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• Error when selecting content from ADDTIME(CURTIME(), '14400 hour') format

  - by Blahwhore

  So apparently i've stumbled upon a coding error when trying to select the time from my database. SELECT * FROM `videos` WHERE `added_time` > AddTime( CurTime(), '14400 hour' ) is the code, i'm trying to select all the videos posted 10 days (14400 hours) ago using the "added_time" format, because it worked for my previous coding but in this one it work work. Shown below is a link to the image showing how my database structure for videos are shown. http://i.imm.io/NURT.png Edit: Previously i had this problem for retrieving and deleting bulletins posted 10 days ago, and this code worked, however this code apparently won't work when trying to retrieve the videos :/ I don't know why, they're using the same format. See: http://i.imm.io/NUSW.png

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• sprintf and % signs in text

  - by Cameron Conner

  A problem I recently ran into was that when trying to update a field in my database using this code would not work. I traced it back to having a % sign in the text being updated ($note, then $note_escaped)... Inserting it with sprintf worked fine though. Should I not be using sprintf for updates, or should it be formed differently? I did some searching but couldn't come up with anything. $id = mysql_real_escape_string($id); $note_escaped = mysql_real_escape_string($note); $editedby = mysql_real_escape_string($author); $editdate = mysql_real_escape_string($date); //insert info from form into database $query= sprintf("UPDATE notes_$suffix SET note='$note_escaped', editedby='$editedby', editdate='$editdate' WHERE id='$id' LIMIT 1"); Thanks much!

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• Determining smallest number of samples for 99% accuracy

  - by test

  I'm trying to compare 100,000 records on a local database (L) with 100,000 records on a remote database (R). Basically I want to know if an elment in L exusts in R. To determine that, I have to make a request against the R for each L, which takes a long time (I know, there should be a better way, there isn't, that's the API I've got). So I would like to test a small sample of L against R, and then infer with some level of confidence how many are present in the whole R. How many do I have to test to have a 99% confidence level?

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• OAM OVD integration - Error Encounterd while performance test "LDAP response read timed out, timeout used:2000ms"

  - by siddhartha_sinha

  While working on OAM OVD integration for one of my client, I have been involved in the performance test of the products wherein I encountered OAM authentication failures while talking to OVD during heavy load. OAM logs revealed the following: oracle.security.am.common.policy.common.response.ResponseException: oracle.security.am.engines.common.identity.provider.exceptions.IdentityProviderException: OAMSSA-20012: Exception in getting user attributes for user : dummy_user1, idstore MyIdentityStore with exception javax.naming.NamingException: LDAP response read timed out, timeout used:2000ms.; remaining name 'ou=people,dc=oracle,dc=com' at oracle.security.am.common.policy.common.response.IdentityValueProvider.getUserAttribute(IdentityValueProvider.java:271) ... During the authentication and authorization process, OAM complains that the LDAP repository is taking too long to return user attributes.The default value is 2 seconds as can be seen from the exception, "2000ms". While troubleshooting the issue, it was found that we can increase the ldap read timeout in oam-config.xml.  For reference, the attribute to add in the oam-config.xml file is: <Setting Name="LdapReadTimeout" Type="xsd:string">2000</Setting> However it is not recommended to increase the time out unless it is absolutely necessary and ensure that back-end directory servers are working fine. Rather I took the path of tuning OVD in the following manner: 1) Navigate to ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/OPMN/opmn folder and edit opmn.xml. Search for <data id="java-options" ………> and edit the contents of the file with the highlighted items: <category id="start-options"><data id="java-bin" value="$ORACLE_HOME/jdk/bin/java"/><data id="java-options" value="-server -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -Dvde.soTimeoutBackend=0 -Didm.oracle.home=$ORACLE_HOME -Dcommon.components.home=$ORACLE_HOME/../oracle_common -XX:+PrintGCDetails -XX:+PrintGCDateStamps -Xloggc:/opt/bea/Middleware/asinst_1/diagnostics/logs/OVD/ovd1/ovdGClog.log -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -Doracle.security.jps.config=$ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/JPS/jps-config-jse.xml"/><data id="java-classpath" value="$ORACLE_HOME/ovd/jlib/vde.jar$:$ORACLE_HOME/jdbc/lib/ojdbc6.jar"/></category></module-data><stop timeout="120"/><ping interval="60"/></process-type> When the system is busy, a ping from the Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN) to Oracle Virtual Directory may fail. As a result, OPMN will restart Oracle Virtual Directory after 20 seconds (the default ping interval). To avoid this, consider increasing the ping interval to 60 seconds or more. 2) Navigate to ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/OVD/ovd1 folder.Open listeners.os_xml file and perform the following changes: · Search for <ldap id=”Ldap Endpoint”…….> and point the cursor to that line. · Change threads count to 200. · Change anonymous bind to Deny. · Change workQueueCapacity to 8096. Add a new parameter <useNIO> and set its value to false viz: <useNIO>false</useNio> Snippet: <ldap version="8" id="LDAP Endpoint"> ....... .......  <socketOptions><backlog>128</backlog>         <reuseAddress>false</reuseAddress>         <keepAlive>false</keepAlive>         <tcpNoDelay>true</tcpNoDelay>         <readTimeout>0</readTimeout>      </socketOptions> <useNIO>false</useNIO></ldap> Restart OVD server. For more information on OVD tuneup refer to http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E25054_01/core.1111/e10108/ovd.htm. Please Note: There were few patches released from OAM side for performance tune-up as well. Will provide the updates shortly !!!

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• SQL SERVER – Disable Clustered Index and Data Insert

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier today I received following email. “Dear Pinal, [Removed unrelated content] We looked at your script and found out that in your script of disabling indexes, you have only included non-clustered index during the bulk insert and missed to disabled all the clustered index. Our DBA[name removed] has changed your script a bit and included all the clustered indexes. Since our application is not working. When DBA [name removed] tried to enable clustered indexes again he is facing error incorrect syntax error. We are in deep problem [word replaced] [Removed Identity of organization and few unrelated stuff ]“ I have replied to my client and helped them fixed the problem. What really came to my attention is the concept of disabling clustered index. Let us try to learn a lesson from this experience. In this case, there was no need to disable clustered index at all. I had done necessary work when I was called in to work on tuning project. I had removed unused indexes, created few optimal indexes and wrote a script to disable few selected high cost indexes when bulk insert (and similar) operations are performed. There was another script which rebuild all the indexes as well. The solution worked till they included clustered index in disabling the script. Clustered indexes are in fact original table (or heap) physically ordered (any more things – not scope of this article) according to one or more keys(columns). When clustered index is disabled data rows of the disabled clustered index cannot be accessed. This means there will be no insert possible. When non clustered indexes are disabled all the data related to physically deleted but the definition of the index is kept in the system. Due to the same reason even reorganization of the index is not possible till the clustered index (which was disabled) is rebuild. Now let us come to the second part of the question, regarding receiving the error when clustered index is ‘enabled’. This is very common question I receive on the blog. (The following statement is written keeping the syntax of T-SQL in mind) Clustered indexes can be disabled but can not be enabled, they have to rebuild. It is intuitive to think that something which we have ‘disabled’ can be ‘enabled’ but the syntax for the same is ‘rebuild’. This issue has been explained here: SQL SERVER – How to Enable Index – How to Disable Index – Incorrect syntax near ‘ENABLE’. Let us go over this example where inserting the data is not possible when clustered index is disabled. USE AdventureWorks GO -- Create Table CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TableName]( [ID] [int] NOT NULL, [FirstCol] [varchar](50) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_TableName] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([ID] ASC) ) GO -- Create Nonclustered Index CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_NonClustered_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] ([FirstCol] ASC) GO -- Populate Table INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 1, 'First' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'Second' UNION ALL SELECT 3, 'Third' GO -- Disable Nonclustered Index ALTER INDEX [IX_NonClustered_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] DISABLE GO -- Insert Data should work fine INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 4, 'Fourth' UNION ALL SELECT 5, 'Fifth' GO -- Disable Clustered Index ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] DISABLE GO -- Insert Data will fail INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 6, 'Sixth' UNION ALL SELECT 7, 'Seventh' GO /* Error: Msg 8655, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The query processor is unable to produce a plan because the index 'PK_TableName' on table or view 'TableName' is disabled. */ -- Reorganizing Index will also throw an error ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] REORGANIZE GO /* Error: Msg 1973, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Cannot perform the specified operation on disabled index 'PK_TableName' on table 'dbo.TableName'. */ -- Rebuliding should work fine ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] REBUILD GO -- Insert Data should work fine INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 6, 'Sixth' UNION ALL SELECT 7, 'Seventh' GO -- Clean Up DROP TABLE [dbo].[TableName] GO I hope this example is clear enough. There were few additional posts I had written years ago, I am listing them here. SQL SERVER – Enable and Disable Index Non Clustered Indexes Using T-SQL SQL SERVER – Enabling Clustered and Non-Clustered Indexes – Interesting Fact Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Constraint and Keys, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Something for the weekend - Whats the most complex query?

