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• Server 2003 SP2 BSOD caused by fltmgr.sys

  - by MasterMax1313

  I'm running into a problem where a Server 2003 SP2 box has started crashing roughly once an hour, BSODing out with the message that fltmgr.sys is probably the cause. I ran dumpchk.exe on the memory.dmp file, indicating the same thing. Any thoughts on typical root causes? The following is the error code I'm seeing: Error code 0000007e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 f723e087, parameter3 f78cea8c, parameter4 f78ce788. After running dumpchk on the memory.dmp file, I get the following note: Probably caused by : fltmgr.sys ( fltmgr!FltGetIrpName+63f ) The full log is here: Microsoft (R) Windows Debugger Version 6.12.0002.633 X86 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Loading Dump File [c:\windows\memory.dmp] Kernel Complete Dump File: Full address space is available Symbol search path is: *** Invalid *** **************************************************************************** * Symbol loading may be unreliable without a symbol search path. * * Use .symfix to have the debugger choose a symbol path. * * After setting your symbol path, use .reload to refresh symbol locations. * **************************************************************************** Executable search path is: ********************************************************************* * Symbols can not be loaded because symbol path is not initialized. * * * * The Symbol Path can be set by: * * using the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH environment variable. * * using the -y <symbol_path> argument when starting the debugger. * * using .sympath and .sympath+ * ********************************************************************* *** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export symbols for ntkrnlpa.exe - Windows Server 2003 Kernel Version 3790 (Service Pack 2) UP Free x86 compatible Product: Server, suite: TerminalServer SingleUserTS Built by: 3790.srv03_sp2_gdr.101019-0340 Machine Name: Kernel base = 0x80800000 PsLoadedModuleList = 0x8089ffa8 Debug session time: Wed Oct 5 08:48:04.803 2011 (UTC - 4:00) System Uptime: 0 days 14:25:12.085 ********************************************************************* * Symbols can not be loaded because symbol path is not initialized. * * * * The Symbol Path can be set by: * * using the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH environment variable. * * using the -y <symbol_path> argument when starting the debugger. * * using .sympath and .sympath+ * ********************************************************************* *** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export symbols for ntkrnlpa.exe - Loading Kernel Symbols ............................................................... ................................................. Loading User Symbols Loading unloaded module list ... ******************************************************************************* * * * Bugcheck Analysis * * * ******************************************************************************* Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information. BugCheck 7E, {c0000005, f723e087, f78dea8c, f78de788} ***** Kernel symbols are WRONG. Please fix symbols to do analysis. *** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export symbols for fltmgr.sys - --omitted-- Probably caused by : fltmgr.sys ( fltmgr!FltGetIrpName+63f ) Followup: MachineOwner --------- ----- 32 bit Kernel Full Dump Analysis DUMP_HEADER32: MajorVersion 0000000f MinorVersion 00000ece KdSecondaryVersion 00000000 DirectoryTableBase 004e7000 PfnDataBase 81600000 PsLoadedModuleList 8089ffa8 PsActiveProcessHead 808a61c8 MachineImageType 0000014c NumberProcessors 00000001 BugCheckCode 0000007e BugCheckParameter1 c0000005 BugCheckParameter2 f723e087 BugCheckParameter3 f78dea8c BugCheckParameter4 f78de788 PaeEnabled 00000001 KdDebuggerDataBlock 8088e3e0 SecondaryDataState 00000000 ProductType 00000003 SuiteMask 00000110 Physical Memory Description: Number of runs: 3 (limited to 3) FileOffset Start Address Length 00001000 0000000000001000 0009e000 0009f000 0000000000100000 bfdf0000 bfe8f000 00000000bff00000 00100000 Last Page: 00000000bff8e000 00000000bffff000 KiProcessorBlock at 8089f300 1 KiProcessorBlock entries: ffdff120 Windows Server 2003 Kernel Version 3790 (Service Pack 2) UP Free x86 compatible Product: Server, suite: TerminalServer SingleUserTS Built by: 3790.srv03_sp2_gdr.101019-0340 Machine Name:*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for srv.sys Kernel base = 0x80800000 PsLoadedModuleList = 0x8089ffa8 Debug session time: Wed Oct 5 08:48:04.803 2011 (UTC - 4:00) System Uptime: 0 days 14:25:12.085 start end module name 80800000 80a50000 nt Tue Oct 19 10:00:49 2010 (4CBDA491) 80a50000 80a6f000 hal Sat Feb 17 00:48:25 2007 (45D69729) b83d4000 b83fe000 Fastfat Sat Feb 17 01:27:55 2007 (45D6A06B) b8476000 b84a1000 RDPWD Sat Feb 17 00:44:38 2007 (45D69646) b8549000 b8554000 TDTCP Sat Feb 17 00:44:32 2007 (45D69640) b8fe1000 b9045000 srv Thu Feb 17 11:58:17 2011 (4D5D53A9) b956d000 b95be000 HTTP Fri Nov 06 07:51:22 2009 (4AF41BCA) b9816000 b982d780 hgfs Tue Aug 12 20:36:54 2008 (48A22CA6) b9b16000 b9b20000 ndisuio Sat Feb 17 00:58:25 2007 (45D69981) b9cf6000 b9d1ac60 iwfsd Wed Sep 29 01:43:59 2004 (415A4B9F) b9e5b000 b9e62000 parvdm Tue Mar 25 03:03:49 2003 (3E7FFF55) b9e63000 b9e67860 lgtosync Fri Sep 12 04:38:13 2003 (3F6185F5) b9ed3000 b9ee8000 Cdfs Sat Feb 17 01:27:08 2007 (45D6A03C) b9f10000 b9f2e000 EraserUtilRebootDrv Thu Jul 07 21:45:11 2011 (4E166127) b9f2e000 b9f8c000 eeCtrl Thu Jul 07 21:45:11 2011 (4E166127) b9f8c000 b9f9d000 Fips Sat Feb 17 01:26:33 2007 (45D6A019) b9f9d000 ba013000 mrxsmb Fri Feb 18 10:22:23 2011 (4D5E8EAF) ba013000 ba043000 rdbss Wed Feb 24 10:54:03 2010 (4B854B9B) ba043000 ba0ad000 SPBBCDrv Mon Dec 14 23:39:00 2009 (4B2712E4) ba0ad000 ba0d7000 afd Thu Feb 10 08:42:18 2011 (4D53EB3A) ba0d7000 ba108000 netbt Sat Feb 17 01:28:57 2007 (45D6A0A9) ba108000 ba19c000 tcpip Sat Aug 15 05:53:38 2009 (4A8685A2) ba19c000 ba1b5000 ipsec Sat Feb 17 01:29:28 2007 (45D6A0C8) ba275000 ba288600 NAVENG Fri Jul 29 08:10:02 2011 (4E32A31A) ba289000 ba2ae000 SYMEVENT Thu Apr 15 21:31:23 2010 (4BC7BDEB) ba2ae000 ba42d300 NAVEX15 Fri Jul 29 08:07:28 2011 (4E32A280) ba42e000 ba479000 SRTSP Fri Mar 04 15:31:08 2011 (4D714C0C) ba485000 ba487b00 dump_vmscsi Wed Apr 11 13:55:32 2007 (461D2114) ba4e1000 ba540000 update Mon May 28 08:15:16 2007 (465AC7D4) ba568000 ba59f000 rdpdr Sat Feb 17 00:51:00 2007 (45D697C4) ba59f000 ba5b1000 raspptp Sat Feb 17 01:29:20 2007 (45D6A0C0) ba5b1000 ba5ca000 ndiswan Sat Feb 17 01:29:22 2007 (45D6A0C2) ba5da000 ba5e4000 dump_diskdump Sat Feb 17 01:07:44 2007 (45D69BB0) ba66a000 ba67e000 rasl2tp Sat Feb 17 01:29:02 2007 (45D6A0AE) ba67e000 ba69a000 VIDEOPRT Sat Feb 17 01:10:30 2007 (45D69C56) ba69a000 ba6c1000 ks Sat Feb 17 01:30:40 2007 (45D6A110) ba6c1000 ba6d5000 redbook Sat Feb 17 01:07:26 2007 (45D69B9E) ba6d5000 ba6ea000 cdrom Sat Feb 17 01:07:48 2007 (45D69BB4) ba6ea000 ba6ff000 serial Sat Feb 17 01:06:46 2007 (45D69B76) ba6ff000 ba717000 parport Sat Feb 17 01:06:42 2007 (45D69B72) ba717000 ba72a000 i8042prt Sat Feb 17 01:30:40 2007 (45D6A110) baff0000 baff3700 CmBatt Sat Feb 17 00:58:51 2007 (45D6999B) bf800000 bf9d3000 win32k Thu Mar 03 08:55:02 2011 (4D6F9DB6) bf9d3000 bf9ea000 dxg Sat Feb 17 01:14:39 2007 (45D69D4F) bf9ea000 bf9fec80 vmx_fb Sat Aug 16 07:23:10 2008 (48A6B89E) bf9ff000 bfa4a000 ATMFD Tue Feb 15 08:19:22 2011 (4D5A7D5A) bff60000 bff7e000 RDPDD Sat Feb 17 09:01:19 2007 (45D70AAF) f7214000 f723a000 KSecDD Mon Jun 15 13:45:11 2009 (4A3688A7) f723a000 f725f000 fltmgr Sat Feb 17 00:51:08 2007 (45D697CC) f725f000 f7272000 CLASSPNP Sat Feb 17 01:28:16 2007 (45D6A080) f7272000 f7283000 symmpi Mon Dec 13 16:03:14 2004 (41BE0392) f7283000 f72a2000 SCSIPORT Sat Feb 17 01:28:41 2007 (45D6A099) f72a2000 f72bf000 atapi Sat Feb 17 01:07:34 2007 (45D69BA6) f72bf000 f72e9000 volsnap Sat Feb 17 01:08:23 2007 (45D69BD7) f72e9000 f7315000 dmio Sat Feb 17 01:10:44 2007 (45D69C64) f7315000 f733c000 ftdisk Sat Feb 17 01:08:05 2007 (45D69BC5) f733c000 f7352000 pci Sat Feb 17 00:59:03 2007 (45D699A7) f7352000 f7386000 ACPI Sat Feb 17 00:58:47 2007 (45D69997) f7487000 f7490000 WMILIB Tue Mar 25 03:13:00 2003 (3E80017C) f7497000 f74a6000 isapnp Sat Feb 17 00:58:57 2007 (45D699A1) f74a7000 f74b4000 PCIIDEX Sat Feb 17 01:07:32 2007 (45D69BA4) f74b7000 f74c7000 MountMgr Sat Feb 17 01:05:35 2007 (45D69B2F) f74c7000 f74d2000 PartMgr Sat Feb 17 01:29:25 2007 (45D6A0C5) f74d7000 f74e7000 disk Sat Feb 17 01:07:51 2007 (45D69BB7) f74e7000 f74f3000 Dfs Sat Feb 17 00:51:17 2007 (45D697D5) f74f7000 f7501000 crcdisk Sat Feb 17 01:09:50 2007 (45D69C2E) f7507000 f7517000 agp440 Sat Feb 17 00:58:53 2007 (45D6999D) f7517000 f7522000 TDI Sat Feb 17 01:01:19 2007 (45D69A2F) f7527000 f7532000 ptilink Sat Feb 17 01:06:38 2007 (45D69B6E) f7537000 f7540000 raspti Sat Feb 17 00:59:23 2007 (45D699BB) f7547000 f7556000 termdd Sat Feb 17 00:44:32 2007 (45D69640) f7557000 f7561000 Dxapi Tue Mar 25 03:06:01 2003 (3E7FFFD9) f7577000 f7580000 mssmbios Sat Feb 17 00:59:12 2007 (45D699B0) f7587000 f7595000 NDProxy Wed Nov 03 09:25:59 2010 (4CD162E7) f75a7000 f75b1000 flpydisk Tue Mar 25 03:04:32 2003 (3E7FFF80) f75b7000 f75c0080 SRTSPX Fri Mar 04 15:31:24 2011 (4D714C1C) f75d7000 f75e3000 vga Sat Feb 17 01:10:30 2007 (45D69C56) f75e7000 f75f2000 Msfs Sat Feb 17 00:50:33 2007 (45D697A9) f75f7000 f7604000 Npfs Sat Feb 17 00:50:36 2007 (45D697AC) f7607000 f7615000 msgpc Sat Feb 17 00:58:37 2007 (45D6998D) f7617000 f7624000 netbios Sat Feb 17 00:58:29 2007 (45D69985) f7627000 f7634000 wanarp Sat Feb 17 00:59:17 2007 (45D699B5) f7637000 f7646000 intelppm Sat Feb 17 00:48:30 2007 (45D6972E) f7647000 f7652000 kbdclass Sat Feb 17 01:05:39 2007 (45D69B33) f7657000 f7661000 mouclass Tue Mar 25 03:03:09 2003 (3E7FFF2D) f7667000 f7671000 serenum Sat Feb 17 01:06:44 2007 (45D69B74) f7677000 f7682000 fdc Sat Feb 17 01:07:16 2007 (45D69B94) f7687000 f7694b00 vmx_svga Sat Aug 16 07:22:07 2008 (48A6B85F) f7697000 f76a0000 watchdog Sat Feb 17 01:11:45 2007 (45D69CA1) f76a7000 f76b0000 ndistapi Sat Feb 17 00:59:19 2007 (45D699B7) f76b7000 f76c6000 raspppoe Sat Feb 17 00:59:23 2007 (45D699BB) f76c8000 f7707000 NDIS Sat Feb 17 01:28:49 2007 (45D6A0A1) f7707000 f770f000 kdcom Tue Mar 25 03:08:00 2003 (3E800050) f770f000 f7717000 BOOTVID Tue Mar 25 03:07:58 2003 (3E80004E) f7717000 f771e000 intelide Sat Feb 17 01:07:32 2007 (45D69BA4) f771f000 f7726000 dmload Tue Mar 25 03:08:08 2003 (3E800058) f777f000 f7786000 dxgthk Tue Mar 25 03:05:52 2003 (3E7FFFD0) f7787000 f778e000 vmmemctl Tue Aug 12 20:37:25 2008 (48A22CC5) f77cf000 f77d6280 vmxnet Mon Sep 08 21:17:10 2008 (48C5CE96) f77d7000 f77df000 audstub Tue Mar 25 03:09:12 2003 (3E800098) f77ef000 f77f7000 Fs_Rec Tue Mar 25 03:08:36 2003 (3E800074) f77f7000 f77fe000 Null Tue Mar 25 03:03:05 2003 (3E7FFF29) f77ff000 f7806000 Beep Tue Mar 25 03:03:04 2003 (3E7FFF28) f7807000 f780f000 mnmdd Tue Mar 25 03:07:53 2003 (3E800049) f780f000 f7817000 RDPCDD Tue Mar 25 03:03:05 2003 (3E7FFF29) f7817000 f781f000 rasacd Tue Mar 25 03:11:50 2003 (3E800136) f7878000 f7897000 Mup Tue Apr 12 15:05:46 2011 (4DA4A28A) f7897000 f7899980 compbatt Sat Feb 17 00:58:51 2007 (45D6999B) f789b000 f789e900 BATTC Sat Feb 17 00:58:46 2007 (45D69996) f789f000 f78a1b00 vmscsi Wed Apr 11 13:55:32 2007 (461D2114) f79af000 f79b0280 vmmouse Mon Aug 11 07:16:51 2008 (48A01FA3) f79b1000 f79b2280 swenum Sat Feb 17 01:05:56 2007 (45D69B44) f7b4a000 f7bdf000 Ntfs Sat Feb 17 01:27:23 2007 (45D6A04B) Unloaded modules: ba65a000 ba668000 imapi.sys Timestamp: unavailable (00000000) Checksum: 00000000 ImageSize: 0000E000 ba1c4000 ba1d5000 vpc-8042.sys Timestamp: unavailable (00000000) Checksum: 00000000 ImageSize: 00011000 f77df000 f77e7000 Sfloppy.SYS Timestamp: unavailable (00000000) Checksum: 00000000 ImageSize: 00008000 ******************************************************************************* * * * Bugcheck Analysis * * * ******************************************************************************* Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information. BugCheck 7E, {c0000005, f723e087, f78dea8c, f78de788} ***** Kernel symbols are WRONG. Please fix symbols to do analysis. --omitted-- Probably caused by : fltmgr.sys ( fltmgr!FltGetIrpName+63f ) Followup: MachineOwner --------- Finished dump check

