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Agile Database Techniques: Effective Strategies for the Agile Software Developer – book review

- by DigiMortal

Agile development expects mind shift and developers are not the only ones who must be agile. Every chain is as strong as it’s weakest link and same goes also for development teams. Agile Database Techniques: Effective Strategies for the Agile Software Developer by Scott W. Ambler is book that calls also data professionals to be part of agile development. Often are DBA-s in situation where they are not part of application development and later they have to survive large set of applications that all use databases different way. Of course, only some of these applications are not problematic when looking what database server has to do to serve them. I have seen many applications that rape database servers because developers have no clue what is going on in database (~3K queries to database per web application request – have you seen something like this? I have…) Agile Database Techniques covers some object and database design technologies and gives suggestions to development teams about topics they need help or assistance by DBA-s. The book is also good reading for DBA-s who usually are not very strong in object technologies. You can take this book as bridge between these two worlds. I think teams that build object applications that use databases should buy this book and try at least one or two projects out with Ambler’s suggestions. Table of contents Foreword by Jon Kern. Foreword by Douglas K. Barry. Acknowledgments. Introduction. About the Author. Part One: Setting the Foundation. Chapter 1: The Agile Data Method. Chapter 2: From Use Cases to Databases — Real-World UML. Chapter 3: Data Modeling 101. Chapter 4: Data Normalization. Chapter 5: Class Normalization. Chapter 6: Relational Database Technology, Like It or Not. Chapter 7: The Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch. Chapter 8: Legacy Databases — Everything You Need to Know But Are Afraid to Deal With. Part Two: Evolutionary Database Development. Chapter 9: Vive L’ Évolution. Chapter 10: Agile Model-Driven Development (AMDD). Chapter 11: Test-Driven Development (TDD). Chapter 12: Database Refactoring. Chapter 13: Database Encapsulation Strategies. Chapter 14: Mapping Objects to Relational Databases. Chapter 15: Performance Tuning. Chapter 16: Tools for Evolutionary Database Development. Part Three: Practical Data-Oriented Development Techniques. Chapter 17: Implementing Concurrency Control. Chapter 18: Finding Objects in Relational Databases. Chapter 19: Implementing Referential Integrity and Shared Business Logic. Chapter 20: Implementing Security Access Control. Chapter 21: Implementing Reports. Chapter 22: Realistic XML. Part Four: Adopting Agile Database Techniques. Chapter 23: How You Can Become Agile. Chapter 24: Bringing Agility into Your Organization. Appendix: Database Refactoring Catalog. References and Suggested Reading. Index.

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How to reproject a shapefile from WGS 84 to Spherical/Web Mercator projection.

- by samkea

Definitions: You will need to know the meaning of these terms below. I have given a small description to the acronyms but you can google and know more about them. #1:WGS-84- World Geodetic Systems (1984)- is a standard reference coordinate system used for Cartography, Geodesy and Navigation. #2: EPGS-European Petroleum Survey Group-was a scientific organization with ties to the European petroleum industry consisting of specialists working in applied geodesy, surveying, and cartography related to oil exploration. EPSG::4326 is a common coordinate reference system that refers to WGS84 as (latitude, longitude) pair coordinates in degrees with Greenwich as the central meridian. Any degree representation (e.g., decimal or DMSH: degrees minutes seconds hemisphere) may be used. Which degree representation is used must be declared for the user by the supplier of data. So, the Spherical/Web Mercator projection is referred to as EPGS::3785 which is renamed to EPSG:900913 by google for use in googlemaps. The associated CRS(Coordinate Reference System) for this is the "Popular Visualisation CRS / Mercator ". This is the kind of projection that is used by GoogleMaps, BingMaps,OSM,Virtual Earth, Deep Earth excetra...to show interactive maps over the web with thier nearly precise coordinates. Reprojection: After reading alot about reprojecting my coordinates from the deepearth project on Codeplex, i still could not do it. After some help from a colleague, i got my ball rolling.This is how i did it. #1 You need to download and open your shapefile using Q-GIS; its the one with the biggest number of coordinate reference systems/ projections. #2 Use the plugins menu, and enable ftools and the WFS plugin. #3 Use the Vector menu--> Data Management Tools and choose define current projection. Enable, use predefined reference system and choose WGS 84 coodinate system. I am personally in zone 36, so i chose WGS84-UTM Zone 36N under ( Projected Coordinate Systems--> Universal Transverse Mercator) and click ok. #4 Now use the Vector menu--> Data Management Tools and choose export to new projection. The same dialog will pop-up. Now choose WGS 84 EPGS::4326 under Geodetic Coordinate Systems. My Input user Defined Spatial Reference System should looks like this: +proj=tmerc +lat_0=0 +lon_0=33 +k=0.9996 +x_0=500000 +y_0=200000 +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs Your Output user Defined Spatial Reference System should look like this: +proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +no_defs Browse for the place where the shapefile is going to be and give the shapefile a name(like origna_reprojected). If it prompts you to add the projected layer to the TOC, accept. There, you have your re-projected map with latitude and longitude pair of coordinates. #5 Now, this is not the actual Spherical/Web Mercator projection, but dont worry, this is where you have to stop. All the other custom web-mapping portals will pick this projection and transform it into EPGS::3785 or EPSG:900913 but the coordinates will still remain as the LatLon pair of the projected shapefile. If you want to test, a particular know point, Q-GIS has a lot of room for that. Go ahead and test it.

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Databases in Source Control

- by Grant Fritchey

I’ve been working as a database professional for quite a long time. But originally, I was a developer. And I loved being a developer. There was this constant feedback loop of a job well done, your code compiled and it ran. Every time this happened successfully, you’d check it into source control. These days you have to add another step; the code passed all the tests, unit, line, regression, qa, whatever, then into source control it goes. As a matter of fact, when I first made the jump from developer to DBA/database developer/database professional, source control was the one thing I couldn’t believe was missing from the DBA toolbox. Come to find out, source control was only the beginning of what was missing from your standard DBAs set of skills. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not disrespecting the DBA. They’re focused where they should be, on your production data. But there has to be a method for developing applications that include databases and the database side of that development and deployment process has long been lacking. This lack of development and deployment methodologies is a part of what has given rise to some of the wackier implementations of Object Relational Mapping tools, the NoSQL movement, and some of the other foul cursing that is directed towards databases, DBAs, and database development by application developers. Some of that is well earned. A lot isn’t. But it is a fact that database professionals, in general, do not have as sophisticated a model for managing development and deployment as application developers do. We could charge out and start trying to come up with our own standards and methods. I’m sure people have done exactly that. However, I’m lazy, and not terribly bright. Rather than try to invent a whole new process, I’m going to look to my developer roots and choose instead to emulate the developers. They’re sitting over there across the hall from me working with SCRUM/Agile/Waterfall/Object Driven/Feature Driven/Test Driven development processes that they’ve been polishing for years. What if I just started working on database development the same way they work on code development? Win! Ah, but now I have to have a mechanism for treating my database like application code. First, I need a method for getting it into source control. That’s where Red Gate’s SQL Source Control comes into the picture. SQL Source Control works within SQL Server Management Studio to connect your database objects up to the source control system of your choice. Right out of the box SQL Source Control can link to TFS, SVN or Vault. With a little work you can connect it to Git or just about any other source control system. With the ability to get my database into source control, a lot of possibilities for more direct integration with the application development teams open up.

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OWB 11gR2 – OLAP and Simba

- by David Allan

Oracle Warehouse Builder was the first ETL product to provide a single integrated and complete environment for managing enterprise data warehouse solutions that also incorporate multi-dimensional schemas. The OWB 11gR2 release provides Oracle OLAP 11g deployment for multi-dimensional models (in addition to support for prior releases of OLAP). This means users can easily utilize Simba's MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP (see here for details and cost) which allows you to use the powerful and popular ad hoc query and analysis capabilities of Microsoft Excel PivotTables® and PivotCharts® with your Oracle OLAP business intelligence data. The extensions to the dimensional modeling capabilities have been built on established relational concepts, with the option to seamlessly move from a relational deployment model to a multi-dimensional model at the click of a button. This now means that ETL designers can logically model a complete data warehouse solution using one single tool and control the physical implementation of a logical model at deployment time. As a result data warehouse projects that need to provide a multi-dimensional model as part of the overall solution can be designed and implemented faster and more efficiently. Wizards for dimensions and cubes let you quickly build dimensional models and realize either relationally or as an Oracle database OLAP implementation, both 10g and 11g formats are supported based on a configuration option. The wizard provides a good first cut definition and the objects can be further refined in the editor. Both wizards let you choose the implementation, to deploy to OLAP in the database select MOLAP: multidimensional storage. You will then be asked what levels and attributes are to be defined, by default the wizard creates a level bases hierarchy, parent child hierarchies can be defined in the editor. Once the dimension or cube has been designed there are special mapping operators that make it easy to load data into the objects, below we load a constant value for the total level and the other levels from a source table. Again when the cube is defined using the wizard we can edit the cube and define a number of analytic calculations by using the 'generate calculated measures' option on the measures panel. This lets you very easily add a lot of rich analytic measures to your cube. For example one of the measures is the percentage difference from a year ago which we can see in detail below. You can also add your own custom calculations to leverage the capabilities of the Oracle OLAP option, either by selecting existing template types such as moving averages to defining true custom expressions. The 11g OLAP option now supports percentage based summarization (the amount of data to precompute and store), this is available from the option 'cost based aggregation' in the cube's configuration. Ensure all measure-dimensions level based aggregation is switched off (on the cube-dimension panel) - previously level based aggregation was the only option. The 11g generated code now uses the new unified API as you see below, to generate the code, OWB needs a valid connection to a real schema, this was not needed before 11gR2 and is a new requirement since the OLAP API which OWB uses is not an offline one. Once all of the objects are deployed and the maps executed then we get to the fun stuff! How can we analyze the data? One option which is powerful and at many users' fingertips is using Microsoft Excel PivotTables® and PivotCharts®, which can be used with your Oracle OLAP business intelligence data by utilizing Simba's MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP (see Simba site for details of cost). I'll leave the exotic reporting illustrations to the experts (see Bud's demonstration here), but with Simba's MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP its very simple to easily access the analytics stored in the database (all built and loaded via the OWB 11gR2 release) and get the regular features of Excel at your fingertips such as using the conditional formatting features for example. That's a very quick run through of the OWB 11gR2 with respect to Oracle 11g OLAP integration and the reporting using Simba's MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP. Not a deep-dive in any way but a quick overview to illustrate the design capabilities and integrations possible.