  - by simonsabin

  Whenever I teach about SQL Server performance tuning I try can get across the message that there is no such thing as a table. Does that sound odd, well it isn't, trust me. Rather than tables you need to consider structures. You have 1. Heaps 2. Indexes (b-trees) Some people split indexes in two, clustered and non-clustered, this I feel confuses the situation as people associate clustered indexes with sorting, but don't associate non clustered indexes with sorting, this is wrong. Clustered and non-clustered indexes are the same b-tree structure(and even more so with SQL 2005) with the leaf pages sorted in a linked list according to the keys of the index.. The difference is that non clustered indexes include in their structure either, the clustered key(s), or the row identifier for the row in the table (see http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kalen_delaney/archive/2008/03/16/nonclustered-index-keys.aspx for more details). Beyond that they are the same, they have key columns which are stored on the root and intermediary pages, and included columns which are on the leaf level. The reason this is important is that this is how the optimiser sees the world, this means it can use any of these structures to resolve your query. Even if your query only accesses one table, the optimiser can access multiple structures to get your results. One commonly sees this with a non-clustered index scan and then a key lookup (clustered index seek), but importantly it's not restricted to just using one non-clustered index and the clustered index or heap, and that's the challenge for the weekend. So the challenge for the weekend is to produce the most complex single table query. For those clever bods amongst you that are thinking, great I will just use lots of xquery functions, sorry these are the rules. 1. You have to use a table from AdventureWorks (2005 or 2008) 2. You can add whatever indexes you like, but you must document these 3. You cannot use XQuery, Spatial, HierarchyId, Full Text or any open rowset function. 4. You can only reference your table once, i..e a FROM clause with ONE table and no JOINs 5. No Sub queries. The aim of this is to show how the optimiser can use multiple structures to build the results of a query and to also highlight why the optimiser is doing that. How many structures can you get the optimiser to use? As an example create these two indexes on AdventureWorks2008 create index IX_Person_Person on Person.Person (lastName, FirstName,NameStyle,PersonType) create index IX_Person_Person on Person.Person(BusinessentityId,ModifiedDate)with drop_existing    select lastName, ModifiedDate   from Person.Person  where LastName = 'Smith' You will see that the optimiser has decided to not access the underlying clustered index of the table but to use two indexes above to resolve the query. This highlights how the optimiser considers all storage structures, clustered indexes, non clustered indexes and heaps when trying to resolve a query. So are you up to the challenge for the weekend to produce the most complex single table query? The prize is a pdf version of a popular SQL Server book, or a physical book if you live in the UK.  

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• OBIEE 11.1.1 - Introduction to OBIEE 11g Full Sample App

  - by user809526

  Isn't it nice to discover OBIEE 11g around a nice "How To" catalog of features? to observe OBI and Essbase relationships at work? to discover TimesTen? The OBIEE 11g Full Sample App (FSA) is a comprehensive collection of examples designed to demonstrate the latest Oracle BIEE 11g capabilities and design best practices: Enhanced visualizations as Geo-spacial maps and interactive dashboards, Action Framework,  BI Publisher, Scorecard and Strategy Management, Mobile style sheets, Semantic layer modeling, Multi-source federation, Integration with products such as Essbase, Oracle OLAP, ODM, TimesTen, ODI and more The FSA is intended to be comprehensive, it is big (see CAVEAT below). The FSA is not an Oracle product, it is a good will free deployment of OBIEE/Essbase designed to exemplify OBIEE features, infrastructure and security around the Fusion Middleware components. Its contents and code are distributed free for demonstrative purposes only. It is neither maintained nor supported by Oracle as a licensed product. The OBIEE Full Sample App is independent of the default Sample App that comes with the OBIEE product. BENEFITS The FSA helps as a demonstrator of OBIEE 11g best practices, a tutorial, an environment "Test & Scrap", a SR bench (regression, conflicts), a tuning bench, a quick ready made POC seed for projects, a security options environment, ... The FSA - Is organized around a catalog of functional features - Has been deployed over 1000 times, it should be stable RELEASE The Full Sample App (V107) is bound to OBIEE 11.1.1.5 and Essbase 11.1.2.1 (November 2011). The FSA release dates are independent of the Product GA date (OBIEE). In early December 2011, a new functional Patch (V110) is released. It is easily applied (in less than 15 mins) on top of OBIEE SampleApp 11.1.1.5 (V107). The patch (V110) includes additional functional examples:        1. Web Catalog Statistics Application: Provides detailed insight into your web catalog content, dormant catalog objects, webcat impact analysis for metadata changes and more        2. Data inflation Scripts: A set of simple SQL procedures to quickly inflate SampleApp Fact and Dimension data to millions of records in a few minutes        3. Public Content Extensions Framework: A patching framework for public examples and contributions leveraging SampleApp        4. Additional report examples (including bridge report, external chart integrations) and bug fixes DISTRIBUTION as VBox image (November 2011) The ready made VBox image is designed to run on Virtual Box. It can be converted to VMware (see another BLOG). 1/ http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/obiee-samples-167534.html VBox Image Deployment Guide Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf - VBox image key file The above http URL provides the user:password for the ftp URLs below. 2/ ftp://user:[email protected]/static/SampleAppV107/ 12 "7-zip" files Sampleapp_v107_GA_7_20.7z.001 -> .012 We recommend 7-zip file manager for unzipping (http://www.7-zip.org/). Select Unzip here option, it will create the contents under a directory named "SampleApp_10722". On Windows, it is important to download and save zip file under the root directory (e.g. C:\ or D:\) because of possible long pathnames. 3/ ftp://user:[email protected]/static/SampleAppV107/Unzipped_Version/ 4 files Sampleapp_v107_GA-disk[1234].vmdk Important note: Check the provided checksums (md5sum). Please do it! DISTRIBUTION as Installation files for existing OBI 11.1.1.5 (November 2011) http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/obiee-samples-167534.html Install files Deployment Guide SampleApp_10722_1.zip - 198 MB CAVEAT Many computers have RAM chips problems that keep often silent ... until you manipulate big files. It is strongly advised you run some memory check program eg MEMTEST in GRUB boot manager. Running md5sum repeatedly onto the very same big file must be consistent [same result], else a hardware memory problem is suspected. For Virtual Box, you should most likely enable VT-X (Vanderpool) hardware virtualization in BIOS. A free disk space of 80 GB is required to perform safely the VBox image installation. A Virtual Machine of minimum 6 to 7 GB memory fits the needs of combining OBIEE and Essbase execution.

