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• Finding the Right Solution to Source and Manage Your Contractors

  - by mark.rosenberg(at)oracle.com

  Many of our PeopleSoft Enterprise applications customers operate in service-based industries, and all of our customers have at least some internal service units, such as IT, marketing, and facilities. Employing the services of contractors, often referred to as "contingent labor," to deliver either or both internal and external services is common practice. As we've transitioned from an industrial age to a knowledge age, talent has become a primary competitive advantage for most organizations. Contingent labor offers talent on flexible terms; it offers the ability to scale up operations, close skill gaps, and manage risk in the process of delivering services. Talent comes from many sources and the rise in the contingent worker (contractor, consultant, temporary, part time) has increased significantly in the past decade and is expected to reach 40 percent in the next decade. Managing the total pool of talent in a seamless integrated fashion not only saves organizations money and increases efficiency, but creates a better place for workers of all kinds to work. Although the term "contingent labor" is frequently used to describe both contractors and employees who have flexible schedules and relationships with an organization, the remainder of this discussion focuses on contractors. The term "contingent labor" is used interchangeably with "contractor." Recognizing the importance of contingent labor, our PeopleSoft customers often ask our team, "What Oracle vendor management system (VMS) applications should I evaluate for managing contractors?" In response, I thought it would be useful to describe and compare the three most common Oracle-based options available to our customers. They are:   The enterprise licensed software model in which you implement and utilize the PeopleSoft Services Procurement (sPro) application and potentially other PeopleSoft applications;  The software-as-a-service model in which you gain access to a derivative of PeopleSoft sPro from an Oracle Business Process Outsourcing Partner; and  The managed service provider (MSP) model in which staffing industry professionals utilize either your enterprise licensed software or the software-as-a-service application to administer your contingent labor program. At this point, you may be asking yourself, "Why three options?" The answer is that since there is no "one size fits all" in terms of talent, there is also no "one size fits all" for effectively sourcing and managing contingent workers. Various factors influence how an organization thinks about and relates to its contractors, and each of the three Oracle-based options addresses an organization's needs and preferences differently. For the purposes of this discussion, I will describe the options with respect to (A) pricing and software provisioning models; (B) control and flexibility; (C) level of engagement with contractors; and (D) approach to sourcing, employment law, and financial settlement. Option 1:  Enterprise Licensed Software In this model, you purchase from Oracle the license and support for the applications you need. Typically, you license PeopleSoft sPro as your VMS tool for sourcing, monitoring, and paying your contract labor. In conjunction with sPro, you can also utilize PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) applications (if you do not already) to configure more advanced business processes for recruiting, training, and tracking your contractors. Many customers choose this enterprise license software model because of the functionality and natural integration of the PeopleSoft applications and because the cost for the PeopleSoft software is explicit. There is no fee per transaction to source each contractor under this model. Our customers that employ contractors to augment their permanent staff on billable client engagements often find this model appealing because there are no fees to affect their profit margins. With this model, you decide whether to have your own IT organization run the software or have the software hosted and managed by either Oracle or another application services provider. Your organization, perhaps with the assistance of consultants, configures, deploys, and operates the software for managing your contingent workforce. This model offers you the highest level of control and flexibility since your organization can configure the contractor process flow exactly to your business and security requirements and can extend the functionality with PeopleTools. This option has proven very valuable and applicable to our customers engaged in government contracting because their contingent labor management practices are subject to complex standards and regulations. Customers find a great deal of value in the application functionality and configurability the enterprise licensed software offers for managing contingent labor. Some examples of that functionality are... The ability to create a tiered network of preferred suppliers including competencies, pricing agreements, and elaborate candidate management capabilities. Configurable alerts and online collaboration for bid, resource requisition, timesheet, and deliverable entry, routing, and approval for both resource and deliverable-based services. The ability to manage contractors with the same PeopleSoft HCM and Projects applications that are used to manage the permanent workforce. Because it allows you to utilize much of the same PeopleSoft HCM and Projects application functionality for contractors that you use for permanent employees, the enterprise licensed software model supports the deepest level of engagement with the contingent workforce. For example, you can: fill job openings with contingent labor; guide contingent workers through essential safety and compliance training with PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Management; and source contingent workers directly to project-based assignments in PeopleSoft Resource Management and PeopleSoft Program Management. This option enables contingent workers to collaborate closely with your permanent staff on complex, knowledge-based efforts - R&D projects, billable client contracts, architecture and engineering projects spanning multiple years, and so on. With