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• The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

  - by Rick Strahl

  High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Splitting a test to a set of smaller tests

  - by mkorpela

  I want to be able to split a big test to smaller tests so that when the smaller tests pass they imply that the big test would also pass (so there is no reason to run the original big test). I want to do this because smaller tests usually take less time, less effort and are less fragile. I would like to know if there are test design patterns or verification tools that can help me to achieve this test splitting in a robust way. I fear that the connection between the smaller tests and the original test is lost when someone changes something in the set of smaller tests. Another fear is that the set of smaller tests doesn't really cover the big test. An example of what I am aiming at: //Class under test class A { public void setB(B b){ this.b = b; } public Output process(Input i){ return b.process(doMyProcessing(i)); } private InputFromA doMyProcessing(Input i){ .. } .. } //Another class under test class B { public Output process(InputFromA i){ .. } .. } //The Big Test @Test public void theBigTest(){ A systemUnderTest = createSystemUnderTest(); // <-- expect that this is expensive Input i = createInput(); Output o = systemUnderTest.process(i); // <-- .. or expect that this is expensive assertEquals(o, expectedOutput()); } //The splitted tests @PartlyDefines("theBigTest") // <-- so something like this should come from the tool.. @Test public void smallerTest1(){ // this method is a bit too long but its just an example.. Input i = createInput(); InputFromA x = expectedInputFromA(); // this should be the same in both tests and it should be ensured somehow Output expected = expectedOutput(); // this should be the same in both tests and it should be ensured somehow B b = mock(B.class); when(b.process(x)).thenReturn(expected); A classUnderTest = createInstanceOfClassA(); classUnderTest.setB(b); Output o = classUnderTest.process(i); assertEquals(o, expected); verify(b).process(x); verifyNoMoreInteractions(b); } @PartlyDefines("theBigTest") // <-- so something like this should come from the tool.. @Test public void smallerTest2(){ InputFromA x = expectedInputFromA(); // this should be the same in both tests and it should be ensured somehow Output expected = expectedOutput(); // this should be the same in both tests and it should be ensured somehow B classUnderTest = createInstanceOfClassB(); Output o = classUnderTest.process(x); assertEquals(o, expected); }

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• Integrating Oracle Hyperion Smart View Data Queries with MS Word and Power Point