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• Inequality joins, Asynchronous transformations and Lookups : SSIS

  - by jamiet

  It is pretty much accepted by SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) developers that synchronous transformations are generally quicker than asynchronous transformations (for a description of synchronous and asynchronous transformations go read Asynchronous and synchronous data flow components). Notice I said “generally” and not “always”; there are circumstances where using asynchronous transformations can be beneficial and in this blog post I’ll demonstrate such a scenario, one that is pretty common when building data warehouses. Imagine I have a [Customer] dimension table that manages information about all of my customers as a slowly-changing dimension. If that is a type 2 slowly changing dimension then you will likely have multiple rows per customer in that table. Furthermore you might also have datetime fields that indicate the effective time period of each member record. Here is such a table that contains data for four dimension members {Terry, Max, Henry, Horace}: Notice that we have multiple records per customer and that the [SCDStartDate] of a record is equivalent to the [SCDEndDate] of the record that preceded it (if there was one). (Note that I am on record as saying I am not a fan of this technique of storing an [SCDEndDate] but for the purposes of clarity I have included it here.) Anyway, the idea here is that we will have some incoming data containing [CustomerName] & [EffectiveDate] and we need to use those values to lookup [Customer].[CustomerId]. The logic will be: Lookup a [CustomerId] WHERE [CustomerName]=[CustomerName] AND [SCDStartDate] <= [EffectiveDate] AND [EffectiveDate] <= [SCDEndDate] The conventional approach to this would be to use a full cached lookup but that isn’t an option here because we are using inequality conditions. The obvious next step then is to use a non-cached lookup which enables us to change the SQL statement to use inequality operators: Let’s take a look at the dataflow: Notice these are all synchronous components. This approach works just fine however it does have the limitation that it has to issue a SQL statement against your lookup set for every row thus we can expect the execution time of our dataflow to increase linearly in line with the number of rows in our dataflow; that’s not good. OK, that’s the obvious method. Let’s now look at a different way of achieving this using an asynchronous Merge Join transform coupled with a Conditional Split. I’ve shown it post-execution so that I can include the row counts which help to illustrate what is going on here: Notice that there are more rows output from our Merge Join component than on the input. That is because we are joining on [CustomerName] and, as we know, we have multiple records per [CustomerName] in our lookup set. Notice also that there are two asynchronous components in here (the Sort and the Merge Join). I have embedded a video below that compares the execution times for each of these two methods. The video is just over 8minutes long. View on Vimeo  For those that can’t be bothered watching the video I’ll tell you the results here. The dataflow that used the Lookup transform took 36 seconds whereas the dataflow that used the Merge Join took less than two seconds. An illustration in case it is needed: Pretty conclusive proof that in some scenarios it may be quicker to use an asynchronous component than a synchronous one. Your mileage may of course vary. The scenario outlined here is analogous to performance tuning procedural SQL that uses cursors. It is common to eliminate cursors by converting them to set-based operations and that is effectively what we have done here. Our non-cached lookup is performing a discrete operation for every single row of data, exactly like a cursor does. By eliminating this cursor-in-disguise we have dramatically sped up our dataflow. I hope all of that proves useful. You can download the package that I demonstrated in the video from my SkyDrive at http://cid-550f681dad532637.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/BlogShare/20100514/20100514%20Lookups%20and%20Merge%20Joins.zip Comments are welcome as always. @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

  - by Maria Forney

  Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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• Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  By Maria Forney Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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• Book Reviews: Art of Community and Eyetracking Web Usability

  - by ultan o'broin

  Holidays time offers a chance to catch up on some user experience and user assistance related material. So, two short book reviews (which I considered using my new Tumblr blog for. More about that another time) coming up. The Art of Community by Jono Bacon Excellent starting point for anyone wanting to get going in the community software (FLOSS, for example) space or understand how to set up, manage, and leverage the collective intelligence of communities for whatever ends. The book is a little too long in my opinion, and of course, usage of what Jono is recommending needs to be nuanced and adapted for enterprise applications space (hardly surprising there is a lot about Ubuntu, Lug Radio, and so on given Jono's interests). Shame there wasn't more information on international, non-English community considerations too. Still, some great ideas and insight into setting up and managing communities that I will leverage (watch out for the results on this blog, later in 2011). One section, on collaborative writing really jumped out. It reinforced the whole idea that to successful community initiatives are based on instigators knowing what makes the community tick in the first place. How about this for insight into user profiles for people who write community user assistance (OK then, "doc") and what tools they might use (in this case, we're talking about Jokosher): "Most people who write documentation for open source software projects would fall into the category of power user. They are technology enthusiasts who are not interested in the super-technical avenues of programming, but want to help out. Many of these people have good writing skills and a good knowledge of using the software, so the documentation fit is natural. With Jokosher we wanted to acknowledge this profile of user. As such, instead of focussing on complex text processing tools, we encouraged our documentation contributors to use a wiki." The book is available for free here, and well as being available from usual sources. Eyetracking Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Prentice Another fine book by established experts. I have some field experience of eyetracking studies myself --in the user assistance for enterprise applications space--though Jakob and Kara concentrate on websites for their research here. I would caution how much about websites transfers easily to the applications space, especially enterprise applications, as claimed in the book too. However, Jakob and Kara do make the case very well that understanding design goals (for example, productivity improvement in the case of applications) and the context of the software use is critical. Executing a study using eyetracking technology requires that you know what you want to test, can set up realistic tasks for testing by representative testers, and then analyze the results. Be precise, as lots of data will be generated (I think the authors underplay the effort in analyzing data too). What I found disappointing was the lack of emphasis on eyetracking as only part of the usability solution. It's really for fine-tuning designs in my opinion, and should be used after other design reviews. I also wasn't that crazy about the level of disengagement between the qualitative and quantitative side of this kind of testing that the book indicated. I think it is useful to have testers verbalize their thoughts and for test engineers to prompt, intervene, or guide as necessary. More on cultural or international aspects to usability testing might have been included too (websites are available to everyone). To conclude, I enjoyed the book, took on board some key takeaways about methodologies and found the recommendations sensible and easy to follow (for example about Forms layouts). Applying enterprise applications requirements such as those relating to user profiles, design goals, and overall context of use in conjunction with what's in this book would be the way to go here. It also made me think of how interesting it would be to compare eyetracking findings between website and enterprise applications usage.

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• Oracle Forms Migration to ADF - Webinar vom ORACLE Partner PITSS

  - by Thomas Leopold

    Tuesday, February 22, 2011 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM CET Free Webinar Re-Engineering Legacy Oracle Forms Migration from Forms to ADF - A Case Study Join Oracle's Grant Ronald and PITSS to see a software architecture comparison of Oracle Forms and ADF and a live step-by-step presentation on how to achieve a successful migration. Learn about various migration options, challenges and best practices to protect your current investment in Oracle Forms. PL/SQL is without match for what it does: manipulating data in the database. If you blindly migrate all your PL/SQL to Java you will, in all probability, end up with less maintainable and less efficient code. Instead you should consider which code it best left as PL/SQL..." Grant Ronald - "Migrating Oracle Forms to Fusion: Myth or Magic Bullet?" Re-Engineering existing business logic is mandatory for your legacy Forms application to take advantage of the new Software architectures like ADF. The PITSS.CON solution combines the deep understanding of Oracle Forms and Reports applications architecture with powerful re-engineering capabilities that allows the developer community to protect the investment in the existing Forms applications and to concentrate on fine-tuning and customization of the modernized functionality rather than manually recreating every module and business logic from bottom up. Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/971702250   PITSS GmbHKönigsdorferstrasse 25D-82515 WolfratshausenDo not forget to check out these Free Webinars in March! Thursday, March 3, 2011 Upgrade and Modernize Your Application to Forms 11g Registration/Information Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Shaping the Future for your Oracle Forms Application:Forms 11g, ADF, APEX Registration/Information Tuesday, March 29, 2011 Oracle Forms Modernization to APEX Registration/Information Registration is limited, so sign up  today!Presented By:        Grant Ronald, Senior Group Product Manager,Oracle       Magdalena Serban, Product Manager,PITSS   Contact Us:            PITSS in Americas +1 248.740.0935 [email protected] www.pitssamerica.com       PITSS in Europe +49 (0) 717287 5200 [email protected] www.pitss.com   White Paper:      From Oracle Forms to Oracle ADF and JEE     © Copyright 2010 PITSS GmbH, Wolfratshausen, Stuttgart, München; Managing Directors: Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Gaede, Michael Kilimann, Dipl.-Ing. Dirk Fleischmann Commercial Register: HRB 125471 at District Court Munich. All rights reserved. Any duplication or further treatment in any medium, in parts or as a whole, requires a written agreement. If you do not want to receive invitations for events, meetings and seminars from us, then please click here.

