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• SQL SERVER – CXPACKET – Parallelism – Advanced Solution – Wait Type – Day 7 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier we discussed about the what is the common solution to solve the issue with CXPACKET wait time. Today I am going to talk about few of the other suggestions which can help to reduce the CXPACKET wait. If you are going to suggest that I should focus on MAXDOP and COST THRESHOLD – I totally agree. I have covered them in details in yesterday’s blog post. Today we are going to discuss few other way CXPACKET can be reduced. Potential Reasons: If data is heavily skewed, there are chances that query optimizer may estimate the correct amount of the data leading to assign fewer thread to query. This can easily lead to uneven workload on threads and may create CXPAKCET wait. While retrieving the data one of the thread face IO, Memory or CPU bottleneck and have to wait to get those resources to execute its tasks, may create CXPACKET wait as well. Data which is retrieved is on different speed IO Subsystem. (This is not common and hardly possible but there are chances). Higher fragmentations in some area of the table can lead less data per page. This may lead to CXPACKET wait. As I said the reasons here mentioned are not the major cause of the CXPACKET wait but any kind of scenario can create the probable wait time. Best Practices to Reduce CXPACKET wait: Refer earlier article regarding MAXDOP and Cost Threshold. De-fragmentation of Index can help as more data can be obtained per page. (Assuming close to 100 fill-factor) If data is on multiple files which are on multiple similar speed physical drive, the CXPACKET wait may reduce. Keep the statistics updated, as this will give better estimate to query optimizer when assigning threads and dividing the data among available threads. Updating statistics can significantly improve the strength of the query optimizer to render proper execution plan. This may overall affect the parallelism process in positive way. Bad Practice: In one of the recent consultancy project, when I was called in I noticed that one of the ‘experienced’ DBA noticed higher CXPACKET wait and to reduce them, he has increased the worker threads. The reality was increasing worker thread has lead to many other issues. With more number of the threads, more amount of memory was used leading memory pressure. As there were more threads CPU scheduler faced higher ‘Context Switching’ leading further degrading performance. When I explained all these to ‘experienced’ DBA he suggested that now we should reduce the number of threads. Not really! Lower number of the threads may create heavy stalling for parallel queries. I suggest NOT to touch the setting of number of the threads when dealing with CXPACKET wait. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and I no way claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading book on-line for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats over here is generic and it varies by system to system. You are recommended to test this on development server before implementing to production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: DMV, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• How to Set Up Your Enterprise Social Organization

  - by Mike Stiles

  The rush for business organizations to establish, grow, and adopt social was driven out of necessity and inevitability. The result, however, was a sudden, booming social presence creating touch points with customers, partners and influencers, but without any corporate social organization or structure in place to effectively manage it. Even today, many business leaders remain uncertain as to how to corral this social media thing so that it makes sense for their enterprise. Imagine their panic when they hear one of the most beneficial approaches to corporate use of social involves giving up at least some hierarchical control and empowering employees to publicly engage customers. And beyond that, they should also be empowered, regardless of their corporate status, to engage and collaborate internally, spurring “off the grid” innovation. An HBR blog points out that traditionally, enterprise organizations function from the top down, and employees work end-to-end, structured around business processes. But the social enterprise opens up structures that up to now have not exactly been embraced by turf-protecting executives and managers. The blog asks, “What if leaders could create a future where customers, associates and suppliers are no longer seen as objects in the system but as valued sources of innovation, ideas and energy?” What if indeed? The social enterprise activates internal resources without the usual obsession with position. It is the dawn of mass collaboration. That does not, however, mean this mass collaboration has to lead to uncontrolled chaos. In an extended interview with Oracle, Altimeter Group analyst Jeremiah Owyang and Oracle SVP Reggie Bradford paint a complete picture of today’s social enterprise, including internal organizational structures Altimeter Group has seen emerge. One sign of a mature social enterprise is the establishing of a social Center of Excellence (CoE), which serves as a hub for high-level social strategy, training and education, research, measurement and accountability, and vendor selection. This CoE is led by a corporate Social Strategist, most likely from a Marketing or Corporate Communications background. Reporting to them are the Community Managers, the front lines of customer interaction and engagement; business unit liaisons that coordinate the enterprise; and social media campaign/product managers, social analysts, and developers. With content rising as the defining factor for social success, Altimeter also sees a Content Strategist position emerging. Across the enterprise, Altimeter has seen 5 organizational patterns. Watching the video will give you the pros and cons of each. Decentralized - Anyone can do anything at any time on any social channel. Centralized – One central groups controls all social communication for the company. Hub and Spoke – A centralized group, but business units can operate their own social under the hub’s guidance and execution. Most enterprises are using this model. Dandelion – Each business unit develops their own social strategy & staff, has its own ability to deploy, and its own ability to engage under the central policies of the CoE. Honeycomb – Every employee can do social, but as opposed to the decentralized model, it’s coordinated and monitored on one platform. The average enterprise has a whopping 178 social accounts, nearly ¼ of which are usually semi-idle and need to be scrapped. The last thing any C-suite needs is to cope with fragmented technologies, solutions and platforms. It’s neither scalable nor strategic. The prepared, effective social enterprise has a technology partner that can quickly and holistically integrate emerging platforms and technologies, such that whatever internal social command structure you’ve set up can continue efficiently executing strategy without skipping a beat. @mikestiles