  - by Andreea Vaduva

  Untitled Document table { border: thin solid; } Most Smart View users probably appreciate that they can use just one add-in to access data from the different sources they might work with, like Oracle Essbase, Oracle Hyperion Planning, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management and others. But not all of them are aware of the options to integrate data analyses not only in Excel, but also in MS Word or Power Point. While in the past, copying and pasting single numbers or tables from a recent analysis in Excel made the pasted content a static snapshot, copying so called Data Points now creates dynamic, updateable references to the data source. It also provides additional nice features, which can make life easier and less stressful for Smart View users. So, how does this option work: after building an ad-hoc analysis with Smart View as usual in an Excel worksheet, any area including data cells/numbers from the database can be highlighted in order to copy data points - even single data cells only.   TIP It is not necessary to highlight and copy the row or column descriptions   Next from the Smart View ribbon select Copy Data Point. Then transfer to the Word or Power Point document into which the selected content should be copied. Note that in these Office programs you will find a menu item Smart View;from it select the Paste Data Point icon. The copied details from the Excel report will be pasted, but showing #NEED_REFRESH in the data cells instead of the original numbers. =After clicking the Refresh icon on the Smart View menu the data will be retrieved and displayed. (Maybe at that moment a login window pops up and you need to provide your credentials.) It works in the same way if you just copy one single number without any row or column descriptions, for example in order to incorporate it into a continuous text: Before refresh: After refresh: From now on for any subsequent updates of the data shown in your documents you only need to refresh data by clicking the Refresh button on the Smart View menu, without copying and pasting the context or content again. As you might realize, trying out this feature on your own, there won’t be any Point of View shown in the Office document. Also you have seen in the example, where only a single data cell was copied, that there aren’t any member names or row/column descriptions copied, which are usually required in an ad-hoc report in order to exactly define where data comes from or how data is queried from the source. Well, these definitions are not visible, but they are transferred to the Word or Power Point document as well. They are stored in the background for each individual data cell copied and can be made visible by double-clicking the data cell as shown in the following screen shot (but which is taken from another context).   So for each cell/number the complete connection information is stored along with the exact member/cell intersection from the database. And that’s not all: you have the chance now to exchange the members originally selected in the Point of View (POV) in the Excel report. Remember, at that time we had the following selection:   By selecting the Manage POV option from the Smart View meny in Word or Power Point…   … the following POV Manager – Queries window opens:   You can now change your selection for each dimension from the original POV by either double-clicking the dimension member in the lower right box under POV: or by selecting the Member Selector icon on the top right hand side of the window. After confirming your changes you need to refresh your document again. Be aware, that this will update all (!) numbers taken from one and the same original Excel sheet, even if they appear in different locations in your Office document, reflecting your recent changes in the POV. TIP Build your original report already in a way that dimensions you might want to change from within Word or Power Point are placed in the POV. And there is another really nice feature I wouldn’t like to miss mentioning: Using Dynamic Data Points in the way described above, you will never miss or need to search again for your original Excel sheet from which values were taken and copied as data points into an Office document. Because from even only one single data cell Smart View is able to recreate the entire original report content with just a few clicks: Select one of the numbers from within your Word or Power Point document by double-clicking.   Then select the Visualize in Excel option from the Smart View menu. Excel will open and Smart View will rebuild the entire original report, including POV settings, and retrieve all data from the most recent actual state of the database. (It might be necessary to provide your credentials before data is displayed.) However, in order to make this work, an active online connection to your databases on the server is necessary and at least read access to the retrieved data. But apart from this, your newly built Excel report is fully functional for ad-hoc analysis and can be used in the common way for drilling, pivoting and all the other known functions and features. So far about embedding Dynamic Data Points into Office documents and linking them back into Excel worksheets. You can apply this in the described way with ad-hoc analyses directly on Essbase databases or using Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management ad-hoc web forms. If you are also interested in other new features and smart enhancements in Essbase or Hyperion Planning stay tuned for coming articles or check our training courses and web presentations. You can find general information about offerings for the Essbase and Planning curriculum or other Oracle-Hyperion products here (please make sure to select your country/region at the top of this page) or in the OU Learning paths section , where Planning, Essbase and other Hyperion products can be found under the Fusion Middleware heading (again, please select the right country/region). Or drop me a note directly: [email protected] . About the Author: Bernhard Kinkel started working for Hyperion Solutions as a Presales Consultant and Consultant in 1998 and moved to Hyperion Education Services in 1999. He joined Oracle University in 2007 where he is a Principal Education Consultant. Based on these many years of working with Hyperion products he has detailed product knowledge across several versions. He delivers both classroom and live virtual courses. His areas of expertise are Oracle/Hyperion Essbase, Oracle Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Web Analysis.  

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• Design advice for avoiding change in several classes

  - by Anders Svensson

  Hi, I'm trying to figure out how to design a small application more elegantly, and make it more resistant to change. Basically it is a sort of project price calculator, and the problem is that there are many parameters that can affect the pricing. I'm trying to avoid cluttering the code with a lot of if-clauses for each parameter, but still I have e.g. if-clauses in two places checking for the value of the size parameter. I have the Head First Design Patterns book, and have tried to find ideas there, but the closest I got was the decorator pattern, which has an example where starbuzz coffee sets prices depending first on condiments added, and then later in an exercise by adding a size parameter (Tall, Grande, Venti). But that didn't seem to help, because adding that parameter still seemed to add if-clause complexity in a lot of places (and this being an exercise they didn't explain that further). What I am trying to avoid is having to change several classes if a parameter were to change or a new parameter added, or at least change in as few places as possible (there's some fancy design principle word for this that I don't rememeber :-)). Here below is the code. Basically it calculates the price for a project that has the tasks "Writing" and "Analysis" with a size parameter and different pricing models. There will be other parameters coming in later too, like "How new is the product?" (New, 1-5 years old, 6-10 years old), etc. Any advice on the best design would be greatly appreciated, whether a "design pattern" or just good object oriented principles that would make it resistant to change (e.g. adding another size, or changing one of the size values, and only have to change in one place rather than in several if-clauses): public class Project { private readonly int _numberOfProducts; protected Size _size; public Task Analysis { get; set; } public Task Writing { get; set; } public Project(int numberOfProducts) { _numberOfProducts = numberOfProducts; _size = GetSize(); Analysis = new AnalysisTask(numberOfProducts, _size); Writing = new WritingTask(numberOfProducts, _size); } private Size GetSize() { if (_numberOfProducts <= 2) return Size.small; if (_numberOfProducts <= 8) return Size.medium; return Size.large; } public double GetPrice() { return Analysis.GetPrice() + Writing.GetPrice(); } } public abstract class Task { protected readonly int _numberOfProducts; protected Size _size; protected double _pricePerHour; protected Dictionary<Size, int> _hours; public abstract int TotalHours { get; } public double Price { get; set; } protected Task(int numberOfProducts, Size size) { _numberOfProducts = numberOfProducts; _size = size; } public double GetPrice() { return _pricePerHour * TotalHours; } } public class AnalysisTask : Task { public AnalysisTask(int numberOfProducts, Size size) : base(numberOfProducts, size) { _pricePerHour = 850; _hours = new Dictionary<Size, int>() { { Size.small, 56 }, { Size.medium, 104 }, { Size.large, 200 } }; } public override int TotalHours { get { return _hours[_size]; } } } public class WritingTask : Task { public WritingTask(int numberOfProducts, Size size) : base(numberOfProducts, size) { _pricePerHour = 650; _hours = new Dictionary<Size, int>() { { Size.small, 125 }, { Size.medium, 100 }, { Size.large, 60 } }; } public override int TotalHours { get { if (_size == Size.small) return _hours[_size] * _numberOfProducts; if (_size == Size.medium) return (_hours[Size.small] * 2) + (_hours[Size.medium] * (_numberOfProducts - 2)); return (_hours[Size.small] * 2) + (_hours[Size.medium] * (8 - 2)) + (_hours[Size.large] * (_numberOfProducts - 8)); } } } public enum Size { small, medium, large } public partial class Form1 : Form { public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); List<int> quantities = new List<int>(); for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { quantities.Add(i); } comboBoxNumberOfProducts.DataSource = quantities; } private void comboBoxNumberOfProducts_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { Project project = new Project((int)comboBoxNumberOfProducts.SelectedItem); labelPrice.Text = project.GetPrice().ToString(); labelWriterHours.Text = project.Writing.TotalHours.ToString(); labelAnalysisHours.Text = project.Analysis.TotalHours.ToString(); } } At the end is a simple current calling code in the change event for a combobox that set size... (BTW, I don't like the fact that I have to use several dots to get to the TotalHours at the end here either, as far as I can recall, that violates the "principle of least knowledge" or "the law of demeter", so input on that would be appreciated too, but it's not the main point of the question) Regards, Anders

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• New Communications Industry Data Model with "Factory Installed" Predictive Analytics using Oracle Da