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OSI Model

- by kaleidoscope

The Open System Interconnection Reference Model (OSI Reference Model or OSI Model) is an abstract description for layered communications and computer network protocol design. In its most basic form, it divides network architecture into seven layers which, from top to bottom, are the Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link, and Physical Layers. It is therefore often referred to as the OSI Seven Layer Model. A layer is a collection of conceptually similar functions that provide services to the layer above it and receives service from the layer below it. Description of OSI layers: Layer 1: Physical Layer · Defines the electrical and physical specifications for devices. In particular, it defines the relationship between a device and a physical medium. · Establishment and termination of a connection to a communications medium. · Participation in the process whereby the communication resources are effectively shared among multiple users. · Modulation or conversion between the representation of digital data in user equipment and the corresponding signals transmitted over a communications channel. Layer 2: Data Link Layer · Provides the functional and procedural means to transfer data between network entities. · Detect and possibly correct errors that may occur in the Physical Layer. The error check is performed using Frame Check Sequence (FCS). · Addresses is then sought to see if it needs to process the rest of the frame itself or whether to pass it on to another host. · The Layer is divided into two sub layers: The Media Access Control (MAC) layer and the Logical Link Control (LLC) layer. · MAC sub layer controls how a computer on the network gains access to the data and permission to transmit it. · LLC layer controls frame synchronization, flow control and error checking. Layer 3: Network Layer · Provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable length data sequences from a source to a destination via one or more networks. · Performs network routing functions, and might also perform fragmentation and reassembly, and report delivery errors. · Network Layer Routers operate at this layer—sending data throughout the extended network and making the Internet possible. Layer 4: Transport Layer · Provides transparent transfer of data between end users, providing reliable data transfer services to the upper layers. · Controls the reliability of a given link through flow control, segmentation/de-segmentation, and error control. · Transport Layer can keep track of the segments and retransmit those that fail. Layer 5: Session Layer · Controls the dialogues (connections) between computers. · Establishes, manages and terminates the connections between the local and remote application. · Provides for full-duplex, half-duplex, or simplex operation, and establishes checkpointing, adjournment, termination, and restart procedures. · Implemented explicitly in application environments that use remote procedure calls. Layer 6: Presentation Layer · Establishes a context between Application Layer entities, in which the higher-layer entities can use different syntax and semantics, as long as the presentation service understands both and the mapping between them. The presentation service data units are then encapsulated into Session Protocol data units, and moved down the stack. · Provides independence from differences in data representation (e.g., encryption) by translating from application to network format, and vice versa. The presentation layer works to transform data into the form that the application layer can accept. This layer formats and encrypts data to be sent across a network, providing freedom from compatibility problems. It is sometimes called the syntax layer. Layer 7: Application Layer · This layer interacts with software applications that implement a communicating component. · Identifies communication partners, determines resource availability, and synchronizes communication. o When identifying communication partners, the application layer determines the identity and availability of communication partners for an application with data to transmit. o When determining resource availability, the application layer must decide whether sufficient network or the requested communication exists. o In synchronizing communication, all communication between applications requires cooperation that is managed by the application layer. Technorati Tags: Kunal,OSI,Networking

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Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Change in the Healthcare System Explored at America’s Health Insurance Plans Exchange Conference and Institute 2013

- by elaine blog

The program theme at the June America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Exchange Conference and AHIP’s Institute 2013 was Transforming Our Health Care System: Navigating and Succeeding in the New Marketplace. Topics included care delivery transformation, innovation for a new healthcare eco system, Health Insurance Exchanges, the nexus of consumerism, retail and healthcare, driving value through improved operations and leveraging technology, data and innovation to transform care. Oracle participated as a sponsor of both conferences, signaling the significant investment and activity Oracle continues to make in helping health plans, providers and government agencies become more efficient and more relevant in the healthcare market place. AHIP is a national trade association representing the health insurance industry. AHIP’s members provide health and supplemental benefits to more than 200 million Americans through employer-sponsored coverage, the individual insurance market and public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. AHIP advocates for public policies that expand access to affordable health care. Health plans are focusing on the Health Insurance Exchanges and the opportunities they offer to provide better access and higher quality healthcare. With the opportunities come operational challenges to implementation and innovative technology solutions to consider. At the Exchange Conference, Oracle hosted a breakfast symposium on “Strategies for Success: Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market”. With Health Insurance Exchanges as catalysts for change, attendees learned about how to achieve integration within an Exchange and deploy new business strategies to support health reform initiatives. Discussion covered steps and processes to successfully establish and implement enrollment systems, quote to card activities, program pricing, claims billing, automated claims processing and new customer service tools. Piyush Pushkar, COO of Benefitalign, an Oracle partner that provides solutions to adopt innovative business models for retail, HIX, consumer-centric health plan and benefits administration, spoke on the state of the Exchanges in the U.S. and the activities health plans are engaged in to support individuals entering the healthcare system, including sales automation, member enrollment automation/portals and integration strategies with the Exchanges. The Oracle and Benefitalign partnership allows seamless integration between a health plan enrollment solution with the HIX individual market and allows for the health plan to customize and characterize the offerings available to the HIX that may or may not be available through other channels. This approach can benefit the health plan through separation of interests, but also because some state-run HIXs require such separation. Janice W. Young, Program Director, Payer IT Strategies, IDC Health Insights, reviewed a survey of health plans on their investment priorities for this last year as well as this year. She also identified the 2013-2015 strategies of go/get to market with front end and compliance investments; leveraging existing business processes and internal technologies; and establishing best practices. Of key interest to the audience was a reform era payer solutions platform overview mapping technologies to support the business operations. David Bonham of the Oracle Health Insurance organization moderated the panel and spoke on Oracle’s presence in healthcare and products for payers to help them drive efficiencies and gain a competitive advantage in an ever changing market. Oracle serves healthcare stakeholders with applications such as billing, rating and underwriting, analytics, CRM, enrollment, and products for processing of health insurance claims including pricing and benefits administration, as well as payment of providers through alternative, non-fee for service reimbursement methods. Oracle in Healthcare….Did you know? More than 80 healthcare payers run Oracle applications. More than 300 leading healthcare providers run Oracle applications. 10 out of the top 12 fortune Global 500 healthcare organizations run Oracle applications. For more information on Oracle solutions for healthcare payers, please visit oracle.com/insurance or these individual solution pages: Oracle Health Insurance Components Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting Oracle Insurance Revenue Management and Billing Oracle Documaker Oracle Healthcare Oracle CRM Related Resources Webcast On Demand: Strategies for Success: Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market Strategy Brief: Executing on the Individual Mandate: Opportunities and Challenges for Healthcare Payers White Paper: White paper: Navigating Alternative Provider Reimbursement Models of the Future Strategy Brief: Enterprise Rating Agility Improves Payer Response to Healthcare Reform Podcast: Technology Implications of Healthcare Reform Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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SQL SERVER – How to Compare the Schema of Two Databases with Schema Compare

- by Pinal Dave

Earlier I wrote about An Efficiency Tool to Compare and Synchronize SQL Server Databases and it was very much well received. Since the blog post I have received quite a many question that just like data how we can also compare schema and synchronize it. If you think about comparing the schema manually, it is almost impossible to do so. Table Schema has been just one of the concept but if you really want the all the schema of the database (triggers, views, stored procedure and everything else) it is just impossible task. If you are developer or database administrator who works in the production environment than you know that there are so many different occasions when we have to compare schema of the database. Before deploying any changes to the production server, I personally like to make note of the every single schema change and document it so in case of any issue , I can always go back and refer my documentation. As discussed earlier it is absolutely impossible to do this task without the help of third party tools. I personally use Devart Schema Compare for this task. This is an extremely easy tool. Let us see how it works. First I have two different databases – a) AdventureWorks2012 and b) AdventureWorks2012-V1. There are total three changes between these databases. Here is the list of the same. One of the table has additional column One of the table have new index One of the stored procedure is changed Now let see how dbForge Schema Compare works in this scenario. First open dbForge Schema Compare studio. Click on New Schema Comparison. It will bring you to following screen where we have to configure the database needed to configure. I have selected AdventureWorks2012 and AdventureWorks-V1 databases. In the next screen we can verify various options but for this demonstration we will keep it as it is. We will not change anything in schema mapping screen as in our case it is not required but generically if you are comparing across schema you may need this. This is the most important screen as on this screen we select which kind of object we want to compare. You can see the options which are available to select. The screen lets you select the objects from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2012. Once you click on compare in previous screen it will bring you to this screen, which will essentially display the comparative difference between two of the databases which we had selected in earlier screen. As mentioned above there are three different changes in the database and the same has been listed over here. Two of the changes belongs to the tables and one changes belong to the procedure. Let us click each of them one by one to see what is the difference between them. In very first option we can see that there is an additional column in another database which did not exist earlier. In this example we can see that AdventureWorks2012 database have an additional index. Following example is very interesting as in this case, we have changed the definition of the stored procedure and the result pan contains the same. dbForget Schema Compare very effectively identify the changes in schema and lists them neatly to developers. Here is one more screen. This software not only compares the schema but also provides the options to update or drop them as per the choice. I think this is brilliant option. Well, I have been using schema compare for quite a while and have found it very useful. Here are few of the things which dbForge Schema Compare can do for developers and DBAs. Compare and synchronize SQL Server database schemas Compare schemas of live database and SQL Server backup Generate comparison reports in Excel and HTML formats Eliminate mistakes in schema changes propagation across environments Track production database changes and customizations Automate migration of schema changes using command line interface I suggest that you try out dbForge Schema Compare and let me know what you think of this product. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL

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Announcing the ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 Release Candidate

- by ScottGu

This week the ASP.NET and Visual Web Developer teams delivered the Release Candidate of the ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 update (formerly ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update BUILD Prerelease). This update extends the existing ASP.NET runtime and adds new web tooling to Visual Studio 2012. Whether you use Web Forms, MVC, Web API, or any other ASP.NET technology, there is something cool in this update for you. You can download and install the RC today: http://www.asp.net/vnext. Great ASP.NET Enhancements This update adds new ASP.NET templates and features, including: New ASP.NET MVC templates. Creating Facebook applications just became easier using the new Facebook Application template. In just a few easy steps you can create a Facebook application that gets data from the logged in user as well as integrates with their friends. A new Single Page Application template allows developers to build interactive client-side web apps using Knockout, jQuery, and ASP.NET Web API. Real-time communication support with ASP.NET SignalR. This enables you to easily take advantage of the new WebSocket support in .NET 4.5, while also automatically degrading to long-polling and other protocols for older clients. If you haven’t tried SignalR yet you should – it is awesome. New ASP.NET Web API functionality, including support for OData, integrated tracing, and automatically generating help page documentation for your API. New ASP.NET Friendly URL functionality. This new feature makes it very easy for Web Forms developers to generate cleaner looking URLs (without the .aspx extension). The Friendly URLs feature also makes it easier for developers to add mobile support to their applications with support for mobile .ASPX pages and supporting switching between desktop and mobile views. It can be used with existing ASP.NET v4.0 applications. Visual Studio 2012 Web publishing enhancements. Web site projects now have the same publish experience as web application projects (including to Windows Azure Web Sites), and you can selectively publish files, see the differences between local and remote files, and update local to remote files or vice versa. Visual Studio 2012 Page Inspector enhancements. JavaScript selection mapping is now supported, and you can CSS updates in real-time. Visual Studio 2012 editor support for Knockout IntelliSense and pasting JSON as a .NET class (which makes it even easier to consume Web APIs from others). Visual Studio 2012 Project Template updates, including the latest versions of jQuery, jQuery UI, jQuery Validation, Modernirz, Knockout and more… How it is delivered You can download and install an integrated setup that contains the above enhancements today from http://www.asp.net/vnext. The new runtime functionality is delivered to ASP.NET via additional NuGet packages. This means that installing this update does not make any changes to the existing ASP.NET binaries, and thus does not cause any compatibility issues with existing projects. New projects will contain the new functionality and existing projects can be updated with the new NuGet packages. Summary Web development is changing, and ASP.NET is rapidly delivering new capabilities to developers that help them take full advantage of new capabilities. The ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 update installs in minutes without altering the current ASP.NET run time components. For a complete description see the Release Notes. Next week I plan to publish a tutorial showing how to build a cool Facebook application using the new Facebook template. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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How to develop RPG Damage Formulas?