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• SQL SERVER – ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION – Wait Type – Day 11 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  For any good system three things are vital: CPU, Memory and IO (disk). Among these three, IO is the most crucial factor of SQL Server. Looking at real-world cases, I do not see IT people upgrading CPU and Memory frequently. However, the disk is often upgraded for either improving the space, speed or throughput. Today we will look at another IO-related wait type. From Book On-Line: Occurs when a task is waiting for I/Os to finish. ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION Explanation: Any tasks are waiting for I/O to finish. If by any means your application that’s connected to SQL Server is processing the data very slowly, this type of wait can occur. Several long-running database operations like BACKUP, CREATE DATABASE, ALTER DATABASE or other operations can also create this wait type. Reducing ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION wait: When it is an issue related to IO, one should check for the following things associated to IO subsystem: Look at the programming and see if there is any application code which processes the data slowly (like inefficient loop, etc.). Note that it should be re-written to avoid this  wait type. Proper placing of the files is very important. We should check the file system for proper placement of the files – LDF and MDF on separate drive, TempDB on another separate drive, hot spot tables on separate filegroup (and on separate disk), etc. Check the File Statistics and see if there is a higher IO Read and IO Write Stall SQL SERVER – Get File Statistics Using fn_virtualfilestats. Check event log and error log for any errors or warnings related to IO. If you are using SAN (Storage Area Network), check the throughput of the SAN system as well as configuration of the HBA Queue Depth. In one of my recent projects, the SAN was performing really badly and so the SAN administrator did not accept it. After some investigations, he agreed to change the HBA Queue Depth on the development setup (test environment). As soon as we changed the HBA Queue Depth to quite a higher value, there was a sudden big improvement in the performance. It is very likely to happen that there are no proper indexes on the system and yet there are lots of table scans and heap scans. Creating proper index can reduce the IO bandwidth considerably. If SQL Server can use appropriate cover index instead of clustered index, it can effectively reduce lots of CPU, Memory and IO (considering cover index has lesser columns than cluster table and all other; it depends upon the situation). You can refer to the following two articles I wrote that talk about how to optimize indexes: Create Missing Indexes Drop Unused Indexes Checking Memory Related Perfmon Counters SQLServer: Memory Manager\Memory Grants Pending (Consistent higher value than 0-2) SQLServer: Memory Manager\Memory Grants Outstanding (Consistent higher value, Benchmark) SQLServer: Buffer Manager\Buffer Hit Cache Ratio (Higher is better, greater than 90% for usually smooth running system) SQLServer: Buffer Manager\Page Life Expectancy (Consistent lower value than 300 seconds) Memory: Available Mbytes (Information only) Memory: Page Faults/sec (Benchmark only) Memory: Pages/sec (Benchmark only) Checking Disk Related Perfmon Counters Average Disk sec/Read (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk sec/Write (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk Read/Write Queue Length (Consistent higher value than benchmark is not good) Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussions of Wait Stats in this blog are generic and vary from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – IO_COMPLETION – Wait Type – Day 10 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  For any good system three things are vital: CPU, Memory and IO (disk). Among these three, IO is the most crucial factor of SQL Server. Looking at real-world cases, I do not see IT people upgrading CPU and Memory frequently. However, the disk is often upgraded for either improving the space, speed or throughput. Today we will look at an IO-related wait types. From Book On-Line: Occurs while waiting for I/O operations to complete. This wait type generally represents non-data page I/Os. Data page I/O completion waits appear as PAGEIOLATCH_* waits. IO_COMPLETION Explanation: Any tasks are waiting for I/O to finish. This is a good indication that IO needs to be looked over here. Reducing IO_COMPLETION wait: When it is an issue concerning the IO, one should look at the following things related to IO subsystem: Proper placing of the files is very important. We should check the file system for proper placement of files – LDF and MDF on a separate drive, TempDB on another separate drive, hot spot tables on separate filegroup (and on separate disk),etc. Check the File Statistics and see if there is higher IO Read and IO Write Stall SQL SERVER – Get File Statistics Using fn_virtualfilestats. Check event log and error log for any errors or warnings related to IO. If you are using SAN (Storage Area Network), check the throughput of the SAN system as well as the configuration of the HBA Queue Depth. In one of my recent projects, the SAN was performing really badly so the SAN administrator did not accept it. After some investigations, he agreed to change the HBA Queue Depth on development (test environment) set up and as soon as we changed the HBA Queue Depth to quite a higher value, there was a sudden big improvement in the performance. It is very possible that there are no proper indexes in the system and there are lots of table scans and heap scans. Creating proper index can reduce the IO bandwidth considerably. If SQL Server can use appropriate cover index instead of clustered index, it can effectively reduce lots of CPU, Memory and IO (considering cover index has lesser columns than cluster table and all other; it depends upon the situation). You can refer to the two articles that I wrote; they are about how to optimize indexes: Create Missing Indexes Drop Unused Indexes Checking Memory Related Perfmon Counters SQLServer: Memory Manager\Memory Grants Pending (Consistent higher value than 0-2) SQLServer: Memory Manager\Memory Grants Outstanding (Consistent higher value, Benchmark) SQLServer: Buffer Manager\Buffer Hit Cache Ratio (Higher is better, greater than 90% for usually smooth running system) SQLServer: Buffer Manager\Page Life Expectancy (Consistent lower value than 300 seconds) Memory: Available Mbytes (Information only) Memory: Page Faults/sec (Benchmark only) Memory: Pages/sec (Benchmark only) Checking Disk Related Perfmon Counters Average Disk sec/Read (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk sec/Write (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk Read/Write Queue Length (Consistent higher value than benchmark is not good) Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussions of Wait Stats in this blog are generic and vary from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Types, SQL White Papers, T SQL, Technology

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• Algorithm to Find the Aggregate Mass of "Granola Bar"-Like Structures?

  - by Stuart Robbins

  I'm a planetary science researcher and one project I'm working on is N-body simulations of Saturn's rings. The goal of this particular study is to watch as particles clump together under their own self-gravity and measure the aggregate mass of the clumps versus the mean velocity of all particles in the cell. We're trying to figure out if this can explain some observations made by the Cassini spacecraft during the Saturnian summer solstice when large structures were seen casting shadows on the nearly edge-on rings. Below is a screenshot of what any given timestep looks like. (Each particle is 2 m in diameter and the simulation cell itself is around 700 m across.) The code I'm using already spits out the mean velocity at every timestep. What I need to do is figure out a way to determine the mass of particles in the clumps and NOT the stray particles between them. I know every particle's position, mass, size, etc., but I don't know easily that, say, particles 30,000-40,000 along with 102,000-105,000 make up one strand that to the human eye is obvious. So, the algorithm I need to write would need to be a code with as few user-entered parameters as possible (for replicability and objectivity) that would go through all the particle positions, figure out what particles belong to clumps, and then calculate the mass. It would be great if it could do it for "each" clump/strand as opposed to everything over the cell, but I don't think I actually need it to separate them out. The only thing I was thinking of was doing some sort of N2 distance calculation where I'd calculate the distance between every particle and if, say, the closest 100 particles were within a certain distance, then that particle would be considered part of a cluster. But that seems pretty sloppy and I was hoping that you CS folks and programmers might know of a more elegant solution? Edited with My Solution: What I did was to take a sort of nearest-neighbor / cluster approach and do the quick-n-dirty N2 implementation first. So, take every particle, calculate distance to all other particles, and the threshold for in a cluster or not was whether there were N particles within d distance (two parameters that have to be set a priori, unfortunately, but as was said by some responses/comments, I wasn't going to get away with not having some of those). I then sped it up by not sorting distances but simply doing an order N search and increment a counter for the particles within d, and that sped stuff up by a factor of 6. Then I added a "stupid programmer's tree" (because I know next to nothing about tree codes). I divide up the simulation cell into a set number of grids (best results when grid size ˜7 d) where the main grid lines up with the cell, one grid is offset by half in x and y, and the other two are offset by 1/4 in ±x and ±y. The code then divides particles into the grids, then each particle N only has to have distances calculated to the other particles in that cell. Theoretically, if this were a real tree, I should get order N*log(N) as opposed to N2 speeds. I got somewhere between the two, where for a 50,000-particle sub-set I got a 17x increase in speed, and for a 150,000-particle cell, I got a 38x increase in speed. 12 seconds for the first, 53 seconds for the second, 460 seconds for a 500,000-particle cell. Those are comparable speeds to how long the code takes to run the simulation 1 timestep forward, so that's reasonable at this point. Oh -- and it's fully threaded, so it'll take as many processors as I can throw at it.

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• Developing an Implementation Plan with Iterations by Russ Pitts

  - by user535886

  Developing an Implementation Plan with Iterations by Russ Pitts  Ok, so you have come to grips with understanding that applying the iterative concept, as defined by OUM is simply breaking up the project effort you have estimated for each phase into one or more six week calendar duration blocks of work. Idea being the business user(s) or key recipient(s) of work product(s) being developed never go longer than six weeks without having some sort of review or prototyping of the work results for an iteration…”think-a-little”, “do-a-little”, and “show-a-little” in a six week or less timeframe…ideally the business user(s) or key recipients(s) are involved throughout. You also understand the OUM concept that you only plan for that which you have knowledge of. The concept further defined, a project plan initially is developed at a high-level, and becomes more detailed as project knowledge grows. Agreeing to this concept means you also have to admit to the fallacy that one can plan with precision beyond six weeks into a project…Anything beyond six weeks is a best guess in most cases when dealing with software implementation projects. Project planning, as defined by OUM begins with the Implementation Plan view, which is a very high-level perspective of the effort estimated for each of the five OUM phases, as well as the number of iterations within each phase. You might wonder how can you predict the number of iterations for each phase at this early point in the project. Remember project planning is not an exact science, and initially is high-level and abstract in nature, and then becomes more detailed and precise as the project proceeds. So where do you start in defining iterations for each phase for a project? The following are three easy steps to initially define the number of iterations for each phase: Step 1 => Start with identifying the known factors… …Prior to starting a project you should know: · The agreed upon time-period for an iteration (e.g 6 weeks, or 4 weeks, or…) within a phase (recommend keeping iteration time-period consistent within a phase, if not for the entire project) · The number of resources available for the project · The number of total number of man-day (effort) you have estimated for each of the five OUM phases of the project · The number of work days for a week Step 2 => Calculate the man-days of effort required for an iteration within a phase… Lets assume for the sake of this example there are 10 project resources, and you have estimated 2,536 man-days of work effort which will need to occur for the elaboration phase of the project. Let’s also assume a week for this project is defined as 5 business days, and that each iteration in the elaboration phase will last a calendar duration of 6 weeks. A simple calculation is performed to calculate the daily burn rate for a single iteration, which produces a result of… ((Number of resources * days per week) * duration of iteration) = Number of days required per iteration ((10 resources * 5 days/week) * 6 weeks) = 300 man days of effort required per iteration Step 3 => Calculate the number of iterations that can occur within a phase Next calculate the number of iterations that can occur for the amount of man-days of effort estimated for the phase being considered… (number of man-days of effort estimated / number of man-days required per iteration) = # of iterations for phase (2,536 man-days of estimated effort for phase / 300 man days of effort required per iteration) = 8.45 iterations, which should be rounded to a whole number such as 9 iterations* *Note - It is important to note this is an approximate calculation, not an exact science. This particular example is a simple one, which assumes all resources are utilized throughout the phase, including tech resources, etc. (rounding down or up to a whole number based on project factor considerations). It is also best in many cases to round up to higher number, as this provides some calendar scheduling contingency.