  - by charlie.berger

  Oracle Introduces Oracle Communications Data Model to Provide Actionable Insight for Communications Service Providers   We've integrated pre-installed analytical methodologies with the new Oracle Communications Data Model to deliver automated, simple, yet powerful predictive analytics solutions for customers.  Churn, sentiment analysis, identifying customer segments - all things that can be anticipated and hence, preconcieved and implemented inside an applications.  Read on for more information! TM Forum Management World, Nice, France - 18 May 2010 News Facts To help communications service providers (CSPs) manage and analyze rapidly growing data volumes cost effectively, Oracle today introduced the Oracle Communications Data Model. With the Oracle Communications Data Model, CSPs can achieve rapid time to value by quickly implementing a standards-based enterprise data warehouse that features communications industry-specific reporting, analytics and data mining. The combination of the Oracle Communications Data Model, Oracle Exadata and the Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Foundation represents the most comprehensive data warehouse and BI solution for the communications industry. Also announced today, Hong Kong Broadband Network enhanced their data warehouse system, going live on Oracle Communications Data Model in three months. The leading provider increased its subscriber base by 37 percent in six months and reduced customer churn to less than one percent. Product Details Oracle Communications Data Model provides industry-specific schema and embedded analytics that address key areas such as customer management, marketing segmentation, product development and network health. CSPs can efficiently capture and monitor critical data and transform it into actionable information to support development and delivery of next-generation services using: More than 1,300 industry-specific measurements and key performance indicators (KPIs) such as network reliability statistics, provisioning metrics and customer churn propensity. Embedded OLAP cubes for extremely fast dimensional analysis of business information. Embedded data mining models for sophisticated trending and predictive analysis. Support for multiple lines of business, such as cable, mobile, wireline and Internet, which can be easily extended to support future requirements. With Oracle Communications Data Model, CSPs can jump start the implementation of a communications data warehouse in line with communications-industry standards including the TM Forum Information Framework (SID), formerly known as the Shared Information Model. Oracle Communications Data Model is optimized for any Oracle Database 11g platform, including Oracle Exadata, which can improve call data record query performance by 10x or more. Supporting Quotes "Oracle Communications Data Model covers a wide range of business areas that are relevant to modern communications service providers and is a comprehensive solution - with its data model and pre-packaged templates including BI dashboards, KPIs, OLAP cubes and mining models. It helps us save a great deal of time in building and implementing a customized data warehouse and enables us to leverage the advanced analytics quickly and more effectively," said Yasuki Hayashi, executive manager, NTT Comware Corporation. "Data volumes will only continue to grow as communications service providers expand next-generation networks, deploy new services and adopt new business models. They will increasingly need efficient, reliable data warehouses to capture key insights on data such as customer value, network value and churn probability. With the Oracle Communications Data Model, Oracle has demonstrated its commitment to meeting these needs by delivering data warehouse tools designed to fill communications industry-specific needs," said Elisabeth Rainge, program director, Network Software, IDC. "The TM Forum Conformance Mark provides reassurance to customers seeking standards-based, and therefore, cost-effective and flexible solutions. TM Forum is extremely pleased to work with Oracle to certify its Oracle Communications Data Model solution. Upon successful completion, this certification will represent the broadest and most complete implementation of the TM Forum Information Framework to date, with more than 130 aggregate business entities," said Keith Willetts, chairman and chief executive officer, TM Forum. Supporting Resources Oracle Communications Oracle Communications Data Model Data Sheet Oracle Communications Data Model Podcast Oracle Data Warehousing Oracle Communications on YouTube Oracle Communications on Delicious Oracle Communications on Facebook Oracle Communications on Twitter Oracle Communications on LinkedIn Oracle Database on Twitter The Data Warehouse Insider Blog

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• SEO: Nested List vs List, Split Over Divs vs Definition List

  - by Jon P

  From an SEO perspective which, if any, is better: Option 1: Nested lists with h2 tags <ul id="mainpoints"> <li><h2>Powerful Analysis</h2> <ul> <li>Charting and indicators</li> <li>Daily trading signals</li> <li>Company health checks</li> </ul> </li> <li><h2>World Market Data</h2> <ul> [List Items removed for brevity] </ul> </li> <li><h2>Daily Market Data</h2> <ul> [List Items removed for brevity] </ul> </li> </ul> Option 2: Divs with h2 and lists <div id="mainpoints"> <div> <h2>Powerful Analysis</h2> <ul> <li>Charting and indicators</li> <li>Daily trading signals</li> <li>Company health checks</li> </ul> </div> <div> <h2>World Market Data</h2> <ul> [List Items removed for brevity] </ul> </div> <div> <h2>Daily Market Data</h2> <ul> [List Items removed for brevity] </ul> </div> </div> Option 3: Definition List <dl id="mainpoints"> <dt>Powerful Analysis</dt> <dd>- Charting and indicators</dd> <dd>- Daily trading signals</dd> <dd>- Company health checks</dd> <dt>World Market Data</dt> [List Items removed for brevity] <dt>Daily Market Data</dt> [List Items removed for brevity] </dl> My instincts tell me that semanticaly the pure list options (1 & 3) are the best and that h2 may be more SEO friendly (1 & 2) which would point to option 1 as being the best option. I do love the lean makeup of the definition list but will I take an SEO hit by losing the h2 tags? Before anyone asks, h2 is not valid markup in a dt tag. Are my instincts right with a nested list being the way to go?

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• Windows Azure Use Case: Agility

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: Agility in this context is defined as the ability to quickly develop and deploy an application. In theory, the speed at which your organization can develop and deploy an application on available hardware is identical to what you could deploy in a distributed environment. But in practice, this is not always the case. Having an option to use a distributed environment can be much faster for the deployment and even the development process. Implementation: When an organization designs code, they are essentially becoming a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider to their own organization. To do that, the IT operations team becomes the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to the development teams. From there, the software is developed and deployed using an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) process. A simplified view of an ALM process is as follows: Requirements Analysis Design and Development Implementation Testing Deployment to Production Maintenance In an on-premise environment, this often equates to the following process map: Requirements Business requirements formed by Business Analysts, Developers and Data Professionals. Analysis Feasibility studies, including physical plant, security, manpower and other resources. Request is placed on the work task list if approved. Design and Development Code written according to organization’s chosen methodology, either on-premise or to multiple development teams on and off premise. Implementation Code checked into main branch. Code forked as needed. Testing Code deployed to on-premise Testing servers. If no server capacity available, more resources procured through standard budgeting and ordering processes. Manual and automated functional, load, security, etc. performed. Deployment to Production Server team involved to select platform and environments with available capacity. If no server capacity available, standard budgeting and procurement process followed. If no server capacity available, systems built, configured and put under standard organizational IT control. Systems configured for proper operating systems, patches, security and virus scans. System maintenance, HA/DR, backups and recovery plans configured and put into place. Maintenance Code changes evaluated and altered according to need. In a distributed computing environment like Windows Azure, the process maps a bit differently: Requirements Business requirements formed by Business Analysts, Developers and Data Professionals. Analysis Feasibility studies, including budget, security, manpower and other resources. Request is placed on the work task list if approved. Design and Development Code written according to organization’s chosen methodology, either on-premise or to multiple development teams on and off premise. Implementation Code checked into main branch. Code forked as needed. Testing Code deployed to Azure. Manual and automated functional, load, security, etc. performed. Deployment to Production Code deployed to Azure. Point in time backup and recovery plans configured and put into place.(HA/DR and automated backups already present in Azure fabric) Maintenance Code changes evaluated and altered according to need. This means that several steps can be removed or expedited. It also means that the business function requesting the application can be held directly responsible for the funding of that request, speeding the process further since the IT budgeting process may not be involved in the Azure scenario. An additional benefit is the “Azure Marketplace”, In effect this becomes an app store for Enterprises to select pre-defined code and data applications to mesh or bolt-in to their current code, possibly saving development time. Resources: Whitepaper download- What is ALM?  http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9743693  Whitepaper download - ALM and Business Strategy: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9743690  LiveMeeting Recording on ALM and Windows Azure (registration required, but free): http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/visualstudio/contact-us.aspx?sbj=Developing with Windows Azure (ALM perspective) - 10:00-11:00 - 19th Jan 2011

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• Oracle Cloud Hiring Event at Oracle in Redwood on November 9th

  - by user769227

  Wow, 24 hours to go until Cloud Hire 2012 at Oracle! Friday is going to be a great day for many looking to make a life and career changing move. In case you haven’t heard, Oracle is hosting Cloud Hire 2012 this Friday, November 9, at the Oracle Conference Center on our World Wide Headquarters campus in Redwood Shores. This is a one-of-a-kind event to be sure and we are still registering online! We are aggressively expanding our Cloud Development and Product Management organizations to meet to ever-growing demand for Oracle Cloud. And, from this event alone, we are hoping to hire 25+ Developers, Inbound and Outbound Product Managers, Technical Leaders and QA Engineers across several Oracle Cloud groups, including: · Data and Insight Services: Big Data as a Service/Business Directory · Cloud Infrastructure · Application Marketplace · Cloud Portal · Product Management and Marketing: Outbound/Inbound · Testing/Quality Assurance · Cloud Social Platform: Analytics, Media, Big Data, Text Analytics, High Performance Search, · Cloud Social Platform - Social Relationship Management: Mobile Development/Social Network Integrations Why attend this event? Just Google Larry Ellison’s 2012 OpenWorld keynote address and you will learn why! Oracle Cloud is growing every day and we are scaling, adding new products and revolutionizing and improving all areas of the Oracle Cloud. There is no company that can come close to the comprehensive product lineup, services, capabilities and global reach and delivery of Oracle’s Cloud. This why it is a great time to work for Oracle: where consistent, stable financial growth rules and high impact technological advances are occurring every day. If you are serious about managing an upward, expansive path in your career, while staying on the leading edge and making big career impacts, you should join Oracle. Whether you want to design and develop or manage Social, Infrastructure or Applications in the Cloud, you can do it all at Oracle. Whether you’re a Technical Leader, Developer, Architect or Product Manager/Strategist, we are hiring now! Come check us out on Friday, November 9 in-person and see why Oracle Cloud is the place to take your career! RSVP here: and Learn more about the hiring teams in attendance here. Here are just some of the big things happening on Friday, November 9: · 830-3pm: Registration/Refreshments, Oracle Conference Center, 350 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA (free parking) · 9am – 3pm: Ongoing Hiring Team Discussions and Product Demos include: Social Marketing, Social Engagement, Social Monitoring, Insight / View, KPI Bundles, Business Directory, Virtualization, Messaging, Provisioning, Cloud Portal · 10:30am – Speaker: Gopalan Arun, Vice President, Oracle Cloud Development Bio: Arun has been with Oracle for 18 years+. He is a testament to the stability and career growth that you can achieve working for Oracle. Arun began as a Developer and ascended through several product organizations into key leadership roles. Over his 18 years at Oracle, he has built and shipped many Database and Middleware products. Arun is one of the founding members of the Oracle Cloud and currently leads the development of many of the core infrastructure and developer-facing services of the Oracle Cloud. Topic: Oracle Cloud for the Developer · 1pm – Speaker: Naresh Revanuru, Lead Architect, Oracle Cloud Bio: Naresh is currently leading Java, Storage and Compute services for Oracle Cloud. Naresh also helps drive decisions for broad based Cloud topics that affect multiple services. http://www.linkedin.com/in/nareshrevanuru Topic: Oracle Cloud Architectural Overview and Challenges to Solve · 1pm-3pm: Ongoing Hiring Team Discussions and Product Demos