- by user127817

I'm developing a classical 2d RPG (in a similar vein to final fantasy) and I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to do damage formulas/links to resources/examples? I'll explain my current setup. Hopefully I'm not overdoing it with this question, and I apologize if my questions is too large/broad My Characters stats are composed of the following: enum Stat { HP = 0, MP = 1, SP = 2, Strength = 3, Vitality = 4, Magic = 5, Spirit = 6, Skill = 7, Speed = 8, //Speed/Agility are the same thing Agility = 8, Evasion = 9, MgEvasion = 10, Accuracy = 11, Luck = 12, }; Vitality is basically defense to physical attacks and spirit is defense to magic attacks. All stats have fixed maximums (9999 for HP, 999 for MP/SP and 255 for the rest). With abilities, the maximums can be increased (99999 for HP, 9999 for HP/SP, 999 for the rest) with typical values (at level 100) before/after abilities+equipment+etc will be 8000/20,000 for HP, 800/2000 for SP/MP, 180/350 for other stats Late game Enemy HP will typically be in the lower millions (with a super boss having the maximum of ~12 million). I was wondering how do people actually develop proper damage formulas that scale correctly? For instance, based on this data, using the damage formulas for Final Fantasy X as a base looked very promising. A full reference here http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs/31381 but as a quick example: Str = 127, 'Attack' command used, enemy Def = 34. 1. Physical Damage Calculation: Step 1 ------------------------------------- [{(Stat^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x DmCon ÷16] Step 2 ---------------------------------------- [{(127^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 3 -------------------------------------- [{(2048383 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 4 --------------------------------------------------- [{(64011) + 32} x 1] Step 5 -------------------------------------------------------- [{(64043 x 1)}] Step 6 ---------------------------------------------------- Base Damage = 64043 Step 7 ----------------------------------------- [{(Def - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------ [{(34 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ------------------------------------------------- [(-246)^2) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 ---------------------------------------------------- [60516 ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [550] + 16 Step 12 ---------------------------------------------------------- DefNum = 566 Step 13 ---------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * DefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [64043 * 566 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------------ [36248338 ÷ 730] Step 16 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 49655 Step 17 ------------ Base Damage 2 * {730 - (Def * 51 - Def^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ---------------------- 49655 * {730 - (34 * 51 - 34^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 ------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 1156 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 105) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 21 ------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1629) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 22 --------------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - 162} ÷ 730 Step 23 ----------------------------------------------------- 49655 * 568 ÷ 730 Step 24 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 38635 I simply modified the dividers to include the attack rating of weapons and the armor rating of armor. Magic Damage is calculated as follows: Mag = 255, Ultima is used, enemy MDef = 1 Step 1 ----------------------------------- [DmCon * ([Stat^2 ÷ 6] + DmCon) ÷ 4] Step 2 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([255^2 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 3 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([65025 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 4 ------------------------------------------------ [70 * (10837 + 70) ÷ 4] Step 5 ----------------------------------------------------- [70 * (10907) ÷ 4] Step 6 ------------------------------------ Base Damage = 190872 [cut to 99999] Step 7 ---------------------------------------- [{(MDef - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------- [{(1 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ---------------------------------------------- [{(-279.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 -------------------------------------------------- [(78064) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [709] + 16 Step 12 --------------------------------------------------------- MDefNum = 725 Step 13 --------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * MDefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [99999 * 725 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 99314 Step 16 ---------- Base Damage 2 * {730 - (MDef * 51 - MDef^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 17 ------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (1 * 51 - 1^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ------------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (51 - 1 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 --------------------------------------- 99314 * {730 - (49) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ----------------------------------------------------- 99314 * 725 ÷ 730 Step 21 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 98633 The problem is that the formulas completely fall apart once stats start going above 255. In particular Defense values over 300 or so start generating really strange behavior. High Strength + Defense stats lead to massive negative values for instance. While I might be able to modify the formulas to work correctly for my use case, it'd probably be easier just to use a completely new formula. How do people actually develop damage formulas? I was considering opening excel and trying to build the formula that way (mapping Attack Stats vs. Defense Stats for instance) but I was wondering if there's an easier way? While I can't convey the full game mechanics of my game here, might someone be able to suggest a good starting place for building a damage formula? Thanks

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Part 2–Load Testing In The Cloud

- by Tarun Arora

Welcome to Part 2, In Part 1 we discussed the advantages of creating a Test Rig in the cloud, the Azure edge and the Test Rig Topology we want to get to. In Part 2, Let’s start by understanding the components of Azure we’ll be making use of followed by manually putting them together to create the test rig, so… let’s get down dirty start setting up the Test Rig. What Components of Azure will I be using for building the Test Rig in the Cloud? To run the Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Compute and to enable communication between Test Controller and Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect. Azure Connect The Test Controller is on premise and the Test Agents are in the cloud (How will they talk?). To enable communication between the two, we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect. With Windows Azure Connect, you can use a simple user interface to configure IPsec protected connections between computers or virtual machines (VMs) in your organization’s network, and roles running in Windows Azure. With this you can now join Windows Azure role instances to your domain, so that you can use your existing methods for domain authentication, name resolution, or other domain-wide maintenance actions. For more details refer to an overview of Windows Azure connect. A very useful video explaining everything you wanted to know about Windows Azure connect. Azure Compute Windows Azure compute provides developers a platform to host and manage applications in Microsoft’s data centres across the globe. A Windows Azure application is built from one or more components called ‘roles.’ Roles come in three different types: Web role, Worker role, and Virtual Machine (VM) role, we’ll be using the Worker role to set up the Test Agents. A very nice blog post discussing the difference between the 3 role types. Developers are free to use the .NET framework or other software that runs on Windows with the Worker role or Web role. Developers can also create applications using languages such as PHP and Java. More on Windows Azure Compute. Each Windows Azure compute instance represents a virtual server... Virtual Machine Size CPU Cores Memory Cost Per Hour Extra Small Shared 768 MB $0.04 Small 1 1.75 GB $0.12 Medium 2 3.50 GB $0.24 Large 4 7.00 GB $0.48 Extra Large 8 14.00 GB $0.96 You might want to review the Windows Azure Pricing FAQ. Let’s Get Started building the Test Rig… Configuration Machine Role Comments VM – 1 Domain Controller for Playpit.com On Premise VM – 2 TFS, Test Controller On Premise VM – 3 Test Agent Cloud In this blog post I would assume that you have the domain, Team Foundation Server and Test Controller Installed and set up already. If not, please refer to the TFS 2010 Installation Guide and this walkthrough on MSDN to set up your Test Controller. You can also download a preconfigured TFS 2010 VM from Brian Keller's blog, Brian also has some great hands on Labs on TFS 2010 that you may want to explore. I. Lets start building VM – 3: The Test Agent Download the Windows Azure SDK and Tools Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Azure Project using the Cloud Template Choose the Worker Role for reasons explained in the earlier post The WorkerRole.cs implements the Run() and OnStart() methods, no code changes required. You should be able to compile the project and run it in the compute emulator (The compute emulator should have been installed as part of the Windows Azure Toolkit) on your local machine. We will only be making changes to WindowsAzureProject, open ServiceDefinition.csdef. Ensure that the vmsize is small (remember the cost chart above). Import the “Connect” module. I am importing the Connect module because I need to join the Worker role VM to the Playpit domain. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect"/> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg and note that settings with key ‘Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.%%%%’ have been added to the configuration file. This is because you decided to import the connect module. See the config below. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="1" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> Let’s go step by step and understand all the highlighted parameters and where you can find the values for them. osFamily – By default this is set to 1 (Windows Server 2008 SP2). Change this to 2 if you want the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. The Advantage of using osFamily = “2” is that you get Powershell 2.0 rather than Powershell 1.0. In Powershell 2.0 you could simply use “powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted ./myscript.ps1” and it will work while in Powershell 1.0 you will have to change the registry key by including the following in your command file “reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell /v ExecutionPolicy /d Unrestricted /f” before you can execute any power shell. The other reason you might want to move to os2 is if you wanted IIS 7.5. Activation Token – To enable communication between the on premise machine and the Windows Azure Worker role VM both need to have the same token. Log on to Windows Azure Management Portal, click on Connect, click on Get Activation Token, this should give you the activation token, copy the activation token to the clipboard and paste it in the configuration file. Note – Later in the blog I’ll be showing you how to install connect on the on premise machine. EnableDomainJoin – Set the value to true, ofcourse we want to join the on windows azure worker role VM to the domain. DomainFQDN, DomainControllerFQDN, DomainAccountName, DomainPassword, DomainOU, Administrators – This information is specific to your domain. I have extracted this information from the ‘service manager’ and ‘Active Directory Users and Computers’. Also, i created a new Domain-OU namely ‘CloudInstances’ so all my cloud instances joined to my domain show up here, this is optional. You can encrypt the DomainPassword – refer to the instructions here. Or hold fire, I’ll be covering that when i come to certificates and encryption in the coming section. Now once you have filled all this information up, the configuration file should look something like below, <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> Next we will be enabling the Remote Desktop module in to the ServiceDefinition.csdef, we could make changes manually or allow a beautiful wizard to help us make changes. I prefer the second option. So right click on the Windows Azure project and choose Publish Now once you get the publish wizard, if you haven’t already you would be asked to import your Windows Azure subscription, this is simply the Msdn subscription activation key xml. Once you have done click Next to go to the Settings page and check ‘Enable Remote Desktop for all roles’. As soon as you do that you get another pop up asking you the details for the user that you would be logging in with (make sure you enter a reasonable expiry date, you do not want the user account to expire today). Notice the more information tag at the bottom, click that to get access to the certificate section. See screen shot below. From the drop down select the option to create a new certificate In the pop up window enter the friendly name for your certificate. In my case I entered ‘WAC – Test Rig’ and click ok. This will create a new certificate for you. Click on the view button to see the certificate details. Do you see the Thumbprint, this is the value that will go in the config file (very important). Now click on the Copy to File button to copy the certificate, we will need to import the certificate to the windows Azure Management portal later. So, make sure you save it a safe location. Click Finish and enter details of the user you would like to create with permissions for remote desktop access, once you have entered the details on the ‘Remote desktop configuration’ screen click on Ok. From the Publish Windows Azure Wizard screen press Cancel. Cancel because we don’t want to publish the role just yet and Yes because we want to save all the changes in the config file. Now if you go to the ServiceDefinition.csdef file you will see that the RemoteAccess and RemoteForwarder roles have been imported for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteAccess" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteForwarder" /> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Now go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg file and you see a whole bunch for setting “Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.%%%” values added for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.Enabled" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountUsername" value="Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountEncryptedPassword" value="MIIBnQYJKoZIhvcNAQcDoIIBjjCCAYoCAQAxggFOMIIBSgIBADAyMB4xHDAaBgNVBAMME1dpbmRvd 3MgQXp1cmUgVG9vbHMCEGa+B46voeO5T305N7TSG9QwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQAEggEABg4ol5Xol66Ip6QKLbAPWdmD4ae ADZ7aKj6fg4D+ATr0DXBllZHG5Umwf+84Sj2nsPeCyrg3ZDQuxrfhSbdnJwuChKV6ukXdGjX0hlowJu/4dfH4jTJC7sBWS AKaEFU7CxvqYEAL1Hf9VPL5fW6HZVmq1z+qmm4ecGKSTOJ20Fptb463wcXgR8CWGa+1w9xqJ7UmmfGeGeCHQ4QGW0IDSBU6ccg vzF2ug8/FY60K1vrWaCYOhKkxD3YBs8U9X/kOB0yQm2Git0d5tFlIPCBT2AC57bgsAYncXfHvPesI0qs7VZyghk8LVa9g5IqaM Cp6cQ7rmY/dLsKBMkDcdBHuCTAzBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwFAYIKoZIhvcNAwcECDRVifSXbA43gBApNrp40L1VTVZ1iGag+3O1" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountExpiration" value="2012-11-27T23:59:59.0000000+00:00" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteForwarder.Enabled" value="true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> <Certificates> <Certificate name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.PasswordEncryption" thumbprint="AA23016CF0BDFC344400B5B82706B608B92E4217" thumbprintAlgorithm="sha1" /> </Certificates> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> Okay let’s look at them one at a time, Enabled - Yes, we would like to enable Remote Access. AccountUserName – This is the user name you entered while you were on the publish windows azure role screen, as detailed above. AccountEncrytedPassword – Try and decode that, the certificate is used to encrypt the password you specified for the user account. Remember earlier i said, either use the instructions or wait and i’ll be showing you encryption, now the user account i am using for rdp has the same password as my domain password, so i can simply copy the value of the AccountEncryptedPassword to the DomainPassword as well. AccountExpiration – This is the expiration as you specified in the wizard earlier, make sure your account does not expire today. Remote Forwarder – Check out the documentation, below is how I understand it, -- One role in an application that implements a remote desktop connection must import the RemoteForwarder module. The two modules work together to enable the remote desktop connections to role instances. -- If you have multiple roles defined in the service model, it does not matter which role you add the RemoteForwarder module to, but you must add it to only one of the role definitions. Certificate – Remember the certificate thumbprint from the wizard, the on premise machine and windows azure role machine that need to speak to each other must have the same thumbprint. More on that when we install Windows Azure connect Endpoints on the on premise machine. As i said earlier, in this blog post, I’ll be showing you the manual process so i won’t be scripting any star up tasks to install the test agent or register the test agent with the TFS Server. I’ll be showing you all this cool stuff in the next blog post, that’s because it’s important to understand the manual side of it, it becomes easier for you to troubleshoot in case something fails. Having said that, the changes we have made are sufficient to spin up the Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent VM, have it connected with the play.pit.com domain and have remote access enabled on it. Before we deploy the Test Agent VM we need to set up Windows Azure Connect on the TFS Server. II. Windows Azure Connect: Setting up Connect on VM – 2 i.e. TFS & Test Controller Glad you made it so far, now to enable communication between the on premise TFS/Test Controller and Azure-ed Test Agent we need to enable communication. We have set up the Azure connect module in the Test Agent configuration, now the connect end points need to be enabled on the on premise machines, let’s have a look at how we can do this. Log on to VM – 2 running the TFS Server and Test Controller Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network Click on Virtual Network, if you already have a subscription you should see the below screen shot, if not, you would be asked to complete the subscription first Click on Install Local Endpoints from the top left on the panel and you get a url appended with a token id in it, remember the token i showed you earlier, in theory the token you get here should match the token you added to the Test Agent config file. Copy the url to the clip board and paste it in IE explorer (important, the installation at present only works out of IE and you need to have cookies enabled in order to complete the installation). As stated in the pop up, you can NOT download and run the software later, you need to run it as is, since it contains a token. Once the installation completes you should see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray. Right click the Azure Connect icon, choose Diagnostics and refer to this link for diagnostic detail terminology. NOTE – Unfortunately I could not see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray, a bit of binging with Google revealed that the azure connect icon is only shown when the ‘Windows Azure Connect Endpoint’ Service is started. So go to services.msc and make sure that the service is started, if not start it, unfortunately again, the service did not start for me on a manual start and i realised that one of the dependant services was disabled, you can look at the service dependencies and start them and then start windows azure connect. Bottom line, you need to start Windows Azure connect service before you can proceed. Please refer here on MSDN for more on Troubleshooting Windows Azure connect. (Follow the next step as well) Now go back to the Windows Azure Management Portal and from Groups and Roles create a new group, lets call it ‘Test Rig’. Make sure you add the VM – 2 (the TFS Server VM where you just installed the endpoint). Now if you go back to the Azure Connect icon in the system tray and click ‘Refresh Policy’ you will notice that the disconnected status of the icon should change to ready for connection. III. Importing Certificate in to Windows Azure Management Portal But before that you need to import the certificate you created in Step I in to the Windows Azure Management Portal. Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on ‘Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN’ and then ‘Management Certificates’ followed by Add Certificates as shown in the screen shot below Browse to the location where you saved the certificate earlier, remember… Refer to Step I in case you forgot. Now you should be able to see the imported certificate here, make sure the thumbprint of the certificate matches the one you inserted in the config files IV. Publish Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent Having completed I, II and III, you are ready to publish the Test Agent VM – 3 to the cloud. Go to Visual Studio and right click the Windows Azure project and select Publish. Verify the infomration in the wizard, from the advanced settings tab, you can also enabled capture of intellitrace or profiling information. Click Next and Click Publish! From the view menu bar select the Windows Azure Activity Log window. Now you should be able to see the deployment progress in real time. In the Windows Azure Management Portal, you should also be able to see the progress of creation of a new Worker Role. Once the deployment is complete you should be able to RDP (go to run prompt type mstsc and in the pop up the machine name) in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM from the Playpit network using the domain admin user account. In case you are unable to log in to the Test Agent using the domain admin user account it means the process of joining the Test Agent to the domain has failed! But the good news is, because you imported the connect module, you can connect to the Test Agent machine using Windows Azure Management Portal and troubleshoot the reason for failure, you will be able to log in with the user name and password you specified in the config file for the keys ‘RemoteAccess.AccountUsername, RemoteAccess.EncryptedPassword (just that enter the password unencrypted)’, fix it or manually join the machine to the domain. Once you have managed to Join the Test Agent VM to the Domain move to the next step. So, log in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM with the Playpit Domain Administrator and verify that you can log in, the machine is connected to the domain and the connect service is successfully running. If yes, give your self a pat on the back, you are 80% mission accomplished! Go to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network, click on Groups and Roles and click on Test Rig, click Edit Group, the edit the Test Rig group you created earlier. In the Connect to section, click on Add to select the worker role you have just deployed. Also, check the ‘Allow connections between endpoints in the group’ with this you will enable to communication between test controller and test agents and test agents/test agents. Click Save. Now, you are ready to deploy the Test Agent software on the Worker Role Test Agent VM and configure it to work with the Test Controller. V. Configuring VM – 3: Installing Test Agent and Associating Test Agent to Controller Log in to the Worker Role Test Agent VM that you have just successfully deployed, make sure you log in with the domain administrator account. Download the All Agents software from MSDN, ‘en_visual_studio_agents_2010_x86_x64_dvd_509679.iso’, extract the iso and navigate to where you have extracted the iso. In my case, i have extracted the iso to “C:\Resources\Temp\VsAgentSetup”. Open the Test Agent folder and double click on setup.exe. Once you have installed the Test Agent you should reach the configuration window. If you face any issues installing TFS Test Agent on the VM, refer to the walkthrough on MSDN. Once you have successfully installed the Test Agent software you will need to configure the test agent. Right click the test agent configuration tool and run as a different user. i.e. an Administrator. This is really to run the configuration wizard with elevated privileges (you might have UAC block something's otherwise). In the run options, you can select ‘service’ you do not need to run the agent as interactive un less you are running coded UI tests. I have specified the domain administrator to connect to the TFS Test Controller. In real life, i would never do that, i would create a separate test user service account for this purpose. But for the blog post, we are using the most powerful user so that any policies or restrictions don’t block you. Click the Apply Settings button and you should be all green! If not, the summary usually gives helpful error messages that you can resolve and proceed. As per my experience, you may run in to either a permission or a firewall blocking communication issue. And now the moment of truth! Go to VM –2 open up Visual Studio and from the Test Menu select Manage Test Controller Mission Accomplished! You should be able to see the Test Agent that you have just configured here, VI. Creating and Running Load Tests on your brand new Azure-ed Test Rig I have various blog posts on Performance Testing with Visual Studio Ultimate, you can follow the links and videos below, Blog Posts: - Part 1 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 2 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 3 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Videos: - Test Tools Configuration & Settings in Visual Studio - Why & How to Record Web Performance Tests in Visual Studio Ultimate - Goal Driven Load Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate Now that you have created your load tests, there is one last change you need to make before you can run the tests on your Azure Test Rig, create a new Test settings file, and change the Test Execution method to ‘Remote Execution’ and select the test controller you have configured the Worker Role Test Agent against in our case VM – 2 So, go on, fire off a test run and see the results of the test being executed on the Azur-ed Test Rig. Review and What’s next? A quick recap of the benefits of running the Test Rig in the cloud and what i will be covering in the next blog post AND I would love to hear your feedback! Advantages Utilizing the power of Azure compute to run a heavy virtual user load. Benefiting from the Azure flexibility, destroy Test Agents when not in use, takes < 25 minutes to spin up a new Test Agent. Most important test Network Latency, (network latency and speed of connection are two different things – usually network latency is very hard to test), by placing the Test Agents in Microsoft Data centres around the globe, one can actually test the lag in transferring the bytes not because of a slow connection but because the page has been requested from the other side of the globe. Next Steps The process of spinning up the Test Agents in windows Azure is not 100% automated. I am working on the Worker process and power shell scripts to make the role deployment, unattended install of test agent software and registration of the test agent to the test controller automated. In the next blog post I will show you how to make the complete process unattended and automated. Remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Hope you enjoyed this post, I would love to hear your feedback! If you have any recommendations on things that I should consider or any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. See you in Part III. Share this post : CodeProject

