Arrange(() => context.Request).Returns(request); Mock.Arrange(() => context.Response).Returns(response); As, Page internally calls RenderControl method , we just need to replace that with our one and optionally we can check if  invoked properly: bool rendered = false; Mock.Arrange(() => page.RenderControl(Arg.Any<HtmlTextWriter>())).DoInstead(() => rendered = true); That’s  it, the rest of the code is simple,  where  i asserted the page cycle with the PageSteps that i defined earlier: var pageSteps = new Queue<PageStep>();   page.PreInit +=      delegate      {          pageSteps.Enqueue(PageStep.PreInit);      }; page.Load +=      delegate      {          pageSteps.Enqueue(PageStep.Load);      };   page.PreRender +=      delegate      {          pageSteps.Enqueue(PageStep.PreRender);      };   page.Unload +=      delegate      {          pageSteps.Enqueue(PageStep.UnLoad);      };   page.ProcessRequest(context);    Assert.True(requestContentEncodingSet);  Assert.True(responseContentEncodingSet);  Assert.True(rendered);    Assert.Equal(pageSteps.Dequeue(), PageStep.PreInit);  Assert.Equal(pageSteps.Dequeue(), PageStep.Load);  Assert.Equal(pageSteps.Dequeue(), PageStep.PreRender);  Assert.Equal(pageSteps.Dequeue(), PageStep.UnLoad);    Mock.Assert(request);  Mock.Assert(response);   You can get the test class shown in this post here to give a try by yourself with of course JustMock :-).   Enjoy!!

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