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• BI&EPM in Focus June 2012

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  General News Thomas Kurian Discusses Oracle Exalytics, SAP HANA (replay | preso | press)  Accenture & Oracle Study: The Challenges of Corporate Financial Reporting  (link) Flash Demo: Oracle Hyperion Planning on Exalytics in the Public Sector (link) Flash Demo: OBIEE & Exalytics in Retail (link) Customers Italian Partner Alfa Sistemi implemented at Autovie Venete S.p.A. Integrates Business Intelligence and Performance Management to Improve Efficiency and Speed for Managing Public Works Projects (English version)  / Autovie Venete implementa un sistema integrato di Business Intelligence e Performance Management per migliorare l’efficienza e la tempestività dell’attività di Controlling di Commessa (Italian version). FANCL Gains 360-Degree View of Customers across Multiple Sales Channels, Reduces Reports by 75% Korea Yakult Improves Profit & Loss Analysis with Oracle Hyperion Planning and OBIEE Hill International Streamlines Forecasting, Improves Visibility into Project Productivity and Profitability Children’s Rights in Society Better Supports Organizational Mission with Advanced, Integrated, and Streamlined Business Intelligence Tools Profit: International utility Enel monitors the performance of global subsidiaries with Oracle Hyperion Applications (link) Profit: Charting a New Course: Korean Air gains altitude by leveraging its greatest asset: information (link)   Events June 12: Breaking Away from the Excel Add-In: Welcome to Hyperion Smart View 11.1.2.2 (link) June 13: Upgrading OBIEE 10g to 11g: Best Practices and Lessons Learned (performance architects) (link) June 14, The Netherlands: Strategies for Business Excellence, New Release of Oracle Hyperion EPM Suite (link) June 21: Comprehensive and Accurate Forecasting for Healthcare (link) June 26: What Exactly is Exalytics? (KPI Partners) (link) Webcast Replay: Is Your Company Able to Navigate Through Market Volatility? (link)  Webcast Replay: Is Hope and Email The Core of Your Reconciliation Process? (link) Webcast Replay: Troubleshooting EPM Reporting & Analysis 11.1.2.x  (link) Webcast Replay: Is your Organization Flying Blind when it comes to Understanding Profitability?  (link) Enterprise Performance Management Final Oracle EPM  Information Panel (CIP) survey on cost, profitability and performance reporting/scorecards is now OPEN (link) New on EPM Blog: What's Going on With IFRS? (link) How does Crystal Ball integrate with EPM Solutions? New collateral and demos on Crystal Ball Solution Factory!  (link) New Youtube Video: Business Case Analysis with Oracle Crystal Ball (link) Crystal Ball 11.1.2.2 is released! Grouped Assumptions in Sensitivity Charts, Data Filtering When Fitting Distributions and Parameter Edits When Fitting Distributions to name a few. Get full details from the online New Features Guide (link) New DRM Oracle-by-Examples now available (link) Support Blog: Hyperion Ledgerlink Sample Record and Windows 7: Now you see it, now you don’t  (link) Use Enterprise Manager FMW Control to Troubleshoot Oracle EPM 11.1.2 Family of Products (link) Business  Intelligence Whitepaper: Real-Time Operational Reporting for E-Business Suite via GoldenGate Replication to an Operational Data Store.  How Oracle enabled real-time operational reporting for its $20B services contract business with Golden Gate & OBIEE (link) KPI Partners ebook: Understanding Oracle BI Components and Repository Modeling Basics (link) “Getting Started with Oracle Endeca Information Discovery” video tutorials now available (link) Oracle BI Publisher Conversion Center: Convert from Crystal, Actuate, or Oracle Reports to Oracle BI Publisher (link) Oracle Fusion Applications: Monthly Partner Updates Webcast Replays to help BI partners understand how OBI, Essbase, BI-Apps and Fusion work together: More on Fusion CRM: Fusion Marketing More on Fusion CRM: Fusion CRM Sales Start-Up Packs and Expert Services for Implementation Partners Introducing the Oracle Fusion Accounting Hub Implementing Fusion Applications using Oracle's Composers Oracle Fusion Applications Co-Existence

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• How to Build Services from Legacy Applications

  - by Chris Falter

  The SOA consultants invaded the executive suite at your company or agency, preached the true religion, and converted the unbelievers. Now by divine imperative you must convert your legacy applications into a suite of reusable services.  But as usual, you lack the time and resources that you need in order to develop the services properly.  So you googled or bing’ed, found this blog post, and began crying in gratitude.  Yes, as the title implies, I am going to reveal my easy, 3-step, works-every-time process for converting silos of legacy applications into the inventory of services your CIO has been dreaming about.  So just close your eyes and count to 3 … now open them … and here it is…. Not. While wishful thinking is too often the coin of the IT realm, even the most naive practitioner knows that converting legacy applications into reusable services requires more than a magic wand.  The reason is simple: if your starting point is your legacy applications, then you will simply be bolting a web service technology layer on top of your legacy API.  And that legacy API is built in the image of the silo applications.  Enter the wide gate of the legacy API, follow the broad path of generating service interfaces from existing code, and you will arrive at the siloed enterprise destruction that you thought you were escaping. The Straight and Narrow Path This past week I had the opportunity to learn how the FBI Criminal Justice Information Systems department has been transitioning from silo applications to a service inventory.  Lafe Hutcheson, IT Specialist in the architecture group and fellow attendee at an SOA Architect Certification Workshop, was my guide.  Lafe has survived the chaos of an SOA initiative, so it is not surprising that he was able to return from a US Army deployment to Kabul, Afghanistan with nary a scratch.  According to Lafe, building their service inventory is a three-phase process: Model a business process.  This requires intense collaboration between the IT and business wings of the organization, of course.  The FBI uses IBM Websphere tools to model the process with BPMN. Identify candidate services to facilitate the business process. Convert the BPMN to an executable BPEL orchestration, model and develop the services, and use a BPEL engine to run the process.  The FBI uses ActiveVOS for orchestration services. The 12 Step Program to End Your Legacy API Addiction Thomas Erl has documented a process for building a web service inventory that is quite similar to the FBI process. Erl’s process adds a technology architecture definition phase, which allows for the technology environment to influence the inventory blueprint.  For example, if you are using an enterprise service bus, you will probably not need to build your own utility services for logging or intermediate routing.  Erl also lists a service-oriented analysis phase that highlights the 12-step process of applying the principles of service orientation to modeling your services.  Erl depicts the modeling of a service inventory as an iterative process: model a business process, define the relevant technology architecture, define the service inventory blueprint, analyze the services, then model another business process, rinse and repeat.  (Astute readers will note that Erl’s diagram, restricted to analysis and modeling process, does not include the implementation phase that concludes the FBI service development methodology.) The service-oriented analysis phase is where you find the 12 steps that will free you from your legacy API addiction. In a nutshell, you identify the steps in the process that need services; identify the different types of services (agnostic entity services, service compositions, and utility services) that are required; apply service-orientation principles; and normalize the inventory into cohesive service models. Rather than discuss each of the 12 steps individually, I will close by simply referring my readers to Erl’s explanation.