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• Using the StopWatch class to calculate the execution time of a block of code

  - by vik20000in

    Many of the times while doing the performance tuning of some, class, webpage, component, control etc. we first measure the current time taken in the execution of that code. This helps in understanding the location in code which is actually causing the performance issue and also help in measuring the amount of improvement by making the changes. This measurement is very important as it helps us understand the problem in code, Helps us to write better code next time (as we have already learnt what kind of improvement can be made with different code) . Normally developers create 2 objects of the DateTime class. The exact time is collected before and after the code where the performance needs to be measured.  Next the difference between the two objects is used to know about the time spent in the code that is measured. Below is an example of the sample code.             DateTime dt1, dt2;             dt1 = DateTime.Now;             for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++)             {                 string str = "string";             }             dt2 = DateTime.Now;             TimeSpan ts = dt2.Subtract(dt1);             Console.WriteLine("Time Spent : " + ts.TotalMilliseconds.ToString());   The above code works great. But the dot net framework also provides for another way to capture the time spent on the code without doing much effort (creating 2 datetime object, timespan object etc..). We can use the inbuilt StopWatch class to get the exact time spent. Below is an example of the same work with the help of the StopWatch class.             Stopwatch sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();             for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++)             {                 string str = "string";             }             sw.Stop();             Console.WriteLine("Time Spent : " +sw.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds.ToString());   [Note the StopWatch class resides in the System.Diagnostics namespace] If you use the StopWatch class the time taken for measuring the performance is much better, with very little effort. Vikram

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• 24 hours to pass until 24 Hours of PASS

  - by Rob Farley

  There’s a bunch of stuff going on at the moment in the SQL world, so if you’ve missed this particular piece of news, let me tell you a bit about it. Twice a year, the SQL community puts on its biggest virtual event – 24 Hours of PASS. And the next one is tomorrow – March 21st, 2012. Twenty-four sessions, back-to-back, featuring a selection of some of the best presenters in the SQL world, speakers from all over the world, coming together in an online collaboration that so far has well over thirty thousand registrations across the presentations. Some people are signed up for all 24 sessions, some only one. Traditionally, LiveMeeting has been used as the platform for this event, but this year we’re going with a new platform – IBTalk. It promises big, and we’re hoping it won’t let us down. LiveMeeting has been great, and we thank Microsoft for providing it as a platform for the past few years. However, as the event has grown, we’ve found that a new idea is necessary. Last year a search was done for a new platform, and IBTalk ticked the right boxes. The feedback from the presenters and moderators so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re hoping that this is going to really enhance the user experience. One of my favourite features of the platform is the language side. It provides a pretty good translation service. Users who join a session will see a flag on the left of the screen. If they click it, they can change the language to one of 15 on offer. Picking this changes all the labels on everything. It even translates the text in the Q&A window. What this means is that someone from Brazil can ask their question in Portuguese, and the presenter will see it in English. Then if the answer is typed in English, the questioner will be able to see the answer, also in Portuguese. Or they can switch to English to see it as the answerer typed it. I know there’s always the risk of bad translations going on, but I’ve heard good things about this translation service. But there’s more – IBTalk are providing staff to type up closed captioning live during the event. So if English isn’t your first language, don’t worry! Picking your language will also let you see subtitles in your chosen language. I’m hoping that this event is the start of PASS being able to reach people from all corners of the world. Wouldn’t it be great to find that this event is successful, and that the next 24HOP (later in the year, our Summit Preview event) has just as many non-English speakers tuning in as English speakers? If you haven’t been planning which sessions you’re going to attend, you really should get over to sqlpass.org/24hours and have a look through what’s on offer. There’s some amazing material from some of the industry’s brightest, covering a wide range of topics, from classic SQL areas to the brand new SQL 2012 features. There really should be something for every SQL professional. Check the time zones though – if you’re in the US you might be on Summer time, and an hour closer to GMT than normal. Massive thanks must go to Microsoft, SQL Sentry and Idera for sponsoring this event. Without sponsors we wouldn’t be able to put any of this on. These companies are helping 24HOP continue to grow into an event for the whole world. See you tomorrow! @rob_farley | #24hop | #sqlpass

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• 24 hours to pass until 24 Hours of PASS

  - by Rob Farley

  There’s a bunch of stuff going on at the moment in the SQL world, so if you’ve missed this particular piece of news, let me tell you a bit about it. Twice a year, the SQL community puts on its biggest virtual event – 24 Hours of PASS. And the next one is tomorrow – March 21st, 2012. Twenty-four sessions, back-to-back, featuring a selection of some of the best presenters in the SQL world, speakers from all over the world, coming together in an online collaboration that so far has well over thirty thousand registrations across the presentations. Some people are signed up for all 24 sessions, some only one. Traditionally, LiveMeeting has been used as the platform for this event, but this year we’re going with a new platform – IBTalk. It promises big, and we’re hoping it won’t let us down. LiveMeeting has been great, and we thank Microsoft for providing it as a platform for the past few years. However, as the event has grown, we’ve found that a new idea is necessary. Last year a search was done for a new platform, and IBTalk ticked the right boxes. The feedback from the presenters and moderators so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re hoping that this is going to really enhance the user experience. One of my favourite features of the platform is the language side. It provides a pretty good translation service. Users who join a session will see a flag on the left of the screen. If they click it, they can change the language to one of 15 on offer. Picking this changes all the labels on everything. It even translates the text in the Q&A window. What this means is that someone from Brazil can ask their question in Portuguese, and the presenter will see it in English. Then if the answer is typed in English, the questioner will be able to see the answer, also in Portuguese. Or they can switch to English to see it as the answerer typed it. I know there’s always the risk of bad translations going on, but I’ve heard good things about this translation service. But there’s more – IBTalk are providing staff to type up closed captioning live during the event. So if English isn’t your first language, don’t worry! Picking your language will also let you see subtitles in your chosen language. I’m hoping that this event is the start of PASS being able to reach people from all corners of the world. Wouldn’t it be great to find that this event is successful, and that the next 24HOP (later in the year, our Summit Preview event) has just as many non-English speakers tuning in as English speakers? If you haven’t been planning which sessions you’re going to attend, you really should get over to sqlpass.org/24hours and have a look through what’s on offer. There’s some amazing material from some of the industry’s brightest, covering a wide range of topics, from classic SQL areas to the brand new SQL 2012 features. There really should be something for every SQL professional. Check the time zones though – if you’re in the US you might be on Summer time, and an hour closer to GMT than normal. Massive thanks must go to Microsoft, SQL Sentry and Idera for sponsoring this event. Without sponsors we wouldn’t be able to put any of this on. These companies are helping 24HOP continue to grow into an event for the whole world. See you tomorrow! @rob_farley | #24hop | #sqlpass

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• SQLAuthority News – Book Signing Event – SQLPASS 2011 Event Log