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• How to Set Up Your Enterprise Social Organization?

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  By Mike Stiles on Dec 04, 2012 The rush for business organizations to establish, grow, and adopt social was driven out of necessity and inevitability. The result, however, was a sudden, booming social presence creating touch points with customers, partners and influencers, but without any corporate social organization or structure in place to effectively manage it. Even today, many business leaders remain uncertain as to how to corral this social media thing so that it makes sense for their enterprise. Imagine their panic when they hear one of the most beneficial approaches to corporate use of social involves giving up at least some hierarchical control and empowering employees to publicly engage customers. And beyond that, they should also be empowered, regardless of their corporate status, to engage and collaborate internally, spurring “off the grid” innovation. An HBR blog points out that traditionally, enterprise organizations function from the top down, and employees work end-to-end, structured around business processes. But the social enterprise opens up structures that up to now have not exactly been embraced by turf-protecting executives and managers. The blog asks, “What if leaders could create a future where customers, associates and suppliers are no longer seen as objects in the system but as valued sources of innovation, ideas and energy?” What if indeed? The social enterprise activates internal resources without the usual obsession with position. It is the dawn of mass collaboration. That does not, however, mean this mass collaboration has to lead to uncontrolled chaos. In an extended interview with Oracle, Altimeter Group analyst Jeremiah Owyang and Oracle SVP Reggie Bradford paint a complete picture of today’s social enterprise, including internal organizational structures Altimeter Group has seen emerge. One sign of a mature social enterprise is the establishing of a social Center of Excellence (CoE), which serves as a hub for high-level social strategy, training and education, research, measurement and accountability, and vendor selection. This CoE is led by a corporate Social Strategist, most likely from a Marketing or Corporate Communications background. Reporting to them are the Community Managers, the front lines of customer interaction and engagement; business unit liaisons that coordinate the enterprise; and social media campaign/product managers, social analysts, and developers. With content rising as the defining factor for social success, Altimeter also sees a Content Strategist position emerging. Across the enterprise, Altimeter has seen 5 organizational patterns. Watching the video will give you the pros and cons of each. Decentralized - Anyone can do anything at any time on any social channel. Centralized – One central groups controls all social communication for the company. Hub and Spoke – A centralized group, but business units can operate their own social under the hub’s guidance and execution. Most enterprises are using this model. Dandelion – Each business unit develops their own social strategy & staff, has its own ability to deploy, and its own ability to engage under the central policies of the CoE. Honeycomb – Every employee can do social, but as opposed to the decentralized model, it’s coordinated and monitored on one platform. The average enterprise has a whopping 178 social accounts, nearly ¼ of which are usually semi-idle and need to be scrapped. The last thing any C-suite needs is to cope with fragmented technologies, solutions and platforms. It’s neither scalable nor strategic. The prepared, effective social enterprise has a technology partner that can quickly and holistically integrate emerging platforms and technologies, such that whatever internal social command structure you’ve set up can continue efficiently executing strategy without skipping a beat. @mikestiles

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• A Forming Repository of Script Samples for Automating Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8

  - by Jialiang

  Compared with Windows Server 2008/R2 that provides about 230 cmdlets, Windows Server 2012 beats that by a factor of over 10 shipping ~ 2,430 cmdlets.  You can automate almost every aspect of the server.   The new PowerShell 3.0, like Windows Server 2012, has a ton of new features.  In this automation script-centric move, Microsoft All-In-One Script Framework (AIOSF) is ready to support IT Pros with many new services and offerings coming this year.  We sincerely hope that the IT community will benefit from the effort. Here is the first one among our new services and offerings:  The team is preparing a large set of Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012 script samples based on frequently asked IT tasks that we collect in TechNet forums and support calls to Microsoft.   Because the script topics come from frequently asked IT tasks, we hope that these script samples can be helpful to many IT Pros worldwide.   With the General Availability of Windows Server 2012, we release the first three Windows Server 2012 / Windows 8 script samples today.    Get Network Adapter Properties in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 (PowerShell) http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Get-Network-Adapter-37c5a913 Description: This script could be used to get network adapter properties and advanced properties in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8. It combines the outputs of Get-NetAdapter and Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty. It can generate a report of network adapter configuration settings. Use Scenarios: In a real world, IT Administrators are required to check the configuration of network adapters after the deployment of new servers. One typical example is the duplex setting of network adapters. Also, IT administrators need to maintain a server list which contains network adapter configuration settings in a regular basis. Before Windows Server 2012, IT administrators often feel difficulties to handle these tasks. Acknowledgement: Thanks Greg Gu from AIOSF for collecting this script topic, and writing the script sample.  Thanks James Adams (Microsoft Premier Field Engineer) for reviewing the script sample and ensuring its quality.   How to batch create virtual machines in Windows Server 2012 (PowerShell) http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/How-to-batch-create-9efd1811 Description: This PowerShell Script illustrates how to batch create multiple virtual machines based on comma delimited file by using PowerShell 3.0 in Windows Server 2012. Use Scenarios: IT admin requires to batch creating virtual machines in Windows Server 2012, although they can use few commands due to the lack of programming knowledge. Although it’s a set of Hyper-V command-lets within Windows PowerShell, IT Admins are reluctant to use them except simple a command which is widely used. Acknowledgement: Thanks Anders Wang from AIOSF for collecting this script topic and writing the script sample.  Thanks Christopher Norris for reviewing the script sample and ensuring its quality before publishing.   Remove Windows Store Apps in Windows 8 (PowerShell) http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Remove-Windows-Store-Apps-a00ef4a4 Description: This script can be used to remove multiple Windows Store Apps from a user account in Windows 8. It provides a list of installed Windows Store applications. You can specify the application IDs, and remove them all at once. Use Scenarios: 1. In Windows 8, you can remove a single Windows Store App by right-clicking the tile in the Start menu and choosing the uninstall command.  However, no command is provided for removing multiple Windows Store Apps all at once. If you want to do so, you can use this script sample. 2. Sometimes Windows Store Apps may crash in Windows 8.  Even though you can successfully uninstall and reinstall the App, the application may still crash after the reinstallation.  In this situation, you can use this example script to remove these Windows Store Apps cleanly. Acknowledgement: Thanks Edward Qi from AIOSF for collecting the script idea and composing the script sample.  Thanks James Adams (Microsoft Premier Field Engineer) for reviewing the script sample and ensuring its quality.   This is just the beginning, and more and more script samples are coming.  You can follow our blog (http://blogs.technet.com/b/onescript) to get the latest customer-driven script samples for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8.