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• Graduate Life in Oracle by Ramakrishna Nalabothula

  - by david.talamelli

  Preparation for the BIG interview: I prepared in both technical and logical aspects to face the Oracle Interview. I had to cover almost all main areas in technical and many types of problems in logical areas. We attended mock- interviews and written tests at our college, browsed websites and communities. Having started with such a rigorous preparation before Oracle visited the college; it was possible for me to make it into the list of final selection. I put in a big effort to reach this position and I am very happy to achieve this. Why I chose Oracle: Oracle is one of the best technology providers and has a large customer base. I think it is not an easy job to offer services to that many customers. So, the company needs young and dynamic people and I wanted to be one among them. This gave me spirit and led me to walk into Oracle. I am working on different technologies and learning something new in the field. Having many customers is challenging Oracle and my work is challenging me. I am confident enough that customers to both me and Oracle will never lose their faith. Learning at Oracle: The style of learning is good and never resembles a classroom session in a college. It is always fun to learn here. There is no exam to track the performance. There is enough time until we completely learn it. There is no concept of stiff competition. Peers help through KT (Knowledge Transfers) and there are good resources in the Oracle to learn. People are always there to direct you to those. There are lots of opportunities for Web learning too! My Work Area: My team gives me a great opportunity to offer service to the entire product. There were no situations when I got tense with my work or targets and deliverables. I work with a Global Team and my manager is based in the UK. I have a lot of freedom and flexibility. I use the work from home option in case of any disturbances in the city or due to personal problems. I have a weekly meeting with my manager and use Instant Messenger for status updates. My manager plans very well to give me enough time to complete tasks. I have good coordination from the team towards our deadlines. My work has also brought me close to many people across various technology and product teams. I am glad to make many friends across Oracle. I am enjoying my time and work here. I cover all the major activities in the team. I am thankful to everyone from the Development and Quality Assurance Team to have high confidence in me by assigning such big responsibilities. Primary tasks are maintaining the environments that are very unstable at times. This really requires big time and effort to trace the root causes. I am working and still learning on all these areas. The happiest thing is I got chances to travel to USA & UK for training and for supporting a few customer demo projects. I have got to explore more across two countries and got sponsored to visit the places around due to Oracle's policies. I am very much thankful for these what I have from Oracle and for the cooperation there from other colleagues. Fun at Work: Oracle has a club from Employees to conduct games and events. I had an opportunity to participate in competitions, tournaments inside Oracle and Inter-Corporate for all games. I thank Oracle for providing me all these opportunities and I would like to extend my thanks to Senior Management for their confidence in me. I thank Oracle HR Recruiting Team too for selecting me into Oracle and giving me this opportunity to share my experience and feelings. Ramakrishna Nalabothula

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• Delivering SOA Governance with EAMS and Oracle Enterprise Repository by Link Consulting Team

  - by JuergenKress

  In the last 12 years Link Consulting has been making its presence in specific areas such as Governance and Architecture, both in terms of practices and methodologies, products, know-how and technological expertise. The Enterprise Architecture Management System - Oracle Enterprise Edition (EAMS - OER Edition) is the result of this experience and combines the architecture management solution with OER in order to deliver a product specialized for SOA Governance that gathers the better of two worlds in solution that enables SOA Governance projects, initiatives and programs. Enterprise Architecture Management System Enterprise Architecture Management System (EAMS), is an automation based solution that enables the efficient management of Enterprise Architectures. The solution uses configured enterprise repositories and takes advantages of its features to provide automation capabilities to the users. EAMS provides capabilities to create/customize/analyze repository data, architectural blueprints, reports and analytic charts. Oracle Enterprise Repository Oracle Enterprise Repository (OER) is one of the major and central elements of the Oracle SOA Governance solution. Oracle Enterprise Repository provides the tools to manage and govern the metadata for any type of software asset, from business processes and services to patterns, frameworks, applications, components, and models. OER maps the relationships and inter-dependencies that connect those assets to improve impact analysis, promote and optimize their reuse, and measure their impact on the bottom line. It provides the visibility, feedback, controls, and analytics to keep your SOA on track to deliver business value. The intense focus on automation helps to overcome barriers to SOA adoption and streamline governance throughout the lifecycle. Core capabilities of the OER include: Asset Management Asset Lifecycle Management Usage Tracking Service Discovery Version Management Dependency Analysis Portfolio Management EAMS - OER Edition The solution takes the advantages and features from both products and combines them in a symbiotic tool that enhances the quality of SOA Governance Initiatives and Programs. EAMS is able to produce a vast number of outputs by combining its analytical engine, SOA-specific configurations and the assets in OER and other related tools, catalogs and repositories. The configurations encompass not only the extendable parametrization of the metadata but also fully configurable blueprints, PowerPoint reports, charts and queries. The SOA blueprints The solution comes with a set of predefined architectural representations that help the organization better perceive their SOA landscape. More blueprints can be easily created in order to accommodate the organizations needs in terms of detail, audience and metadata. Charts & Dashboards The solution encompasses a set of predefined charts and dashboards that promote a more agile way to control and explore the assets. Time Based Visualization All representations are time bound, and with EAMS - OER you can truly govern SOA with a complete view of the Past, Present and Future; The solution delivers Gap Analysis, a project oriented approach while taking into consideration the As-Was, As-Is an To-Be. Time based visualization differentiating factors: Extensive automation and maintenance of architectural representations Organization wide solution. Easy access and navigation to and between all architectural artifacts and representations. Flexible meta-model, customization and extensibility capabilities. Lifecycle management and enforcement of the time dimension over all the repository content. Profile based customization. Comprehensive visibility Architectural alignment Friendly and striking user interfaces For more information on EAMS visit us here. For more information on SOA visit us here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  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 Mix Forum Technorati Tags: Link Consulting,OER,OSR,SOA Governance,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• TechEd North America 2012 – Day 1 #msTechEd

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  Yesterday I and Alberto delivered the PreCon day about BISM Tabular in Analysis Services 2012. We received very good feedback and now I am looking forward to meet people that read our blogs and our books! Ping me on Twitter at @marcorus if you want to contact me during the conference. This is my schedule for the next few days: ·         Monday, June 11, 2012 o   10:30am-12:30pm I will be in the Technical Learning Center area, at the Breaktrough Insights (station #8) in the Database & Business Intelligence area (dedicated to SQL Server 2012) o   I will try to watch some sessions in the afternoon o   6:30pm-7:00pm I will be at the O’Reilly booth meeting book readers and doing some book signing ·         Tuesday, June 12, 2012 o   12:30pm-3:30pm I will be in the Technical Learning Center area, at the Breaktrough Insights (station #8) in the Database & Business Intelligence area (dedicated to SQL Server 2012) o   5:00pm-6:15pm I will attend the Alberto’s session DBI413 Many-to-Many Relationships in BISM Tabular (room S330E) o   6:15pm-9:00pm Community Night & Ask the Experts, we’ll discuss about Analysis Services, Tabular and Multidimensional! ·         Wednesday, June 13, 2012 o   11:15am-11:30am Don’t miss this special demo session at the Private Cloud, Public Cloud and Data Platform Theater in the Technical Learning Center area (next to the SQL Server 2012 zone). I and Alberto will present Querying multi-billion rows with many to many relationships in SSAS Tabular (xVelocity) and you’re invited to guess the response time of DAX queries on a 4 billion rows table with many-to-many relationships before we run them! We’ll give away some 8GB USB key if you guess the right answer! o   12:30pm-1:00pm I and Alberto will have a book signing session at the TechEd Bookstore o   3:00pm-5:00pm I will be in the Technical Learning Center area, at the Breaktrough Insights (station #8) in the Database & Business Intelligence area (dedicated to SQL Server 2012) ·         Thursday, June 14, 2012 o   2:45pm-4:00pm I will deliver my DBI319 BISM: Multidimensional vs. Tabular breakthrough session in room S320A. I expect many questions here! And if you want to learn more about Analysis Services Tabular, we announced two more online sessions of our SSAS Tabular Workshop: ·         July 2-3, 2012 - SSAS Workshop Online - America's time zone ·         September 3-4, 2012 - SSAS Workshop Online - America's time zone Register now if you are interested, the early bird for the July session expires on June 19, 2012! I will also deliver a SSAS Workshop in Oslo (Norway) on August 27-28, 2012.  

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• Personal Financial Management – The need for resuscitation

  - by Salil Ravindran

  Until a year or so ago, PFM (Personal Financial Management) was the blue eyed boy of every channel banking head. In an age when bank account portability is still fiction, PFM was expected to incentivise customers to switch banks. It still is, in some emerging economies, but if the state of PFM in matured markets is anything to go by, it is in a state of coma and badly requires resuscitation. Studies conducted around the year show an alarming decline and stagnation in PFM usage in mature markets. A Sept 2012 report by Aite Group – Strategies for PFM Success shows that 72% of users hadn’t used PFM and worse, 58% of them were not kicked about using it. Of the rest who had used it, only half did on a bank site. While there are multiple reasons for this lack of adoption, some are glaringly obvious. While pretty graphs and pie charts are important to provide a visual representation of my income and expense, it is simply not enough to encourage me to return. Static representation of data without any insightful analysis does not help me. Budgeting and Cash Flow is important but when I have an operative account, a couple of savings accounts, a mortgage loan and a couple of credit cards help me with what my affordability is in specific contexts rather than telling me I just busted my budget. Help me with relative importance of each budget category so that I know it is fine to go over budget on books for my daughter as against going over budget on eating out. Budget over runs and spend analysis are post facto and I am informed of my sins only when I return to online banking. That too, only if I decide to come to the PFM area. Fundamentally, PFM should be a part of my banking engagement rather than an analysis tool. It should be contextual so that I can make insight based decisions. So what can be done to resuscitate PFM? Amalgamation with banking activities – In most cases, PFM tools are integrated into online banking pages and they are like chapter 37 of a long story. PFM needs to be a way of banking rather than a tool. Available balances should shift to Spendable Balances. Budget and goal related insights should be integrated with transaction sessions to drive pre-event financial decisions. Personal Financial Guidance - Banks need to think ground level and see if their PFM offering is really helping customers achieve self actualisation. Banks need to recognise that most customers out there are non-proficient about making the best value of their money. Customers return when they know that they are being guided rather than being just informed on their finance. Integrating contextual financial offers and financial planning into PFM is one way ahead. Yet another way is to help customers tag unwanted spending thereby encouraging sound savings habits. Mobile PFM – Most banks have left all those numbers on online banking. With access mostly having moved to devices and the success of apps, moving PFM on to devices will give it a much needed shot in the arm. This is not only about presenting the same wine in a new bottle but also about leveraging the power of the device in pushing real time notifications to make pre-purchase decisions. The pursuit should be to analyse spend, budgets and financial goals real time and push them pre-event on to the device. So next time, I should know that I have over run my eating out budget before walking into that burger joint and not after. Increase participation and collaboration – Peer group experiences and comments are valued above those offered by the bank. Integrating social media into PFM engagement will let customers share and solicit their financial management experiences with their peer group. Peer comparisons help benchmark one’s savings and spending habits with those of the peer group and increases stickiness. While mature markets have gone through this learning in some way over the last one year, banks in maturing digital banking economies increasingly seem to be falling into this trap. Best practices lie in profiling and segmenting customers, being where they are and contextually guiding them to identify and achieve their financial goals. Banks could look at the likes of Simple and Movenbank to draw inpiration from.