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30 Steps to Master ASP.NET MVC Application development

- by Rajesh Pillai

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Welcome Readers!, I am starting out a new series on ASP.NET MVC skill building which will be posted over the next couple of weeks. Let me know your thoughts on the content, which I have planned and a couple of them has been taken from ASP.NET MVC2 Cookbook. (NOTE: Only the heading has been taken, the content will be not :)). Do let me know what you would like to see, or any additional inputs or ideas to cover in this topics. The 30 steps are oultined below for quick reference. Will start filling this out quickly. Outlined is the ‘30’ step to master ASP.NET MVC. A Peek Into Model What is a model? Different types of model Presentation/ViewModel Model Mapping (AutoMapper) A Peak into View How view works in ASP.NET MVC? View Engine Design Custom View Engine View Best Practices Templated Helpers Partial Views A Peak into Controller Introduction Controller Design Controller Best Practices Asynchronous Controller Custom Action Result Action Filters Controller Factory to use with IOC Routes Explanation Routes from the database Routes from XML More complex routing Master Pages Basics Setting Master Page Dynamically Working with data in the view Repeating Views Array of check boxes Array of radio buttons Paged data CRUD Client side action Confirmation Dialog (modal window) jqGrid Working with Forms Validation Model Validation with DataAnnotations Using the xVal validation framework Client side validation with jQuery Validation Fluent Validation Model Binders Templating Create strongly typed helper using T4 Custom View Templates with T4 Create custom MVC project template using T4 IOC AutoFac Ninject Unity Application Areas jQuery, Ajax and jQuery Plugins State Maintenance Application State User state Cookies Webfarm Error Handling View error handling Controller error handling ELMAH (Error Logging Modules and Handlers) Authentication and Authorization User Registration form SignOn Process Password Reminder Membership and Roles Windows authentication Restricting access to all pages Restricting access to selected pages Restricting access to pages by role Restricting access to a controller Restricting access to selected area Profiles and Themes Using Profiles Inheriting a Profile Migrating an anonymous profile Creating custom themes Using themes User personalized themes Configuration Adding custom application settings in web.config Displaying custom error messages Accessing other web.config configuration elements Adding custom configuration elements to web.config Encrypting web.config sections Tracing, Debugging and Logging Caching Caching a whole page Caching pages based on route details Caching pages based on browser type and version Caching pages based custom strings Caching partial pages Caching application data Object Caching Using Microsoft Velocity Using MemCache Using AppFabric cache Localization HTTP Handlers and Modules Security XSS/CSRF AnitForgery Encoding HtmlHelpers Strongly typed helpers Writing custom helpers Repository Pattern (Data access) WF/WCF Unit Testing Mocking Framework Integration Testing Load / Performance Testing Deployment Once again let me know your thoughts on this. Till then, Enjoy MVC'ing!!!

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Extending Oracle CEP with Predictive Analytics

