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• Visiting the Emtel Data Centre

  Back in February at the first event of the Emtel Knowledge Series (EKS) I spoke to various people at Emtel about their data centre here on the island. I was trying to see whether it would be possible to arrange a meeting over there for a selected group of our community members. Well, let's say it like this... My first approach wasn't that promising and far from successful but during the following months there were more and more occasions to get in touch with the "right" contact persons at Emtel to make it happen... Setting up an appointment and pre-requisites The major improvement came during a Boot Camp for Windows Phone 8.1 App development organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands in cooperation with Emtel at the Emtel World, Ebene. Apart from learning bits and pieces regarding Universal Apps I took the opportunity to get in touch with Arvin Lockee, Sales Executive - Data, during our lunch break. And this really kicked off the whole procedure. Prior to get access to the Emtel data centre it is requested that you provide full name and National ID of anyone going to visit. Also, it should be noted that there was only a limited amount of seats available. Anyways, packed with this information I posted through the usual social media channels. Responses came in very quickly and based on First-come, first-serve (FCFS) principle I noted down the details and forwarded them to Emtel in order to fix a date and time for the visit. In preparation on our side, all attendees exchanged contact details and we organised transport options to go to the data centre in Arsenal. The day before and on the day of our meeting, Arvin send me a reminder to check whether everything is still confirmed and ready to go... Of course, it was! Arriving at the Emtel Data Centre As I'm coming from Flic En Flac towards the North, we agreed that I'm going to pick up a couple of young fellows near the old post office in Port Louis. All went well, except that Sean eventually might be living in another time zone compared to the rest of us. Anyway, after some extended stop we were complete and arrived just in time in Arsenal to meet and greet with Ish and Veer. Again, Emtel is taking access procedures to their data centre very serious and the gate stayed close until all our IDs had been noted and compared to the list of registered attendees. Despite having a good laugh at the mixture of old and new ID cards it was a straight-forward processing. The ward was very helpful and guided us to the waiting area at the entrance section of the building. Shortly after we were welcomed by Kamlesh Bokhoree, the Data Centre Officer. He gave us brief introduction into the rules and regulations during our visit, like no photography allowed, not touching the buttons, and following his instructions through the whole visit. Of course! Inside the data centre Next, he explained us the multi-factor authentication system using a combination of bio-metric data, like finger print reader, and "classic" pin panel. The Emtel data centre provides multiple services and next to co-location for your own hardware they also offer storage options for your backup and archive data in their massive, fire-resistant vault. Very impressive to get to know about the considerations that have been done in choosing the right location and how to set up the whole premises. It should also be noted that there is 24/7 CCTV surveillance inside and outside the buildings. Strengths of the Emtel TIER 3 Data Centre, Mauritius Finally, we were guided into the first server room. And wow, the whole setup is cleverly planned and outlined in the architecture. From the false floor and ceilings in order to provide optimum air flow, over to the separation of cold and hot aisles between the full-size server racks, and of course the monitored air conditions in order to analyse and watch changes in temperature, smoke detection and other parameters. And not surprisingly everything has been implemented in two independent circuits. There is a standardised classification for the construction and operation of data centres world-wide, and the Emtel's one has been designed to be a TIER 4 building but due to the lack of an alternative power supplier on the island it is officially registered as a TIER 3 compliant data centre. Maybe in the long run there might be a second supplier of energy next to CEB... time will tell. Luckily, the data centre is integrated into the National Fibre Optic Gigabit Ring and Emtel already connects internationally through diverse undersea cable routes like SAFE & LION/LION2 out of Mauritius and through several other providers for onwards connectivity. The data centre is part of the National Fibre Optic Gigabit Ring and has redundant internet connectivity onwards. Meanwhile, Arvin managed to join our little group of geeks and he supported Kamlesh in answering our technical questions regarding the capacities and general operation of the data centre. Visiting the NOC and its dedicated team of IT professionals was surely one of the visual highlights. Seeing their wall of screens to monitor any kind of activities on the data lines, the managed servers and the activity in and around the building was great. Even though I'm using a multi-head setup since years I cannot keep it up with that setup... ;-) But I got a couple of ideas on how to improve my work spaces here at the office. Clear advantages of hosting your e-commerce and mobile backends locally After the completely isolated NOC area we continued our Q&A session with Kamlesh and Arvin in the second server room which is dedictated to shared environments. On first thought it should be well-noted that there is lots of space for full-sized racks and therefore co-location of your own hardware. Actually, given the feedback that there will be upcoming changes in prices the facilities at the Emtel data centre are getting more and more competitive and interesting for local companies, especially small and medium enterprises. After seeing this world-class infrastructure available on the island, I'm already considering of moving one of my root servers abroad to be co-located here on the island. This would provide an improved user experience in terms of site performance and latency. This would be a good improvement, especially for upcoming e-commerce solutions for two of my local clients. Later on, we actually started the conversation of additional services that could be a catalyst for the local market in order to attract more small and medium companies to take the data centre into their evaluations regarding online activities. Until today Emtel does not provide virtualised server environments but there might be ongoing plans in the future to cover this field as well. Emtel is a mobile operator and internet connectivity provider in the first place, entering a market of managed and virtualised server infrastructures including capacities in terms of cloud storage and computing are rather new and there is a continuous learning curve at Emtel, too. You cannot just jump into a new market and see how it works out... And I appreciate Emtel's approach towards a solid fundament and then building new services on top of that. Emtel as a future one-stop-shop service provider for all your internet and telecommunications needs. Emtel's promotional video about their TIER 3 data centre in Arsenal, Mauritius More details are thoroughly described in Emtel's brochure of their data centre. Check out their PDF document here. Thanks for this opportunity Visiting and walking through the Emtel data centre for more than 2 hours was a great experience. As representative of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) I would like to thank anyone at Emtel involved in the process of making it happen, and especially to Arvin Lockee and Kamlesh Bokhoree for their time and patience in explaining the infrastructure and answering all the endless questions from our members. Thank You!

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• DBCC CHECKDB on VVLDB and latches (Or: My Pain is Your Gain)

  - by Argenis

    Does your CHECKDB hurt, Argenis? There is a classic blog series by Paul Randal [blog|twitter] called “CHECKDB From Every Angle” which is pretty much mandatory reading for anybody who’s even remotely considering going for the MCM certification, or its replacement (the Microsoft Certified Solutions Master: Data Platform – makes my fingers hurt just from typing it). Of particular interest is the post “Consistency Options for a VLDB” – on it, Paul provides solid, timeless advice (I use the word “timeless” because it was written in 2007, and it all applies today!) on how to perform checks on very large databases. Well, here I was trying to figure out how to make CHECKDB run faster on a restored copy of one of our databases, which happens to exceed 7TB in size. The whole thing was taking several days on multiple systems, regardless of the storage used – SAS, SATA or even SSD…and I actually didn’t pay much attention to how long it was taking, or even bothered to look at the reasons why - as long as it was finishing okay and found no consistency errors. Yes – I know. That was a huge mistake, as corruption found in a database several days after taking place could only allow for further spread of the corruption – and potentially large data loss. In the last two weeks I increased my attention towards this problem, as we noticed that CHECKDB was taking EVEN LONGER on brand new all-flash storage in the SAN! I couldn’t really explain it, and were almost ready to blame the storage vendor. The vendor told us that they could initially see the server driving decent I/O – around 450Mb/sec, and then it would settle at a very slow rate of 10Mb/sec or so. “Hum”, I thought – “CHECKDB is just not pushing the I/O subsystem hard enough”. Perfmon confirmed the vendor’s observations. Dreaded @BlobEater What was CHECKDB doing all the time while doing so little I/O? Eating Blobs. It turns out that CHECKDB was taking an extremely long time on one of our frankentables, which happens to be have 35 billion rows (yup, with a b) and sucks up several terabytes of space in the database. We do have a project ongoing to purge/split/partition this table, so it’s just a matter of time before we deal with it. But the reality today is that CHECKDB is coming to a screeching halt in performance when dealing with this particular table. Checking sys.dm_os_waiting_tasks and sys.dm_os_latch_stats showed that LATCH_EX (DBCC_OBJECT_METADATA) was by far the top wait type. I remembered hearing recently about that wait from another post that Paul Randal made, but that was related to computed-column indexes, and in fact, Paul himself reminded me of his article via twitter. But alas, our pathologic table had no non-clustered indexes on computed columns. I knew that latches are used by the database engine to do internal synchronization – but how could I help speed this up? After all, this is stuff that doesn’t have a lot of knobs to tweak. (There’s a fantastic level 500 talk by Bob Ward from Microsoft CSS [blog|twitter] called “Inside SQL Server Latches” given at PASS 2010 – and you can check it out here. DISCLAIMER: I assume no responsibility for any brain melting that might ensue from watching Bob’s talk!) Failed Hypotheses Earlier on this week I flew down to Palo Alto, CA, to visit our Headquarters – and after having a great time with my Monkey peers, I was relaxing on the plane back to Seattle watching a great talk by SQL Server MVP and fellow MCM Maciej Pilecki [twitter] called “Masterclass: A Day in the Life of a Database Transaction” where he discusses many different topics related to transaction management inside SQL Server. Very good stuff, and when I got home it was a little late – that slow DBCC CHECKDB that I had been dealing with was way in the back of my head. As I was looking at the problem at hand earlier on this week, I thought “How about I set the database to read-only?” I remembered one of the things Maciej had (jokingly) said in his talk: “if you don’t want locking and blocking, set the database to read-only” (or something to that effect, pardon my loose memory). I immediately killed the CHECKDB which had been running painfully for days, and set the database to read-only mode. Then I ran DBCC CHECKDB against it. It started going really fast (even a bit faster than before), and then throttled down again to around 10Mb/sec. All sorts of expletives went through my head at the time. Sure enough, the same latching scenario was present. Oh well. I even spent some time trying to figure out if NUMA was hurting performance. Folks on Twitter made suggestions in this regard (thanks, Lonny! [twitter]) …Eureka? This past Friday I was still scratching my head about the whole thing; I was ready to start profiling with XPERF to see if I could figure out which part of the engine was to blame and then get Microsoft to look at the evidence. After getting a bunch of good news I’ll blog about separately, I sat down for a figurative smack down with CHECKDB before the weekend. And then the light bulb went on. A sparse column. I thought that I couldn’t possibly be experiencing the same scenario that Paul blogged about back in March showing extreme latching with non-clustered indexes on computed columns. Did I even have a non-clustered index on my sparse column? As it turns out, I did. I had one filtered non-clustered index – with the sparse column as the index key (and only column). To prove that this was the problem, I went and setup a test. Yup, that'll do it The repro is very simple for this issue: I tested it on the latest public builds of SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 (CU6) and SQL Server 2012 SP1 (CU4). First, create a test database and a test table, which only needs to contain a sparse column: CREATE DATABASE SparseColTest; GO USE SparseColTest; GO CREATE TABLE testTable (testCol smalldatetime SPARSE NULL); GO INSERT INTO testTable (testCol) VALUES (NULL); GO 1000000 That’s 1 million rows, and even though you’re inserting NULLs, that’s going to take a while. In my laptop, it took 3 minutes and 31 seconds. Next, we run DBCC CHECKDB against the database: DBCC CHECKDB('SparseColTest') WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS; This runs extremely fast, as least on my test rig – 198 milliseconds. Now let’s create a filtered non-clustered index on the sparse column: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [badBadIndex] ON testTable (testCol) WHERE testCol IS NOT NULL; With the index in place now, let’s run DBCC CHECKDB one more time: DBCC CHECKDB('SparseColTest') WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS; In my test system this statement completed in 11433 milliseconds. 11.43 full seconds. Quite the jump from 198 milliseconds. I went ahead and dropped the filtered non-clustered indexes on the restored copy of our production database, and ran CHECKDB against that. We went down from 7+ days to 19 hours and 20 minutes. Cue the “Argenis is not impressed” meme, please, Mr. LaRock. My pain is your gain, folks. Go check to see if you have any of such indexes – they’re likely causing your consistency checks to run very, very slow. Happy CHECKDBing, -Argenis ps: I plan to file a Connect item for this issue – I consider it a pretty serious bug in the engine. After all, filtered indexes were invented BECAUSE of the sparse column feature – and it makes a lot of sense to use them together. Watch this space and my twitter timeline for a link.

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• Need personal advice on how to get out of a company..