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• Unable to Sign in to the Microsoft Online Services Signin application from Windows 7 client located behind ISA firewall

  - by Ravindra Pamidi

  A while ago i helped a customer troubleshoot authentication problem with Microsoft Online Services Signin application.  This customer was evaluating Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Services) and was having trouble using the single sign on application behind ISA 2004 firewall.The network structure is fairly simple with single Windows 2003 Active Directory domain and Windows 7 clients. On a successful logon to the Microsoft Online Services Signin application, this application provides single signon functionality to all of Microsoft online services in the BPOS package. Symptoms:When trying to signin it fails with error "The service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. If problems continue, contact your service administrator". If ISA 2004 firewall is removed from the picture the authentication succeeds.Troubleshooting: Enabled ISA Server firewall logging along with Microsoft Network Monitor tool on the Windows 7 Client while reproducing the issue. Analysis of the ISA Server Firewall logs and Microsoft Network capture revealed that the Microsoft Online Services Sign In application when sending request to ISA Server does not send the domain credentials and as a result ISA Server responds with an error code of HTTP 407 Proxy authentication required listing out the supported authentication mechanisms.  The application in question is expected to send the credentials of the domain user in response to this request. However in this case, it fails to send the logged on user's domain credentials. Bit of researching on the Internet revealed that The "Microsoft Online Services Sign In" application by default does not support Outbound Internet Proxy authentication. In order for it to send the logged on user's domain credentials we had to make  changes to its configuration file "SignIn.exe.config" located under "Program Files\Microsoft Online Services\Sign In" folder. Step by Step details to configure the configuration file are documented on Microsoft TechNet website given below.  Configure your outbound authenticating proxy serverhttp://www.microsoft.com/online/help/en-us/helphowto/cc54100d-d149-45a9-8e96-f248ecb1b596.htm After the above problem was addressed we were still not able to use the "Microsoft Online Services Sign In" application and it failed with the same error.  Analysis of another network capture revealed that the application in question is now sending the required credentials and the connection seems to terminate at a later stage. Enabled verbose logging for the "Microsoft Online Services Sign In" application and then reproduced the problem. Analysis of the logs revealed a time difference between the local client and Microsoft Online services server of around seven minutes which is above the acceptable time skew of five minutes. Excerpt from Microsoft Online Services Sign In application verbose log:  1/26/2012 1:57:51 PM Verbose SingleSignOn.GetSSOGenericInterface SSO Interface URL: https://signinservice.apac.microsoftonline.com/ssoservice/UID1/26/2012 1:57:52 PM Exception SSOSignIn.SignIn The security timestamp is invalid because its creation time ('2012-01-26T08:34:52.767Z') is in the future. Current time is '2012-01-26T08:27:52.987Z' and allowed clock skew is '00:05:00'.1/26/2012 1:57:52 PM Exception SSOSignIn.SignIn  Although the Windows 7 Clients successfully synchronized time to the domain controller for the domain, the domain controller was not configured to synchronize time with external NTP servers. This caused a gradual drift in time on the network thus resulting in the above issue. Reconfigured the domain controller holding the PDC FSMO role to synchronize time with external time source ( time.nist.gov ) and edited the system policy on the ISA server firewall to allow NTP traffic to time.nist.gov Configure the time source for the forest:Windows Time Servicehttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794937(WS.10).aspx Forced synchronization of Windows time using the command w32tm /resync on the domain controller and later on the clients each of which had corrected the seven minutes difference. This resolved the problem with logon to Microsoft Online Services Sign In.

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• Retrofit Certification

  - by Bill Evjen

  Impact of Regulations on Cabin Systems Installation John Courtright, Structural Integrity Engineering There are “heightened” FAA attention to technical issues related to IFE and Wi-Fi Systems Installations The Aging Aircraft Safety Rule – EWIS & Damage Tolerance Analysis The Challenge: Maximize Flight Safety While Minimizing Costs Issue Papers & Testing, Testing, Testing The role of Airworthiness Directives (ADs) on the design of many IFE systems and all antenna systems. Goal is safety AND cost-effective maintenance intervals and inspection techniques The STC Process Briefly Stated Type Certifications (TC) Supplemental Type Certifications (STC) The STC Process Project Specific Certification Plan (PSCP) Managed by FAA Aircraft Certification Office (ACO) Type of Project (Electrical/Mechanical Systems or Structural) Specific Type of Aircraft Being Modified Schedule Design & Installation Location What does the STC Plan (PSCP) Cover? System Description – What does the system do? System qualification – Are the components qualified? Certification requirements – What FARs are applicable? Installation detail – what is being modified? Prototype installation – What is new? Functional hazard Assessment (FHA) – is it safe? EZAP-EWIS Requirements – Any aging aircraft issues? Certification Data – How is compliance achieved? Delegation and FAA involvement – Who is doing the work? Proposed certification schedule – When is the installation? Certification documentation – What the FAA Expects to see Cabin Systems Certification Concerns In addition to meeting the requirements for DO-160, Cabin System Certification needs to address issues related to: Power management: Generally, IFE and Wi-Fi Systems are classified as “Non-Essential Equipment” from a certification viewpoint. Connected to “non-essential” power buses Must be able to shed IFE & Wi-Fi Systems in a smoke/fire event or Other electrical emergency (FAA Policy 00-111-160) FAA is more relaxed with testing wi-fi. It used to be that you had to have 150 seats with laptops running wi-fi, but now it is down to around 50. Aging aircraft concerns – electrical and structural Issue papers addressing technical concerns involving: “Structural Certification Criteria for Large Antenna Installations” Antenna “Vibration/Buffeting Compliance Criteria” DO-160 : Environmental Test Procedures DO 160 – “Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment”, Issued by RTCA Provides guidance to equipment manufacturers as to testing requirements Temperature: –40C to +55C Vibration and Shock Contaminant susceptibility – fluids and dust Electro-magnetic Interference Cabin systems are generally classified as “non-essential” Swissair 111 crashed (in part) due to non-standard wiring practices. EWIS Design Implications Installation design must take EWIS Requirements into account. This generally means: Aircraft surveys are needed to identify proper wire routing Ensure existing wiring diagrams are correct Identify primary/Secondary/Tertiary bus locations Verify proper separation of wire bundles exist Required separation from fuel quantity indicator system (FQIS) to prevent fuel tang ignition Enhanced Zonal Analysis Procedure (EZAP) Performed EZAP was developed by the Aging Transport Systems Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ATSRAC) EZAP is the method for analyzing airplane zones with an emphasis on evaluating wiring systems and the existence of combustibles  in the cabin. Certification Considerations for Wi-Fi Systems Electrical – All existing DO 160 testing required Issue papers required Onboard EMI testing – any interference with aircraft systems when multiple wi-fi users are logged on? Vibration/Buffeting compliance criteria – what is the effect of the antenna on aircraft flight characteristics? Structural certification criteria – what are the stress loads on the aircraft at the antenna location and what is the impact on maintenance inspection criteria for the airline? Damage tolerance analysis required Goal – minimize maintenance inspection intervals

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• New Version 3.1 Endeca Information Discovery Now Available

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Business User Self-Service Data Mash-up Analysis and Discovery integrated with OBI11g and Hadoop Oracle Endeca Information Discovery 3.1 (OEID) is a major release that incorporates significant new self-service discovery capabilities for business users, including agile data mashup, extended support for unstructured analytics, and an even tighter integration with Oracle BI.  · Self-Service Data Mashup and Discovery Dashboards: business users can combine information from multiple sources, including their own up-loaded spreadsheets, to conduct analysis on the complete set.  Creating discovery dashboards has been made even easier by intuitive drag-and drop layouts and wizard-based configuration.  Business users can now build new discovery applications in minutes, without depending on IT. · Enhanced Integration with Oracle BI: OEID 3.1 enhances its’ native integration with Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation. Business users can now incorporate information from trusted BI warehouses, leveraging dimensions and attributes defined in Oracle’s Common Enterprise Information Model, but evolve them based on the varying day-to-day demands and requirements that they personally manage. · Deep Unstructured Analysis: business users can gain new insights from a wide variety of enterprise and public sources, helping companies to build an actionable Big Data strategy.  With OEID’s long-standing differentiation in correlating unstructured information with structured data, business users can now perform their own text mining to identify hidden concepts, without having to request support from IT. They can augment these insights with best in class keyword search and pattern matching, all in the context of rich, interactive visualizations and analytic summaries. · Enterprise-Class Self-Service Discovery:  OEID 3.1 enables IT to provide a powerful self-service platform to the business as part of a broader Business Analytics strategy, preserving the value of existing investments in data quality, governance, and security.  Business users can take advantage of IT-curated information to drive discovery across high volumes and varieties of data, and share insights with colleagues at a moment’s notice. · Harvest Content from the Web with the Endeca Web Acquisition Toolkit:  Oracle now provides best-of-breed data access to website content through the Oracle Endeca Web Acquisition Toolkit.  This provides an agile, graphical interface for developers to rapidly access and integrate any information exposed through a web front-end.  Organizations can now cost-effectively include content from consumer sites, industry forums, government or supplier portals, cloud applications, and myriad other web sources as part of their overall strategy for data discovery and unstructured analytics. For more information: OEID 3.1 OTN Software and Documentation Download And Endeca available for download on Software Delivery Cloud (eDelivery) New OEID 3.1 Videos on YouTube Oracle.com Endeca Site /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