- by vikram.shukla(at)oracle.com

Introduction: OCEP is often used as a business rules engine to execute a set of business logic rules via CQL statements, and take decisions based on the outcome of those rules. There are times where configuring rules manually is sufficient because an application needs to deal with only a small and well-defined set of static rules. However, in many situations customers don't want to pre-define such rules for two reasons. First, they are dealing with events with lots of columns and manually crafting such rules for each column or a set of columns and combinations thereof is almost impossible. Second, they are content with probabilistic outcomes and do not care about 100% precision. The former is the case when a user is dealing with data with high dimensionality, the latter when an application can live with "false" positives as they can be discarded after further inspection, say by a Human Task component in a Business Process Management software. The primary goal of this blog post is to show how this can be achieved by combining OCEP with Oracle Data Mining® and leveraging the latter's rich set of algorithms and functionality to do predictive analytics in real time on streaming events. The secondary goal of this post is also to show how OCEP can be extended to invoke any arbitrary external computation in an RDBMS from within CEP. The extensible facility is known as the JDBC cartridge. The rest of the post describes the steps required to achieve this: We use the dataset available at http://blogs.oracle.com/datamining/2010/01/fraud_and_anomaly_detection_made_simple.html to showcase the capabilities. We use it to show how transaction anomalies or fraud can be detected. Building the model: Follow the self-explanatory steps described at the above URL to build the model. It is very simple - it uses built-in Oracle Data Mining PL/SQL packages to cleanse, normalize and build the model out of the dataset. You can also use graphical Oracle Data Miner® to build the models. To summarize, it involves: Specifying which algorithms to use. In this case we use Support Vector Machines as we're trying to find anomalies in highly dimensional dataset.Build model on the data in the table for the algorithms specified. For this example, the table was populated in the scott/tiger schema with appropriate privileges. Configuring the Data Source: This is the first step in building CEP application using such an integration. Our datasource looks as follows in the server config file. It is advisable that you use the Visualizer to add it to the running server dynamically, rather than manually edit the file. <data-source> <name>DataMining</name> <data-source-params> <jndi-names> <element>DataMining</element> </jndi-names> <global-transactions-protocol>OnePhaseCommit</global-transactions-protocol> </data-source-params> <connection-pool-params> <credential-mapping-enabled></credential-mapping-enabled> <test-table-name>SQL SELECT 1 from DUAL</test-table-name> <initial-capacity>1</initial-capacity> <max-capacity>15</max-capacity> <capacity-increment>1</capacity-increment> </connection-pool-params> <driver-params> <use-xa-data-source-interface>true</use-xa-data-source-interface> <driver-name>oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver</driver-name> <url>jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1522:orcl</url> <properties> <element> <value>scott</value> <name>user</name> </element> <element> <value>{Salted-3DES}AzFE5dDbO2g=</value> <name>password</name> </element> <element> <name>com.bea.core.datasource.serviceName</name> <value>oracle11.2g</value> </element> <element> <name>com.bea.core.datasource.serviceVersion</name> <value>11.2.0</value> </element> <element> <name>com.bea.core.datasource.serviceObjectClass</name> <value>java.sql.Driver</value> </element> </properties> </driver-params> </data-source> Designing the EPN: The EPN is very simple in this example. We briefly describe each of the components. The adapter ("DataMiningAdapter") reads data from a .csv file and sends it to the CQL processor downstream. The event payload here is same as that of the table in the database (refer to the attached project or do a "desc table-name" from a SQL*PLUS prompt). While this is for convenience in this example, it need not be the case. One can still omit fields in the streaming events, and need not match all columns in the table on which the model was built. Better yet, it does not even need to have the same name as columns in the table, as long as you alias them in the USING clause of the mining function. (Caveat: they still need to draw values from a similar universe or domain, otherwise it constitutes incorrect usage of the model). There are two things in the CQL processor ("DataMiningProc") that make scoring possible on streaming events. 1. User defined cartridge function Please refer to the OCEP CQL reference manual to find more details about how to define such functions. We include the function below in its entirety for illustration. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <jdbcctxconfig:config xmlns:jdbcctxconfig="http://www.bea.com/ns/wlevs/config/application" xmlns:jc="http://www.oracle.com/ns/ocep/config/jdbc"> <jc:jdbc-ctx> <name>Oracle11gR2</name> <data-source>DataMining</data-source> <function name="prediction2"> <param name="CQLMONTH" type="char"/> <param name="WEEKOFMONTH" type="int"/> <param name="DAYOFWEEK" type="char" /> <param name="MAKE" type="char" /> <param name="ACCIDENTAREA" type="char" /> <param name="DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED" type="char" /> <param name="MONTHCLAIMED" type="char" /> <param name="WEEKOFMONTHCLAIMED" type="int" /> <param name="SEX" type="char" /> <param name="MARITALSTATUS" type="char" /> <param name="AGE" type="int" /> <param name="FAULT" type="char" /> <param name="POLICYTYPE" type="char" /> <param name="VEHICLECATEGORY" type="char" /> <param name="VEHICLEPRICE" type="char" /> <param name="FRAUDFOUND" type="int" /> <param name="POLICYNUMBER" type="int" /> <param name="REPNUMBER" type="int" /> <param name="DEDUCTIBLE" type="int" /> <param name="DRIVERRATING" type="int" /> <param name="DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT" type="char" /> <param name="DAYSPOLICYCLAIM" type="char" /> <param name="PASTNUMOFCLAIMS" type="char" /> <param name="AGEOFVEHICLES" type="char" /> <param name="AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER" type="char" /> <param name="POLICEREPORTFILED" type="char" /> <param name="WITNESSPRESNT" type="char" /> <param name="AGENTTYPE" type="char" /> <param name="NUMOFSUPP" type="char" /> <param name="ADDRCHGCLAIM" type="char" /> <param name="NUMOFCARS" type="char" /> <param name="CQLYEAR" type="int" /> <param name="BASEPOLICY" type="char" /> <return-component-type>char</return-component-type> <sql><![CDATA[ SELECT to_char(PREDICTION_PROBABILITY(CLAIMSMODEL, '0' USING *)) AS probability FROM (SELECT :CQLMONTH AS MONTH, :WEEKOFMONTH AS WEEKOFMONTH, :DAYOFWEEK AS DAYOFWEEK, :MAKE AS MAKE, :ACCIDENTAREA AS ACCIDENTAREA, :DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED AS DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED, :MONTHCLAIMED AS MONTHCLAIMED, :WEEKOFMONTHCLAIMED, :SEX AS SEX, :MARITALSTATUS AS MARITALSTATUS, :AGE AS AGE, :FAULT AS FAULT, :POLICYTYPE AS POLICYTYPE, :VEHICLECATEGORY AS VEHICLECATEGORY, :VEHICLEPRICE AS VEHICLEPRICE, :FRAUDFOUND AS FRAUDFOUND, :POLICYNUMBER AS POLICYNUMBER, :REPNUMBER AS REPNUMBER, :DEDUCTIBLE AS DEDUCTIBLE, :DRIVERRATING AS DRIVERRATING, :DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT AS DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT, :DAYSPOLICYCLAIM AS DAYSPOLICYCLAIM, :PASTNUMOFCLAIMS AS PASTNUMOFCLAIMS, :AGEOFVEHICLES AS AGEOFVEHICLES, :AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER AS AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER, :POLICEREPORTFILED AS POLICEREPORTFILED, :WITNESSPRESNT AS WITNESSPRESENT, :AGENTTYPE AS AGENTTYPE, :NUMOFSUPP AS NUMOFSUPP, :ADDRCHGCLAIM AS ADDRCHGCLAIM, :NUMOFCARS AS NUMOFCARS, :CQLYEAR AS YEAR, :BASEPOLICY AS BASEPOLICY FROM dual) ]]> </sql> </function> </jc:jdbc-ctx> </jdbcctxconfig:config> 2. Invoking the function for each event. Once this function is defined, you can invoke it from CQL as follows: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <wlevs:config xmlns:wlevs="http://www.bea.com/ns/wlevs/config/application"> <processor> <name>DataMiningProc</name> <rules> <query id="q1"><![CDATA[ ISTREAM(SELECT S.CQLMONTH, S.WEEKOFMONTH, S.DAYOFWEEK, S.MAKE, : S.BASEPOLICY, C.F AS probability FROM StreamDataChannel [NOW] AS S, TABLE(prediction2@Oracle11gR2(S.CQLMONTH, S.WEEKOFMONTH, S.DAYOFWEEK, S.MAKE, ..., S.BASEPOLICY) AS F of char) AS C) ]]></query> </rules> </processor> </wlevs:config> Finally, the last stage in the EPN prints out the probability of the event being an anomaly. One can also define a threshold in CQL to filter out events that are normal, i.e., below a certain mark as defined by the analyst or designer. Sample Runs: Now let's see how this behaves when events are streamed through CEP. We use only two events for brevity, one normal and other one not. This is one of the "normal" looking events and the probability of it being anomalous is less than 60%. Event is: eventType=DataMiningOutEvent object=q1 time=2904821976256 S.CQLMONTH=Dec, S.WEEKOFMONTH=5, S.DAYOFWEEK=Wednesday, S.MAKE=Honda, S.ACCIDENTAREA=Urban, S.DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED=Tuesday, S.MONTHCLAIMED=Jan, S.WEEKOFMONTHCLAIMED=1, S.SEX=Female, S.MARITALSTATUS=Single, S.AGE=21, S.FAULT=Policy Holder, S.POLICYTYPE=Sport - Liability, S.VEHICLECATEGORY=Sport, S.VEHICLEPRICE=more than 69000, S.FRAUDFOUND=0, S.POLICYNUMBER=1, S.REPNUMBER=12, S.DEDUCTIBLE=300, S.DRIVERRATING=1, S.DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT=more than 30, S.DAYSPOLICYCLAIM=more than 30, S.PASTNUMOFCLAIMS=none, S.AGEOFVEHICLES=3 years, S.AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER=26 to 30, S.POLICEREPORTFILED=No, S.WITNESSPRESENT=No, S.AGENTTYPE=External, S.NUMOFSUPP=none, S.ADDRCHGCLAIM=1 year, S.NUMOFCARS=3 to 4, S.CQLYEAR=1994, S.BASEPOLICY=Liability, probability=.58931702982118561 isTotalOrderGuarantee=true\nAnamoly probability: .58931702982118561 However, the following event is scored as an anomaly with a very high probability of 89%. So there is likely to be something wrong with it. A close look reveals that the value of "deductible" field (10000) is not "normal". What exactly constitutes normal here?. If you run the query on the database to find ALL distinct values for the "deductible" field, it returns the following set: {300, 400, 500, 700} Event is: eventType=DataMiningOutEvent object=q1 time=2598483773496 S.CQLMONTH=Dec, S.WEEKOFMONTH=5, S.DAYOFWEEK=Wednesday, S.MAKE=Honda, S.ACCIDENTAREA=Urban, S.DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED=Tuesday, S.MONTHCLAIMED=Jan, S.WEEKOFMONTHCLAIMED=1, S.SEX=Female, S.MARITALSTATUS=Single, S.AGE=21, S.FAULT=Policy Holder, S.POLICYTYPE=Sport - Liability, S.VEHICLECATEGORY=Sport, S.VEHICLEPRICE=more than 69000, S.FRAUDFOUND=0, S.POLICYNUMBER=1, S.REPNUMBER=12, S.DEDUCTIBLE=10000, S.DRIVERRATING=1, S.DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT=more than 30, S.DAYSPOLICYCLAIM=more than 30, S.PASTNUMOFCLAIMS=none, S.AGEOFVEHICLES=3 years, S.AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER=26 to 30, S.POLICEREPORTFILED=No, S.WITNESSPRESENT=No, S.AGENTTYPE=External, S.NUMOFSUPP=none, S.ADDRCHGCLAIM=1 year, S.NUMOFCARS=3 to 4, S.CQLYEAR=1994, S.BASEPOLICY=Liability, probability=.89171554529576691 isTotalOrderGuarantee=true\nAnamoly probability: .89171554529576691 Conclusion: By way of this example, we show: real-time scoring of events as they flow through CEP leveraging Oracle Data Mining.how CEP applications can invoke complex arbitrary external computations (function shipping) in an RDBMS.

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What packages do I need to compile .tex documents using XeLaTeX?