  - by SOfan

  Hi, I am an SO user since past 6 months and this is the first time I am turning to SO for personal help. I have asked technical questions before with my real ID. I am stuck inside a service based IT company for the past one year and haven't been able to decide if to leave it, when to leave it and how to leave it. I had taken 2 weeks LWP on medical reason roughly at end of 1 year and then soon after reporting, I applied for 2 months more LWP (on medical/personal ground) with the intention of working on my health,take up a hobby class to ward off depression,pessimism, to have some fun in life, and to look for a job which I really would be excited about - that interests me and which matches with my strength. My leave starts from this Monday. So in any case, I had hard set in mind that I will leave the company after I join them back hopefully with some job offer already in hand (after figuring out what I want do). Neither I can stand the past project,past colleagues,company, HR, pathetically low salary. But if I really listen to my heart, I don't want to have to go back to that office after my sabbatical and again have to see those people. I will have to resign it after my sabbatical ends. Then HR people perhaps wont like it, may even accuse me on face or behind back that primary purpose of my leave must have been to hunt for a better job and I lied about medical and person reasons. Also, if they get nasty and force me to serve 2 months notice period. There is no way I see myself after sabbatical resuming in old project or starting new work. It will be a pain. Since they have already approved 2 months leave and stuff, ideally if they want, they should be just able to relieve me right on the next day after I join back. But, I don't know if they want to get nasty, will they mention about my 2 months sabbatical leave in my experience letter or more scary, the term medical/personal reason. I have hard earned my experience here, have worked against my will, mostly it has been painful and slogged like anything, because I realize the importance of work experience in IT industry. I don't have greed to have those 2 months included extra in my experience letter, but I don't want to mess up with my experience letter in a way which makes my next employer ask question, get suspicious, or be wary if I have any medical reason going on. Being an emotional,moody person or somebody who can't be in an environment, once my mind and heart starts hating it. I think it perhaps is best, if I resign on Monday itself telling them (in polite manner) something that look I took sabbatical for some reason but I don't want to resume working in the company after my sabbatical ends. So please accept my resignation. Now tell me what you want to do about my leave request, my notice period and when you are willing to relieve me. What should I write and how? Some background: I am working in an IT company in India.I am overqualified in the company. It is grossly underpaying me. My education qualifications far exceed anyone's in the whole company being a CS undergrad as well as a CS grad. I joined this company after finishing the grad. I had self-doubts about my skills and interest as a programmer. I like doing research oriented work, though didn't have any particular success during grad. My life here has been very hectic. The project containing many many sub-projects has kept me on my toes and I have never really liked the work. I have been playing against my strength. Also the company strict internet usage policy (you can't read gmails, can't browse any non-work related sites not even news). When working for a client, from the machine we can't even check company related emails.For this one has to go to kiosk like 5 machines in a small room etc. Most of the times those machines are not available, so it was not unusual to keep making rounds to these kiosk machines to check company emails, browse company related emails etc.So it was not so easy to keep in touch with company related basic affairs for a not particular careful person. Things like this which are new to me, make me feel restricted. I am an undecisive person with a sense of failure, self-doubt, not meeting up unrealistic expectation. Somewhere at back of mind, I envy my classmates who make a smooth transition from company to company without causing any gap in their resume. I on other hand have gaps in resume. I get tired after working in a place for sometime. problem with colleagues in general. I am not particular great with people, have few friends, not known for a fun nature, rather serious, scholar. I am not a typical conventional female. I think females are usually more disciplined. But I am not so. I reach office late (though after informing manager). I don't want to blame them entirely, because from my past, it is not unusual for me to get undecisive on things. Also I had doubts about my ability as researched and to succeed there. of building a relationship in a group, to have something to talk about, newspaper. I get cut-off from people. peer pressure. I make blunders in coding, lose patience. Consciously or unconsciously I feel contempt for people here, work here, environment here. I have doubts that either I go to a place which does innovation, does research oriented work, product biggies, have great motivated people, have competent people passionate about products they are building. But then I also doubt my ability to survive there. I have identified that an idea job for me would be 4 days a week, a high salary job. When among people in company/team, I can't think much. I need some time at home to read good authentic books written in good style on what work I am doing.So that I am comfortable with my understanding of work. I get into pressure easily under deadline and need 5th day to cool myself off. I took for 2 weeks leave, because each day was hell for me. May be the depression phase of bipolar is on and also partially it could be that being a work centered person, who derives happiness,self-esteem from work, haven't been enjoying work and have been working for the sole person of proving stability, and ability to stick, against all odds, and facing what challenges I see, bonding with people, identifying opportunities to learn in given task etc.have been averaging one day LWP in 1 week or 10 days. or may be because of my nature,ADD,not being able to switch context,out of touch with news, don't have a circle of friends with who I enjoy. less knowledge in general to talk about, just some technical stuff.anyway, so due to emotional reason, some practical reason etc, I wanted to be very sure before leaving. So my leave starts from Monday and I should feel happy about it. I have taken the leave to for a few purposes - to take care of my health by regular yoga/exercise (with project on, I just can't do anything regular), reassess myself to see what I want to try next which work I might like, look for next job, take up a hobby which I like say singing. I am not clear on my career,job aspiration. I have tried my hands on research. During this year appraisal yesterday, I even had some conflict with my last manager. In meeting with me one on one, he would say all nice things about me, but in feedback to new manager, he hasn't given any excellent feedback. It is all only good. I am angry at this old Manager. Also new manager also scolded me as I didn't agree to his appraisal and waited to hear myself from old Manager. He kind of scolded me for wasting his time. Am I being unethical somewhere? I am always very conscious of if I am cheating anywhere. What advice I am seeking? How to resign and what to write in resignation letter

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• Ubuntu server PPTPD with OS X clients Problems

  - by Nakedsteve

  I'm trying to get a PPTP server running on a ubuntu server, but I've run into some issues with it. I followed this guide on how to set up pptpd on my server, and everything went smooth, but when I try to connect with my mac, it gives me this error: Here's my configuration: Does anyone have any idea as to what I'm doing wrong here? Update: Here's what the pptpd.log has to say about it: steve@debian:~$ sudo tail /var/log/pptpd.log sudo: unable to resolve host debian Sep 3 21:46:43 debian pptpd[2485]: MGR: Manager process started Sep 3 21:46:43 debian pptpd[2485]: MGR: Maximum of 11 connections available Sep 3 21:46:43 debian pptpd[2485]: MGR: Couldn't create host socket Sep 3 21:46:43 debian pptpd[2485]: createHostSocket: Address already in use Sep 3 21:46:56 debian pptpd[2486]: CTRL: Client 192.168.1.101 control connection started Sep 3 21:46:56 debian pptpd[2486]: CTRL: Starting call (launching pppd, opening GRE) Sep 3 21:46:56 debian pptpd[2486]: GRE: read(fd=6,buffer=204d0,len=8196) from PTY failed: status = -1 error = Input/output error, usually caused by unexpected termination of pppd, check option syntax and pppd logs Sep 3 21:46:56 debian pptpd[2486]: CTRL: PTY read or GRE write failed (pty,gre)=(6,7) Sep 3 21:46:56 debian pptpd[2486]: CTRL: Reaping child PPP[2487] Sep 3 21:46:56 debian pptpd[2486]: CTRL: Client 192.168.1.101 control connection finished My pptpd options are: asyncmap 0 noauth crtscts lock hide-password modem debug proxyarp lcp-echo-interval 30 lcp-echo-failure 4 nopix

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• Windows Share authentication from Active Directory Linux login

  - by Kenny

  I'm using Active Directory to log into RHEL. To do this, I followed the steps outlined here: http://www.markwilson.co.uk/blog/2007/05/using-active-directory-to-authenticate-users-on-a-linux-computer.htm I'd like to be able to read data from Windows Servers shared folders without being prompted for a password. On Windows I log into an AD domain, and when I access windows file shares on a server on the LAN (also part of the AD domain) my I can just access them with no authentication step. I've used SMBclient on Linux to access these shares, but it asks for my password. I would like to be able to script access to the data on the shares, but I can't if there's a password prompt in the way. Well, I could, but it's not how I want to do it. Now, since I'm logged in using my active directory username & password, can't I just access the shares without jumping that extra hoop? I know I can mount the share using something like: //192.168.0.5/share /mnt/windows cifs auto,username=steve,password=secret,rw 0 0 but access will depend who is logged in... each user logging in should have their own unique AD access privelages. Thanks for reading!

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• Windows Share authentication from Active Directory Linux login

  - by Kenny

  Hi, I'm using Active Directory to log into RHEL. To do this, I followed the steps outlined here: http://www.markwilson.co.uk/blog/2007/05/using-active-directory-to-authenticate-users-on-a-linux-computer.htm I'd like to be able to read data from Windows Servers shared folders without being prompted for a password. On Windows I log into an AD domain, and when I access windows file shares on a server on the LAN (also part of the AD domain) my I can just access them with no authentication step. I've used SMBclient on Linux to access these shares, but it asks for my password. I would like to be able to script access to the data on the shares, but I can't if there's a password prompt in the way. Well, I could, but it's not how I want to do it. Now, since I'm logged in using my active directory username & password, can't I just access the shares without jumping that extra hoop? I know I can mount the share using something like: //192.168.0.5/share /mnt/windows cifs auto,username=steve,password=secret,rw 0 0 but access will depend who is logged in... each user logging in should have their own unique AD access privelages. Thanks for reading!

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• Unable To Install SQL Server 2008 On Windows 7 & Windows XP

  - by mickburkejnr

  Hi Guys, you are my final hope of salvation! For the last five hours I've been trying to install SQL Server 2008, first on Windows 7 and then Windows XP. Both have had the same issue. Even before the installation starts, an error message appears saying: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installation has failed. SQL Server 2008 Setup requires .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 to be installed. I have installed everything in the hope of getting past this. the service pack it refers to has even been installed and I can see them in the control panel! I have installed Framework 2.0, Framework 2.0 SP1, Framework 3.5, Framework 3.5 SP1, Windows Installer 3.5 and Windows Installer 4.0. Even installed the Service Pack for SQL Server 2008.... But, nothing, works! Does anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong or what could be wrong? I'm seriously close to the end of my tether, I've even sent Steve Ballmer an email with my frustration. I would seriously appreciate some help with this. Many thanks!

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• Authenticate VNC session with ConsolKit?

  - by lori

  I have a linux machine running Fedora 16 in a cupboard. It has no screen or keyboard. I connect to it using a combination of vnc and ssh. Recently, after an update, I have had issues with authentication on the machine. If I vnc to it, the kde desktop pops up an error dialog every few minutes saying Authorization failed. Failed to obtain authentication. If I plug in a USB drive it fails to mount, Dolphin reports an authentication issue again. I have had limited success finding the solution. AFAICT, it is an issue with ConsoleKit deeming me to be a non-local user so it prevents authentication. This is the output from ck-list-sessions: $ ck-list-sessions Session5: unix-user = '1000' realname = 'steve' seat = 'Seat6' session-type = '' active = FALSE x11-display = ':1' x11-display-device = '' display-device = '' remote-host-name = '' is-local = FALSE on-since = '2012-09-16T08:07:03.137011Z' login-session-id = '1' I have tried to update my .vnc/xstartup script to include ck-launch-session as follows: $ cat ~/.vnc/xstartup #!/bin/sh exec ck-launch-session vncconfig -iconic & unset SESSION_MANAGER unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS export XKL_XMODMAP_DISABLE=1 OS=`uname -s` if [ $OS = 'Linux' ]; then case "$WINDOWMANAGER" in *gnome*) if [ -e /etc/SuSE-release ]; then PATH=$PATH:/opt/gnome/bin export PATH fi ;; esac fi if [ -x /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ]; then exec ck-launch-session /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc fi if [ -f /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ]; then exec ck-launch-session sh /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc fi [ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources exec ck-launch-session xsetroot -solid grey exec ck-launch-session xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" & exec ck-launch-session twm & This has not helped. How can I either authenticate myself to ConsoleKit, or trick it into believing I am a local user?