  - by pinaldave

  I have been dreaming of writing book for really long time, and I finally got the chance – in fact, two chances!  I recently wrote two books: SQL Programming Joes 2 Pros: Programming and Development for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 [Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle] and SQL Wait Stats Joes 2 Pros: SQL Performance Tuning Techniques Using Wait Statistics, Types & Queues [Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle].  I had a lot of fun writing these two books, even though sometimes I had to sacrifice some family time and time for other personal development to write the books. The good side of writing book is that when the efforts put in writing books are recognize by books readers and kind organizations like expressor studio. Book Signing Event Book writing is a complex process.  Even after you spend months, maybe years, writing the material you still have to go through the editing and fact checking processes.  And, once the book is out there, there is no way to take back all the copies to change mistakes or add something you forgot.  Most of the time it is a one-way street. Book Signing Event Just like every author, I had a dream that after the books were written, they would be loved by people and gain acceptance by an audience. My first book, SQL Programming Joes 2 Pros: Programming and Development for Microsoft SQL Server 2008, is extremely popular because it helps lots of people learn various fundamental topics. My second book covers beginning to learn SQL Server Wait Stats, which is a relatively new subject. This book has had very good acceptance in the community. Book Signing Event Helping my community is my primary focus, so I was happy to see this year’s SQLPASS tag line: ‘This is a Community.‘ At the event, the expressor studio guys came up with a very novel idea. They had previously used my books and they had found them very useful. They got 100 copies of the book and decided to give it away to community folks. They invited me and my co-author Rick Morelan to hold a book signing event. We did a book signing on Thursday between 1 pm and 2 pm. Book Signing Event This event was one of the best events for me. This was my first book signing event outside of India. I reached the book signing location around 20 minutes before the scheduled time and what I saw was a big line for the book signing event. I felt very honored looking at the crowd and all the people around the event location. I felt very humbled when I saw some of my very close friends standing in the line to get my signature. It was really heartwarming to see so many enthusiasts waiting for more than an hour to get my signature. While standing in line I had the chance to have a conversation with every single person who showed up for the signature. I made sure that I repeated every single name and wrote it in every book with my signature. There is saying that if we write a name once we will remember it forever. I want to remember all of you who saw me at the book signing. Your comments were wonderful, your feedback was amazing and you were all very supportive. Book Signing Event I have made a note of every conversation I had with all of you when I was signing the books. Once again, I just want to express my thanks for coming to my book signing event. The whole experience was very humbling. On the top of it, I want to thank the expressor studio people who made it possible, who organized the whole signing event. I am so thankful to them for facilitating the whole experience, which is going to be hard to beat by any future experience. My books Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL PASS, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Write TSQL, win a Kindle.

  - by Fatherjack

  So recently Red Gate launched sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com and showed the world how to embed your own scripts harmoniously in a third party tool to get the details that you want about your SQL Server performance. The site has a way to submit your own metrics and take a copy of the ones that other people have submitted to build a library of code to keep track of key metrics of your servers performance. There have been several submissions already but they have now launched a competition to provide an incentive for you to get creative and show us what you can do with a bit of TSQL and the SQL Monitor framework*. What’s it worth? Well, if you are one of the 3 winners then you get to choose either a Kindle Fire or $199. How do you win? Simply write the T-SQL for a SQL Monitor custom metric and the relevant description and introduction for it and submit it via  sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com before 14th Sept 2012 and then sit back and wait while the judges review your code and your aims in writing the metric. Who are the judges and how will they judge the metrics? There are two judges for this competition, Steve Jones (Microsoft SQL Server MVP, co-founder of SQLServerCentral.com, author, blogger etc) and Jonathan Allen (um, yeah, Steve has done all the good stuff, I’m here by good fortune). We will be looking to rate the metrics on each of 3 criteria: how the metric can help with performance tuning SQL Server. how having the metric running enables DBA’s to meet best practice. how interesting /original the idea for the metric is. Our combined decision will be final etc etc **  What happens to my metric? Any metrics submitted to the competition will be automatically entered into the site library and become available for sharing once the competition is over. You’ll get full credit for metrics you submit regardless of the competition results. You can enter as many metrics as you like. How long does it take? Honestly? Once you have the T-SQL sorted then so long as you can type your name and your email address you are done : http://sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com/share-a-metric/ What can I monitor? If you really really want a Kindle or $199 (and let’s face it, who doesn’t? ) and are momentarily stuck for inspiration, take a look at these example custom metrics that have been written by Stuart Ainsworth, Fabiano Amorim, TJay Belt, Louis Davidson, Grant Fritchey, Brad McGehee and me  to start the library off. There are some great pieces of TSQL in those metrics gathering important stats about how SQL Server is performing.   * – framework may not be the best word here but I was under pressure and couldnt think of a better one. If you prefer try ‘engine’, or ‘application’? I don’t know, pick something that makes sense to you. ** – for the full (legal) version of the rules check the details on sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com or send us an email if you want any point clarified. Disclaimer – Jonathan is a Friend of Red Gate and as such, whenever they are discussed, will have a generally positive disposition towards Red Gate tools. Other tools are often available and you should always try others before you come back and buy the Red Gate ones. All code in this blog is provided “as is” and no guarantee, warranty or accuracy is applicable or inferred, run the code on a test server and be sure to understand it before you run it on a server that means a lot to you or your manager.

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• IIS Logfile Visualization with XNA

  - by BobPalmer

  In my office, I have a wall mounted monitor who's whole purpose in life is to display perfmon stats from our various servers.  And on a fairly regular basis, I have folks walk by asking what the lines mean.    After providing the requisite explaination about CPU utilization, disk I/O bottlenecks, etc. this is usually followed by some blank stares from the user in question, and a distillation of all of our engineering wizardry down to the phrase 'So when the red line goes up that's bad then?'   This of course would not do.  So I talked to my friends and our network admin about an option to show something more eye catching and visual, with which we could catch at a glance a feel for what was up with our site.    He initially pointed me out to a video showing GLTail and Chipmunk done in Ruby.  Realizing this was both awesome, and that I needed an excuse to do something in XNA, I decided to knock out a proof of concept for something very similar, but with a few tweaks.   Here's a link to a video of the current prototype:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM_PWZbtH2I   Essentially this app opens up a log file (even an active one) and begins pulling out the lines of text.  (Here's a good Code Project link that covers how to do tail reading from an active text file: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/files/tail.aspx).   As new data is added, a bubble is generated in the application - a GET statement comes from the left, and a POST from the right.  I then run it through a series of expression checkers, and based on the kind of statement and the pattern, a bubble of an appropriate color is generated.   For example, if I get a 500, a huge red bubble pops out.  Others are based on the part of the system the page is from - i.e. green bubbles are from our claims management subsystem, and blue bubbles are from the pages our scheduling staff use to schedule patients.  Others include the purple bubbles for security and login, and yellow bubbles for some miscellaneous pages.   The little grey bubbles represent things like images, JS, CSS, etc - and their small size makes them work like grease to keep the larger page bubbles moving.   The app is also smart enough that if it is starting to bog down with handling the physics and interactions, it will suspend new bubbles until enough have dropped off that performance can resume (you can see this slight stuttering in the sample video).   The net result is that anyone will be able to look up on the wall monitor, and instantly get a quick feel for how things are going on the floor.  Website slow?  You can get a feel for both volume and utilized modules with one glance.  Website crashing?  Look for a wall of giant red bubbles.  No activity at all?  Maybe the site is down.  Now couple this with utilization within a farm, and cross referenced with a second app showing the same kind of data from your SQL database...   As for the app itself, it's a windows XNA project with the code in C#.   The physics are handled by the Farseer physicis eingine for XNA (http://www.codeplex.com/FarseerPhysics) which is just pure goodness.  The samples are great, and I had the app up and working in two evenings (half of that was fine tuning, and the other was me coding with a kid in my lap).   My next steps include wiring this to SQL (I have some ideas...), and adding a nice configuration module.  For example, you could use polygons, etc to tie to your regex - or more entertaining things like having a little human ragdoll to represent a user login.     Once that's wrapped up and I have a chance to complete some hardening, I will be releasing the whole thing into the wild as opensource.     Feel free to ping me if you have any questions! -Bob