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• XNA Health Bar continually decreasing

  - by Craig

  As per the Health bar tutorial on ... http://www.xnadevelopment.com/tutorials/notsohealthy/NotSoHealthy.shtml I have set up the above, how do I make it decrease by 1 health per second? I want to create a mini survival game, and this is an important factor. Where am i going wrong? I want it to visibly decrease every second. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; namespace Health { /// <summary> /// This is the main type for your game /// </summary> public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; Texture2D healthBar; int currentHealth = 100; float seconds; public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { // TODO: Add your initialization logic here base.Initialize(); } /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); healthBar = Content.Load<Texture2D>("HealthBar"); // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { // TODO: Unload any non ContentManager content here } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { // Allows the game to exit if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed) this.Exit(); // TODO: Add your update logic here currentHealth = (int)MathHelper.Clamp(currentHealth, 0, 100); seconds += (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; if (seconds >= 1) { currentHealth -= 1; } seconds = 0; base.Update(gameTime); } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(healthBar, new Rectangle(this.Window.ClientBounds.Width / 2 - healthBar.Width / 2, 30, healthBar.Width, 44), new Rectangle(0, 45, healthBar.Width, 44), Color.Gray); spriteBatch.Draw(healthBar, new Rectangle(this.Window.ClientBounds.Width / 2 - healthBar.Width / 2, 30, (int)(healthBar.Width * ((double)currentHealth / 100)), 44), new Rectangle(0, 45, healthBar.Width, 44), Color.Red); spriteBatch.Draw(healthBar, new Rectangle(this.Window.ClientBounds.Width / 2 - healthBar.Width / 2, 30, healthBar.Width, 44), new Rectangle(0, 0, healthBar.Width, 44), Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } } Cheers!

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• Ongoing confusion about ivars and properties in objective C

  - by Earl Grey

  After almost 8 months being in ios programming, I am again confused about the right approach. Maybe it is not the language but some OOP principle I am confused about. I don't know.. I was trying C# a few years back. There were fields (private variables, private data in an object), there were getters and setters (methods which exposed something to the world) ,and properties which was THE exposed thing. I liked the elegance of the solution, for example there could be a class that would have a property called DailyRevenue...a float...but there was no private variable called dailyRevenue, there was only a field - an array of single transaction revenues...and the getter for DailyRevenue property calculated the revenue transparently. If somehow the internals of daily revenue calculation would change, it would not affect somebody who consumed my DailyRevenue property in any way, since he would be shielded from getter implementation. I understood that sometimes there was , and sometimes there wasn't a 1-1 relationship between fields and properties. depending on the requirements. It seemed ok in my opinion. And that properties are THE way to acces the data in object. I know the difference betweeen private, protected, and public keyword. Now lets get to objectiveC. On what factor should I base my decision about making someting only an ivar or making it as a property? Is the mental model the same as I describe above? I know that ivars are "protected" by default, not "private" asi in c#..But thats ok I think, no big deal for my presnet level of understanding the whole ios development. The point is ivars are not accesible from outside (given i don't make them public..but i won't). The thing that clouds my clear understanding is that I can have IBOutlets from ivars. Why am I seeing internal object data in the UI? *Why is it ok?* On the other hand, if I make an IBOutlet from property, and I do not make it readonly, anybody can change it. Is this ok too? Let's say I have a ParseManager object. This object would use a built in Foundation framework class called NSXMLParser. Obviously my ParseManager will utilize this nsxmlparser's capabilities but will also do some additional work. Now my question is, who should initialize this NSXMLParser object and in which way should I make a reference to it from the ParseManager object, when there is a need to parse something. A) the ParseManager -1) in its default init method (possible here ivar - or - ivar+ppty) -2) with lazyloading in getter (required a ppty here) B) Some other object - who will pass a reference to NSXMLParser object to the ParseManager object. -1) in some custom initializer (initWithParser:(NSXMLPArser *) parser) when creating the ParseManager object.. A1 - the problem is, we create a parser and waste memory while it is not yet needed. However, we can be sure that all methods that are part ot ParserManager object, can use the ivar safely, since it exists. A2 - the problem is, the nsxmlparser is exposed to outside world, although it could be read only. Would we want a parser to be exposed in some scenario? B1 - this could maybe be useful when we would want to use more types of parsers..i dont know... I understand that architectural requirements and and language is not the same. But clearly the two are in relation. How to get out of that mess of my? Please bear with me, I wasn't able to come up with a single ultimate question. And secondly, it's better to not scare me with some superadvanced newspeak that talks about some crazy internals (what the compiler does) and edge cases.

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• Surface V2.0

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  It’s been quiet around here. And the reason for that is that it’s been quiet around Surface for a while. Now, a lot of people assume that when a product team isn’t making too much noise that must mean they stopped working on their product. Remember the PDC keynote in 2010? Just because they didn’t mention WPF there a lot of people had the idea that WPF was dead and abandoned for Silverlight. Of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The same applies to Surface. While we didn’t hear much from the team in Redmond they were busy putting together the next version of the platform. And at the CES in January the world saw what they have been up to all along: Surface V2.0 as it’s commonly known. Of course, the product is still in development. It’s not here yet, we can’t buy one yet. However, more and more information comes available and I think this is a good time to share with you what it’s all about! The biggest change from an organizational point of view is that Microsoft decided to stop producing the hardware themselves. Instead, they have formed a partnership with Samsung who will manufacture the devices. This means that you as a buyer get the benefits of a large, worldwide supplier with all the services they can offer. Not that Microsoft didn’t do that before but since Surface wasn’t a ‘big’ product it was sometimes hard to get to the right people. The new device is officially called the “Samsung SUR 40 for Microsoft Surface” which is quite a mouthful. The software that runs the device is of course still coming from Microsoft. Let’s dive into the technical specs (note: all of this is preliminary, it’s still in the Alpha phase!): Audio out HDMI / StereoRCA / SPDIF / 2 times 3.5mm audio out jack Brightness 300 CD/m2 Communications 1GB Ethernet/802.11/Bluetooth Contrast Ratio 1:1000 CPU AMD Athlon X2 245e 2.9Ghz Dual Core Display Resolution Full HD 1080p 1920x1080 / 16:9 aspect ratio GPU AMD Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDRS HDD 320 GB / 7200 RPM HDMI In / HDMI out Yes I/O Ports 4 USB, SD Card reader Operation System Embedded Windows 7 Professional 64 bits Panel Size 40” diagonal Protection Glass Gorilla Glass RAM 4 GB DD3 Weight / with standard legs 70.0 Kg / 154 lbs Weight / standalone 39.5 Kg / 87 lbs Height (without legs) 4 inch Contact points recognized > 50 Cool Factor Extremely   Ok, the last point is not official, but I do think it needs to be there. Let’s talk software. As noted, it runs Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, which means you can run Visual Studio 2010 on it. The software is going to be developed in WPF4.0 with the additional Surface SDK 2.0. It will contain all the things you’ve seen before plus some extra’s. They have taken some steps to align it more with the Surface Toolkit which you can download today, so if you do things right your software should be portable between a WPF4.0 Windows 7 Multi-touch app and the Surface v2 environment. It still uses infrared to detect contacts, so in that respect nothing much has changed conceptually. We still can differentiate between a finger, a tag or a blob. Of course, since the new platform has a much higher resolution (compared to the 1024x768 of the first version) you might need to look at your code again. I’ve seen a lot of applications on Surface that assume the old resolution and moving that to V2 is going to be some work. To be honest: as I am under NDA I cannot disclose much about the new software besides what I have told you here, but trust me: it’s going to blow people away. Now, the biggest question for me is: when can I get one? Until we can, have a look here: Tags van Technorati: surface,samsung,WPF

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• Focus on Social Relationship Management at Oracle OpenWorld

  - by Pat Ma

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} 0 0 1 422 2408 involver 20 5 2825 14.0 Normal 0 false false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Greetings from Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Today, we’re going to focus on Social Relationship Management at Oracle OpenWorld.?Social networking is touching all businesses today.  Customers are speaking about your brand right now on social media sites. Your employees are speaking to one another on social media sites. In an Oracle survey, 40% of consumers factor in Facebook recommendations when making purchasing decisions. Despite the rise of social networking, 70% of marketers report having little understanding of social media conversations happening around their brand. Oracle has invested in technologies that will help companies leverage social media technologies for their enterprise. Our suite of social products is collectively known as Social Relationship Management. Customers are using Social Relationship Management to get analytics to social media conversations around their brand, manage multiple social media channels while keeping their brand consistent, optimize internal workflows and processes, and create better customer relationships and experiences. In this example, using Social Relationship Management, a high-end national grocery chain is able to see that “Coconut Water” is trending in San Francisco. They are now able to send a $2-off coconut water coupon to shoppers who have checked into their San Francisco locations. This promotion further drives sales of coconut water in San Francisco. In another example, using Social Relationship Management, a technology company creates multiple Facebook pages and runs campaigns on them. These social campaigns are now integrated and tracked as another marketing channel in Oracle Fusion CRM. The technology company can now track and respond to a particular customer as he moves across multiple channels – without having to restart the conversation each time the customer contacts the company. Furthermore, the technology company can see in one interface what marketing channels – including social – is performing best for each promotion. Besides being a Software-as-a-Service solution, social is also a Platform-as-a-Service solution. The benefit here is that customers can extend the functionality of our social applications to suit their particular needs or create their own social application from scratch. During the Social Developer track, developers are learning how to use Java and other industry-standard programming languages to plug in social functionality to enterprise applications. To see how Social Relationship Management can help your business build better relationships and experience with customers, visit us on the web at oracle.com/social. There are a lot more social-oriented sessions left at OpenWorld. To view a schedule of the upcoming social-oriented sessions, go here.