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• Mac SMB connections to Windows 2003 server, leaving Open Files

  - by Bruce Garlock

  We have several Mac clients (Both 10.5, and 10.6) mounting a share from a Windows 2003 server. At least once a day, our archivist will go into this share to archive items from it, to the backup server. Most of the time, she has no issues: she copies the folder to the archive server, when it's done, she deletes it from this share. Then, she will come upon one, and it will say she doesn't have permission. When I go into the Open sessions, it will say that a particular user has a READ lock on the file, in Windows 2003. Of course, this person does not have the file open, and the only way we can delete it, is to close the open session on the file. My thoughts: The Mac likes to "sprinkle" Hidden "Resource Forks" on SMB servers, and possibly, when this Mac who last wrote to that share, closes out of the file, and these files still exist. Windows 2003 has a bug, that doesn't properly "release" the OPLOCK on the file? Steve Ballmer just doesn't like Mac's, so he wants to annoy everyone by not releasing file locks :-) What can be done about this? It happens every day, and sometimes several times per day! Many thanks, Bruce

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• Fixing a typo in machine name

  - by justSteve

  When i installed windows i had a typo in the machine name that i corrected from the system's 'Computer Name/Domain Changes' - the workstation is a member of a workgroup not a domain. From everything i can see the renamed machine name is correct. Shift gears.... I'm importing SQL logins from my remote server to this, my development workstation and have used the script presented here - a script that generates a CREATE statement for each login found. While I was preparing to run this script's output (from the remote box) i needed to change the domain name from the remote to my local's name - so i ran the same script locally (in order to see what SQL things my domain name is. SQL has the original machine name - the one with the typo. However, the scripts are tossing errors if i try to create logins with that identifier. CREATE LOGIN [Setve\Admin] FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE = [master] But works correctly if i use the updated machine name: CREATE LOGIN [Steve\Admin] FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE = [master] So the problem is: do i have a problem i need to solve? Somewhere, deep in the guts of SQL Server, it has record of a Domain name that does not exist. Should i find and fix that discrepancy? thx

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• Using udev to create a character device based on a driver being loaded

  - by SteveCB

  I'm in the process of setting up RAID monitoring for a number of Dell servers that use the PERC 6i integrated card. We're using Nagios at present and the check_megasasctl plugin seems to fit the bill. However, the plugin relies upon the existence of: /dev/megaraid_sas_ioctl_node This device node doesn't exist by default, you have to create it by hand using something like: mknod /dev/megaraid_sas_ioctl_node c 253 0 Now, to make the existence of this device node persistent across reboots, I thought I could write a udev rule, but as usual, I'm missing something. I thought I could create a file such as /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local/rules that contained: DRIVER=="megasas" NAME="megaraid_sas_ioctl_node" MODE="0600" But this doesn't work - no device node after a reboot. Dmesg output indicates the megasas driver is loaded and functional: megasas: 00.00.04.01-RH1 Thu July 10 09:41:51 PST 2008 megasas: 0x1000:0x0060:0x1028:0x1f0c: bus 1:slot 0:func 0 megasas: FW now in Ready state Further, I don't see any means to instruct udev on which type of device node to create: character or block. I suspect I'm failing to understand exactly how udev is meant to work. I realise I could just cheat and run MegaCLI in /etc/rc.local, redirecting output to /dev/null; it creates the megaraid_sas_ioctl_node device node as part of its execution. I just thought using udev rules would be a) cleaner and b) a useful learning exercise. Perhaps I should just dump the above mknod command in /etc/rc.local... So how do I get udev to create the /dev/megaraid_sas_ioctl_node device node based on the presence of the megasas driver? Cheers Steve

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• SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn

  - by Claus Jandausch

  Ich war nicht nur irritiert, ich war sogar regelrecht schockiert - und für einen kurzen Moment sprachlos (was nur selten der Fall ist). Gerade eben hatte mich jemand gefragt "Wann Oracle denn etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde - und ob überhaupt?" War ich hier im falschen Film gelandet? Ich konnte nicht anders, als meinen Unmut kundzutun und zu erklären, dass die Fragestellung normalerweise anders herum läuft. Zugegeben - es mag vielleicht strittige Punkte geben im Vergleich zwischen Oracle und SQL Server - bei denen nicht unbedingt immer Oracle die Nase vorn haben muss - aber das Thema Clustering für Hochverfügbarkeit (HA), Disaster Recovery (DR) und Skalierbarkeit gehört mit Sicherheit nicht dazu. Dieses Erlebnis hakte ich am Nachgang als Einzelfall ab, der so nie wieder vorkommen würde. Bis ich kurz darauf eines Besseren belehrt wurde und genau die selbe Frage erneut zu hören bekam. Diesmal sogar im Exadata-Umfeld und einem Oracle Stretch Cluster. Einmal ist keinmal, doch zweimal ist einmal zu viel... Getreu diesem alten Motto war mir klar, dass man das so nicht länger stehen lassen konnte. Ich habe keine Ahnung, wie die Microsoft Marketing Abteilung es geschafft hat, unter dem AlwaysOn Brading eine innovative Technologie vermuten zu lassen - aber sie hat ihren Job scheinbar gut gemacht. Doch abgesehen von einem guten Marketing, stellt sich natürlich die Frage, was wirklich dahinter steckt und wie sich das Ganze mit Oracle vergleichen lässt - und ob überhaupt? Damit wären wir wieder bei der ursprünglichen Frage angelangt.  So viel zum Hintergrund dieses Blogbeitrags - von meiner Antwort handelt der restliche Blog. "Windows was the God ..." Um den wahren Unterschied zwischen Oracle und Microsoft verstehen zu können, muss man zunächst das bedeutendste Microsoft Dogma kennen. Es lässt sich schlicht und einfach auf den Punkt bringen: "Alles muss auf Windows basieren." Die Überschrift dieses Absatzes ist kein von mir erfundener Ausspruch, sondern ein Zitat. Konkret stammt es aus einem längeren Artikel von Kurt Eichenwald in der Vanity Fair aus dem August 2012. Er lautet Microsoft's Lost Decade und sei jedem ans Herz gelegt, der die "Microsoft-Maschinerie" unter Steve Ballmer und einige ihrer Kuriositäten besser verstehen möchte. "YOU TALKING TO ME?" Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer bei seiner Keynote auf der 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas am 9. Januar   Manche Dinge in diesem Artikel mögen überspitzt dargestellt erscheinen - sind sie aber nicht. Vieles davon kannte ich bereits aus eigener Erfahrung und kann es nur bestätigen. Anderes hat sich mir erst so richtig erschlossen. Insbesondere die folgenden Passagen führten zum Aha-Erlebnis: “Windows was the god—everything had to work with Windows,” said Stone... “Every little thing you want to write has to build off of Windows (or other existing roducts),” one software engineer said. “It can be very confusing, …” Ich habe immer schon darauf hingewiesen, dass in einem SQL Server Failover Cluster die Microsoft Datenbank eigentlich nichts Nenneswertes zum Geschehen beiträgt, sondern sich voll und ganz auf das Windows Betriebssystem verlässt. Deshalb muss man auch die Windows Server Enterprise Edition installieren, soll ein Failover Cluster für den SQL Server eingerichtet werden. Denn hier werden die Cluster Services geliefert - nicht mit dem SQL Server. Er ist nur lediglich ein weiteres Server Produkt, für das Windows in Ausfallszenarien genutzt werden kann - so wie Microsoft Exchange beispielsweise, oder Microsoft SharePoint, oder irgendein anderes Server Produkt das auf Windows gehostet wird. Auch Oracle kann damit genutzt werden. Das Stichwort lautet hier: Oracle Failsafe. Nur - warum sollte man das tun, wenn gleichzeitig eine überlegene Technologie wie die Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) zur Verfügung steht, die dann auch keine Windows Enterprise Edition voraussetzen, da Oracle die eigene Clusterware liefert. Welche darüber hinaus für kürzere Failover-Zeiten sorgt, da diese Cluster-Technologie Datenbank-integriert ist und sich nicht auf "Dritte" verlässt. Wenn man sich also schon keine technischen Vorteile mit einem SQL Server Failover Cluster erkauft, sondern zusätzlich noch versteckte Lizenzkosten durch die Lizenzierung der Windows Server Enterprise Edition einhandelt, warum hat Microsoft dann in den vergangenen Jahren seit SQL Server 2000 nicht ebenfalls an einer neuen und innovativen Lösung gearbeitet, die mit Oracle RAC mithalten kann? Entwickler hat Microsoft genügend? Am Geld kann es auch nicht liegen? Lesen Sie einfach noch einmal die beiden obenstehenden Zitate und sie werden den Grund verstehen. Anders lässt es sich ja auch gar nicht mehr erklären, dass AlwaysOn aus zwei unterschiedlichen Technologien besteht, die beide jedoch wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) basieren. Denn daraus ergeben sich klare Nachteile - aber dazu später mehr. Um AlwaysOn zu verstehen, sollte man sich zunächst kurz in Erinnerung rufen, was Microsoft bisher an HA/DR (High Availability/Desaster Recovery) Lösungen für SQL Server zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Replikation Basiert auf logischer Replikation und Pubisher/Subscriber Architektur Transactional Replication Merge Replication Snapshot Replication Microsoft's Replikation ist vergleichbar mit Oracle GoldenGate. Oracle GoldenGate stellt jedoch die umfassendere Technologie dar und bietet High Performance. Log Shipping Microsoft's Log Shipping stellt eine einfache Technologie dar, die vergleichbar ist mit Oracle Managed Recovery in Oracle Version 7. Das Log Shipping besitzt folgende Merkmale: Transaction Log Backups werden von Primary nach Secondary/ies geschickt Einarbeitung (z.B. Restore) auf jedem Secondary individuell Optionale dritte Server Instanz (Monitor Server) für Überwachung und Alarm Log Restore Unterbrechung möglich für Read-Only Modus (Secondary) Keine Unterstützung von Automatic Failover Database Mirroring Microsoft's Database Mirroring wurde verfügbar mit SQL Server 2005, sah aus wie Oracle Data Guard in Oracle 9i, war funktional jedoch nicht so umfassend. Für ein HA/DR Paar besteht eine 1:1 Beziehung, um die produktive Datenbank (Principle DB) abzusichern. Auf der Standby Datenbank (Mirrored DB) werden alle Insert-, Update- und Delete-Operationen nachgezogen. Modi Synchron (High-Safety Modus) Asynchron (High-Performance Modus) Automatic Failover Unterstützt im High-Safety Modus (synchron) Witness Server vorausgesetzt     Zur Frage der Kontinuität Es stellt sich die Frage, wie es um diesen Technologien nun im Zusammenhang mit SQL Server 2012 bestellt ist. Unter Fanfaren seinerzeit eingeführt, war Database Mirroring das erklärte Mittel der Wahl. Ich bin kein Produkt Manager bei Microsoft und kann hierzu nur meine Meinung äußern, aber zieht man den SQL AlwaysOn Team Blog heran, so sieht es nicht gut aus für das Database Mirroring - zumindest nicht langfristig. "Does AlwaysOn Availability Group replace Database Mirroring going forward?” “The short answer is we recommend that you migrate from the mirroring configuration or even mirroring and log shipping configuration to using Availability Group. Database Mirroring will still be available in the Denali release but will be phased out over subsequent releases. Log Shipping will continue to be available in future releases.” Damit wären wir endlich beim eigentlichen Thema angelangt. Was ist eine sogenannte Availability Group und was genau hat es mit der vielversprechend klingenden Bezeichnung AlwaysOn auf sich?   SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn Zwei HA-Features verstekcne sich hinter dem “AlwaysOn”-Branding. Einmal das AlwaysOn Failover Clustering aka SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) - zum Anderen die AlwaysOn Availability Groups. Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Entspricht ungefähr dem Stretch Cluster Konzept von Oracle Setzt auf Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) auf Bietet HA auf Instanz-Ebene AlwaysOn Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Ähnlich der Idee von Consistency Groups, wie in Storage-Level Replikations-Software von z.B. EMC SRDF Abhängigkeiten zu Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Bietet HA auf Datenbank-Ebene   Hinweis: Verwechseln Sie nicht eine SQL Server Datenbank mit einer Oracle Datenbank. Und auch nicht eine Oracle Instanz mit einer SQL Server Instanz. Die gleichen Begriffe haben hier eine andere Bedeutung - nicht selten ein Grund, weshalb Oracle- und Microsoft DBAs schnell aneinander vorbei reden. Denken Sie bei einer SQL Server Datenbank eher an ein Oracle Schema, das kommt der Sache näher. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema. Wenn Sie die genauen Unterschiede kennen möchten, finden Sie eine detaillierte Beschreibung in meinem Buch "Oracle10g Release 2 für Windows und .NET", erhältich bei Lehmanns, Amazon, etc.   Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Wie man sieht, basieren beide AlwaysOn Technologien wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC), um einerseits Hochverfügbarkeit auf Ebene der Instanz zu gewährleisten und andererseits auf der Datenbank-Ebene. Deshalb nun eine kurze Beschreibung der WSFC. Die WSFC sind ein mit dem Windows Betriebssystem geliefertes Infrastruktur-Feature, um HA für Server Anwendungen, wie Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, etc. zu bieten. So wie jeder andere Cluster, besteht ein WSFC Cluster aus einer Gruppe unabhängiger Server, die zusammenarbeiten, um die Verfügbarkeit einer Applikation oder eines Service zu erhöhen. Falls ein Cluster-Knoten oder -Service ausfällt, kann der auf diesem Knoten bisher gehostete Service automatisch oder manuell auf einen anderen im Cluster verfügbaren Knoten transferriert werden - was allgemein als Failover bekannt ist. Unter SQL Server 2012 verwenden sowohl die AlwaysOn Avalability Groups, als auch die AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances die WSFC als Plattformtechnologie, um Komponenten als WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen zu registrieren. Verwandte Ressourcen werden in eine Ressource Group zusammengefasst, die in Abhängigkeit zu anderen WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen gebracht werden kann. Der WSFC Cluster Service kann jetzt die Notwendigkeit zum Neustart der SQL Server Instanz erfassen oder einen automatischen Failover zu einem anderen Server-Knoten im WSFC Cluster auslösen.   Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Eine SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanz (FCI) ist eine einzelne SQL Server Instanz, die in einem Failover Cluster betrieben wird, der aus mehreren Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Knoten besteht und so HA (High Availability) auf Ebene der Instanz bietet. Unter Verwendung von Multi-Subnet FCI kann auch Remote DR (Disaster Recovery) unterstützt werden. Eine weitere Option für Remote DR besteht darin, eine unter FCI gehostete Datenbank in einer Availability Group zu betreiben. Hierzu später mehr. FCI und WSFC Basis FCI, das für lokale Hochverfügbarkeit der Instanzen genutzt wird, ähnelt der veralteten Architektur eines kalten Cluster (Aktiv-Passiv). Unter SQL Server 2008 wurde diese Technologie SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering genannt. Sie nutzte den Windows Server Failover Cluster. In SQL Server 2012 hat Microsoft diese Basistechnologie unter der Bezeichnung AlwaysOn zusammengefasst. Es handelt sich aber nach wie vor um die klassische Aktiv-Passiv-Konfiguration. Der Ablauf im Failover-Fall ist wie folgt: Solange kein Hardware-oder System-Fehler auftritt, werden alle Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache auf Platte geschrieben Alle entsprechenden SQL Server Services (Dienste) in der Ressource Gruppe werden auf dem aktiven Knoten gestoppt Die Ownership der Ressource Gruppe wird auf einen anderen Knoten der FCI transferriert Der neue Owner (Besitzer) der Ressource Gruppe startet seine SQL Server Services (Dienste) Die Connection-Anforderungen einer Client-Applikation werden automatisch auf den neuen aktiven Knoten mit dem selben Virtuellen Network Namen (VNN) umgeleitet Abhängig vom Zeitpunkt des letzten Checkpoints, kann die Anzahl der Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache, die noch auf Platte geschrieben werden müssen, zu unvorhersehbar langen Failover-Zeiten führen. Um diese Anzahl zu drosseln, besitzt der SQL Server 2012 eine neue Fähigkeit, die Indirect Checkpoints genannt wird. Indirect Checkpoints ähnelt dem Fast-Start MTTR Target Feature der Oracle Datenbank, das bereits mit Oracle9i verfügbar war.   SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Ein SQL Server Multi-Subnet Failover Cluster entspricht vom Konzept her einem Oracle RAC Stretch Cluster. Doch dies ist nur auf den ersten Blick der Fall. Im Gegensatz zu RAC ist in einem lokalen SQL Server Failover Cluster jeweils nur ein Knoten aktiv für eine Datenbank. Für die Datenreplikation zwischen geografisch entfernten Sites verlässt sich Microsoft auf 3rd Party Lösungen für das Storage Mirroring.     Die Verbesserung dieses Szenario mit einer SQL Server 2012 Implementierung besteht schlicht darin, dass eine VLAN-Konfiguration (Virtual Local Area Network) nun nicht mehr benötigt wird, so wie dies bisher der Fall war. Das folgende Diagramm stellt dar, wie der Ablauf mit SQL Server 2012 gehandhabt wird. In Site A und Site B wird HA jeweils durch einen lokalen Aktiv-Passiv-Cluster sichergestellt.     Besondere Aufmerksamkeit muss hier der Konfiguration und dem Tuning geschenkt werden, da ansonsten völlig inakzeptable Failover-Zeiten resultieren. Dies liegt darin begründet, weil die Downtime auf Client-Seite nun nicht mehr nur von der reinen Failover-Zeit abhängt, sondern zusätzlich von der Dauer der DNS Replikation zwischen den DNS Servern. (Rufen Sie sich in Erinnerung, dass wir gerade von Multi-Subnet Clustering sprechen). Außerdem ist zu berücksichtigen, wie schnell die Clients die aktualisierten DNS Informationen abfragen. Spezielle Konfigurationen für Node Heartbeat, HostRecordTTL (Host Record Time-to-Live) und Intersite Replication Frequeny für Active Directory Sites und Services werden notwendig. Default TTL für Windows Server 2008 R2: 20 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 1 Minute DNS Update Replication Frequency in Windows Umgebung: 180 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 15 Minuten (minimaler Wert)   Betrachtet man diese Werte, muss man feststellen, dass selbst eine optimale Konfiguration die rigiden SLAs (Service Level Agreements) heutiger geschäftskritischer Anwendungen für HA und DR nicht erfüllen kann. Denn dies impliziert eine auf der Client-Seite erlebte Failover-Zeit von insgesamt 16 Minuten. Hierzu ein Auszug aus der SQL Server 2012 Online Dokumentation: Cons: If a cross-subnet failover occurs, the client recovery time could be 15 minutes or longer, depending on your HostRecordTTL setting and the setting of your cross-site DNS/AD replication schedule.    Wir sind hier an einem Punkt unserer Überlegungen angelangt, an dem sich erklärt, weshalb ich zuvor das "Windows was the God ..." Zitat verwendet habe. Die unbedingte Abhängigkeit zu Windows wird zunehmend zum Problem, da sie die Komplexität einer Microsoft-basierenden Lösung erhöht, anstelle sie zu reduzieren. Und Komplexität ist das Letzte, was sich CIOs heutzutage wünschen.  Zur Ehrenrettung des SQL Server 2012 und AlwaysOn muss man sagen, dass derart lange Failover-Zeiten kein unbedingtes "Muss" darstellen, sondern ein "Kann". Doch auch ein "Kann" kann im unpassenden Moment unvorhersehbare und kostspielige Folgen haben. Die Unabsehbarkeit ist wiederum Ursache vieler an der Implementierung beteiligten Komponenten und deren Abhängigkeiten, wie beispielsweise drei Cluster-Lösungen (zwei von Microsoft, eine 3rd Party Lösung). Wie man die Sache auch dreht und wendet, kommt man an diesem Fakt also nicht vorbei - ganz unabhängig von der Dauer einer Downtime oder Failover-Zeiten. Im Gegensatz zu AlwaysOn und der hier vorgestellten Version eines Stretch-Clusters, vermeidet eine entsprechende Oracle Implementierung eine derartige Komplexität, hervorgerufen duch multiple Abhängigkeiten. Den Unterschied machen Datenbank-integrierte Mechanismen, wie Fast Application Notification (FAN) und Fast Connection Failover (FCF). Für Oracle MAA Konfigurationen (Maximum Availability Architecture) sind Inter-Site Failover-Zeiten im Bereich von Sekunden keine Seltenheit. Wenn Sie dem Link zur Oracle MAA folgen, finden Sie außerdem eine Reihe an Customer Case Studies. Auch dies ist ein wichtiges Unterscheidungsmerkmal zu AlwaysOn, denn die Oracle Technologie hat sich bereits zigfach in höchst kritischen Umgebungen bewährt.   Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Die sogenannten Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) sind - neben FCI - der weitere Baustein von AlwaysOn.   Hinweis: Bevor wir uns näher damit beschäftigen, sollten Sie sich noch einmal ins Gedächtnis rufen, dass eine SQL Server Datenbank nicht die gleiche Bedeutung besitzt, wie eine Oracle Datenbank, sondern eher einem Oracle Schema entspricht. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema.   Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe setzt sich zusammen aus einem Set mehrerer Benutzer-Datenbanken, die im Falle eines Failover gemeinsam als Gruppe behandelt werden. Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe unterstützt ein Set an primären Datenbanken (primäres Replikat) und einem bis vier Sets von entsprechenden sekundären Datenbanken (sekundäre Replikate).       