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• SQLAuthority News – Monthly list of Puzzles and Solutions on SQLAuthority.com

  - by pinaldave

  This month has been very interesting month for SQLAuthority.com we had multiple and various puzzles which everybody participated and lots of interesting conversation which we have shared. Let us start in latest puzzles and continue going down. There are few answers also posted on facebook as well. SQL SERVER – Puzzle Involving NULL – Resolve – Error – Operand data type void type is invalid for sum operator This puzzle involves NULL and throws an error. The challenge is to resolve the error. There are multiple ways to resolve this error. Readers has contributed various methods. Few of them even have supplied the answer why this error is showing up. NULL are very important part of the database and if one of the column has NULL the result can be totally different than the one expected. SQL SERVER – T-SQL Scripts to Find Maximum between Two Numbers I modified script provided by friend to find greatest number between two number. My script has small bug in it. However, lots of readers have suggested better scripts. Madhivanan has written blog post on the subject over here. SQL SERVER – BI Quiz Hint – Performance Tuning Cubes – Hints This quiz is hosted on my friend Jacob‘s site. I have written many hints how one can tune cubes. Now one can take part here and win exciting prizes. SQL SERVER – Solution – Generating Zero Without using Any Numbers in T-SQL Madhivanan has asked very interesting question on his blog about How to Generate Zero without using Any Numbers in T-SQL. He has demonstrated various methods how one can generate Zero. I asked the same question on blog and got many interesting answers which I have shared. SQL SERVER – Solution – Puzzle – Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once I have to accept that this was most difficult puzzle. In this puzzle I have asked even though settings are correct, why statistics of the tables are not getting updated. In this puzzle one is tested with various concepts 1) Indexes, 2) Statistics, 3) database settings etc. There are multiple ways of solving this puzzles. It was interesting as many took interest but only few got it right. SQL SERVER – Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure This is rather straight forward question and not the typical puzzle. The answers from readers are great however, still there is chance of more detailed answers. SQL SERVER – Selecting Domain from Email Address I wrote on selecting domains from email addresses. Madhivanan makes puzzle out of a simple question. He wrote a follow-up post over here. In his post he writes various way how one can find email addresses from list of domains. Well, this is not a puzzle but amazing Guest Post by Feodor Georgiev who has written on subject Job Interviewing the Right Way (and for the Right Reasons). An article which everyone should read. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Unclaimed user group prizes, Live meeting on Monday, Next weeks UG, SQLRelay and more prizes

  - by Testas

    Hi Everyone Firstly I want to let you know that I finally found the LINQ book prize winners and the list of people at the bottom of this email are owed a LINQ book. This will be given out at next week’s UG meeting Live meeting with Carolyn Chau, Program Manager at Microsoft on Monday! It is very rare that we get the opportunity to have a Live meeting with a Program Manager in Redmond. Carolyn Chau will be presenting PowerView next Monday at 8pm. Live meeting details can be found on http://sqlserverfaq.com/events/388/Live-Meeting-on-SQL-Server-2012-PowerView-with-Carolyn-Chau-Principal-Program-Manager-in-the-Reporting-Services-in-association-with-SQLPASS-SQLServerFAQ-and-SQLBits.aspx Next week’s UG!! We welcome Mark Broadbent to Manchester next week where he will be presenting his session on SQL Server 2012 on Windows Core. We also hand out the unclaimed prizes. Register at http://sqlserverfaq.com/events/369/Thursday-night-meeting-at-BSS-with-Chris-TestaONeill-and-Mark-Broadbent.aspx Chris Webb is in Manchester!!! Chris Webb will be speaking at the Manchester SQL Server UG on 4th July. He will also be running his Real World Cube Design and Performance Tuning with Analysis Services between the 3rd – 5th July. If you want to attend then you can sign up at the link below http://www.technitrain.com/coursedetail.php?c=13&trackingcode=FAQ SQLRelay and a Special Prize and Jamie Thomson comes to Manchester!!!! SQLRelay takes place in Manchester on the 22nd. We have a special guest, after years of asking Jamie Thomson is coming to Manchester. The SSIS Junkie will be gracing us with his presence with a talk on SSIS 2012. Also we have a prize. Know a friend or colleague who would benefit from SQLRelay? Get them to register at www.sqlserverfaq.com and then register for the event http://sqlserverfaq.com/events/373/ALL-DAY-TUESDAY-EVENT-12-hours-of-SQL-Server-2012-at-the-SQLRelay-meeting-at-the-COOP-Manchester.aspx Then send an email to [email protected] with the subject of SQLFriend with the name of your friend. If you are both at the SQLRelay event on the day and your names are pulled out of the hat you will win a PASS 2011 DVD and your friend will win the “Best of PASS DVD 2011” worth  $1000 courtesy of SQLPASS. The draw will take place between 4.30pm – 5pm on the day. SQLBits feedback!!!!! Attended SQLBits? We really need to know your opinion. Please fill out the survey for the days you attended If you attended any of the days at SQLBits please can you all fill out the following survey http://www.sqlbits.com/SQLBitsX If you attended the Thursday Training day then please fill out the following survey: http://www.sqlbits.com/SQLBitsXThursday If you attended the Friday Deep Dives day then please fill out the following survey: http://www.sqlbits.com/SQLBitsXFriday If you attended the Saturday Community day then please fill out the following survey: http://www.sqlbits.com/SQLBitsXSaturday Thanks   Chris and Martin   LINQ BOOK winners Andrew Birds Chris Kennedy Dave Carpenter David Forrester Ian Ringrose James Cullen James Simpson Kevan Riley Kirsty Hunter Martin Bell Martin Croft Michael Docherty Naga Anand Ram Mangipudi Neal Atkinson Nick Colebourn Pavel Nefyodov Ralph Baines Rick Hibbert saad saleh Simon Enion Stan Venn Steve Powell Stuart Quinn

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• Application Performance Episode 2: Announcing the Judges!