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• Exposed: Fake Social Marketing

  - by Mike Stiles

  Brands and marketers who want to build their social popularity on a foundation of lies are starting to face more of an uphill climb. Fake social is starting to get exposed, and there are a lot of emperors getting caught without any clothes. Facebook is getting ready to do a purge of “Likes” on Pages that were a result of bots, fake accounts, and even real users who were duped or accidentally Liked a Page. Most of those accidental Likes occur on mobile, where it’s easy for large fingers to hit the wrong space. Depending on the degree to which your Page has been the subject of such activity, you may see your number of Likes go down. But don’t sweat it, that’s a good thing. The social world has turned the corner and assessed the value of a Like. And the verdict is that a Like is valuable as an opportunity to build a real relationship with a real customer. Its value pales immensely compared to a user who’s actually engaged with the brand. Those fake Likes aren’t doing you any good. Huge numbers may once have impressed, but it’s not fooling anybody anymore. Facebook’s selling point to marketers is the ability to use a brand’s fans to reach friends of those fans. Consequently, there has to be validity and legitimacy to a fan count. Speaking of mobile, Trademob recently reported 40% of clicks are essentially worthless, because 22% of them are accidental (again with the fat fingers), while 18% are trickery. Publishers will but huge banner ads next to tiny app buttons to increase the odds of an accident. Others even hide a banner behind another to score 2 clicks instead of 1. Pontiflex and Harris Interactive last year found 47% of users were more likely to click a mobile ad accidentally than deliberately. Beyond that, hijacked devices are out there manipulating click data. But to what end for a marketer? What’s the value of a click on something a user never even saw? What’s the value of a seen but accidentally clicked ad if there’s no resulting transaction? Back to fake Likes, followers and views; they’re definitely for sale on numerous sites, none of which I’ll promote. $5 can get you 1,000 Twitter followers. You can even get followers targeted by interests. One site was set up by an unemployed accountant out of his house in England. He gets them from a wholesaler in Brooklyn, who gets them from a 19-year-old supplier in India. The unemployed accountant is making $10,000 a day. That means a lot of brands, celebrities and organizations are playing the fake social game, apparently not coming to grips with the slim value of the numbers they’re buying. But now, in addition to having paid good money for non-ROI numbers, there’s the embarrassment factor. At least a couple of sites have popped up allowing anyone to see just how many fake and inactive followers you have. Britain’s Fake Follower Check and StatusPeople are the two getting the most attention. Enter any Twitter handle and the results are there for all to see. Fake isn’t good, period. “Inactive” could be real followers, but if they’re real, they’re just watching, not engaging. If someone runs a check on your Twitter handle and turns up fake followers, does that mean you’re suspect or have purchased followers? No. Anyone can follow anyone, so most accounts will have some fakes. Even account results like Barack Obama’s (70% fake according to StatusPeople) and Lady Gaga’s (71% fake) don’t mean these people knew about all those fakes or initiated them. Regardless, brands should realize they’re now being watched, and users are judging the legitimacy of their social channels. Use one of any number of tools available to assess and clean out fake Likes and followers so that your numbers are as genuine as possible. And obviously, skip the “buying popularity” route of social marketing strategy. It doesn’t work and it gets you busted…a losing combination.

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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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• Windows Phone 8, possible tablets and what the latest update might mean

  - by Roger Hart

  Microsoft have just announced an update to Windows Phone 8. As one of the five, maybe six people who actually bought a WP8 handset I found this interesting. Then I read the blog post about it, and rushed off to write somewhat less than a thousand words about a single picture. The blog post announces an extra column of tiles on the start screen, and support for higher resolutions. If we ignore all the usual flummery about how this will make your life better, that (and the rotation lock) sounds a little like stage setting for tablets. Looking at the preview screenshot, I started to wonder. What it’s called Phablet_5F00_StartScreenProductivity_5F00_01_5F00_072A1240.jpg Pretty conclusive. If you can brand something a “phablet” and sleep at night you’re made of sterner stuff than I am, but that’s beside the point. It’s explicit in the post that Microsoft are expecting a broader range of form factors for WP8, but they stop short of quite calling out tablet size. The extra columns and resolution definitely back that up, so why stop at a 6 inch “phablet”? Sadly, the string of numbers there don’t really look like a Lumia model number – that would be a bit tendentious even for a speculative blog post about a single screenshot. “Productivity” is interesting too. I get into this a bit more below, but this is a pretty clear pitch for a business device. What it looks like Something that would look quite decent on a 7 inch screen, but something a bit too vertical to go toe-to-toe with the Surface. Certainly, it would look a lot better on a large-factor phone than any of the current models. Those tiles are going to get cramped and a bit ugly if the handsets aren’t getting bigger. What’s on it You have a bunch of missed calls, you rarely text, use a stocks app, and your budget spreadsheet and meeting notes are a thumb-reach away. Outlook is your main form of email. You care enough about LinkedIn to not only install its app but give it a huge live tile. There’s no beating about the bush here, the implicit persona is a corporate exec. With Nokia in the bag and Blackberry pushing daisies, that may not be a stupid play. There’s almost certainly a niche there if they can parlay their corporate credentials into filling it before BYOD (which functionally means an iPhone) reaches the late adopters. The really quite slick WP8 Office implementation ought to help here. This is the face they’ve chosen to present, the cultural milieu they’re normalizing for Windows Phone. It’s an iPhone for Serious Business Grown-ups. Could work, I guess. Does it mean anything? Is the latest WP8 update a sign that we can expect to see tablets running Windows Phone rather than WinRT? Well, WinRT tablets haven’t exactly taken off but I’m not quite going to make a leap like that just from a file name and a column of icons. I feel pretty safe, however, conjecturing that Microsoft would like to squeeze a WP8 “phablet” into the palm of every exec who’s ever grumbled about their Blackberry, and this release might get them a bit closer. If it works well incrementing up to larger devices, then that could be a fair hedge against WinRt crashing and burning any harder in the marketplace.