Es können jedoch nicht alle SQL Server Datenbanken einer AlwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zugeordnet werden. Der SQL Server Spezialist Michael Otey zählt in seinem SQL Server Pro Artikel folgende Anforderungen auf: Verfügbarkeitsgruppen müssen mit Benutzer-Datenbanken erstellt werden. System-Datenbanken können nicht verwendet werden Die Datenbanken müssen sich im Read-Write Modus befinden. Read-Only Datenbanken werden nicht unterstützt Die Datenbanken in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe müssen Multiuser Datenbanken sein Sie dürfen nicht das AUTO_CLOSE Feature verwenden Sie müssen das Full Recovery Modell nutzen und es muss ein vollständiges Backup vorhanden sein Eine gegebene Datenbank kann sich nur in einer einzigen Verfügbarkeitsgruppe befinden und diese Datenbank düerfen nicht für Database Mirroring konfiguriert sein Microsoft empfiehl außerdem, dass der Verzeichnispfad einer Datenbank auf dem primären und sekundären Server identisch sein sollte Wie man sieht, eignen sich Verfügbarkeitsgruppen nicht, um HA und DR vollständig abzubilden. Die Unterscheidung zwischen der Instanzen-Ebene (FCI) und Datenbank-Ebene (Availability Groups) ist von hoher Bedeutung. Vor kurzem wurde mir gesagt, dass man mit den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen auf Shared Storage verzichten könne und dadurch Kosten spart. So weit so gut ... Man kann natürlich eine Installation rein mit Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und ohne FCI durchführen - aber man sollte sich dann darüber bewusst sein, was man dadurch alles nicht abgesichert hat - und dies wiederum für Desaster Recovery (DR) und SLAs (Service Level Agreements) bedeutet. Kurzum, um die Kombination aus beiden AlwaysOn Produkten und der damit verbundene Komplexität kommt man wohl in der Praxis nicht herum.    Availability Groups und WSFC AlwaysOn hängt von Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) ab, um die aktuellen Rollen der Verfügbarkeitsreplikate einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zu überwachen und zu verwalten, und darüber zu entscheiden, wie ein Failover-Ereignis die Verfügbarkeitsreplikate betrifft. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt de Beziehung zwischen Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und WSFC:   Der Verfügbarkeitsmodus ist eine Eigenschaft jedes Verfügbarkeitsreplikats. Synychron und Asynchron können also gemischt werden: Availability Modus (Verfügbarkeitsmodus) Asynchroner Commit-Modus Primäres replikat schließt Transaktionen ohne Warten auf Sekundäres Synchroner Commit-Modus Primäres Replikat wartet auf Commit von sekundärem Replikat Failover Typen Automatic Manual Forced (mit möglichem Datenverlust) Synchroner Commit-Modus Geplanter, manueller Failover ohne Datenverlust Automatischer Failover ohne Datenverlust Asynchroner Commit-Modus Nur Forced, manueller Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust   Der SQL Server kennt keinen separaten Switchover Begriff wie in Oracle Data Guard. Für SQL Server werden alle Role Transitions als Failover bezeichnet. Tatsächlich unterstützt der SQL Server keinen Switchover für asynchrone Verbindungen. Es gibt nur die Form des Forced Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust. Eine ähnliche Fähigkeit wie der Switchover unter Oracle Data Guard ist so nicht gegeben.   SQL Sever FCI mit Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Neben den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen kann eine zweite Failover-Ebene eingerichtet werden, indem SQL Server FCI (auf Shared Storage) mit WSFC implementiert wird. Ein Verfügbarkeitesreplikat kann dann auf einer Standalone Instanz gehostet werden, oder einer FCI Instanz. Zum Verständnis: Die Verfügbarkeitsgruppen selbst benötigen kein Shared Storage. Diese Kombination kann verwendet werden für lokale HA auf Ebene der Instanz und DR auf Datenbank-Ebene durch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt dieses Szenario:   Achtung! Hier handelt es sich nicht um ein Pendant zu Oracle RAC plus Data Guard, auch wenn das Bild diesen Eindruck vielleicht vermitteln mag - denn alle sekundären Knoten im FCI sind rein passiv. Es existiert außerdem eine weitere und ernsthafte Einschränkung: SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanzen (FCI) unterstützen nicht das automatische AlwaysOn Failover für Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Jedes unter FCI gehostete Verfügbarkeitsreplikat kann nur für manuelles Failover konfiguriert werden.   Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate Ein oder mehrere Verfügbarkeitsreplikate in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe können für den lesenden Zugriff konfiguriert werden, wenn sie als sekundäres Replikat laufen. Dies ähnelt Oracle Active Data Guard, jedoch gibt es Einschränkungen. Alle Abfragen gegen die sekundäre Datenbank werden automatisch auf das Snapshot Isolation Level abgebildet. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Versionierung der Rows. Microsoft versuchte hiermit die Oracle MVRC (Multi Version Read Consistency) nachzustellen. Tatsächlich muss man die SQL Server Snapshot Isolation eher mit Oracle Flashback vergleichen. Bei der Implementierung des Snapshot Isolation Levels handelt sich um ein nachträglich aufgesetztes Feature und nicht um einen inhärenten Teil des Datenbank-Kernels, wie im Falle Oracle. (Ich werde hierzu in Kürze einen weiteren Blogbeitrag verfassen, wenn ich mich mit der neuen SQL Server 2012 Core Lizenzierung beschäftige.) Für die Praxis entstehen aus der Abbildung auf das Snapshot Isolation Level ernsthafte Restriktionen, derer man sich für den Betrieb in der Praxis bereits vorab bewusst sein sollte: Sollte auf der primären Datenbank eine aktive Transaktion zu dem Zeitpunkt existieren, wenn ein lesbares sekundäres Replikat in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen wird, werden die Row-Versionen auf der korrespondierenden sekundären Datenbank nicht sofort vollständig verfügbar sein. Eine aktive Transaktion auf dem primären Replikat muss zuerst abgeschlossen (Commit oder Rollback) und dieser Transaktions-Record auf dem sekundären Replikat verarbeitet werden. Bis dahin ist das Isolation Level Mapping auf der sekundären Datenbank unvollständig und Abfragen sind temporär geblockt. Microsoft sagt dazu: "This is needed to guarantee that row versions are available on the secondary replica before executing the query under snapshot isolation as all isolation levels are implicitly mapped to snapshot isolation." (SQL Storage Engine Blog: AlwaysOn: I just enabled Readable Secondary but my query is blocked?)  Grundlegend bedeutet dies, dass ein aktives lesbares Replikat nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden kann, ohne das primäre Replikat vorübergehend stillzulegen. Da Leseoperationen auf das Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level abgebildet werden, kann die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf dem primären Replikat durch Transaktionen auf einem oder mehreren sekundären Replikaten geblockt werden - z.B. durch eine lang laufende Abfrage auf dem sekundären Replikat. Diese Bereinigung wird auch blockiert, wenn die Verbindung zum sekundären Replikat abbricht oder der Datenaustausch unterbrochen wird. Auch die Log Truncation wird in diesem Zustant verhindert. Wenn dieser Zustand längere Zeit anhält, empfiehlt Microsoft das sekundäre Replikat aus der Verfügbarkeitsgruppe herauszunehmen - was ein ernsthaftes Downtime-Problem darstellt. Die Read-Only Workload auf den sekundären Replikaten kann eingehende DDL Änderungen blockieren. Obwohl die Leseoperationen aufgrund der Row-Versionierung keine Shared Locks halten, führen diese Operatioen zu Sch-S Locks (Schemastabilitätssperren). DDL-Änderungen durch Redo-Operationen können dadurch blockiert werden. Falls DDL aufgrund konkurrierender Lese-Workload blockiert wird und der Schwellenwert für 'Recovery Interval' (eine SQL Server Konfigurationsoption) überschritten wird, generiert der SQL Server das Ereignis sqlserver.lock_redo_blocked, welches Microsoft zum Kill der blockierenden Leser empfiehlt. Auf die Verfügbarkeit der Anwendung wird hierbei keinerlei Rücksicht genommen.   Keine dieser Einschränkungen existiert mit Oracle Active Data Guard.   Backups auf sekundären Replikaten  Über die sekundären Replikate können Backups (BACKUP DATABASE via Transact-SQL) nur als copy-only Backups einer vollständigen Datenbank, Dateien und Dateigruppen erstellt werden. Das Erstellen inkrementeller Backups ist nicht unterstützt, was ein ernsthafter Rückstand ist gegenüber der Backup-Unterstützung physikalischer Standbys unter Oracle Data Guard. Hinweis: Ein möglicher Workaround via Snapshots, bleibt ein Workaround. Eine weitere Einschränkung dieses Features gegenüber Oracle Data Guard besteht darin, dass das Backup eines sekundären Replikats nicht ausgeführt werden kann, wenn es nicht mit dem primären Replikat kommunizieren kann. Darüber hinaus muss das sekundäre Replikat synchronisiert sein oder sich in der Synchronisation befinden, um das Beackup auf dem sekundären Replikat erstellen zu können.   Vergleich von Microsoft AlwaysOn mit der Oracle MAA Ich komme wieder zurück auf die Eingangs erwähnte, mehrfach an mich gestellte Frage "Wann denn - und ob überhaupt - Oracle etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde?" und meine damit verbundene (kurze) Irritation. Wenn Sie diesen Blogbeitrag bis hierher gelesen haben, dann kennen Sie jetzt meine darauf gegebene Antwort. Der eine oder andere Punkt traf dabei nicht immer auf Jeden zu, was auch nicht der tiefere Sinn und Zweck meiner Antwort war. Wenn beispielsweise kein Multi-Subnet mit im Spiel ist, sind alle diesbezüglichen Kritikpunkte zunächst obsolet. Was aber nicht bedeutet, dass sie nicht bereits morgen schon wieder zum Thema werden könnten (Sag niemals "Nie"). In manch anderes Fettnäpfchen tritt man wiederum nicht unbedingt in einer Testumgebung, sondern erst im laufenden Betrieb. Erst recht nicht dann, wenn man sich potenzieller Probleme nicht bewusst ist und keine dedizierten Tests startet. Und wer AlwaysOn erfolgreich positionieren möchte, wird auch gar kein Interesse daran haben, auf mögliche Schwachstellen und den besagten Teufel im Detail aufmerksam zu machen. Das ist keine Unterstellung - es ist nur menschlich. Außerdem ist es verständlich, dass man sich in erster Linie darauf konzentriert "was geht" und "was gut läuft", anstelle auf das "was zu Problemen führen kann" oder "nicht funktioniert". Wer will schon der Miesepeter sein? Für mich selbst gesprochen, kann ich nur sagen, dass ich lieber vorab von allen möglichen Einschränkungen wissen möchte, anstelle sie dann nach einer kurzen Zeit der heilen Welt schmerzhaft am eigenen Leib erfahren zu müssen. Ich bin davon überzeugt, dass es Ihnen nicht anders geht. Nachfolgend deshalb eine Zusammenfassung all jener Punkte, die ich im Vergleich zur Oracle MAA (Maximum Availability Architecture) als unbedingt Erwähnenswert betrachte, falls man eine Evaluierung von Microsoft AlwaysOn in Betracht zieht. 1. AlwaysOn ist eine komplexe Technologie Der SQL Server AlwaysOn Stack ist zusammengesetzt aus drei verschiedenen Technlogien: Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) SQL Server Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Man kann eine derartige Lösung nicht als nahtlos bezeichnen, wofür auch die vielen von Microsoft dargestellten Einschränkungen sprechen. Während sich frühere SQL Server Versionen in Richtung eigener HA/DR Technologien entwickelten (wie Database Mirroring), empfiehlt Microsoft nun die Migration. Doch weshalb dieser Schwenk? Er führt nicht zu einem konsisten und robusten Angebot an HA/DR Technologie für geschäftskritische Umgebungen.  Liegt die Antwort in meiner These begründet, nach der "Windows was the God ..." noch immer gilt und man die Nachteile der allzu engen Kopplung mit Windows nicht sehen möchte? Entscheiden Sie selbst ... 2. Failover Cluster Instanzen - Kein RAC-Pendant Die SQL Server und Windows Server Clustering Technologie basiert noch immer auf dem veralteten Aktiv-Passiv Modell und führt zu einer Verschwendung von Systemressourcen. In einer Betrachtung von lediglich zwei Knoten erschließt sich auf Anhieb noch nicht der volle Mehrwert eines Aktiv-Aktiv Clusters (wie den Real Application Clusters), wie er von Oracle bereits vor zehn Jahren entwickelt wurde. Doch kennt man die Vorzüge der Skalierbarkeit durch einfaches Hinzufügen weiterer Cluster-Knoten, die dann alle gemeinsam als ein einziges logisches System zusammenarbeiten, versteht man was hinter dem Motto "Pay-as-you-Grow" steckt. In einem Aktiv-Aktiv Cluster geht es zwar auch um Hochverfügbarkeit - und ein Failover erfolgt zudem schneller, als in einem Aktiv-Passiv Modell - aber es geht eben nicht nur darum. An dieser Stelle sei darauf hingewiesen, dass die Oracle 11g Standard Edition bereits die Nutzung von Oracle RAC bis zu vier Sockets kostenfrei beinhaltet. Möchten Sie dazu Windows nutzen, benötigen Sie keine Windows Server Enterprise Edition, da Oracle 11g die eigene Clusterware liefert. Sie kommen in den Genuss von Hochverfügbarkeit und Skalierbarkeit und können dazu die günstigere Windows Server Standard Edition nutzen. 3. SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering - Abhängigkeit zu 3rd Party Storage Mirroring  Die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur unterstützt den Aufbau eines Stretch Clusters, basiert dabei aber auf dem Aktiv-Passiv Modell. Das eigentlich Problematische ist jedoch, dass man sich zur Absicherung der Datenbank auf 3rd Party Storage Mirroring Technologie verlässt, ohne Integration zwischen dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) und der darunterliegenden Mirroring Technologie. Wenn nun im Cluster ein Failover auf Instanzen-Ebene erfolgt, existiert keine Koordination mit einem möglichen Failover auf Ebene des Storage-Array. 4. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - Vier, oder doch nur Zwei? Ein primäres Replikat erlaubt bis zu vier sekundäre Replikate innerhalb einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe, jedoch nur zwei im Synchronen Commit Modus. Während dies zwar einen Vorteil gegenüber dem stringenten 1:1 Modell unter Database Mirroring darstellt, fällt der SQL Server 2012 damit immer noch weiter zurück hinter Oracle Data Guard mit bis zu 30 direkten Stanbdy Zielen - und vielen weiteren durch kaskadierende Ziele möglichen. Damit eignet sich Oracle Active Data Guard auch für die Bereitstellung einer Reader-Farm Skalierbarkeit für Internet-basierende Unternehmen. Mit AwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppen ist dies nicht möglich. 5. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - kein asynchrones Switchover  Die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen wird auch als geeignetes Mittel für administrative Aufgaben positioniert - wie Upgrades oder Wartungsarbeiten. Man muss sich jedoch einem gravierendem Defizit bewusst sein: Im asynchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus besteht die einzige Möglichkeit für Role Transition im Forced Failover mit Datenverlust! Um den Verlust von Daten durch geplante Wartungsarbeiten zu vermeiden, muss man den synchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus konfigurieren, was jedoch ernstzunehmende Auswirkungen auf WAN Deployments nach sich zieht. Spinnt man diesen Gedanken zu Ende, kommt man zu dem Schluss, dass die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen für geplante Wartungsarbeiten in einem derartigen Umfeld nicht effektiv genutzt werden kann. 6. Automatisches Failover - Nicht immer möglich Sowohl die SQL Server FCI, als auch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen unterstützen automatisches Failover. Möchte man diese jedoch kombinieren, wird das Ergebnis kein automatisches Failover sein. Denn ihr Zusammentreffen im Failover-Fall führt zu Race Conditions (Wettlaufsituationen), weshalb diese Konfiguration nicht länger das automatische Failover zu einem Replikat in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe erlaubt. Auch hier bestätigt sich wieder die tiefere Problematik von AlwaysOn, mit einer Zusammensetzung aus unterschiedlichen Technologien und der Abhängigkeit zu Windows. 7. Problematische RTO (Recovery Time Objective) Microsoft postioniert die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur als brauchbare HA/DR Architektur. Bedenkt man jedoch die Problematik im Zusammenhang mit DNS Replikation und den möglichen langen Wartezeiten auf Client-Seite von bis zu 16 Minuten, sind strenge RTO Anforderungen (Recovery Time Objectives) nicht erfüllbar. Im Gegensatz zu Oracle besitzt der SQL Server keine Datenbank-integrierten Technologien, wie Oracle Fast Application Notification (FAN) oder Oracle Fast Connection Failover (FCF). 8. Problematische RPO (Recovery Point Objective) SQL Server ermöglicht Forced Failover (erzwungenes Failover), bietet jedoch keine Möglichkeit zur automatischen Übertragung der letzten Datenbits von einem alten zu einem neuen primären Replikat, wenn der Verfügbarkeitsmodus asynchron war. Oracle Data Guard hingegen bietet diese Unterstützung durch das Flush Redo Feature. Dies sichert "Zero Data Loss" und beste RPO auch in erzwungenen Failover-Situationen. 9. Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate mit Einschränkungen Aufgrund des Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level für lesbare sekundäre Replikate, besitzen diese Einschränkungen mit Auswirkung auf die primäre Datenbank. Die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf der primären Datenbank, wird beeinflusst von lang laufenden Abfragen auf der lesabaren sekundären Datenbank. Die lesbare sekundäre Datenbank kann nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden, wenn es aktive Transaktionen auf der primären Datenbank gibt. Zusätzlich können DLL Änderungen auf der primären Datenbank durch Abfragen auf der sekundären blockiert werden. Und imkrementelle Backups werden hier nicht unterstützt.   Keine dieser Restriktionen existiert unter Oracle Data Guard.