- by maria

Hi I'm aware of the existence of similar threads on this forum. But any of replies mach to my problem. I'm using Ubuntu 10.4 and I hadn't problems with fonts till I've decided to use XeLaTeX instead of LaTeX (cf http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/12347/typesetting-a-document-using-arabic-script/12358#12358). The problem is that I'm not able to compile any .tex document using XeLaTeX, as well as properly display XeLaTeX documentation. As I've learn thanks to mentioned thread, XeLaTeX uses the fonts availables in general in the system. I was trying yo read fontspec documentation, but it opens in pdf with a lot of white gaps and terminal output (quite long) consist mostly of errors. This are just few lines of it: Error: Missing language pack for 'Adobe-Japan1' mapping Error: Unknown font tag 'F5.1' Error (24124): No font in show Error: Unknown font tag 'F5.1' I was trying to compile simple XeLaTeX file: \documentclass{article} \usepackage{fontspec} \setmainfont{Linux Libertine O} \begin{document} Hello World! \end{document} without succes. This is terminal output of compilation: This is XeTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.2-0.9995.2 (TeX Live 2009/Debian) restricted \write18 enabled. entering extended mode (./ex.tex LaTeX2e <2009/09/24> Babel <v3.8l> and hyphenation patterns for english, usenglishmax, dumylang, noh yphenation, polish, loaded. (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/base/article.cls Document Class: article 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/base/size10.clo)) (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/xelatex/fontspec/fontspec.sty (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/generic/ifxetex/ifxetex.sty) (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/tools/calc.sty) (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/xkeyval/xkeyval.sty (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/generic/xkeyval/xkeyval.tex (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/generic/xkeyval/keyval.tex))) (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/base/fontenc.sty (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/xelatex/euenc/eu1enc.def) (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/xelatex/euenc/eu1lmr.fd)) fontspec.cfg loaded. (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/xelatex/fontspec/fontspec.cfg))kpathsea: Invalid fontname `Linux Libertine O', contains ' ' ! Font \zf@basefont="Linux Libertine O" at 10.0pt not loadable: Metric (TFM) fi le or installed font not found. \zf@fontspec ...ntname \zf@suffix " at \f@size pt \unless \ifzf@icu \zf@set@... l.3 \setmainfont{Linux Libertine O} ? I can't find Linux Libertine O. Searching for otf- by aptitude gives as result: maria@maria-laptop:/etc/fonts$ aptitude search otf p emdebian-rootfs - emdebian root filesystem support p libotf-bin - A Library for handling OpenType Font - utilities p libotf-dev - A Library for handling OpenType Font - development i libotf0 - A Library for handling OpenType Font - runtime p libotf0-dbg - The libotf libraries and debugging symbols p libpam-dotfile - A PAM module which allows users to have more than one password p livecd-rootfs - construction script for the livecd rootfs p makebootfat - Utility to create a bootable FAT filesystem p otf-ipaexfont - Japanese OpenType font, IPAexFont (IPAexGothic/Mincho) p otf-ipaexfont-gothic - Japanese OpenType font, IPAexFont (IPAexGothic) p otf-ipaexfont-mincho - Japanese OpenType font, IPAexFont (IPAexMincho) p otf-ipafont - Japanese OpenType font set, IPAfont p otf-ipafont-gothic - Japanese OpenType font set, IPA Gothic font p otf-ipafont-mincho - Japanese OpenType font set, IPA Mincho font p otf-stix - the Scientific and Technical Information eXchange fonts p otf-thai-tlwg - Thai fonts in OpenType format p otf-yozvox-yozfont - Japanese proportional Handwriting OpenType font p otf2bdf - generate BDF bitmap fonts from OpenType outline fonts p robotfindskitten - Zen Simulation of robot finding kitten So font in question is not just uninstalled, but not available, if I'm not wrong. Does it mean that I lack some repositoires? I was trying also to apply solution from the thread How do I reinstall default fonts?, but the result is: maria@maria-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts [sudo] password for maria: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Note, selecting ttf-mscorefonts-installer instead of msttcorefonts ttf-mscorefonts-installer is already the newest version. 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. maria@maria-laptop:~$ It seems that is not a usual problem for use of XeLaTeX; nobody in the mentioned thread suggested instalation of anything else than TeX Live. Thanks in advance

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Simple task framework - building software from reusable pieces

- by RuslanD

I'm writing a web service with several APIs, and they will be sharing some of the implementation code. In order not to copy-paste, I would like to ideally implement each API call as a series of tasks, which are executed in a sequence determined by the business logic. One obvious question is whether that's the best strategy for code reuse, or whether I can look at it in a different way. But assuming I want to go with tasks, several issues arise: What's a good task interface to use? How do I pass data computed in one task to another task in the sequence that might need it? In the past, I've worked with task interfaces like: interface Task<T, U> { U execute(T input); } Then I also had sort of a "task context" object which had getters and setters for any kind of data my tasks needed to produce or consume, and it gets passed to all tasks. I'm aware that this suffers from a host of problems. So I wanted to figure out a better way to implement it this time around. My current idea is to have a TaskContext object which is a type-safe heterogeneous container (as described in Effective Java). Each task can ask for an item from this container (task input), or add an item to the container (task output). That way, tasks don't need to know about each other directly, and I don't have to write a class with dozens of methods for each data item. There are, however, several drawbacks: Each item in this TaskContext container should be a complex type that wraps around the actual item data. If task A uses a String for some purpose, and task B uses a String for something entirely different, then just storing a mapping between String.class and some object doesn't work for both tasks. The other reason is that I can't use that kind of container for generic collections directly, so they need to be wrapped in another object. This means that, based on how many tasks I define, I would need to also define a number of classes for the task items that may be consumed or produced, which may lead to code bloat and duplication. For instance, if a task takes some Long value as input and produces another Long value as output, I would have to have two classes that simply wrap around a Long, which IMO can spiral out of control pretty quickly as the codebase evolves. I briefly looked at workflow engine libraries, but they kind of seem like a heavy hammer for this particular nail. How would you go about writing a simple task framework with the following requirements: Tasks should be as self-contained as possible, so they can be composed in different ways to create different workflows. That being said, some tasks may perform expensive computations that are prerequisites for other tasks. We want to have a way of storing the results of intermediate computations done by tasks so that other tasks can use those results for free. The task framework should be light, i.e. growing the code doesn't involve introducing many new types just to plug into the framework.

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Unit Testing Framework for XQuery

- by Knut Vatsendvik

This posting provides a unit testing framework for XQuery using Oracle Service Bus. It allows you to write a test case to run your XQuery transformations in an automated fashion. When the test case is run, the framework returns any differences found in the response. The complete code sample with install instructions can be downloaded from here. Writing a Unit Test You start a new Test Case by creating a Proxy Service from Workshop that comes with Oracle Service Bus. In the General Configuration page select Service Type to be Messaging Service In the Message Type Configuration page link both the Request & Response Message Type to the TestCase element of the UnitTest.xsd schema The TestCase element consists of the following child elements The ID and optional Name element is simply used for reference. The Transformation element is the XQuery resource to be executed. The Input elements represents the input to run the XQuery with. The Output element represents the expected output. These XML documents are “also” represented as an XQuery resource where the XQuery function takes no arguments and returns the XML document. Why not pass the test data with the TestCase? Passing an XML structure in another XML structure is not very easy or at least not very human readable. Therefore it was chosen to represent the test data as an loadable resource in the OSB. However you are free to go ahead with another approach on this if wanted. The XMLDiff elements represents any differences found. A sample on input is shown here. Modeling the Message Flow Then the next step is to model the message flow of the Proxy Service. In the Request Pipeline create a stage node that loads the test case input data. For this, specify a dynamic XQuery expression that evaluates at runtime to the name of a pre-registered XQuery resource. The expression is of course set by the input data from the test case. Add a Run stage node. Assign the result of the XQuery, that is to be run, to a context variable. Define a mapping for each of the input variables added in previous stage. Add a Compare stage. Like with the input data, load the expected output data. Do a compare using XMLDiff XQuery provided where the first argument is the loaded output test data, and the second argument the result from the Run stage. Any differences found is replaced back into the test case XMLDiff element. In case of any unexpected failure while processing, add an Error Handler to the Pipeline to capture the fault. To pass back the result add the following Insert action In the Response Pipeline. A sample on output is shown here.

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How to move complete SharePoint Server 2007 from one box to another

- by DipeshBhanani

It was time of my first onsite client assignment on SharePoint. Client had one server production environment. They wanted to upgrade the topology with completely new SharePoint Farm of three servers. So, the task was to move whole MOSS 2007 stuff to the new server environment without impacting data. The last three scary words “… without impacting data…” were actually putting pressure on my head. Moreover SSP was required to move because additional information has been added for users apart from AD import. I thought I had to do only backup and restore. It appeared pretty easy at first thought. Just because of these damn scary words, I thought to check out on internet for guidance related to this scenario. I couldn’t get anything except general guidance of moving server on Microsoft TechNet site. I promised myself for starting blogs with this post if I would be successful in this task. Well, I took long time to write this but finally made it. I hope it will be useful to all guys looking for SharePoint server movement. Before beginning restoration, make sure that, there is no difference in versions of SharePoint at source and destination server. Also check whether the state of SharePoint Installation at the time of backup and restore is same or not. (E.g. SharePoint related service packs and patches if any) The main tasks of the server movement are as follow: Backup all the databases Install and configure SharePoint on new environment Deploy all solution (WSP Files) globally to destination server- for installing features attached to the solutions Install all the custom features Deploy/Copy custom pages/files which are added to the “12Hive” folder later Restore SSP Restore My Site Restore other web application Tasks 3 to 5 are for making sure that we have configured the environment well enough for the web application to be restored successfully. The main and complex task was restoring SSP. I have started restoring SSP through Central Admin. After a while, the restoration status was updated to “unsuccessful”. “Damn it, what went wrong?” I thought looking at the error detail down the page. I couldn’t remember the error message but I had corrected and restored it again. Actually once you fail restoring SSP, until and unless you don’t clean all related stuff well, your restoration will be failed again and again. I wanted to find the actual reason. So cleaned, restored, cleaned, restored… I had tried almost 5-6 times and finally, I succeeded. I had realized how pleasant it is, to see the word “Successful” on the screen. Without wasting your much time to read, let me write all the detailed steps of restoring SSP: Delete the SSP through following STSADM command. stsadm -o deletessp -title <SSP name> -deletedatabases -force e.g.: stsadm -o deletessp -title SharedServices1 -deletedatabases –force Check and delete the web application associated with SSP if it exists. Remove Link from Check and remove “Alternate Access Mapping” associated with SSP if it exists. Check and delete IIS site as well as application pool associated with SSP if it exists. Stop following services: · Office SharePoint Server Search · Windows SharePoint Services Search · Windows SharePoint Services Help Search Delete all the databases associated/related to SSP from SQL Server. Reset IIS. Start again following services: · Office SharePoint Server Search · Windows SharePoint Services Search · Windows SharePoint Services Help Search Restore the new SSP. After the SSP restoration, all other stuffs had completed very smoothly without any more issues. I did few modifications to sites for change of server name and finally, the new environment was ready.

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How to develop RPG Damage Formulas?

- by user127817

I'm developing a classical 2d RPG (in a similar vein to final fantasy) and I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to do damage formulas/links to resources/examples? I'll explain my current setup. Hopefully I'm not overdoing it with this question, and I apologize if my questions is too large/broad My Characters stats are composed of the following: enum Stat { HP = 0, MP = 1, SP = 2, Strength = 3, Vitality = 4, Magic = 5, Spirit = 6, Skill = 7, Speed = 8, //Speed/Agility are the same thing Agility = 8, Evasion = 9, MgEvasion = 10, Accuracy = 11, Luck = 12, }; Vitality is basically defense to physical attacks and spirit is defense to magic attacks. All stats have fixed maximums (9999 for HP, 999 for MP/SP and 255 for the rest). With abilities, the maximums can be increased (99999 for HP, 9999 for HP/SP, 999 for the rest) with typical values (at level 100) before/after abilities+equipment+etc will be 8000/20,000 for HP, 800/2000 for SP/MP, 180/350 for other stats Late game Enemy HP will typically be in the lower millions (with a super boss having the maximum of ~12 million). I was wondering how do people actually develop proper damage formulas that scale correctly? For instance, based on this data, using the damage formulas for Final Fantasy X as a base looked very promising. A full reference here http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs/31381 but as a quick example: Str = 127, 'Attack' command used, enemy Def = 34. 1. Physical Damage Calculation: Step 1 ------------------------------------- [{(Stat^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x DmCon ÷16] Step 2 ---------------------------------------- [{(127^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 3 -------------------------------------- [{(2048383 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 4 --------------------------------------------------- [{(64011) + 32} x 1] Step 5 -------------------------------------------------------- [{(64043 x 1)}] Step 6 ---------------------------------------------------- Base Damage = 64043 Step 7 ----------------------------------------- [{(Def - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------ [{(34 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ------------------------------------------------- [(-246)^2) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 ---------------------------------------------------- [60516 ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [550] + 16 Step 12 ---------------------------------------------------------- DefNum = 566 Step 13 ---------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * DefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [64043 * 566 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------------ [36248338 ÷ 730] Step 16 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 49655 Step 17 ------------ Base Damage 2 * {730 - (Def * 51 - Def^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ---------------------- 49655 * {730 - (34 * 51 - 34^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 ------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 1156 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 105) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 21 ------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1629) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 22 --------------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - 162} ÷ 730 Step 23 ----------------------------------------------------- 49655 * 568 ÷ 730 Step 24 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 38635 I simply modified the dividers to include the attack rating of weapons and the armor rating of armor. Magic Damage is calculated as follows: Mag = 255, Ultima is used, enemy MDef = 1 Step 1 ----------------------------------- [DmCon * ([Stat^2 ÷ 6] + DmCon) ÷ 4] Step 2 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([255^2 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 3 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([65025 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 4 ------------------------------------------------ [70 * (10837 + 70) ÷ 4] Step 5 ----------------------------------------------------- [70 * (10907) ÷ 4] Step 6 ------------------------------------ Base Damage = 190872 [cut to 99999] Step 7 ---------------------------------------- [{(MDef - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------- [{(1 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ---------------------------------------------- [{(-279.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 -------------------------------------------------- [(78064) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [709] + 16 Step 12 --------------------------------------------------------- MDefNum = 725 Step 13 --------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * MDefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [99999 * 725 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 99314 Step 16 ---------- Base Damage 2 * {730 - (MDef * 51 - MDef^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 17 ------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (1 * 51 - 1^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ------------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (51 - 1 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 --------------------------------------- 99314 * {730 - (49) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ----------------------------------------------------- 99314 * 725 ÷ 730 Step 21 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 98633 The problem is that the formulas completely fall apart once stats start going above 255. In particular Defense values over 300 or so start generating really strange behavior. High Strength + Defense stats lead to massive negative values for instance. While I might be able to modify the formulas to work correctly for my use case, it'd probably be easier just to use a completely new formula. How do people actually develop damage formulas? I was considering opening excel and trying to build the formula that way (mapping Attack Stats vs. Defense Stats for instance) but I was wondering if there's an easier way? While I can't convey the full game mechanics of my game here, might someone be able to suggest a good starting place for building a damage formula? Thanks