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• Oracle Tutor: Installing Is Not Implementing or Why CIO's should care about End User Adoption

  - by emily.chorba(at)oracle.com

  Eighteen months ago I showed Tutor and UPK Productive Day One overview to a CIO friend of mine. He works in a manufacturing business which had been recently purchased by a global conglomerate. He had a major implementation coming up, but said that the corporate team would be coming in to handle the project. I asked about their end user training approach, but it was unclear to him at the time. We were in touch over the course of the implementation project. The major activities were data conversion, how-to workshops, General Ledger realignment, and report definition. The message was "Here's how we do it at corporate, and here's how you are going to do it." In short, it was an application software installation. The corporate team had experience and confidence and the effort through go-live was smooth. Some weeks after cutover, problems with customer orders began to surface. Orders could not be fulfilled in a timely fashion. The problem got worse, and the corporate emergency team was called in. After many days of analysis, the issue was tracked down and resolved, but by then there were weeks of backorders, and their customer base was impacted in a significant way. It took three months of constant handholding of customers by the sales force for good will to be reestablished, and this itself diminished a new product sales push. I learned of these results in a recent conversation with the CIO. I asked him what the solution to the problem was, and he replied that it was twofold. The first component was a lack of understanding by customer service reps about how a particular data item in order entry was to be filled in, resulting in discrepant order data. The second component was that product planners were using this data, along with data from other sources, to fill in a spreadsheet based on the abandoned system. This spreadsheet was the primary input for planning data. The result of these two inaccuracies was that key parts were not being ordered to effectively meet demand and the lead time for finished goods was pushed out by weeks. I reminded him about the Productive Day One approach, and it's focus on methodology and tools for end user training. A more collaborative solution workshop would have identified proper applications use in the new environment. Using UPK to document correct transaction entry would have provided effective guidelines to the CSRs for data entry. Using Oracle Tutor to document the manual tasks would have eliminated the use of an out of date spreadsheet. As we talked this over, he said, "I wish I knew when I started what I know now." Effective end user adoption is the most critical and most overlooked success factor in applications implementations. When the switch is thrown at go-live, employees need to know how to use the new systems to do their jobs. Their jobs are made up of manual steps and systems steps which must be performed in the right order for the implementing organization to operate smoothly. Use Tutor to document the manual policies and procedures, use UPK to document the systems tasks, and develop this documentation in conjunction with a solution workshop. This is the path to develop effective end user training material for a smooth implementation. Learn More For more information about Tutor, visit Oracle.com or the Tutor Blog. Post your questions at the Tutor Forum. Chuck Jones, Product Manager, Oracle Tutor and BPM

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• #iPad at One Week: A Great Device Made with a Heavy Hand

  - by andrewbrust

  I have now had my iPad for a little over a week. In that time, Apple introduced the world to its iPhone OS 4 (and the SDK agreement’s draconian new section 3.3.1), HP introduced is Slate, and Microsoft got ready to launch Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0. And through it all I have used my iPad. I've used it for email, calendar, controlling my Sonos, and writing an essay. I've used it for getting on TripIt and Twitter, and surfing the Web. I've used it for online banking, and online ordering and delivery of food. And the verdict? Honestly? I think it's a great device and I thoroughly enjoy using it. The screen is bright and vibrant. I am surprisingly fast and accurate when I type on it. The touch screen's responsiveness is nearly flawless. The software, including a number of third party applications, include pleasing animations and use of color that make it fun to get work done. And speaking of work, the Exchange integration is, dare I say it, robust. Not as full-featured as on a PC or Windows Mobile device, but still offering core functionality and, so far at least, without bugs. The UI is intuitive, not just to me, but also to my 5 1/2 year old, and also to my nearly-3-year-old son. They picked it up and, with just just a few pointers from me, they almost immediately knew what to do, whether they were looking at photos (and swiping/flicking along as they did so), using a drawing program, playing a game, or watching YouTube videos. The younger of the two of them even tried to get up on a chair and grab the thing today. He dropped it, from about 4 feet off the ground. And it's still fine. (Meanwhile, I'll be keeping it on a higher shelf.) I cannot fully describe yet what makes this form factor and this product so appealing. Maybe it's that it's an always-on device. Maybe it's just being able to hold such a nice, relatively large display so close. Maybe it's the design sensibility, that seems to pervade throughout the app ecosystem. Or maybe it's that one's fingers, and not pens or mice, are the software's preferred input device. Whatever the attraction, it's strong. And no matter how much I tend to root for Microsoft and against Apple, Cupertino has, in my mind, scored big, Can Microsoft compete? Yes, but not with the Windows 7 standard UI (nor with individual OEMs’ own UIs on top). I hope Microsoft builds a variant of the Windows Phone 7 specifically for tablet devices. And I hope they make it clear that all developers, and programming languages, are welcome to the platform. Once that’s established, the OEMs have to build great hardware with fast, responsive touch screens, under Microsoft's watchful eye. That may be the hardest part of getting this right. No matter what, Microsoft's got a fight on its hands. I don't know if it can count on winning that fight, either. But Silverlight and Live Tiles could certainly help. And so can treating developers like adults.  Apple seems intent on treating their devs like kids, and then giving the kids a curfew.  For that, dev-friendly Microsoft may one day give thanks.

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• Where can you find the Oracle Applications User Experience team in the next several months?

  - by mvaughan

  By Misha Vaughan, Applications User ExperienceNovember is one of my favorite times of year at Oracle. The blast of OpenWorld work is over, and it’s time to get down to business and start taking our messages and our work on the road out to the user groups. We’re in the middle of planning all of that right now, so we decided to provide a snapshot of where you can see us and hear about the Oracle Applications User Experience – whether it’s Fusion Applications, PeopleSoft, or what we’re planning for the next-generation of Oracle Applications.On the road with Apps UX...In December, you can find us at UKOUG 2012 in Birmingham, UK: UKOUG, UK Oracle User Group Conference 2012?December 3 – 5, 2012?ICC, Birmingham, UKIn March, we will be at Alliance 2013 in Indianapolis, and our fingers are crossed for OBUG Connect 2013 in Antwerp:? Alliance 2013March 17 - 20, 2013 ?Indianapolis, IndianaOBUG Benelux Connect 2013?March 26, 2013?Antwerp, Belgium?? In April, you will see us at COLLABORATE13 in Denver:? Collaborate13April 7 - April 11, 2013 ?Denver, Colorado?? And in June, we round out the kick-off to summer at OHUG 2013 in Dallas and Kscope13 in New Orleans:? OHUG 2013June 9 -13, 2013?Dallas, Texas ODTUG Kscope13?June 23-27, 2013 ?New Orleans, LA? The Labs & DemosAs always, a hallmark of our team is our mobile usability labs. If you haven’t seen them, they are a great way for customers and partners to get a peek at what Oracle is working on next, and a chance for you to provide your candid perspective. Based on the interest and enthusiasm from customers last year at Collaborate, we are adding more demo-stations to our user group presence in the year ahead. If you want to see some of the work we are doing first-hand but don’t have a lot of time, the demo stations are a great way to get a quick update on the latest wow-factor we are researching. I can promise that you will see whatever we think is new and interesting at the demo stations first. Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Apps UX DemostationFor Applications DevelopersMore and more, I get asked the question, “How do I build an application that looks like a Fusion?” My answer is Fusion Applications Design Patterns. You can find out more about how Fusion Applications developers can leverage ADF and the user experience best practices we developed for Fusion at sessions lead by Ultan O’Broin, Director of Global User Experience, in the year ahead. Ultan O'Broin, On Fusion Design Patterns Building mobile applications are also top of mind these days. If you want to understand how Oracle is approaching this strategy, check out our session on Mobile user experience design patterns with Mobile ADF.  In many cases, this will be presented by Lynn Rampoldi-Hnilo, Senior Manager of Mobile User Experiences, and in a few cases our ever-ready traveler Ultan O’Broin will be on deck. Lynn Rampoldi-Hnilo, on Mobile User Experience Design PatternsApplications User ExperiencesFusion Applications continues to evolve, and you will see the new face of Fusion Applications at our executive sessions in the year ahead, which are led by vice president Jeremy Ashley or a hand-picked presenter, such as one of our Fusion User Experience Advocates.  Edward Roske, CEO InterRel Consulting & Fusion User Experience AdvocateAs always, our strategy is to take our lessons learned and spread them across the Applications product lines. A great example is the enhancements coming in the PeopleSoft user experience, which you can hear about from Harris Kravatz, Senior Manager, PeopleSoft User Experience. Fusion Applications ExtensibilityWe can’t talk about Fusion Applications without talking about how to make it look like your business. If tailoring Fusion applications is a question in your mind, and it should be, you should hit one of these sessions. These sessions will be lead by our own Killian Evers, Senior Director, Tim Dubois, User Experience Architect, and some well-trained Fusion User Experience Advocates.Find out moreIf you want to stay on top of where and when we will be, you can always sign up for our newsletter or check out the events page of usableapps.