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• Fitting it together, database, reporting, applications in C#

  - by alvonellos

  Introduction Preamble I was hesitant to post this, since it's an application whose intricate details are defined elsewhere, and answers may not be helpful to others. Within the past few weeks (I was actually going to write a blog post about this after I finished) I've discovered that the barrier I'm encountering is one that's actually quite common for newer developers. This question is not so much about a specific thing as it is about piecing those things together. I've searched the internet far and wide, and found many tutorials on how to create applications that are kind of similar to what I'm looking for. I've also looked at hiring another, more experienced, developer to help me along, but all I've gotten are unqualified candidates that don't have the experience necessary and won't take care of the client or project like I will. I'd rather have the project never transpire than to release a solution that is half-baked. I've asked professors at my school, but they've not turned up answers to my question. I'm an experienced developer, and I've written many applications that are -- very abstractly -- close to what I'm doing, but my experiences from those applications aren't giving me enough leverage to solve this particular problem. I just hope that posting this article isn't a mistake for me to write. Project Description I have a project I'm working on for a client that is a rewrite of an application, originally written in Foxpro 2.6 by someone before me, that performs some analysis (which, sadly, I'm not allowed to disclose as per of my employment contract) on financial data. One day, after a long talk between the client and I -- where he intimately described his frustrations with all the bugs I've been hacking out of this code for 6 months now -- he told me to just rewrite it and gave me a month to write a good 1/8 of this 65k LOC Foxpro monstrosity. this 65k line of code foxpro monstrosity. It'll take me a good 3 - 6 months to rewrite this software (I know things the original programmer did not, like inheritance) going as I am right now, but I'm quickly discovering that I'm going to need to use databases. Prior to this contract I didn't even know about foxpro, and so I've had to learn foxpro on the fly, write procedures and make modifications to the database. I've actually come to like it, and this project would be rewritten in Foxpro if it were still a supported language, because over the past few months, I've come to like the features of Foxpro that make it so easy to develop data-driven applications. I once perfomed an experiment, comparing C# to Foxpro. What took me 45 minutes in C# took me two in Foxpro, and I knew C# prior to Foxpro. I was hoping to leverage the power of C#, but it intimidates me that in foxpro, you can have one line of code and be using a database. Prior to this, I have never written any serious database development from scratch. All the applications that I've written are in a different league. They are either completely data-naive or data-naive enough that I can get away with not using a database through serialization or by designing algorithms that work with the data in a manner that is stateless, so there is no need to worry about databases. I've come to realize, very quickly, that serialization and my efficacy with data structures has been my crutch all these years that's prevented me from adventuring into databases, and has consequently hindered my success in real-world programming. Sure, I've written some database stuff in Perl and Python, and I've done forms and worked with relational databases and tables, I'm a wizard in Access and Excel (seriously) and can do just about anything, but it just feels unnatural writing SQL code in another language... I don't mind writing SQL, and I don't It's that bridge between the database and the program code that drives me absolutely bonkers. I hope I'm not the only one to think this, but it bothers me that I have to create statements like the following string sSql = "SELECT * from tablename" When there's really no reason for that kind of unchecked language binding between two languages and two API's. Don't get my wrong, SQL is great, but I don't like the idea that, when executing commands on a SQL database, that one must intermix database and application software, and there's no database independence, which means that different versions of different databases can break code. This isn't very nice. The nicest thing about Foxpro is the cohesiveness between programming language and database. It's so easy, and Foxpro makes it easy, because the tool just fits the task. I can see why so many developers have created a career with this language, because it lowered the barrier of entry to data-driven applications that so many businesses need. It was wonderful. For my purposes today, with the demands and need for community support, extensibility, and language features, Foxpro isn't a solution that I feel would be the right tool for the job. I'm also worried about working too heavy with the database, because I've seen data-driven .NET applications have issues with database caches, running out of memory, and objects in the database not being collected. (Memory leaks) And OH the queries. Which one, how, and why? There are a plethora of different ways that a database can be setup, I think I counted 5 or 6 different kinds of database applications alone that I can chose from. That is a great mountain for me to climb when I don't even know where to begin when it comes to writing data-driven applications. The problem isn't that I don't know SQL or that I don't know C#. I know both and have worked with both extensively. It's making them work together that's the problem, and it's something I've never done in C# before. Reports The client likes paper. The data needs to be printed out in a format that is extensible, layered, and easy to use. I have never done reporting before, and so this is a bit of a problem. From the data source comes crystal reports, and so there's a dependency on the database, from what I understand. Code reuse A large part of the design decision that I've gone through so far is to break the task of writing a piece of this software into routines and modular DLL's and so forth such that much of the code can be reused. For example, when I setup this database, I want to be able to reuse the same database code over and over again. I also want to make sure that when the day comes that another developer is here, that he/she will be able to pick up just where I left off. The quicker I develop these applications, the better off I am. Tasks & Goals In my project, I need to write routines that apply algorithms and look for predefined patterns in financial data. Additionally, I need to simulate trading based on predefined algorithms and data. Then I need to prepare reports on that data. Additionally, I need to have a way to change the code base for this application quickly and effectively, without hacking together some band-aid solution for a problem that really needs a trauma ward. Special Considerations The solution must be fast, run quickly on existing hardware, and not be too much of a pain to maintain and write. I understand that anything I write I'm married to -- I'm responsible for the things that I write because my reputation and livelihood is dependent on it. Do I really need a database? What about performance? Performance was such a big issue that I hand wrote a data structure that is capable of performing 2 billion operations, using a total of 4 gigs of memory in under 1/4 of a second using the standard core two duo processor. I could not find a similar, pre-written data structure in C# to perform this task. What setup do I use in terms of database? What about reporting? I'd prefer to have PDF's generated, but I'd like to be able to visually sketch those reports and then just have a ReportFactory of some sort, that when I pass some variables in, it just does that data. About Me I'm a lone developer for a small business in this area. This is the first time I've done this and I've never had the breadth and depth of my knowledge tested. I'm incredibly frustrated with this project because I feel incredibly overwhelmed with the task at hand. I'm looking for that entry level point where I can draw a line and say "this is what I need to do" Conclusion I may have not been clear enough on my post. I'm still new to this whole thing, and I've been doing my best to contribute back to the community that I've leached so much knowledge from. I'd be glad to edit my post and add more information if possible. I'm looking for a big-picture solution or design process that helps me get off the ground in this world of data-driven applications, because I have a feeling that it's going to be concentric to my entire career as a programmer for some time. Specifically, if you didn't get it from the rest of the post (I may not have been clear enough) I really need some guidance as to where to go in terms of the design decisions for this project. Some things that'll be useful will be a pro/con list for the different kinds of database projects available in VS2010. I've tried, but generating that list has been as hard as solving the problem itself... If you could walk a developer writing a data-driven application for the first time in C#, how would you do that? Where would you point them to?

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• 11 Types of Developers

  - by Lee Brandt

  Jack Dawson Jack Dawson is the homeless drifter in Titanic. At one point in the movie he says, “I figure life’s a gift, and I don’t intend on wasting it.” He is happy to wander wherever life takes him. He works himself from place to place, making just enough money to make it to his next adventure. The “Jack Dawson” developer clings on to any new technology as the ‘next big thing’, and will find ways to shoe-horn it in to places where it is not a fit. He is very appealing to the other developers because they want to try the newest techniques and tools too, He will only stay until the new technology either bores him or becomes problematic. Jack will also be hard to find once the technology has been implemented, because he will be on to the next shiny thing. However, having a Jack Dawson on your team can be beneficial. Jack can be a great ally when attempting to convince a stodgy, corporate entity to upgrade. Jack usually has an encyclopedic recall of all the new features of the technology upgrade and is more than happy to interject them in any conversation. Tom Smykowski Tom is the neurotic employee in Office Space, and is deathly afraid of being fired. He will do only what is necessary to keep the status quo. He believes as long as nothing changes, his job is safe. He will scoff at anything new and be the naysayer during any change initiative. Tom can be useful in off-setting Jack Dawson. Jack will constantly be pushing for change and Tom will constantly be fighting it. When you see that Jack is getting kind of bored with a new technology and Tom has finally stopped wetting himself at the mere mention of it, then it is probably the sweet spot of beginning to implement that new technology (providing it is the right tool for the job). Ray Consella Ray is the guy who built the Field of Dreams. He took a risk. Sometimes he screwed it up, but he knew he didn’t want to end up regretting not attempting it. He constantly doubted himself, but he knew he had to keep going. Granted, he was doing what the voices in his head were telling him to do, but my point is he was driven to do something that most people considered crazy. Even when his friends, his wife and even he told himself he was crazy, somewhere inside himself, he knew it was the right thing to do. These are the innovators. These are the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the world. The take risks, they fail, they learn and the get better. Obviously, this kind of person thrives in start-ups and smaller companies, but that is due to their natural aversion to bureaucracy. They want to see their ideas put into motion quickly, and withdrawn quickly if it doesn’t work. Short feedback cycles are essential to Ray. He wants to know if his idea is working or not. He wants to modify or reverse his idea if it is not working or makes things worse. These are the agilistas. May I always be one.

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• Is Microsoft&rsquo;s Cloud Bet Placed on the Ground?

  - by andrewbrust

  Today at the Unversity of Washington, Steve Ballmer gave a speech on Microsoft’s cloud strategy.  Significantly, Azure was only briefly mentioned and was not shown.  Instead, Ballmer spoke about what he called the five “dimensions” of the cloud, and used that as the basis for an almost philosophical discussion.  Ballmer opined on how the cloud should be distinguished from the Internet.as well as what the cloud will and should enable.  Ballmer worked hard to portray the cloud not as a challenger to Windows and PCs (as Google would certainly suggest it is) but  really as just the latest peripheral that adds value to PCs and devices. At one point during his speech, Ballmer said “We start with Windows at Microsoft.  It’s the most popular smart device on the planet.  And our design center for the future of Windows is to make it one of those smarter devices that the cloud really wants.”  I’m not sure I agree with Ballmer’s ambition here, but I must admit he’s taken the “software + services” concept and expanded on it in more consumer-friendly fashion. There were demos too.  For example, Blaise Aguera y Arcas reprised his Bing Maps demo from the TED conference held last month.  And Simon Atwell showed how Microsoft has teamed with Sky TV in the UK to turn Xbox into something that looks uncannily like Windows Media Center.  Specifically, an Xbox console app called Sky Player provides full access to Sky’s on-demand programming but also live TV access to an array of networks carried on its home TV service, complete with an on-screen programming guide.  Windows Phone 7 Series was shown quickly and Ballmer told us that while Windows Mobile/Phone 6.5 and earlier were designed for voice and legacy functionality, Windows Phone 7 Series is designed for the cloud. Over and over during Ballmer’s talk (and those of his guest demo presenters), the message was clear: Microsoft believes that client (“smart”) devices, and not mere HTML terminals, are the technologies to best deliver on the promise of the cloud.  The message was that PCs running Windows, game consoles and smart phones  whose native interfaces are Internet-connected offer the most effective way to utilize cloud capabilities.  Even the Bing Maps demo conveyed this message, because the advanced technology shown in the demo uses Silverlight (and thus the PCs computing power), and not AJAX (which relies only upon the browser’s native scripting and rendering capabilities) to produce the impressive interface shown to the audience. Microsoft’s new slogan, with respect to the cloud, is “we’re all in.”  Just as a Texas Hold ‘em player bets his entire stash of chips when he goes all in, so too is Microsoft “betting the company” on the cloud.  But it would seem that Microsoft’s bet isn’t on the cloud in a pure sense, and is instead on the power of the cloud to fuel new growth in PCs and other client devices, Microsoft’s traditional comfort zone.  Is that a bet or a hedge?  If the latter, is Microsoft truly all in?  I don’t really know.  I think many people would say this is a sucker’s bet.  But others would say it’s suckers who bet against Microsoft.  No matter what, the burden is on Microsoft to prove this contrarian view of the cloud is a sensible one.  To do that, they’ll need to deliver on cloud-connected device innovation.  And to do that, the whole company will need to feel that victory is crucial.  Time will tell.  And I expect to present progress reports in future posts.

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• Using the Katana Authentication handlers with NancyFx

  - by cibrax

  Once you write an OWIN Middleware service, it can be reused everywhere as long as OWIN is supported. In my last post, I discussed how you could write an Authentication Handler in Katana for Hawk (HMAC Authentication). Good news is NancyFx can be run as an OWIN handler, so you can use many of existing middleware services, including the ones that are ship with Katana. Running NancyFx as a OWIN handler is pretty straightforward, and discussed in detail as part of the NancyFx documentation here. After run the steps described there and you have the application working, only a few more steps are required to register the additional middleware services. The example bellow shows how the Startup class is modified to include Hawk authentication. public class Startup { public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app) { app.UseHawkAuthentication(new HawkAuthenticationOptions { Credentials = (id) => { return new HawkCredential { Id = "dh37fgj492je", Key = "werxhqb98rpaxn39848xrunpaw3489ruxnpa98w4rxn", Algorithm = "hmacsha256", User = "steve" }; } }); app.UseNancy(); } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This code registers the Hawk Authentication Handler on top of the OWIN pipeline, so it will try to authenticate the calls before the request messages are passed over to NancyFx. The authentication handlers in Katana set the user principal in the OWIN environment using the key “server.User”. The following code shows how you can get that principal in a NancyFx module, public class HomeModule : NancyModule { public HomeModule() { Get["/"] = x => { var env = (IDictionary<string, object>)Context.Items[NancyOwinHost.RequestEnvironmentKey]; if (!env.ContainsKey("server.User") || env["server.User"] == null) { return HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized; } var identity = (ClaimsPrincipal)env["server.User"]; return "Hello " + identity.Identity.Name; }; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Thanks to OWIN, you don’t know any details of how these cross cutting concerns can be implemented in every possible web application framework.