the enterprise licensed software model, your organization maintains responsibility for the sourcing, onboarding (including adherence to employment laws), and financial settlement processes. This means your organization maintains on staff or hires the expertise in these domains to utilize the software and interact with suppliers and contractors. Option 2:  Software as a Service (SaaS) The effort involved in setting up and operating VMS software to handle a contingent workforce leads many organizations to seek a system that can be activated and configured within a few days and for which they can pay based on usage. Oracle's Business Process Outsourcing partner, Provade, Inc., provides exactly this option to our customers. Provade offers its vendor management software as a service over the Internet and usually charges your organization a fee that is a percentage of your total contingent labor spending processed through the Provade software. (Percentage of spend is the predominant fee model, although not the only one.) In addition to lower implementation costs, the effort of configuring and maintaining the software is largely upon Provade, not your organization. This can be very appealing to IT organizations that are thinly stretched supporting other important information technology initiatives. Built upon PeopleSoft sPro, the Provade solution is tailored for simple and quick deployment and administration. Provade has added capabilities to clone users rapidly and has simplified business documents, like work orders and change orders, to facilitate enterprise-wide, self-service adoption with little to no training. Provade also leverages Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) to provide integrated spend analytics and dashboards. Although pure customization is more limited than with the enterprise licensed software model, Provade offers a very effective option for organizations that are regularly on-boarding and off-boarding high volumes of contingent staff hired to perform discrete support tasks (for example, order fulfillment during the holiday season, hourly clerical work, desktop technology repairs, and so on) or project tasks. The software is very configurable and at the same time very intuitive to even the most computer-phobic users. The level of contingent worker engagement your organization can achieve with the Provade option is generally the same as with the enterprise licensed software model since Provade can automatically establish contingent labor resources in your PeopleSoft applications. Provade has pre-built integrations to Oracle's PeopleSoft and the Oracle E-Business Suite procurement, projects, payables, and HCM applications, so that you can evaluate, train, assign, and track contingent workers like your permanent employees. Similar to the enterprise licensed software model, your organization is responsible for the contingent worker sourcing, administration, and financial settlement processes. This means your organization needs to maintain the staff expertise in these domains. Option 3:  Managed Services Provider (MSP) Whether you are using the enterprise licensed model or the SaaS model, you may want to engage the services of sourcing, employment, payroll, and financial settlement professionals to administer your contingent workforce program. Firms that offer this expertise are often referred to as "MSPs," and they are typically staffing companies that also offer permanent and temporary hiring services. (In fact, many of the major MSPs are Oracle applications customers themselves, and they utilize the PeopleSoft Solution for the Staffing Industry to run their own business operations.) Usually, MSPs place their staff on-site at your facilities, and they can utilize either your enterprise licensed PeopleSoft sPro application or the Provade VMS SaaS software to administer the network of suppliers providing contingent workers. When you utilize an MSP, there is a separate fee for the MSP's service that is typically funded by the participating suppliers of the contingent labor. Also in this model, the suppliers of the contingent labor (not the MSP) usually pay the contingent labor force. With an MSP, you are intentionally turning over business process control for the advantages associated with having someone else manage the processes. The software option you choose will to a certain extent affect your process flexibility; however, the MSPs are often able to adapt their processes to the unique demands of your business. When you engage an MSP, you will want to give some thought to the level of engagement and "partnering" you need with your contingent workforce. Because the MSP acts as an intermediary, it can be very valuable in handling high volume, routine contracting for which there is a relatively low need for "partnering" with the contingent workforce. However, if your organization (or part of your organization) engages contingent workers for high-profile client projects that require diplomacy, intensive amounts of interaction, and personal trust, introducing an MSP into the process may prove less effective than handling the process with your own staff. In fact, in many organizations, it is common to enlist an MSP to handle contractors working on internal projects and to have permanent employees handle the contractor relationships that affect the portion of the services portfolio focused on customer-facing, billable projects. One of the key advantages of enlisting an MSP is that you do not have to maintain the expertise required for orchestrating the sourcing, hiring, and paying of contingent workers.  These are the domain of the MSPs. If your own staff members are not prepared to manage the essential "overhead" processes associated with contingent labor, working with an MSP can make solid business sense. Proper administration of a contingent workforce can make the difference between project success and failure, operating profit and loss, and legal compliance and fines. Concluding Thoughts There is little doubt that thoughtfully and purposefully constructing a service delivery strategy that leverages the strengths of contingent workers can lead to better projects, deliverables, and business results. What requires a bit more thinking is determining the platform (or platforms) that will enable each part of your organization to best deliver on its mission.