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• Dropped impression 25 days after restructure

  - by Hamid

  Our website is a non English property related website (moshaver.com) which is similar to rightmove.co.uk. On September 2012 our website was adversely affected by Panda causing our Google incoming clicks to drop from around 3000 clicks to less than a thousand. We were hoping that Google will eventually realize that we are not a spam website and things will get better. However, in August 2013 we were almost sure that we needed to do something, so we started to restructure our web content. We used the canonical tag to remove our search results and point to our listing pages, using the noindex tag to remove it from our listing pages which does not have any properties at the moment. We also changed title tags to more friendly ones, in addition to other changes. Our changes were effective on 10th August. As shown in the graph taken from Google Analytics Search Engine Optimization section, these changes has resulted in an increase in the number of times Google displayed our results in its search results. Our impressions almost doubled starting 15th August. However, as the graph shows, our CTR dropped from this date from around 15% to 8%. This might have been because of our changed title tags (so people were less likely to click on them), or it might be normal for increased impressions. This situation has continued up until 10th September, when our impressions decreased dramatically to less than a thousand. This is almost 30% of our original impressions (before website restructure) and 15% of the new impressions. At the same time our impressions has increased dramatically to around 50%. I have two theories for this increase. The first one is that these statistics are less accurate for lower impressions. The second one is that Google is now only displaying our results for queries directly related to our website (our name, our url), and not for general terms, such as "apartments in a specific city". The second theory also explains the dramatic decrease in impression as well. After digging the analytic data a little more, I constructed the following table. It displays the breakdown of our impressions, clicks and ctr in different Google products (web and image) and in total. What I understand from this table is that, most of our increased impressions after restructure were on the image search section. I don't think users of search would be looking for content in our website. Furthermore, it shows that the drop in our web search ctr, is as dramatic of the overall ctr (-30% in compare to -60%) . I thought posting it here might help you understand the situation better. Is it possible that Google has tested our new structure for 25 days, and then decided to decrease our impressions because of the the new low CTR? Or should we look for another factor? If this is the case, how long does it usually take for Google to give us another chance? It has been one month since our impressions has dropped.

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• SOA Community Newsletter May 2014

  - by JuergenKress

  Registration for the Fusion Middleware Summer Camps 2014 is open – Register asap for one of our bootcamps August 4th – 8th 2014 in Lisbon. Please read details and pre-requisitions careful before you register. We expect that like in the past, the conference will be booked out soon! If you can’t make it to Lisbon attend our SOA Suite 11c free on-demand Bootcamp or  Managing the Complexity of IoT online trainings. With more than 5000 customers, SOA Suite Achieves Significant Customer Adoption and Industry Recognition.Thanks to all our SOA Specialized partners for making our joins SOA customers successful! As a summary of the Industrial SOA series we published the Podcast Show Notes: SOA and Cloud - Where's This Relationship Going? Make sure you use the Oracle Demo Systems for your customer presentations. The demo systems are hosted by Oracle and include complete scenarios based on the latest Middleware version like the new B2B SOA Suite Demo System! For local presentations without fast internet use the SOA/BPM 11.1.1.7.1 Virtual Machine and Case Management Sample. At our SOA Community Workspace (SOA Community membership required) you can get new IoT presentations for Location Based Offers for Banking & Whitepaper and online Webcast & Utility presentation. In this newsletter you will find many articles about OSB: OSB 11g – A Hands-on Tutorial & Using Split-Joins in OSB Services for parallel processing of messages & OSB, Service Callouts and OQL & Working with Oracle Security Token Service. Thanks for sharing all the additional SOA articles within the community: How to configure Oracle SOA/BPM task auto release & Controlling BPEL process flow at runtime & Upgrading to Oracle SOA Suite 11g PS6 (11.1.1.7)? Do this. & BPEL and BPM's performance monitoring using DMS & SOA 11g - Create RESTful Service In Oracle SOA & Wrong timezone causes TopLink warning in SOA suite. Highlight of the BPM and ACM section is the IDC BPM vendor report. The new bundle Patch including the ACM UI is now available. If you want to learn more about ACM, get the ACM training material at our SOA Community Workspace (SOA Community membership required). A great demo for your next BPM presentation is the BPM iPad app. It’s simpleMobile BPM is Not An Option. It’s a Necessity. Thanks for sharing all the additional BPM articles within the community: BPM update adds Case Management Web Interface and REST APIs & Implementing deadline functionality with Oracle Adaptive Case Management & BPM 11g Timeout Heuristics & Humantask Assignment: Names and Expressions Assignment via Rules. In our last section Architecture, it is all about design. Usability is a key factor for customer satisfaction, worth to spend some time and read the Simplified User Experience Design Patterns eBook. Great blueprint for your project! See you in Lisbon! To read the newsletter please visit www.tinyurl.com/soaNewsMay2014 (OPN Account required) To become a member of the SOA Partner Community please register at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: newsletter,SOA Community newsletter,SOA Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• SQL SERVER – Renaming Index – Index Naming Conventions

  - by pinaldave

  If you are regular reader of this blog, you must be aware of that there are two kinds of blog posts 1) I share what I learn recently 2) I share what I learn and request your participation. Today’s blog post is where I need your opinion to make this blog post a good reference for future. Background Story Recently I came across system where users have changed the name of the few of the table to match their new standard naming convention. The name of the table should be self explanatory and they should have explain their purpose without either opening it or reading documentations. Well, not every time this is possible but again this should be the goal of any database modeler. Well, I no way encourage the name of the tables to be too long like ‘ContainsDetailsofNewInvoices’. May be the name of the table should be ‘Invoices’ and table should contain a column with New/Processed bit filed to indicate if the invoice is processed or not (if necessary). Coming back to original story, the database had several tables of which the name were changed. Story Continues… To continue the story let me take simple example. There was a table with the name  ’ReceivedInvoices’, it was changed to new name as ‘TblInvoices’. As per their new naming standard they had to prefix every talbe with the words ‘Tbl’ and prefix every view with the letters ‘Vw’. Personally I do not see any need of the prefix but again, that issue is not here to discuss.  Now after changing the name of the table they faced very interesting situation. They had few indexes on the table which had name of the table. Let us take an example. Old Name of Table: ReceivedInvoice Old Name of Index: Index_ReceivedInvoice1 Here is the new names New Name of Table: TblInvoices New Name of Index: ??? Well, their dilemma was what should be the new naming convention of the Indexes. Here is a quick proposal of the Index naming convention. Do let me know your opinion. If Index is Primary Clustered Index: PK_TableName If Index is  Non-clustered Index: IX_TableName_ColumnName1_ColumnName2… If Index is Unique Non-clustered Index: UX_TableName_ColumnName1_ColumnName2… If Index is Columnstore Non-clustered Index: CL_TableName Here ColumnName is the column on which index is created. As there can be only one Primary Key Index and Columnstore Index per table, they do not require ColumnName in the name of the index. The purpose of this new naming convention is to increase readability. When any user come across this index, without opening their properties or definition, user can will know the details of the index. T-SQL script to Rename Indexes Here is quick T-SQL script to rename Indexes EXEC sp_rename N'SchemaName.TableName.IndexName', N'New_IndexName', N'INDEX'; GO Your Contribute Please Well, the organization has already defined above four guidelines, personally I follow very similar guidelines too. I have seen many variations like adding prefixes CL for Clustered Index and NCL for Non-clustered Index. I have often seen many not using UX prefix for Unique Index but rather use generic IX prefix only. Now do you think if they have missed anything in the coding standard. Is NCI and CI prefixed required to additionally describe the index names. I have once received suggestion to even add fill factor in the index name – which I do not recommend at all. What do you think should be ideal name of the index, so it explains all the most important properties? Additionally, you are welcome to vote if you believe changing the name of index is just waste of time and energy.  Note: The purpose of the blog post is to encourage all to participate with their ideas. I will write follow up blog posts in future compiling all the suggestions. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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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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• Microsoft Build 2012 Day 1 Keynote Summary