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• MVC Communication Pattern

  - by Kedu

  This is kind of a follow up question to this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23743285/model-view-controller-and-callbacks, but I wanted to post it separately, because its kind of a different topic. I'm working on a multiplayer cardgame for the Android platform. I split the project into MVC which fits the needs pretty good, but I'm currently stuck because I can't figure out a good way to communicate between the different parts. I have everything setup and working with the controller being a big state machine, which is called over and over from the gameloop, and calls getter methods from the GUI and the android/network part to get the input. The input itself in the GUI and network is set by inputlisteners that set a local variable which I read in the getter method. So far so good, this is working. But my problem is, the controller has to check every input separately,so if I want to add an input I have to check in which states its valid and call the getter method from all these states. This is not good, and lets the code look pretty ugly, makes additions uncomfortable and adds redundance. So what I've got from the question I mentioned above is that some kind of command or event pattern will fit my needs. What I want to do is to create a shared and threadsafe queue in the controller and instead of calling all these getter methods, I just check the queue for new input and proceed it. On the other side, the GUI and network don't have all these getters, but instead create an event or command and send it to the controller through, for example, observer/observable. Now my problem: I can't figure out a way, for these commands/events to fit a common interface (which the queue can store) and still transport different kind of data (button clicks, cards that are played, the player id the command comes from, synchronization data etc.). If I design the communication as command pattern, I have to stick all the information that is needed to execute the command into it when its created, that's impossible because the GUI or network has no knowledge of all the things the controller needs to execute stuff that needs to be done when for example a card is played. I thought about getting this stuff into the command when executing it. But over all the different commands I have, I would need all the information the controller has, and thus give the command a reference to the controller which would make everything in it public, which is real bad design I guess. So, I could try some kind of event pattern. I have to transport data in the event. So, like the command, I would have an interface, which all events have in common, and can be stored in the shared queue. I could create a big enum with all the different events that a are possible, save one of these enums in the actual event, and build a big switch case for the events, to proceed different stuff for different events. The problem here: I have different data for all the events. But I need a common interface, to store the events in a queue. How do I get the specific data, if I can only access the event through the interface? Even if that wouldn't be a problem, I'm creating another big switch case, which looks ugly, and when i want to add a new event, I have to create the event itself, the case, the enum, and the method that's called with the data. I could of course check the event with the enum and cast it to its type, so I can call event type specific methods that give me the data I need, but that looks like bad design too.

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• '$.fn' is null or not an object

  - by metal-gear-solid

  Problem 1 Error: Microsoft JScript runtime error: '$.fn' is null or not an object Error area: $.fn.apply=function(item,content,header){ $(".featureBox"+item).css('z-index', "1000"); $("img.featureBox" + item +"top").attr("src",basepath + "box-big-top.jpg"); $("img.featureBox" + item +"imgcut").attr("src",basepath + "box-big-img"+item+".jpg"); featureboxcont[item].attr("src",basepath + "box-big-cont.jpg"); $("img.featureBox" + item +"foot").attr("src",basepath + "box-big-bot2.jpg"); //$("#NoteModalDialog > #x-dlg-bd > #x-dlg-tab > #acc-ct") $("#box"+item+"headtext > .h2div > h2").text(header); $("#box"+item+"bottext").css({"top":"181px","width":"205px","font-size":"12px","color":"#ffffff","left":"10"}); $("#box"+item+"foottext").css({"top":footheight+"px","width":"215px","left":"20"}); $("#box"+item+"hidden").css({"display":"block"}); $("#box"+item+"bottext").text(content); $("#box"+item+"headtext > .h2div > h2").removeClass("sIFR-replaced"); callsIFR(); } Problem 2 Error : Microsoft JScript runtime error: 'null' is null or not an object Error area : $("#innerWrapper").addClass("js-version"); I'm also using protoype.js on page.

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• Drill through table does not show correct count when used with a dimension having parent child hiera

  - by Arun Singhal

  Hi All, I have a dimension with parent child hierarchy as shown in code block. The issue i am facing is if i have a filter on parent child dimension then drill through table does not show filtered data instead it shows all the data for that dimension. Here is an example. <Dimension type="StandardDimension" name="page_type_d" caption="Page Type"> <Hierarchy name="page_type_h" hasAll="true" allMemberName="all_page_types" allMemberCaption="All Page Types" primaryKey="id"> <Table name="npg_page_type_view" alias="pt"> </Table> <Level name="Page Type" column="id" nameColumn="display_name" parentColumn="parent_id" nullParentValue="0" type="Integer" uniqueMembers="true" levelType="Regular" hideMemberIf="Never" caption="Page Type"> <Closure parentColumn="parent_id" childColumn="page_type_id"> <Table name="dim_page_types_closure"> </Table> </Closure> </Level> </Hierarchy> Now suppose i have 4 rows in npg_page_type_view table id display_name parent_id 19 HTML 100 20 PDF 100 21 XML 0 100 Total 0 Now suppose in my fact table i have following records id count 19 2 20 3 21 1 Following is my analysis view. Total (HTML and PDF) - 5 HTML - 2 PDF - 3 XML - 1 Now if i add filter(say Total) on this analysis view using OLAP cube. Then my analysis view shows the following. Total (HTML and PDF) - 5 Upto this point everything works fine. Now if i click on 5 (to view drill through table) It shows me data against all page type i.e. HTML, PDF, XML but as per filter it should show only HTML and PDF. Is it an exciting issue or am i doing something wrong here? Please help me.

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• Catching specific vs. generic exceptions in c#

  - by Scott Vercuski

  This question comes from a code analysis run against an object I've created. The analysis says that I should catch a more specific exception type than just the basic Exception. Do you find yourself using just catching the generic Exception or attempting to catch a specific Exception and defaulting to a generic Exception using multiple catch blocks? One of the code chunks in question is below: internal static bool ClearFlags(string connectionString, Guid ID) { bool returnValue = false; SqlConnection dbEngine = new SqlConnection(connectionString); SqlCommand dbCmd = new SqlCommand("ClearFlags", dbEngine); SqlDataAdapter dataAdapter = new SqlDataAdapter(dbCmd); dbCmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure; try { dbCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@ID", ID.ToString()); dbEngine.Open(); dbCmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); dbEngine.Close(); returnValue = true; } catch (Exception ex) { ErrorHandler(ex); } return returnValue; } Thank you for your advice EDIT: Here is the warning from the code analysis Warning 351 CA1031 : Microsoft.Design : Modify 'ClearFlags(string, Guid)' to catch a more specific exception than 'Exception' or rethrow the exception

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• .NET Remoting: Getting underlying socket?

  - by Alan

  Hi, I'm writing a light remoting app to assist in debugging a problem with remoting communication. This app mimics much of what a larger application does: Periodically sends a heartbeat to another peer application, and periodically verifies that a heartbeat has been received within some time threshold. What we're seeing is in our big application, the heartbeats seem to get dropped. One peer will go for long periods of time without seeing heartbeats from another peer, until the peer that is "dead" is restarted. The big application is responsive in all other ways. We believe it has something to do with the network setup. We were able to repro the problem locally, and fixed it by making some configuration changes to our test environment. To help our customer diagnose the issue, the mini-remoting app needs to log as much information as possible. So, is there a way to get the underlying socket for the remoting connection? I'm aware that I could write a custom sink for this, but I'd like to keep the actual remoting process as close to what is implemented in the big app as possible. Also as an aside, any ideas why the big-app might be "dropping" heartbeats?

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• Separating code logic from the actual data structures. Best practices?

  - by Patrick

  I have an application that loads lots of data into memory (this is because it needs to perform some mathematical simulation on big data sets). This data comes from several database tables, that all refer to each other. The consistency rules on the data are rather complex, and looking up all the relevant data requires quite some hashes and other additional data structures on the data. Problem is that this data may also be changed interactively by the user in a dialog. When the user presses the OK button, I want to perform all the checks to see that he didn't introduce inconsistencies in the data. In practice all the data needs to be checked at once, so I cannot update my data set incrementally and perform the checks one by one. However, all the checking code work on the actual data set loaded in memory, and use the hashing and other data structures. This means I have to do the following: Take the user's changes from the dialog Apply them to the big data set Perform the checks on the big data set Undo all the changes if the checks fail I don't like this solution since other threads are also continuously using the data set, and I don't want to halt them while performing the checks. Also, the undo means that the old situation needs to be put aside, which is also not possible. An alternative is to separate the checking code from the data set (and let it work on explicitly given data, e.g. coming from the dialog) but this means that the checking code cannot use hashing and other additional data structures, because they only work on the big data set, making the checks much slower. What is a good practice to check user's changes on complex data before applying them to the 'application's' data set?

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

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

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

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