  - by Michaela Murray

  The story so far… We’re writing a new book for ASP.NET developers, and we want you to be a part of it! If you work with ASP.NET applications, and have top tips, hard-won lessons, or sage advice for avoiding, finding, and fixing performance problems, we want to hear from you! And if your app uses SQL Server, even better – interaction with the database is critical to application performance, so we’re looking for database top tips too. There’s a Microsoft Surface apiece for the person who comes up with the best tip for SQL Server and the best tip for .NET. Of course, if your suggestion is selected for the book, you’ll get full credit, by name, Twitter handle, GitHub repository, or whatever you like. To get involved, just email your nuggets of performance wisdom to [email protected] – there are examples of what we’re looking for and full competition details at Application Performance: The Best of the Web. Enter the judges… As mentioned in my last blogpost, we have a mystery panel of celebrity judges lined up to select the prize-winning performance pointers. We’re now ready to reveal their secret identities! Judging your ASP.NET  tips will be: Jean-Phillippe Gouigoux, MCTS/MCPD Enterprise Architect and MVP Connected System Developer. He’s a board member at French software company MGDIS, and teaches algorithms, security, software tests, and ALM at the Université de Bretagne Sud. Jean-Philippe also lectures at IT conferences and writes articles for programming magazines. His book Practical Performance Profiling is published by Simple-Talk. Nik Molnar,  a New Yorker, ASP Insider, and co-founder of Glimpse, an open source ASP.NET diagnostics and debugging tool. Originally from Florida, Nik specializes in web development, building scalable, client-centric solutions. In his spare time, Nik can be found cooking up a storm in the kitchen, hanging with his wife, speaking at conferences, and working on other open source projects. Mitchel Sellers, Microsoft C# and DotNetNuke MVP. Mitchel is an experienced software architect, business leader, public speaker, and educator. He works with companies across the globe, as CEO of IowaComputerGurus Inc. Mitchel writes technical articles for online and print publications and is the author of Professional DotNetNuke Module Programming. He frequently answers questions on StackOverflow and MSDN and is an active participant in the .NET and DotNetNuke communities. Clive Tong, Software Engineer at Red Gate. In previous roles, Clive spent a lot of time working with Common LISP and enthusing about functional languages, and he’s worked with managed languages since before his first real job (which was a long time ago). Long convinced of the productivity benefits of managed languages, Clive is very interested in getting good runtime performance to keep managed languages practical for real-world development. And our trio of SQL Server specialists, ready to select your top suggestion, are (drumroll): Rodney Landrum, a SQL Server MVP who writes regularly about Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services. He’s authored SQL Server Tacklebox, three Reporting Services books, and contributes regularly to SQLServerCentral, SQL Server Magazine, and Simple–Talk. His day job involves overseeing a large SQL Server infrastructure in Orlando. Grant Fritchey, Product Evangelist at Red Gate and SQL Server MVP. In an IT career spanning more than 20 years, Grant has written VB, VB.NET, C#, and Java. He’s been working with SQL Server since version 6.0. Grant volunteers with the Editorial Committee at PASS and has written books for Apress and Simple-Talk. Jonathan Allen, leader and founder of the PASS SQL South West user group. He’s been working with SQL Server since 1999 and enjoys performance tuning, development, and using SQL Server for business solutions. He’s spoken at SQLBits and SQL in the City, as well as local user groups across the UK. He’s also a moderator at ask.sqlservercentral.com.

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• top Tweets SOA Partner Community &ndash; June 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/soacommunity Simone Geib Contact me directly for ideas how to improve http://bit.ly/advancedsoasuite and additional posts, presentations, white papers, #soasuite SOA CommunitySOA Community Newsletter May 2012 https://soacommunity.wordpress.com /2012/05/28/soa-community-newsletter-may-2012/ #soacommunity Simone Geib #soasuite advanced OTN page has become too cluttered. Broke it into separate pages to start with. http://bit.ly/advancedsoasuite SOA CommunitySOA Management with Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c and Business Transaction Management 12c Demo https://soacommunity.wordpress.com /2012/05/21/soa-management-with-enterprise-manager-cloud-control-12c-and-business-transaction-management-12c-demo/ #soacommunity OracleBlogs June Webcast: SOA Gateway Implementation and Troubleshooting (2 sessions) http://ow.ly/1kbRFA OTNArchBeatEvery cloud needs an SOA lining: analyst | @JoeMcKendrick http://zd.net/KTgMHk ServiceTechSymposium New session just posted to calendar: "NoSQL for Data Services, Data Virtualization & Big Data" by Guido Schmutz, Trivadis AG ://ow.ly/bjjOe OTNArchBeat?Every cloud needs an SOA lining: analyst | @JoeMcKendrick http://zd.net/KTgMHk Debra Lilley looks good - real proof people are using the apps ! RT @fteter:Very cool Fusion Applications Help site: http://bit.ly/L3nvOR #FusionApps OTNArchBeat How to Set JVM Parameters in Oracle SOA 11G | Francis Ip http://bit.ly/JBDYPj demed"rapid proliferation of cloud computing will drive convergence of SOA and cloud paradigms" http://ovum.com/2012/05/18/soa-paves-the-way-for-cloud/ SOA Community Sending out invitations to our advanced Fusion Middleware Summer Camps! Want to learn more register for the community http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa SOA Community Middleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012 - HAPPY NEW YEAR! https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/ 2012/05/31/middleware-oracle-excellence-awards-2012 happy-new-year/ #soacommunity #opn #opnaward #specialization #oracle Simone Geib #oraclesoa performance tuning resources. All in one: docs, blogs, WPs, ppts: http://bit.ly/soa_resources OracleBlogs Middleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012 - HAPPY NEW YEAR! http://ow.ly/1k9ri0 ServiceTechSymposiumNew session just posted to Symposium calendar: "Service Modeling & BPM Business Value Patterns" by Jürgen Kress, Oracle http://www.servicetechsymposium.com/ agenda2012.php #service_modeling_and_bpm _business_value_patterns SOA Community Happy New Year #soacommunity thanks for the business! Time for a drink ;-) http://pic.twitter.com/zkK08KWB Jan van ZoggelUsing execute-sql() function for Name-Value pair lookups in Oracle Service Bus http://wp.me/p1H430-jZ SOA Community Middleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012&ndash;HAPPY NEW YEAR! http://wp.me/p10C8u-q4 orclateamsoa A-Team Blog #ateam: BPM 11g Deployment & Instance Migration - I have seen a number of request lately asking how to http://ow.ly/1jZ0h8 OTNArchBeat Who should ‘own’ the Enterprise Architecture? | Michael Glas http://bit.ly/K0ge0Q Oracle UPK & Tutor TOMORROW! (June 23rd) - UPK Professional Webinar at Noon ET: Discover why user adoption is a key factor for the http://bit.ly/LjZjdx Sabine Leitner Finance Event im Design-Hotel beim Barbeque: 21. Juni FRA mit Kunden SV Informatik, Schufa, LBBW http://bit.ly/JtwE3v #Oracle @itevent OracleEnterpriseMgr SOA Management with Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c and Business Transaction Management 12c Demo http://ow.ly/b3WP1 #em12c ServiceTechSymposium New session just posted to Symposium calendar: "Elastic SOA in the Cloud" by Steve Millidge, C2B2 Consulting http://www.servicetechsymposium.com /agenda2012.php #elastic_soa_in_the_cloud OTNArchBeat Securing Heterogeneous Systems Using Oracle Web Services Manager by @rluttikhuizen & Jens Peters http://bit.ly/KjShFi Oracleteamsoa A-Team Blog #ateam: How to Set JVM Parameters in Oracle SOA 11G http://ow.ly/1k2cnl SOA Community Oracle Service Registry in an automated (Maven) SOA/BPM build http://redstack.wordpress.com /2012/05/22/using-oracle-service-registry-in-an-automated-maven-soabpm-build/ #soacommunity #redstack #soa #osr #opn SOA CommunityHigh demand for advanced Fusion Middleware Summer Camps! Want to learn more register for the #soacommunity http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa OracleBlogs? How to Set JVM Parameters in Oracle SOA 11G http://ow.ly/1k1UTv SOA Community top Tweets SOA Partner Community &ndash; May 2012 http://wp.me/p10C8u-pP ServiceTechSymposium New session just posted to Symposium calendar: "SOA Governance at EDP: A Global Energy Company" by Manuel Rosa, Link http://www.servicetechsymposium.com/ agenda2012.php #soa_governance_at_edp For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: soacommunity,twitter,Oracle,SOA Community,Jürgen Kress,OPN,SOA,BPM

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• Java 6 Certified with Forms and Reports 10g for EBS 12