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Skip() and Take()

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. I’ve covered many valuable methods from System.Linq class library before, so you already know it’s packed with extension-method goodness.  Today I’d like to cover two small families I’ve neglected to mention before: Skip() and Take().  While these methods seem so simple, they are an easy way to create sub-sequences for IEnumerable<T>, much the way GetRange() creates sub-lists for List<T>. Skip() and SkipWhile() The Skip() family of methods is used to ignore items in a sequence until either a certain number are passed, or until a certain condition becomes false.  This makes the methods great for starting a sequence at a point possibly other than the first item of the original sequence.   The Skip() family of methods contains the following methods (shown below in extension method syntax): Skip(int count) Ignores the specified number of items and returns a sequence starting at the item after the last skipped item (if any).  SkipWhile(Func<T, bool> predicate) Ignores items as long as the predicate returns true and returns a sequence starting with the first item to invalidate the predicate (if any).  SkipWhile(Func<T, int, bool> predicate) Same as above, but passes not only the item itself to the predicate, but also the index of the item.  For example: 1: var list = new[] { 3.14, 2.72, 42.0, 9.9, 13.0, 101.0 }; 2:  3: // sequence contains { 2.72, 42.0, 9.9, 13.0, 101.0 } 4: var afterSecond = list.Skip(1); 5: Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", afterSecond)); 6:  7: // sequence contains { 42.0, 9.9, 13.0, 101.0 } 8: var afterFirstDoubleDigit = list.SkipWhile(v => v < 10.0); 9: Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", afterFirstDoubleDigit)); Note that the SkipWhile() stops skipping at the first item that returns false and returns from there to the rest of the sequence, even if further items in that sequence also would satisfy the predicate (otherwise, you’d probably be using Where() instead, of course). If you do use the form of SkipWhile() which also passes an index into the predicate, then you should keep in mind that this is the index of the item in the sequence you are calling SkipWhile() from, not the index in the original collection.  That is, consider the following: 1: var list = new[] { 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 }; 2:  3: // Get all items < 10, then 4: var whatAmI = list 5: .Skip(2) 6: .SkipWhile((i, x) => i > x); For this example the result above is 2.4, and not 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 as some might expect.  The key is knowing what the index is that’s passed to the predicate in SkipWhile().  In the code above, because Skip(2) skips 1.0 and 1.1, the sequence passed to SkipWhile() begins at 1.2 and thus it considers the “index” of 1.2 to be 0 and not 2.  This same logic applies when using any of the extension methods that have an overload that allows you to pass an index into the delegate, such as SkipWhile(), TakeWhile(), Select(), Where(), etc.  It should also be noted, that it’s fine to Skip() more items than exist in the sequence (an empty sequence is the result), or even to Skip(0) which results in the full sequence.  So why would it ever be useful to return Skip(0) deliberately?  One reason might be to return a List<T> as an immutable sequence.  Consider this class: 1: public class MyClass 2: { 3: private List<int> _myList = new List<int>(); 4:  5: // works on surface, but one can cast back to List<int> and mutate the original... 6: public IEnumerable<int> OneWay 7: { 8: get { return _myList; } 9: } 10:  11: // works, but still has Add() etc which throw at runtime if accidentally called 12: public ReadOnlyCollection<int> AnotherWay 13: { 14: get { return new ReadOnlyCollection<int>(_myList); } 15: } 16:  17: // immutable, can't be cast back to List<int>, doesn't have methods that throw at runtime 18: public IEnumerable<int> YetAnotherWay 19: { 20: get { return _myList.Skip(0); } 21: } 22: } This code snippet shows three (among many) ways to return an internal sequence in varying levels of immutability.  Obviously if you just try to return as IEnumerable<T> without doing anything more, there’s always the danger the caller could cast back to List<T> and mutate your internal structure.  You could also return a ReadOnlyCollection<T>, but this still has the mutating methods, they just throw at runtime when called instead of giving compiler errors.  Finally, you can return the internal list as a sequence using Skip(0) which skips no items and just runs an iterator through the list.  The result is an iterator, which cannot be cast back to List<T>.  Of course, there’s many ways to do this (including just cloning the list, etc.) but the point is it illustrates a potential use of using an explicit Skip(0). Take() and TakeWhile() The Take() and TakeWhile() methods can be though of as somewhat of the inverse of Skip() and SkipWhile().  That is, while Skip() ignores the first X items and returns the rest, Take() returns a sequence of the first X items and ignores the rest.  Since they are somewhat of an inverse of each other, it makes sense that their calling signatures are identical (beyond the method name obviously): Take(int count) Returns a sequence containing up to the specified number of items. Anything after the count is ignored. TakeWhile(Func<T, bool> predicate) Returns a sequence containing items as long as the predicate returns true.  Anything from the point the predicate returns false and beyond is ignored. TakeWhile(Func<T, int, bool> predicate) Same as above, but passes not only the item itself to the predicate, but also the index of the item. So, for example, we could do the following: 1: var list = new[] { 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 }; 2:  3: // sequence contains 1.0 and 1.1 4: var firstTwo = list.Take(2); 5:  6: // sequence contains 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 7: var underTwo = list.TakeWhile(i => i < 2.0); The same considerations for SkipWhile() with index apply to TakeWhile() with index, of course.  