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• Guest (and occasional co-host) on Jesse Liberty's Yet Another Podcast

  - by Jon Galloway

  I was a recent guest on Jesse Liberty's Yet Another Podcast talking about the latest Visual Studio, ASP.NET and Azure releases. Download / Listen: Yet Another Podcast #75–Jon Galloway on ASP.NET/ MVC/ Azure Co-hosted shows: Jesse's been inviting me to co-host shows and I told him I'd show up when I was available. It's a nice change to be a drive-by co-host on a show (compared with the work that goes into organizing / editing / typing show notes for Herding Code shows). My main focus is on Herding Code, but it's nice to pop in and talk to Jesse's excellent guests when it works out. Some shows I've co-hosted over the past year: Yet Another Podcast #76–Glenn Block on Node.js & Technology in China Yet Another Podcast  #73 - Adam Kinney on developing for Windows 8 with HTML5 Yet Another Podcast #64 - John Papa & Javascript Yet Another Podcast #60 - Steve Sanderson and John Papa on Knockout.js Yet Another Podcast #54–Damian Edwards on ASP.NET Yet Another Podcast #53–Scott Hanselman on Blogging Yet Another Podcast #52–Peter Torr on Windows Phone Multitasking Yet Another Podcast #51–Shawn Wildermuth: //build, Xaml Programming & Beyond And some more on the way that haven't been released yet. Some of these I'm pretty quiet, on others I get wacky and hassle the guests because, hey, not my podcast so not my problem. Show notes from the ASP.NET / MVC / Azure show: What was just released Visual Studio 2012 Web Developer features ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms Strongly Typed data controls Data access via command methods Similar Binding syntax to ASP.NET MVC Some context: Damian Edwards and WebFormsMVP Two questions from Jesse: Q: Are you making this harder or more complicated for Web Forms developers? Short answer: Nothing's removed, it's just a new option History of SqlDataSource, ObjectDataSource Q: If I'm using some MVC patterns, why not just move to MVC? Short answer: This works really well in hybrid applications, doesn't require a rewrite Allows sharing models, validation, other code between Web Forms and MVC ASP.NET MVC Adaptive Rendering (oh, also, this is in Web Forms 4.5 as well) Display Modes Mobile project template using jQuery Mobile OAuth login to allow Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc. login Jon (and friends') MVC 4 book on the way: Professional ASP.NET MVC 4 Windows 8 development Jesse and Jon announce they're working on a new book: Pro Windows 8 Development with XAML and C# Jon and Jesse agree that it's nice to be able to write Windows 8 applications using the same skills they picked up for Silverlight, WPF, and Windows Phone development. Compare / contrast ASP.NET MVC and Windows 8 development Q: Does ASP.NET and HTML5 development overlap? Jon thinks they overlap in the MVC world because you're writing HTML views without controls Jon describes how his web development career moved from a preoccupation with server code to a focus on user interaction, which occurs in the browser Jon mentions his NDC Oslo presentation on Learning To Love HTML as Beautiful Code Q: How do you apply C# / XAML or HTML5 skills to Windows 8 development? Q: If I'm a XAML programmer, what's the learning curve on getting up to speed on ASP.NET MVC? Jon describes the difference in application lifecycle and state management Jon says it's nice that web development is really interactive compared to application development Q: Can you learn MVC by reading a book? Or is it a lot bigger than that? What is Azure, and why would I use it? Jon describes the traditional Azure platform mode and how Azure Web Sites fits in Q: Why wouldn't Jesse host his blog on Azure Web Sites? Domain names on Azure Web Sites File hosting options Q: Is Azure just another host? How is it different from any of the other shared hosting options? A: Azure gives you the ability to scale up or down whenever you want A: Other services are available if or when you want them

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• Travelling MVP #4: DevReach 2012

  - by DigiMortal

  Our next stop after Varna was Sofia where DevReach happens. DevReach is one of my favorite conferences in Europe because of sensible prices and strong speakers line-up. Also they have VIP-party after conference and this is good event to meet people you don’t see every day, have some discussion with speakers and find new friends. Our trip from Varna to Sofia took about 6.5 hours on bus. As I was tired from last evening it wasn’t problem for me as I slept half the trip. After smoking pause in Velike Tarnovo I watched movies from bus TV. We had supper later in city center Happy’s – place with good meat dishes and nice service. And next day it begun…. :) DevReach 2012 DevReach is held usually in Arena Mladost. It’s near airport and Telerik office. The event is organized by local MVP Martin Kulov together with Telerik. Two days of sessions with strong speakers is good reason enough for me to go to visit some event. Some topics covered by sessions: Windows 8 development web development SharePoint Windows Azure Windows Phone architecture Visual Studio Practically everybody can find some interesting session in every time slot. As the Arena is not huge it is very easy to go from one sessions to another if selected session for time slot is not what you expected. On the second floor of Arena there are many places where you can eat. There are simple chunk-food places like Burger King and also some restaurants. If you are hungry you will find something for your taste for sure. Also you can buy beer if it is too hot outside :) Weather was very good for October – practically Estonian summer – 25C and over. Sessions I visited Here is the list of sessions I visited at DevReach 2012: DevReach 2012 Opening & Welcome Messsage with Martin Kulov and Stephen Forte Principled N-Tier Solution Design with Steve Smith Data Patterns for the Cloud with Brian Randell .NET Garbage Collection Performance Tips with Sasha Goldshtein Building Secured, Scalable, Low-latency Web Applications with the Windows Azure Platform with Ido Flatow It’s a Knockout! MVVM Style Web Applications with Charles Nurse Web Application Architecture – Lessons Learned from Adobe Brackets with Brian Rinaldi Demystifying Visual Studio 2012 Performance Tools with Martin Kulov SPvNext – A Look At All the Exciting And New Features In SharePoint with Sahil Malik Portable Libraries – Why You Should Care with Lino Tadros I missed some sessions because of some death march projects that are going and that I have to coordinate but it was not big loss as I had time to walk around in session venue neighborhood and see Sofia Business Park. Next year again! I will be there again next year and hopefully more guys from Estonia will join me. I think it’s good idea to take short vacation for DevReach time and do things like we did this time – Bucharest, Varna, Sofia. It’s only good idea to plan some more free time so we are not very much in hurry and also we have no work stuff to do on the trip. This far this trip has been one of best trips I have organized and I will go and meet all those guys in this region again! :)

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• Session Update from IASA 2010

  - by [email protected]

  Below: Tom Kristensen, senior vice president at Marsh US Consumer, and Roger Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, senior director of insurance strategy, Oracle Insurance. Tom and Roger participated in a panel discussion on policy administration systems this week at IASA 2010. This week was the 82nd Annual IASA Educational Conference & Business Show held in Grapevine, Texas. While attending the conference, I had the pleasure of serving as a panelist in one of many of the outstanding sessions conducted this year. The session - entitled "Achieving Business Agility and Promoting Growth with a Modern Policy Administration System" - included industry experts Steve Forte from OneShield, Mike Sciole of IFG Companies, and Tom Kristensen, senior vice president at Marsh US Consumer. The session was conducted as a panel discussion and focused on how insurers can leverage best practices to mitigate risk while enabling rapid product innovation through a modern policy administration system. The panelists offered insight into business and technical challenges for both Life & Annuity and Property & Casualty carriers. The session had three primary learning objectives: Identifying how replacing a legacy system with a more modern policy administration solution can deliver agility and growth Identifying how processes and system should be re-engineered or replaced in order to improve speed-to-market and product support Uncovering how to leverage best practices to mitigate risk during a migration to a new platform Tom Kristensen, who is an industry veteran with over 20 years of experience, was able was able to offer a unique perspective as a business process outsourcer (BPO). Marsh US Consumer is currently implementing both the Oracle Insurance Policy Administration solution and the Oracle Revenue Management and Billing platform while at the same time implementing a new BPO customer. Tom offered insight on the need to replace their aging systems and Marsh's ability to drive new products and processes with a modern solution. As a best practice, their current project has empowered their business users to play a major role in both the requirements gathering and configuration phases. Tom stated that working with a modern solution has also enabled his organization to use a more agile implementation methodology and get hands-on experience with the software earlier in the project. He also indicated that Marsh was encouraged by how quickly it will be able to implement new products, which is another major advantage of a modern rules-based system. One of the more interesting issues was raised by an audience member who asked, "With all the vendor solutions available in North American and across Europe, what is going to make some of them more successful than others and help ensure their long term success?" Panelist Mike Sciole, IFG Companies suggested that carriers do their due diligence and follow a structured evaluation process focusing on vendors who demonstrate they have the "cash to invest in long term R&D" and evaluate audited annual statements for verification. Other panelists suggested that the vendor space will continue to evolve and those with a strong strategy focused on the insurance industry and a solid roadmap will likely separate themselves from the rest. The session concluded with the panelists offering advice about not being afraid to evaluate new modern systems. While migrating to a new platform can be challenging and is typically only undertaken every 15+ years by carriers, the ability to rapidly deploy and manage new products, create consistent processes to better service customers, and the ability to manage their business more effectively, transparently and securely are well worth the effort. Roger A.Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, is the Senior Director of Insurance Strategy, Oracle Insurance.

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• Enable Full Screen Mode in Media Center Without Trapping the Mouse

  - by DigitalGeekery

  If you have a dual monitor setup and use Windows Media Center, you’re probably aware that when WMC is in full screen mode, it traps the mouse so you can’t work on a second monitor. Here we look at how to solve the annoyance. The Maxifier is an application that allows you to open Media Center in full screen mode without restricting the mouse. It relieves the annoyance of WMC capturing your mouse on a dual monitor setup. Note: If you don’t have two monitors attached, most of The Maxifier’s functions won’t work. Installation and Use Download, extract, and install The Maxifier. (See the download link below) The Maxifier runs minimized in the system tray and you access the options by right-clicking on the icon. If Media Center is not already open, you can choose Start Media Center to start WMC on the main start screen. Or, choose one of the other selections to open another area of Media Center. By default, Maxifier opens Media Center in full screen mode on the secondary monitor. When Media Center is open in full screen mode, you’ll notice you can now freely move your mouse around your multi-monitor setup. When Media Center is open, you’ll see five additional options. The Fit Screen options simply fits Media Center to the full screen, but still show the Windows borders. Full screen options put WMC in full screen mode.   The Maxifier Options allow you to choose from the various start up options. Selecting Watch for Media Center starting will prompt Maxifier to open WMC to the main start page in full screen mode on the secondary monitor automatically, even if you open Media Center without using The Maxifier.  (You may need to restart for this to take effect) If you have more than 2 monitors, you can define on which monitor to open Media Center, and which monitor you consider to be the main screen.   You can also define a number of Hotkeys in The Maxifier settings. First, select the Enable Hotkeys checkbox. To create a Hotkey, click in the text field and then press the keys to use as the Hotkey. To remove a Hotkey, click in the field and press the Delete key.   Conclusion The Maxifier is a simple program that enables Media Center users to take full advantage of a multi-monitor workspace. It works with both Vista and Windows 7. Version 1.4 is a stable application for Vista, and Version 1.5b is a beta application for Windows 7. Looking for more Media Center tips and tweaks? Check out some startup customizations for Windows 7 Media Center, how to automatically mount and view ISO’s in WMC, and how to add background images and themes to Windows 7 Media Center. Link Download the Maxifier Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Startup Customizations for Media Center in Windows 7Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Lock The Screen While in Full-Screen Mode in Windows Media PlayerSwitch Windows by Hovering the Mouse Over a Window in Windows 7 or VistaIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Steve Jobs’ iPhone 4 Keynote Video Watch World Cup Online On These Sites Speed Up Windows With ReadyBoost Awesome World Cup Soccer Calendar Nice Websites To Watch TV Shows Online 24 Million Sites

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• Subscribable World Cup 2010 Calendar