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[EF + Oracle] Entities

- by JTorrecilla

Prologue Following with the Serie I started yesterday about Entity Framework with Oracle, Today I am going to start talking about Entities. What is an Entity? A Entity is an object of the EF model corresponding to a record in a DB table. For example, let’s see, in Image 1 we can see one Entity from our model, and in the second one we can see the mapping done with the DB. (Image 1) (Image 2) More in depth a Entity is a Class inherited from the abstract class “EntityObject”, contained by the “System.Data.Objects.DataClasses” namespace. At the same time, this class inherits from the following Class and interfaces: StructuralObject: It is an Abstract class that inherits from INotifyPropertyChanging and INotifyPropertyChanged interfaces, and it exposes the events that manage the Changes of the class, and the functions related to check the data types of the Properties from our Entity. IEntityWithKey: Interface which exposes the Key of the entity. IEntityWithChangeTracker: Interface which lets indicate the state of the entity (Detached, Modified, Added…) IEntityWithRelationships: Interface which indicates the relations about the entity. Which is the Content of a Entity? A Entity is composed by: Properties, Navigation Properties and Methods. What is a Property? A Entity Property is an object that represents a column from the mapped table from DB. It has a data type equivalent in .Net Framework to the DB Type. When we create the EF model, VS, internally, create the code for each Entity selected in the Tables step, such all methods that we will see in next steps. For each property, VS creates a structure similar to: · Private variable with the mapped Data type. · Function with a name like On{Property_Name}Changing({dataType} value): It manages the event which happens when we try to change the value. · Function with a name like On{Property_Name}Change: It manages the event raised when the property has changed successfully. · Property with Get and Set methods: The Set Method manages the private variable and do the following steps: Raise Changing event. Report the Entity is Changing. Set the prívate variable. For it, Use the SetValidValue function of the StructuralObject. There is a function for each datatype, and the functions takes 2 params: the value, and if the prop allow nulls. Invoke that the entity has been successfully changed. Invoke the Changed event of the Prop. ReportPropertyChanging and ReportPropertyChanged events, let, respectively, indicate that there is pending changes in the Entity, and the changes have success correctly. While the ReportPropertyChanged is raised, the Track State of the Entity will be changed. What is a Navigation Property? Navigation Properties are a kind of property of the type: EntityCollection<TEntity>, where TEntity is an Entity type from the model related with the current one, it is said, is a set of record from a related table in the DB. The EntityCollection class inherits from: · RelatedEnd: There is an abstract class that give the functions needed to obtein the related objects. · ICollection<TEntity> · IEnumerable<TEntity> · IEnumerable · IListSource For the previous interfaces, I wish recommend the following post from Jose Miguel Torres. Navigation properties allow us, to get and query easily objects related with the Entity. Methods? There is only one method in the Entity object. “Create{Entity}”, that allow us to create an object of the Entity by sending the parameters needed to create it. Finally After this chapter, we know what is an Entity, how is related to the DB and the relation to other Entities. In following chapters, we will se CRUD operations(Create, Read, Update, Delete).

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What is the right way to process inconsistent data files?

- by Tahabi

I'm working at a company that uses Excel files to store product data, specifically, test results from products before they are shipped out. There are a few thousand spreadsheets with anywhere from 50-100 relevant data points per file. Over the years, the schema for the spreadsheets has changed significantly, but not unidirectionally - in the sense that, changes often get reverted and then re-added in the space of a few dozen to few hundred files. My project is to convert about 8000 of these spreadsheets into a database that can be queried. I'm using MongoDB to deal with the inconsistency in the data, and Python. My question is, what is the "right" or canonical way to deal with the huge variance in my source files? I've written a data structure which stores the data I want for the latest template, which will be the final template used going forward, but that only helps for a few hundred files historically. Brute-forcing a solution would mean writing similar data structures for each version/template - which means potentially writing hundreds of schemas with dozens of fields each. This seems very inefficient, especially when sometimes a change in the template is as little as moving a single line of data one row down or splitting what used to be one data field into two data fields. A slightly more elegant solution I have in mind would be writing schemas for all the variants I can find for pre-defined groups in the source files, and then writing a function to match a particular series of files with a series of variants that matches that set of files. This is because, more often that not, most of the file will remain consistent over a long period, only marred by one or two errant sections, but inside the period, which section is inconsistent, is inconsistent. For example, say a file has four sections with three data fields, which is represented by four Python dictionaries with three keys each. For files 7000-7250, sections 1-3 will be consistent, but section 4 will be shifted one row down. For files 7251-7500, 1-3 are consistent, section 4 is one row down, but a section five appears. For files 7501-7635, sections 1 and 3 will be consistent, but section 2 will have five data fields instead of three, section five disappears, and section 4 is still shifted down one row. For files 7636-7800, section 1 is consistent, section 4 gets shifted back up, section 2 returns to three cells, but section 3 is removed entirely. Files 7800-8000 have everything in order. The proposed function would take the file number and match it to a dictionary representing the data mappings for different variants of each section. For example, a section_four_variants dictionary might have two members, one for the shifted-down version, and one for the normal version, a section_two_variants might have three and five field members, etc. The script would then read the matchings, load the correct mapping, extract the data, and insert it into the database. Is this an accepted/right way to go about solving this problem? Should I structure things differently? I don't know what to search Google for either to see what other solutions might be, though I believe the problem lies in the domain of ETL processing. I also have no formal CS training aside from what I've taught myself over the years. If this is not the right forum for this question, please tell me where to move it, if at all. Any help is most appreciated. Thank you.

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Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge: Fishbowl Solutions

- by Kellsey Ruppel

Originally posted by Jake Kuramoto on The Apps Lab blog. Today, I give you the final entry in the Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge, held last week during OpenWorld. This one comes from Friend of the ‘Lab and Fishbowl Solutions (@fishbowle20) hacker, John Sim (@jrsim_uix), whom you might remember from his XBox Kinect demo at COLLABORATE 12 (presentation slides and abstract) hacks and other exploits with WebCenter. We put this challenge together specifically for developers like John, who like to experiment with new tools and push the envelope of what’s possible and build cool things, and as you can see from his entry John did just that, mashing together Google Maps and Oracle Social Network into a mobile app built with PhoneGap that uses the device’s camera and GPS to keep teams on the move in touch. He calls it a Mobile GeoTagging Solution, but I think Avengers Assemble! would have equally descriptive, given that was obviously his inspiration. Here’s his description of the mobile app: My proposed solution was to design and simplify GeoLocation mapping, and automate updates for users and teams on the move; who don’t have access to a laptop or want to take their ipads out – but allow them to make quick updates to OSN and upload photos taken from their mobile device – there and then. As part of this; the plan was to include a rules engine that could be configured by the user to allow the device to automatically update and post messages when they arrived at a set location(s). Inspiration for this came from on{x} – automate your life. Unfortunately, John didn’t make it to the conference to show off his hard work in person, but luckily, he had a colleague from Fishbowl and a video to showcase his work. Here are some shots of John’s mobile app for your viewing pleasure: John’s thinking is sound. Geolocation is usually relegated to consumer use cases, thanks to services like foursquare, but distributed teams working on projects out in the world definitely need a way to stay in contact. Consider a construction job. Different contractors all converge on a single location, and time is money. Rather than calling or texting each other and risking a distracted driving accident, an app like John’s allows everyone on the job to see exactly where the other contractors are. Using his GPS rules, they could easily be notified about how close each is to the site, definitely useful when you have a flooring contractor sitting idle, waiting for an electrician to finish the wiring. The best part is that the project manager or general contractor could stay updated on all the action (or inaction) using Oracle Social Network, either sitting at a desk using the browser app or desktop client or on the go, using one of the native mobile apps built for Oracle Social Network. I can see this being used by insurance adjusters too, and really any team that, erm, assembles at a given spot. Of course, it’s also useful for meeting at the pub after the day’s work is done. Beyond people, this solution could also be implemented for physical objects that are in route to a destination. Say you’re a customer waiting on rail shipment or a package delivery. You could track your valuable’s whereabouts easily as they report their progress via checkins. If they deviated from the GPS rules, you’d be notified. You might even be able to get a picture into Oracle Social Network with some light hacking. Thanks to John and his colleagues at Fishbowl for participating in our challenge. We hope everyone had a good experience. Make sure to check out John’s blog post on his work and the experience using Oracle Social Network. Although this is the final, official entry we had, tomorrow, I’ll show you the work of someone who finished code, but wasn’t able to make the judging event. Stay tuned.

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Oracle Tutor: XPDL conversion (and why you should care)

- by mary.keane

You may have noticed that the Oracle Business Process Converter feature in Tutor 14 supports "XPDL" conversion to Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite (BPA), Oracle Business Process Management Suite (BPM), and Oracle Tutor, and you may have briefly wondered "what is XPDL?" before you moved on to the Visio import feature (a very popular feature in Tutor 14). This posting is for those who do not yet understand (or care) about XPDL and process modeling. Many of us (and I'm including myself) have spent years working in the process definition arena: we've written procedures, designed systems and software to help others write procedures, and have been responsible for embedding policies and procedures into training material for employees. We've worked with tools such as Oracle Tutor, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Word, and UPK. Most of us have never worked with "modeling tools" before, and we certainly never had to understand BPMN. It's a brave new world in this arena, and companies desperately need people with policy and procedural system expertise to be able to work with system analysts so there is a seamless transfer of knowledge from IT to employees. When working with applications, a picture is worth a thousand words, so eventually you're going to need to understand and be able to work with business process models. XPDL is an acronym for XML Process Definition Language, and it is an interchange format for business process models. It allows you to take a BPMN model that was developed in one workflow application such as BizAgi and import it into another workflow application or a true BPMN management system such as Oracle BPM. Specifically, the XPDL format contains the graphical information of a model as well as any executable information. By using a common format, models can be moved from a basic modeling application used by business owners to applications used by system architects. Over 80 applications support the XPDL format, including MetaStorm ProVision, BEA ALBPM, BizAgi, and Tibco. I mention these applications because we have provided XSLT mapping files specifically for these vendors. Oracle Business Process Converter was designed with user extensibility in mind, and thus users can add their own XML files so that additional XPDL models from other vendors can be converted to BPM, BPA, and Oracle Tutor. Instructions on how to add your own files can be found in Appendix 4 of the Oracle Business Converter manual. Let's take a visual look at how this works. Here is an example of a model devloped in BizAgi: This model can be created by the average business user without a large learning curve, and it's a good start for the system analyst who will be adding web services as well as for the business manager who manages the process described in the model. By exporting this model as XPDL, the information can be converted into Oracle BPA and Oracle BPM as well as converted to Oracle Tutor to become the framework for a procedure. Through this conversion feature, one graphic illustration of a business process can be used by a system analyst, business analyst, business manager, and employee, as seen below. Model Converted to Tutor Procedure Below is the task section of the procedure after conversion from an XPDL file. Model converted to BPA Model converted to BPM End users still want step by step instructions on how to perform their jobs, so procedures (Oracle Tutor) and application simulations (UPK) are still a critical piece of the solution. But IT professionals need graphic descriptions of how the applications work, regardless of whether there are any tasks involving humans. Now there is a way to convert procedures (Oracle Tutor docx files) and basic models (XPDL files) so that business managers and system analysts can share process information. References Wikipedia XPDL. Workflow Management Coalition, XPDL Support and Resources Oracle Business Process Converter manual, Oracle Tutor 14 Oracle Business Process Management 11g If you have any XPDL conversion stories to share, we'd love to hear from you. Best wishes for the coming new year, Mary Keane, Senior Development Manager, Oracle Tutor and BPM