Using Skip() and Take() for sub-sequences A few weeks back, I talked about The List<T> Range Methods and showed how they could be used to get a sub-list of a List<T>.  This works well if you’re dealing with List<T>, or don’t mind converting to List<T>.  But if you have a simple IEnumerable<T> sequence and want to get a sub-sequence, you can also use Skip() and Take() to much the same effect: 1: var list = new List<double> { 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 }; 2:  3: // results in List<T> containing { 1.2, 2.2, 2.3 } 4: var subList = list.GetRange(2, 3); 5:  6: // results in sequence containing { 1.2, 2.2, 2.3 } 7: var subSequence = list.Skip(2).Take(3); I say “much the same effect” because there are some differences.  First of all GetRange() will throw if the starting index or the count are greater than the number of items in the list, but Skip() and Take() do not.  Also GetRange() is a method off of List<T>, thus it can use direct indexing to get to the items much more efficiently, whereas Skip() and Take() operate on sequences and may actually have to walk through the items they skip to create the resulting sequence.  So each has their pros and cons.  My general rule of thumb is if I’m already working with a List<T> I’ll use GetRange(), but for any plain IEnumerable<T> sequence I’ll tend to prefer Skip() and Take() instead. Summary The Skip() and Take() families of LINQ extension methods are handy for producing sub-sequences from any IEnumerable<T> sequence.  Skip() will ignore the specified number of items and return the rest of the sequence, whereas Take() will return the specified number of items and ignore the rest of the sequence.  Similarly, the SkipWhile() and TakeWhile() methods can be used to skip or take items, respectively, until a given predicate returns false.    Technorati Tags: C#, CSharp, .NET, LINQ, IEnumerable<T>, Skip, Take, SkipWhile, TakeWhile

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• OK - What now? How do we become a Social Business?

  - by Michael Snow

  We hope that those of you that attended yesterday's Webcast with Brian Solis enjoyed Brian's discussion with Christian Finn for our last Webcast of the season for the Oracle Social Business Thought Leaders Series.  For those of you that may have missed the webcast or were stuck at a company holiday party - you'll be glad to hear that the webcast will be available On-Demand starting later today (12/14/12). And any of you who'd like to listen to a quick but informative podcast with Brian - can listen to that here. Some of you may still be left with questions about how to get from point A to point B and even more confused than when you started thinking about this new world of Digital Darwinism. The post below, grabbed from an abundance of great thought leadership prose on Brian's blog may help you frame the path you need to start walking sooner versus later to stay off of the endangered species list.  As you explore your path forward, please keep Oracle in mind - we do offer a wide range of solutions to help your organization 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} optimize the engagement for your customers, employees and partners. The Path from a Social Brand to a Social Business Brian Solis Originally posted May 2, 2012 I’ve been a long-time supporter of MediaTemple’s (MT)Residence program along with Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, and many others whom I respect. I wanted to share my “7 questions to answer to become a social business” with you here.. Social Media is pervasive and is becoming the new normal in corporate marketing. Brands who get this right are starting to build their own media networks rich with customer connections numbering in the millions. Right now, Coca-Cola has over 34 million fans on Facebook, but they’re hardly alone. Disney follows just behind with 29 million fans, Starbucks boasts 25 million, and Oreo, Red Bull, and Converse play host to over 20 million fans. If we were to look at other networks such as Twitter and Youtube, we would see a recurring theme. People are connecting en masse with the businesses they support and new media represents the ability to cultivate consumer relationships in ways not possible with traditional earned or paid media. Sounds great right? This might sound abrupt, but the truth is that we’re hardly realizing the potential of what lies before us. Everything begins with understanding not just how other brands are marketing themselves in social media, but also seeing what they’re not doing and envisioning what’s possible. We’re already approaching the first of many crossroads that new media will present. Do we take the path of a social brand or that of a social business? What’s the difference? A social brand is just that, a business that is remodeling or retrofitting its existing marketing practices to new media. A social business is something altogether different as it embraces introspection and extrospection to reevaluate internal and external processes, systems, and opportunities to transform into a living, breathing entity that adapts to market conditions and opportunities. It’s a tough decision to make right now especially at a time when all we read about is how much success many businesses are finding without having to answer this very question. With all of the newfound success in social networks, the truth is that we’re only just beginning to learn what’s possible and that’s where you come in. When compared to the investment in time and resources across the board, social media represents only a small part of the mix. But with your help, that’s all about to change. The CMO Survey, an organization that disseminates