  - by Tim Murphy

  So I have finally dried the tears after watching the Keynote for Build 2012.  This wasn’t because it was an emotional presentation, but because for the second year I missed the goodies.  Each on site attendee got a Surface RT, a Lumia 920 and a voucher for 100GB of SkyDrive storage. The event was opened with the announcement that in the three days since the launch of Windows 8 over 4 million upgrades have been sold.  I don’t care who you are that is an impressive stat.  Ballmer then spent a fair amount of time remaking the case for the Windows and Windows Phone platforms similar to what we have heard over the last to launch events. There were some cool, but non-essential demos.  The one that was the most fun was the Perceptive Pixel 82” slate device.  At first glance I wondered why I would ever want such a device, but then Ballmer explained it’s possible use for schools and boardrooms.  The actually made sense. Then things got strange.  Steve started explaining features that developers could leverage.  Usually this type of information is left to the product leads.  He focused on the integration with the Charms features such as Search and Share. Steve “Guggs” Guggenheim showed off an app that would appeal to my kids from Disney called “Agent P” which is base on Phineas and Ferb.  Then he got to the meat of the presentation.  We found out that you could add a tile that can be used to sell ad space.  In the same vein we also found out that you could use Microsoft’s, Paypal’s or any commerce engine of your own creation or choosing. For those who are interested in sports and especially developing sports apps you would have found the small presentation from Michael Bayle of ESPN.  He introduced the ESPN app which has tons of features.  For the developers in the crowd he also mentioned that ESPN has an API available at developer.espn.com. During the launch events we were told apps were coming.  In this presentation we were actually shown a scrolling list of logos and told about a couple of them.  Ballmer mentioned specifically Twitter, SAP and DropBox.  These are impressive names that were just a couple of the list impressive names. Steve Ballmer addressed the question of why you should develop for the Windows 8 platform.  He feels that Microsoft has the best commercial terms for developers, a better way to build apps than other platforms and a variety of form factors.  His key point though was the available volume of customers given the current Windows install base and assuming even a flat growth of the platform.  This he backed with a promise that Microsoft is going to do better at marketing and you won’t be able to avoid the ads that they are bringing out. The last section of the key note was present by Kevin Gallo from the Windows Phone team.  This was the real reason I tuned into the webcast.  He impressed upon those watching that the strength of developing for the Microsoft platform is the common programming model that now exist.  While there are difference between form factor implementations you can leverage code across them. He claimed that 90% of developer requests for Windows Phone 8 had been implemented.  These include: More controls with better performance Better live tiles including lock screen integration Speech support in custom apps Easier submission to the market place App camera integration VOIP and chat support Bluetooth and NFC support Native C++ development Direct 3D development   The quote from Kevin that stood out for me was that “Take your Dramamine and buckle your seatbelt type of games are coming to Windows Phone 8”.  He back this up by displaying a list of game development frameworks and then having Unity come out and do a demo. Ok, almost done … The last two things of note for me were the announcement that the SDK is immediately available at dev.windowsphone.com and that they were reducing the cost of an individual developer account to $8 for the next 8 days. Let the development commence. del.icio.us Tags: Build 2012,Windows 8,Windows Phone 8,Windows Phone

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• You Probably Already Have a “Private Cloud”

  - by BuckWoody

  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of the word “Cloud”. It’s too marketing-oriented, gimmicky and non-specific. A better definition (in many cases) is “Distributed Computing”. That means that some or all of the computing functions are handled somewhere other than under your specific control. But there is a current use of the word “Cloud” that does not necessarily mean that the computing is done somewhere else. In fact, it’s a vector of Cloud Computing that can better be termed “Utility Computing”. This has to do with the provisioning of a computing resource. That means the setup, configuration, management, balancing and so on that is needed so that a user – which might actually be a developer – can do some computing work. To that person, the resource is just “there” and works like they expect, like the phone system or any other utility. The interesting thing is, you can do this yourself. In fact, you probably already have been, or are now. It’s got a cool new trendy term – “Private Cloud”, but the fact is, if you have your setup automated, the HA and DR handled, balancing and performance tuning done, and a process wrapped around it all, you can call yourself a “Cloud Provider”. A good example here is your E-Mail system. your users – pretty much your whole company – just logs into e-mail and expects it to work. To them, you are the “Cloud” provider. On your side, the more you automate and provision the system, the more you act like a Cloud Provider. Another example is a database server. In this case, the “end user” is usually the development team, or perhaps your SharePoint group and so on. The data professionals configure, monitor, tune and balance the system all the time. The more this is automated, the more you’re acting like a Cloud Provider. Lots of companies help you do this in your own data centers, from VMWare to IBM and many others. Microsoft's offering in this is based around System Center – they have a “cloud in a box” provisioning system that’s actually pretty slick. The most difficult part of operating a Private Cloud is probably the scale factor. In the case of Windows and SQL Azure, we handle this in multiple ways – and we're happy to share how we do it. It’s not magic, and the algorithms for balancing (like the one we started with called Paxos) are well known. The key is the knowledge, infrastructure and people. Sure, you can do this yourself, and in many cases such as top-secret or private systems, you probably should. But there are times where you should evaluate using Azure or other vendors, or even multiple vendors to spread your risk. All of this should be based on client need, not on what you know how to do already. So congrats on your new role as a “Cloud Provider”. If you have an E-mail system or a database platform, you can just put that right on your resume.

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• New Analytic settings for the new code

  - by Steve Tunstall

  If you have upgraded to the new 2011.1.3.0 code, you may find some very useful settings for the Analytics. If you didn't already know, the analytic datasets have the potential to fill up your OS hard drives. The more datasets you use and create, that faster this can happen. Since they take a measurement every second, forever, some of these metrics can get in the multiple GB size in a matter of weeks. The traditional 'fix' was that you had to go into Analytics -> Datasets about once a month and clean up the largest datasets. You did this by deleting them. Ouch. Now you lost all of that historical data that you might have wanted to check out many months from now. Or, you had to export each metric individually to a CSV file first. Not very easy or fun. You could also suspend a dataset, and have it not collect data at all. Well, that fixed the problem, didn't it? of course you now had no data to go look at. Hmmmm.... All of this is no longer a concern. Check out the new Settings tab under Analytics... Now, I can tell the ZFSSA to keep every second of data for, say, 2 weeks, and then average those 60 seconds of each minute into a single 'minute' value. I can go even further and ask it to average those 60 minutes of data into a single 'hour' value.  This allows me to effectively shrink my older datasets by a factor of 1/3600 !!! Very cool. I can now allow my datasets to go forever, and really never have to worry about them filling up my OS drives. That's great going forward, but what about those huge datasets you already have? No problem. Another new feature in 2011.1.3.0 is the ability to shrink the older datasets in the same way. Check this out. I have here a dataset called "Disk: I/O opps per second" that is about 6.32M on disk (You need not worry so much about the "In Core" value, as that is in RAM, and it fluctuates all the time. Once you stop viewing a particular metric, you will see that shrink over time, just relax).  When one clicks on the trash can icon to the right of the dataset, it used to delete the whole thing, and you would have to re-create it from scratch to get the data collecting again. Now, however, it gives you this prompt: As you can see, this allows you to once again shrink the dataset by averaging the second data into minutes or hours. Here is my new dataset size after I do this. So it shrank from 6.32MB down to 2.87MB, but i can still see my metrics going back to the time I began the dataset. Now, you do understand that once you do this, as you look back in time to the minute or hour data metrics, that you are going to see much larger time values, right? You will need to decide what size of granularity you can live with, and for how long. Check this out. Here is my Disk: Percent utilized from 5-21-2012 2:42 pm to 4:22 pm: After I went through the delete process to change everything older than 1 week to "Minutes", the same date and time looks like this: Just understand what this will do and how you want to use it. Right now, I'm thinking of keeping the last 6 weeks of data as "seconds", and then the last 3 months as "Minutes", and then "Hours" forever after that. I'll check back in six months and see how the sizes look. Steve 

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