  - by John Abraham

  Java 6 is now certified with Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (12.0.6, 12.1.1 and higher). What? Wasn't this already certified? No, but a little background might be useful in understanding why this is a new announcement. We previously certified the use of Java 6 with E-Business Suite Release 12 -- with the sole exception of Oracle Application Server 10g components in the E-Business Suite technology stack. Oracle Application Server 10g originally included Java 1.4.2 as part of its distribution.  E-Business Suite 12 uses, amongst other things, the Oracle Forms and Reports 10g components running on Java 1.4. Java 1.4 in the Oracle Application Server 10g ORACLE_HOME is used exclusively by AS 10g Forms and Reports' for Java functionality.  This version of Java is separate from the Java distribution used by other parts of EBS such as Oracle Containers for Java (OC4J). What's new about this certification? You can now upgrade the older Java 1.4 libraries used by Oracle Forms & Reports 10g to Java 6. This allows you to upgrade the Java releases within the Oracle Application Server 10g ORACLE_HOME to the the same level as the rest of your E-Business Suite technology stack components. Why upgrade? This becomes particularly important for customers as individual vendors' support lifecycle for Java 1.4 reaches End of Life: Oracle's Sun JDK Release 1.4.2's End of Extended Support: February 2013 (Sustaining Support indefinitely after) IBM SDK and JRE 1.4.2's End of Service: September 2013 HP-UX Java 1.4.2's End-of-Life : May 2012 Along with Oracle Forms, Java lies at the heart of the Oracle E-Business Suite.  Small improvements in Java can have significant effects on the performance and stability of the E-Business Suite.  As a notable side-benefit, later versions of Java have improved built-in and third-party tools for JVM performance monitoring and tuning.Our standing recommendation is that you always stay current with the latest available Java update provided by your operating system vendor.  Don't forget to upgrade Forms & Reports to 10.1.2.3 E-Business Suite 12 originally shipped with Oracle Application Server 10g Forms & Reports 10.1.2.0.2.  That version is no longer eligible for Error Correction Support. New Forms and Reports 10g patches are now being released with Forms and Reports 10.1.2.3 as the prerequisite. Forms and Reports 10.1.2.3 was certified for EBS 12 environments in November 2008. If you haven't upgraded your EBS 12 environment to Forms & Reports 10.1.2.3, this is a good opportunity to do so. References Using Latest Update of Java 6.0 with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (My Oracle Support Document 455492.1) Overview of Using Java with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (My Oracle Support Document 418664.1) Oracle Lifetime Support Policy (Oracle Fusion Middleware) IBM Developer Kit Lifecycle Dates HP-UX Java - End of Life Policy & Release Naming Terminology Related Articles OracleAS 10g Forms and Reports 10.1.2.3 Certified With EBS R12 Java 6 Certified with E-Business Suite Release 12

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for November 4-10, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The Top 10 most popular items shared via the OTN ArchBeat Facebook Page for the week of November 4-10, 2012. OAM/OVD JVM Tuning | @FusionSecExpert Vinay from the Oracle Fusion Middleware Architecture Group (the very prolific A-Team) shares a process for analyzing and improving performance in Oracle Virtual Directory and Oracle Access Manager. Exploring Lambda Expressions for the Java Language and the JVM | Java Magazine In the latest //Java/Architect column in Java Magazine, Ben Evans, Martijn Verburg, and Trisha Gee explain how, "although Lambda expressions might seem unfamiliar to begin with, they're quite easy to pick up, and mastering them will be vital for writing applications that can take full advantage of modern multicore CPUs." SOA Galore: New Books for Technical Eyes Only Shake up up your technical skills with this trio of new technical books from community members covering SOA and BPM. Oracle Solaris 11.1 update focuses on database integration, cloud | Mark Fontecchio TechTarget editor Mark Fontecchio reports on the recent Oracle Solaris 11.1 release, with comments from IDC's Al Gillen. Solving Big Problems in Our 21st Century Information Society | Irving Wladawsky-Berger "I believe that the kind of extensive collaboration between the private sector, academia and government represented by the Internet revolution will be the way we will generally tackle big problems in the 21st century. Just as with the Internet, governments have a major role to play as the catalyst for many of the big projects that the private sector will then take forward and exploit. The need for high bandwidth, robust national broadband infrastructures is but one such example." — Irving Wladawsky-Berger ADF Mobile Custom Javasciprt – iFrame Injection | John Brunswick The ADF Mobile Framework provides a range of out of the box components to add within your AMX pages, according to John Brunswick. But what happens when "an out of the box component does not directly fulfill your development need? What options are available to extend your application interface?" John has an answer. Architects Matter: Making sense of the people who make sense of enterprise IT Why do architects matter? Oracle Enterprise Architect Eric Stephens suggests that you ask yourself this question the next time you take the elevator to the Oracle offices on the 45th floor of the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois (or any other skyscraper, for that matter). If you had to take the stairs to get to those offices, who would you blame? "You get the picture," he says. "Architecture is essential for any necessarily complex structure, be it a building or an enterprise." (Read the article...) Converting SSL certificate generated by a 3rd party to an Oracle Wallet | Paulo Albuquerque Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Paulo Albuquerque shares "a workaround to get your private key, certificate and CA trusted certificates chain into Oracle Wallet." How Data and BPM are married to get the right information to the right people at the right time | Leon Smiers "Business Process Management…supports a large group of stakeholders within an organization, all with different needs," says Oracle ACE Leon Smiers. "End-to-end processes typically run across departments, stakeholders and applications, and can often have a long life-span. So how do organizations provide all stakeholders with the information they need?" Leon provides answers in this post. Updated Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) Class | Gary Barg Oracle SOA Team blogger Gary Barg has news for those interested in a skills upgrade. This updated Oracle University course "explains how to use Oracle BAM to monitor enterprise business activities across an enterprise in real time. You can measure your key performance indicators (KPIs), determine whether you are meeting service-level agreements (SLAs), and take corrective action in real time." Thought for the Day "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." — H. L. Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Should I break contract early?

  - by cbang

  About 7 months ago I made the switch from a 5 year permie role (as a support developer in C#) to a contract role. I did this because I was stagnating in my old role. The extra cash contracting is really helping too. Unfortunately my team leader has taken a dislike to me from day 1. He regularly tells me I went out contracting too early, and frequently remarks that people in their 20's have no idea what they are talking about (I am 29). I was recently given the task of configuring our reports via our in house reporting library. It works off of a database driven criteria base, with controls being loaded as needed. The configs can get fairly complex, with controls having various levels of dependency on each other. I had a short time frame to get 50 reports working, and I was told to just get the basic configuration done, after which they will be handed over to the reporting team for fine tuning, then the test team. Our updated system was deployed 2 weeks ago, and it turned out that about 15 reports had issues causing incorrect data to be returned. Upon investigation I discovered that the reporting team hadn't even looked at them, and the test team hadn't bothered to test the reports. In spite of this, my team leader has told me that it is 100% my fault. As a result, our help desk got hit hard. I worked back until 2am that night to fix the highest priority issues (on my wedding anniversary!). The next day I arrive at work at 7:45 am to continue with the fixes. I got no thanks, but keep getting repeatedly told by my manager that "I fucked up" and "this is all my fault". I told my team leader I would spend part of my weekend working to fix the remaining issues. His response was "so you fucking should! you fucked it all up!" in front of the rest of the team. I responded "No worries." and left. I spent a decent chunk of my weekend working on it. Within 2 business days of finding out about the issues, I had all the medium and high priority issues fixed. The only comments my team leader has made to me in the last 2 weeks is to tell me how I have caused a big mess, and to tell me it was all my fault. I get this multiple times a day. If I make any jokes to anyone else in the team, I get told not to be a smartass... even though the rest of the team jokes throughout the day. Apart from that, all I get is angry looks any time I am anywhere near the guy. I don't give any response other than "alright" or silence when he starts giving me a hard time. Today we found out that the pilot release for the next stage has been pushed back. My team leader has said this was caused by me (but the higher ups said no such thing). He also said I have "no understanding of the ramifications of my actions". My question is, should I break contract (I am contracted until June 30) and find another role? No one else in my team will speak up in my favour, as they are contractors too and have no interest in rocking the boat. I could complain to my team leaders boss, but I can't see that helping, as I will still be stuck in the same team. As this is my first contract, I imagine getting the next one will be hard without a reference. I can't figure out if this guy is trying to get me fired up to provoke a confrontation (the guy loves conflict), or if he is just venting anger, or what. Copping this blame day after day is really wearing me down and making me depressed... especially since I have a wife and kid to support).

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