  - by jamiet

  I bang on quite a lot on this blog about ways in which data can get published over the web and one of the most interesting ways, in my opinion, of publishing data in a structured manner that is well understood is to use the iCalendar specification. There isn’t much information in the world that doesn’t have some concept of “when” so iCalendar is a great way of distributing that information. You have probably used iCalendar at some point without even knowing about it. All files with a .ics suffix are iCalendar format files and that is why you can happily import them into Outlook, Hotmail Calendar, Google Calendar etc… where they can be parsed and have the semantic data (when, where and who) extracted from them. Importing of iCalendar format data is really only half the trick though; in my opinion the real value of iCalendar-formatted calendar is the ability to subscribe to them. Subscribing has a simple benefit over importing but that single benefit is of massive importance: a subscriber to an iCalendar calendar can periodically check to see if any updates have been made and, if they have, automatically update the local copy. The real benefit to the user is the productivity gain – a single update to an iCalendar means that all subscribers are automatically made aware of the change and there is zero effort on the part of the subscriber; as my former colleague Howard van Rooijen is fond of saying, “work smarter not harder” – nowhere is this edict more ably demonstrated than subscribing versus importing of calendars. If you want to read some more thoughts about iCalendar then go and read my past blog post Calendar syndication - My big hope for 2009's breakthrough technology or better still go and seek out Jon Udell who speaks very authoritatively on the issue of iCalendar. With this subject of iCalendar on my mind I was interested to discover (via Steve Clayton’s blog post Download the world cup fixtures) that the BBC had made a .ics file available containing all of the matches in the upcoming World Cup. As you can probably guess this was a file that was made available so that it could be imported into your calendar of choice. It had one obvious downside though, right now nobody knows who is going to be playing in the knock-out stages so the calendar looks like this: with no teams being named after 25th June. How much more useful would this calendar have been if the BBC had made it possible to subscribe to the calendar instead, thus the calendar could be updated with the teams for the knock out stages when they are known and every subscriber would have a permanently up-to-date record of all the fixtures in their calendar. Better still, the calendar could be updated with match results as well or perhaps even post a match report from the BBC sport pages; when calendars are made subscribable a sea of opportunity opens up for distribution of information. So with that in mind I have decided to go one better than the BBC. I have imported their .ics into a brand new Hotmail calendar and made it publicly available at the following URLs: HTML http://cid-dc1ed121af0476be.calendar.live.com/calendar/World+Cup+2010/index.html iCalendar webcal://cid-dc1ed121af0476be.calendar.live.com/calendar/World+Cup+2010/calendar.ics The link you’re really interested in is the second one - click on that and it should open up in your calendar software of choice. Or, if you want to view it in an online calendar such as Hotmail Calendar or Google Calendar, copy and paste that URL into the appropriate place. I shall endeavour to keep the calendar updated throughout the World Cup and even if I don’t you’re no worse off than if you had imported the BBC’s .ics file so why not give it a try? If I do keep it up to date then you will have a permanent record of the 2010 World Cup available in your calendar. Forever. If you have your calendar synced to your smartphone then you’ll be carrying match reports around with you without you having to do a single thing. Surely that’s worth a quick click isn’t it?   If you have any thoughts let me have them in the comments below. Thanks for reading. @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• jtreg update, March 2012

  - by jjg

  There is a new update for jtreg 4.1, b04, available. The primary changes have been to support faster and more reliable test runs, especially for tests in the jdk/ repository. [ For users inside Oracle, there is preliminary direct support for gathering code coverage data using jcov while running tests, and for generating a coverage report when all the tests have been run. ] -- jtreg can be downloaded from the OpenJDK jtreg page: http://openjdk.java.net/jtreg/. Scratch directories On platforms like Windows, if a test leaves a file open when the test is over, that can cause a problem for downstream tests, because the scratch directory cannot be emptied beforehand. This is addressed in agentvm mode by discarding any agents using that scratch directory and starting new agents using a new empty scratch directory. Successive directives use suffices _1, _2, etc. If you see such directories appearing in the work directory, that is an indication that files were left open in the preceding directory in the series. Locking support Some tests use shared system resources such as fixed port numbers. This causes a problem when running tests concurrently. So, you can now mark a directory such that all the tests within all such directories will be run sequentially, even if you use -concurrency:N on the command line to run the rest of the tests in parallel. This is seen as a short term solution: it is recommended that tests not use shared system resources whenever possible. If you are running multiple instances of jtreg on the same machine at the same time, you can use a new option -lock:file to specify a file to be used for file locking; otherwise, the locking will just be within the JVM used to run jtreg. "autovm mode" By default, if no options to the contrary are given on the command line, tests will be run in othervm mode. Now, a test suite can be marked so that the default execution mode is "agentvm" mode. In conjunction with this, you can now mark a directory such that all the tests within that directory will be run in "othervm" mode. Conceptually, this is equivalent to putting /othervm on every appropriate action on every test in that directory and any subdirectories. This is seen as a short term solution: it is recommended tests be adapted to use agentvm mode, or use "@run main/othervm" explicitly. Info in test result files The user name and jtreg version info are now stored in the properties near the beginning of the .jtr file. Build The makefiles used to build and test jtreg have been reorganized and simplified. jtreg is now using JT Harness version 4.4. Other jtreg provides access to GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID when set. jtreg ensures that shell tests are given an absolute path for the JDK under test. jtreg now honors the "first sentence rule" for the description given by @summary. jtreg saves the default locale before executing a test in samevm or agentvm mode, and restores it afterwards. Bug fixes jtreg tried to execute a test even if the compilation failed in agentvm mode because of a JVM crash. jtreg did not correctly handle the -compilejdk option. Acknowledgements Thanks to Alan, Amy, Andrey, Brad, Christine, Dima, Max, Mike, Sherman, Steve and others for their help, suggestions, bug reports and for testing this latest version.

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

  - by Testas

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

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• Oracle's PeopleSoft Customer Advisory Boards Convene to Discuss Roadmap at Pleasanton Campus

  - by john.webb(at)oracle.com

  Last week we hosted all of the PeopleSoft CABs (Customer Advisory Boards) at our Pleasanton Development Center to review our detailed designs for future Feature Packs, PeopleSoft 9.2, and beyond. Over 150 customers from 79 companies attended representing a variety of industries, geographies, and company sizes. The PeopleSoft team relies heavily on this group to provide key input on our roadmap for applications as well as technology direction. A good product strategy is one part well thought out idea with many handfuls of customer validation, and very often our best ideas originate from these customer discussions. While the individual CABs have frequent interactions with our teams, it's always great to have all of them in one place and in person. Our attendance was up from last year which I attribute to two things: (1) More interest as a result of PeopleSoft 9.1 upgrade; (2) An improving economy allowing for more travel. Maybe we should index the second item meeting-to-meeting and use it as a market indicator - we'll see! We kicked off the day one session with an overview of the PeopleSoft Roadmap and I outlined our strategy around Feature Packs and PeopleSoft 9.2. Given the high adoption rate of PeopleSoft 9.1 (over 4x that of 9.0 given the same time lapse since the release date), there was a lot of interest around the 9.1 Feature Packs as a vehicle for continuous value. We provided examples of our 3 central design themes: Simplicity, Productivity, and lower TCO, including those already delivered via Feature Packs in 2010. A great example of this is the Company Directory feature in PeopleSoft HCM. The configuration capabilities and the new actionable links our CAB advised us on last Spring were made available to all customers late last year. We reviewed many more future Navigation changes that will fundamentally change the way users interact with PeopleSoft. Our old friend, the menu tree, is being relegated from center stage to a bit part, with new concepts like Activity Guides, Train Stops, Related Actions, Work Centers, Collaborative Workspaces, and Secure Enterprise Search bringing users what they need in a contextual, role based manner with fewer clicks. Paco Aubrejuan, our PeopleSoft GM, and Steve Miranda, the SVP for Fusion Applications, then discussed our plans around Oracle's Application Investment Strategy.  This included our continued investment in developing both PeopleSoft and Fusion as well as the co-existence strategy with new Fusion Apps integrating to PeopleSoft Apps. Should you want to view this presentation, a recording is available. Jeff Robbins, our lead PeopleTools Strategist, provided the roadmap for PeopleTools and discussed our continuing plan to deliver annual releases to further evolve the user experience. Numerous examples were highlighted with the Navigation techniques I mentioned previously. Jeff also provided a lot of food for thought around Lifecycle Management topics and how to remain current on releases with a  lower cost of ownership. Dennis Mesler, from Boise, was the guest speaker in this slot, who spoke about the new PeopleSoft Test Framework (PTF). Regression Testing is a key cost component when product updates are applied. This new tool (which is free to all PeopleSoft customers as part of PeopleTools 8.51) provides a meta data driven approach to recording and executing test scripts. Coupled with what our Usage Monitor enables, PTF provides our customers a powerful tool to lower costs and manage product updates more efficiently and at the time of their choosing. Beyond the general session, we broke out into the individual CABs: HCM, Financials, ESA/ALM, SRM, SCM, CRM, and PeopleTools/ Technology. A day and half of very engaging discussions around our plans took place for each product pillar. More about that to follow in future posts.      We capped the first day with a reception sponsored by our partners: InfoSys, SmartERP (represented by Doris Wong), and Grey Sparling  Solutions (represented by Chris Heller and Larry Grey). Great to see these old friends actively engaged in the very busy PeopleSoft ecosystem!   Jeff Robbins previews the roadmap for PeopleTools with the PeopleSoft CAB  

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• News you can use, PeopleTools gems at OpenWorld 2012

  - by PeopleTools Strategy

  Here are some of the sessions which may not have caught your eyes during your scheduling of events you would like to attend at this year's Open World! CON9183 PeopleSoft Technology Roadmap Jeff Robbins Mon, Oct 1 4:45 PM Moscone West, Room 3002/4 Jeff's session is always very well attended. Come to hear, and see, what's going to be delivered in the new release and get some thoughts on where PeopleTools and the industry is heading. CON9186 Delivering a Ground-Breaking User Interface with PeopleTools Matt Haavisto Steve Elcock Wed, Oct 3 3:30 PM Moscone West, Room 3009 This session will be wonderfully engaging for participants.  As part of our demonstration, audience members will be able to interact live and real-time with our demo using their smart phones and tablets as if you are users of the system. CON9188 A Great User Experience via PeopleSoft Applications Portal Matt Haavisto Jim Marion Pramod Agrawal Mon, Oct 1 12:15 PM Moscone West, Room 3009 This session covers not only the PeopleSoft Portal, but new features like Workcenters and Dashboards, and how they all work together to form the PeopleSoft ecosystem. CON9192 Implementing a PeopleSoft Maintenance Strategy with My Update Manager Mike Thompson Mike Krajicek Tue, Oct 2 1:15 PM Moscone West, Room 3009 The LCM development team will show Oracle's My Update Manager for PeopleSoft and how it drastically simplifies deciding what updates are required for your specific environment. CON9193 Understanding PeopleSoft Maintenance Tools & How They Fit Together Mike Krajicek Wed, Oct 3 10:15 AM Moscone West, Room 3002/4 Learn about the portfolio of maintenance tools including some of the latest enhancements such as Oracle's My Update Manager for PeopleSoft, Application Data Sets, and the PeopleSoft Test Framework, and see what they can do for you. CON9200 PeopleTools Product Team Panel Discussion Jeff Robbins Willie Suh Virad Gupta Ravi Shankar Mike Krajicek Wed, Oct 3 5:00 PM Moscone West, Room 3009 Attend this session to engage in an open discussion with key members of Oracle's PeopleTools senior management team. You will be able to ask questions, hear their thoughts, and gain their insight into the PeopleTools product direction. CON9205 Securing Your PeopleSoft Integration Infrastructure Greg Kelly Keith Collins Tue, Oct 2 10:15 AM Moscone West, Room 3011 This session, with the senior integration developer, will outline Oracle's best practices for securing your integration infrastructure so that you know your web services and REST services are as secure as the rest of your PeopleSoft environment. CON9210 Performance Tuning for the PeopleSoft Administrator Tim Bower David Kurtz Mon, Oct 1 10:45 AM Moscone West, Room 3009 Meet long time technical consultants with deep knowledge of system tuning, Tim Bower of the Center of Excellence and David Kurtz, author of "PeopleSoft for the Oracle DBA". System administrators new to tuning a PeopleSoft environment as well as seasoned experts will come away with new techniques that will help them improve the performance of their PeopleSoft system. CON9055 Advanced Management of Oracle PeopleSoft with Oracle Enterprise Manager Greg Kelly Milten Garia Greg Bouras Thurs Oct 4 12:45 PM Moscone West, Room 3009 This promises to be a really interesting session as Milten Garia from CSU discusses lessons learned during the implementation of Oracle's Enterprise Manager with the PeopleSoft plug-in across a multi campus environment. There are some surprising things about Solaris 10 and the Bourne shell. Some creative work by the Unix administrators so the well tried scripts and system replication processes were largely unaffected. CON8932 New Functional PeopleTools Capabilities for the Line of Business User Jeff Robbins Tues, Oct 2 5:00 PM Moscone West, Room 3007 Using PeopleTools 8.5x capabilities like: related content, embedded help, pivot grids, hover-over, and more, Jeff will discuss how these can deliver business value and innovation which will positively impact your business without the high costs associated with upgrading your PeopleSoft applications. Check out a more detailed list here. We look forward to meeting you all there!

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