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Attachments in Oracle BPM 11g – Create a BPM Process Instance by passing an Attachment

- by Venugopal Mangipudi

Problem Statement: On a recent engagement I had a requirement where we needed to create BPM instances using a message start event. The challenge was that the instance needed to be created after polling a file location and attaching the picked up file (pdf) as an attachment to the instance. Proposed Solution: I was contemplating using process API to accomplish this,but came up with a solution which involves a BPEL process to pickup the file and send a notification to the BPM process by passing the attachment as a payload. The following are some of the brief steps that were used to build the solution: BPM Process to receive an attachment as part of the payload: The BPM Process is a very simple process which has a Message Start event that accepts the attachment as an argument and a Simple User Task that the user can use to view the attachment (as part of the OOTB attachment panel). The Input payload is based on AttachmentPayload.xsd. The 3 key elements of the the payload are: <xsd:element name="filename" type="xsd:string"/> <xsd:element name="mimetype" type="xsd:string"/> <xsd:element name="content" type="xsd:base64Binary"/> A screenshot of the Human task data assignment that need to performed to attach the file is provided here. Once the process and the UI project (default generated UI) are deployed to the SOA server, copy the wsdl location of the process service (from EM). This WSDL would be used in the BPEL project to create the Instances in the BPM process after a file is polled. BPEL Process to Poll for File and create instances in the BPM process: For the BPEL process a File adapter was configured as a Read service (File Streaming option and keeping the Schema as Opaque). Once a location and the file pattern to poll are provided the Readservice Partner Link was wired to Invoke the BPEL Process. Also, using the BPM Process WSDL, we can create the Webservice reference and can invoke the start operation. Before we do the assignment for the Invoke operation, a global variable should be created to hold the value of the fileName of the file. The mapping to the global variable can be done on the Receive activity properties (jca.file.FileName). So for the assign operation before we invoke the BPM process service, we can get the content of the file from the receive input variable and the fileName from the jca.file.FileName property. The mimetype needs to be hard coded to the mime-type of the file: application/pdf (I am still researching ways to derive the mime type as it is not available as part of the jca.file properties). The screenshot of the BPEL process can be found here and the Assign activity can be found here. The project source can be found at the following location. A sample pdf file to test the project and a screenshot of the BPM Human task screen after the successful creation of the instance can be found here. References: [1] https://blogs.oracle.com/fmwinaction/entry/oracle_bpm_adding_an_attachment

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Webcast Q&A: Demystifying External Authorization

- by B Shashikumar

Thanks to everyone who joined us on our webcast with SANS Institute on "Demystifying External Authorization". Also a special thanks to Tanya Baccam from SANS for sharing her experiences reviewing Oracle Entitlements Server. If you missed the webcast, you can catch a replay of the webcast here. Here is a compilation of the slides that were used on today's webcast. SANS Institute Product Review: Oracle Entitlements Server We have captured the Q&A from the webcast for those who couldn't attend. Q: Is Oracle ADF integrated with Oracle Entitlements Server (OES) ? A: In Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and later, Oracle ADF, Oracle WebCenter, Oracle SOA Suite and other middleware products are all built on Oracle Platform Security Services (OPSS). OPSS privodes many security functions like authentication, audit, credential stores, token validaiton, etc. OES is the authorization solution underlying OPSS. And OES 11g unifies different authorization mechanisms including Java2/ABAC/RBAC. Q: Which portal frameworks support the use of OES policies for portal entitlement decisions? A: Many portals including Oracle WebCenter 11g run natively on top of OES. The authorization engine in WebCenter is OES. Besides, OES offers out of the box integration with Microsoft SharePoint. So SharePoint sites, sub sites, web parts, navigation items, document access control can all be secured with OES. Several other portals have also been secured with OES ex: IBM websphere portal Q: How do we enforce Seperation of Duties (SoD) rules using OES (also how does that integrate with a product like OIA) ? A: A product like OIM or OIA can be used to set up and govern SoD policies. OES enforces these policies at run time. Role mapping policies in OES can assign roles dynamically to users under certain conditions. So this makes it simple to enforce SoD policies inside an application at runtime. Q: Our web application has objects like buttons, text fields, drop down lists etc. is there any ”autodiscovery” capability that allows me to use/see those web page objects so you can start building policies over those objects? or how does it work? A: There ae few different options with OES. When you build an app, and make authorization calls with the app in the test environment, you can put OES in discovery mode and have OES register those authorization calls and decisions. Instead of doing this after the fact, an application like Oracle iFlex has built-in UI controls where when the app is running, a script can intercept authorization calls and migrate those over to OES. And in Oracle ADF, a lot of resources are protected so pages, task flows and other resources be registered without OES knowing about them. Q: Does current Oracle Fusion application use OES ? The documentation does not seem to indicate it. A: The current version of Fusion Apps is using a preview version of OES. Soon it will be repalced with OES 11g. Q: Can OES secure mobile apps? A: Absolutely. Nowadays users are bringing their own devices such as a a smartphone or tablet to work. With the Oracle IDM platform, we can tie identity context into the access management stack. With OES we can make use of context to enforce authorization for users accessing apps from mobile devices. For example: we can take into account different elements like authentication scheme, location, device type etc and tie all that information into an authorization decision. Q: Does Oracle Entitlements Server (OES) have an ESAPI implementation? A: OES is an authorization solution. ESAPI/OWASP is something we include in our platform security solution for all oracle products, not specifically in OES Q: ESAPI has an authorization API. Can I use that API to access OES? A: If the API supports an interface / sspi model that can be configured to invoke an external authz system through some mechanism then yes

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Problems implementing a screen space shadow ray tracing shader

- by Grieverheart

Here I previously asked for the possibility of ray tracing shadows in screen space in a deferred shader. Several problems were pointed out. One of the most important problem is that only visible objects can cast shadows and objects between the camera and the shadow caster can interfere. Still I thought it'd be a fun experiment. The idea is to calculate the view coordinates of pixels and cast a ray to the light. The ray is then traced pixel by pixel to the light and its depth is compared with the depth at the pixel. If a pixel is in front of the ray, a shadow is casted at the original pixel. At first I thought that I could use the DDA algorithm in 2D to calculate the distance 't' (in p = o + t d, where o origin, d direction) to the next pixel and use it in the 3D ray equation to find the ray's z coordinate at that pixel's position. For the 2D ray, I would use the projected and biased 3D ray direction and origin. The idea was that 't' would be the same in both 2D and 3D equations. Unfortunately, this is not the case since the projection matrix is 4D. Thus, some tweak needs to be done to make this work this way. I would like to ask if someone knows of a way to do what I described above, i.e. from a 2D ray in texture coordinate space to get the 3D ray in screen space. I did implement a simple version of the idea which you can see in the following video: video here Shadows may seem a bit pixelated, but that's mostly because of the size of the step in 't' I chose. And here is the shader: #version 330 core uniform sampler2D DepthMap; uniform vec2 projAB; uniform mat4 projectionMatrix; const vec3 light_p = vec3(-30.0, 30.0, -10.0); noperspective in vec2 pass_TexCoord; smooth in vec3 viewRay; layout(location = 0) out float out_AO; vec3 CalcPosition(void){ float depth = texture(DepthMap, pass_TexCoord).r; float linearDepth = projAB.y / (depth - projAB.x); vec3 ray = normalize(viewRay); ray = ray / ray.z; return linearDepth * ray; } void main(void){ vec3 origin = CalcPosition(); if(origin.z < -60) discard; vec2 pixOrigin = pass_TexCoord; //tex coords vec3 dir = normalize(light_p - origin); vec2 texel_size = vec2(1.0 / 600.0); float t = 0.1; ivec2 pixIndex = ivec2(pixOrigin / texel_size); out_AO = 1.0; while(true){ vec3 ray = origin + t * dir; vec4 temp = projectionMatrix * vec4(ray, 1.0); vec2 texCoord = (temp.xy / temp.w) * 0.5 + 0.5; ivec2 newIndex = ivec2(texCoord / texel_size); if(newIndex != pixIndex){ float depth = texture(DepthMap, texCoord).r; float linearDepth = projAB.y / (depth - projAB.x); if(linearDepth > ray.z + 0.1){ out_AO = 0.2; break; } pixIndex = newIndex; } t += 0.5; if(texCoord.x < 0 || texCoord.x > 1.0 || texCoord.y < 0 || texCoord.y > 1.0) break; } } As you can see, here I just increment 't' by some arbitrary factor, calculate the 3D ray and project it to get the pixel coordinates, which is not really optimal. Hopefully, I would like to optimize the code as much as possible and compare it with shadow mapping and how it scales with the number of lights. PS: Keep in mind that I reconstruct position from depth by interpolating rays through a full screen quad.

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Updated SOA Documents now available in ITSO Reference Library

- by Bob Rhubart

Nine documents within the IT Strategies from Oracle (ITSO) reference library have recently been updated. (Access to the ITSO collection is free to registered Oracle.com members -- and that membership is free.) All nine documents fall within the Service Oriented Architecture section of the ITSO collection, and cover the following topics: SOA Practitioner Guides Creating an SOA Roadmap (PDF, 54 pages, published: February 2012) The secret to successful SOA is to build a roadmap that can be successfully executed. SOA offers an opportunity to adopt an iterative technique to deliver solutions incrementally. This document offers a structured, iterative methodology to help you stay focused on business results, mitigate technology and organizational risk, and deliver successful SOA projects. A Framework for SOA Governance (PDF, 58 pages, published: February 2012) Successful SOA requires a strong governance strategy that designs-in measurement, management, and enforcement procedures. Enterprise SOA adoption introduces new assets, processes, technologies, standards, roles, etc. which require application of appropriate governance policies and procedures. This document offers a framework for defining and building a proper SOA governance model. Determining ROI of SOA through Reuse (PDF, 28 pages, published: February 2012) SOA offers the opportunity to save millions of dollars annually through reuse. Sharing common services intuitively reduces workload, increases developer productivity, and decreases maintenance costs. This document provides an approach for estimating the reuse value of the various software assets contained in a typical portfolio. Identifying and Discovering Services (PDF, 64 pages, published: March 2012) What services should we build? How can we promote the reuse of existing services? A sound approach to answer these questions is a primary measure for the success of a SOA initiative. This document describes a pragmatic approach for collecting the necessary information for identifying proper services and facilitating service reuse. Software Engineering in an SOA Environment (PDF, 66 pages, published: March 2012) Traditional software delivery methods are too narrowly focused and need to be adjusted to enable SOA. This document describes an engineering approach for delivering projects within an SOA environment. It identifies the unique software engineering challenges faced by enterprises adopting SOA and provides a framework to remove the hurdles and improve the efficiency of the SOA initiative. SOA Reference Architectures SOA Foundation (PDF, 70 pages, published: February 2012) This document describes they key tenets for SOA design, development, and execution environments. Topics include: service definition, service layering, service types, the service model, composite applications, invocation patterns, and standards. SOA Infrastructure (PDF, 86 pages, published: February 2012) Properly architected, SOA provides a robust and manageable infrastructure that enables faster solution delivery. This document describes the role of infrastructure and its capabilities. Topics include: logical architecture, deployment views, and Oracle product mapping. SOA White Papers and Data Sheets Oracle's Approach to SOA (white paper) (PDF, 14 pages, published: February 2012) Oracle has developed a pragmatic, holistic approach, based on years of experience with numerous companies to help customers successfully adopt SOA and realize measureable business benefits. This executive datasheet and whitepaper describe Oracle's proven approach to SOA. Oracle's Approach to SOA (data sheet) (PDF, 3 pages, published: March 2012) SOA adoption is complex and success is far from assured. This is why Oracle has developed a pragmatic, holistic approach, based on years of experience with numerous companies, to help customers successfully adopt SOA and realize measurable business benefits. This data sheet provides an executive overview of Oracle's proven approach to SOA.

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