the opinions of top marketers in order to predict the future of markets, recently published a report that gave credence to the fact that social media is taking off. One of the most profound takeaways from the report was this gem; “The “like button” [in Facebook] packs more customer-acquisition punch than other demand-generating activities.” With insights like this, it’s easy to see why the race to social is becoming heated. The report also highlighted exactly where social fits in the marketing mix today and as you can see, despite all of the hype, it’s not a dominant focus yet. As of August 2011, the percentage of overall marketing budgets dedicated to social media hovered at around 7%. However, in 2012 the investment in social media will climb to 10%. And, in five years, social media is expected to represent almost 18% of the total marketing budget. Think about that for a moment. In 2016, social media will only represent 18%? Queue the sound of a record scratching here. With businesses finding success in social networks, why are businesses failing to realize the true opportunity brought forth by the ability to listen to, connect with, and engage with customers? While there’s value in earning views, driving traffic, and building connections through the 3F’s (friends, fans and followers), success isn’t just defined simply by what really amounts to low-hanging fruit. The truth is that businesses cannot measure what it is they don’t know to value. As a result, innovation in new engagement initiatives is stifled because we’re applying dated or inflexible frameworks to new paradigms. Social media isn’t owned by marketing, but instead the entire organization. This changes everything and makes your role so much more important. It’s up to you to learn how to think outside of the proverbial social media box to see what others don’t, the ability to improve customers experiences through the evolution of a social brand into a social business. Doing so will translate customer insights from what they do and don’t share in social networks into better products, services, and processes. See, customers want something more from their favorite businesses than creative campaigns, viral content, and everyday dialogue in social networks. Customers want to be heard and they want to know that you’re listening. How businesses use social media must remind them that they’re more than just an audience, consumer, or a conduit to “trigger” a desired social effect. Herein lies both the challenge and opportunity of social media. It’s bigger than marketing. It’s also bigger than customer service. It’s about building relationships with customers that improve experiences and more importantly, teaches businesses how to re-imagine products and internal processes to better adapt to potential crises and seize new opportunities. When it comes down to it, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Foursquare, are all channels for listening, learning, and engaging. It’s what you do within each channel that builds a community around your brand. And, at the end of the day, the value of the community you build counts for everything. It’s important to understand that we cannot assume that these networks simply exist for people to lineup for our marketing messages or promotional campaigns. Nor can we assume that they’re reeling in anticipation for simple dialogue. They want value. They want recognition. They want access to exclusive information and offers. They need direction, answers and resolution. What we’re talking about here is the multidimensional makeup of consumers and how a one-sided approach to social media forces the needs for social media to expand beyond traditional marketing to socialize the various departments, lines of business, and functions to engage based on the nature of the situation or opportunity. In the same CMO study, it was revealed that marketers believe that social media has a long way to go toward integrating into the overall company strategy. On a scale of 1-7, with one being “not integrated at all” and seven being “very integrated,” 22% chose “one.” Critical functions such as service, HR, sales, R&D, product marketing and development, IR, CSR, etc. are either not engaged or are operating social media within a silo disconnected from other efforts or possibilities. The problem is that customers don’t view a company by silo, instead they see one company, one brand, and their experience in social media forms an impression that eventually contributes to their view of your brand. The first step here is to understand business priorities and objectives to assess how social media can be additive in achieving these goals. Additionally, surveying the landscape to determine other areas of interest as its specifically related to your business. • Are customers seeking help or direction? • Who are your most valuable customers and what are they sharing? • How can you use social media to acquire and retain customers? - What ideas are circulating and how can you harness user generated activity and content to innovate or adapt to better meet the needs of customers? - How can you broaden a single customer view to recognize the varying needs of customers and how your organization can organize around each circumstance? - What insights exist based on how consumers are interacting with one another? How can this intelligence inform marketing, service, products and other important business initiatives? - How can your business extend their current efforts to deliver better customer experiences and in turn more effectively unit internal collaboration and communication? Customer demands far exceed the capabilities of the marketing department. While creating a social brand is a necessary endeavor, building a social business is an investment in customer relevance now and over time. Beyond relevance, a social business fosters a culture of change that unites employees and customers and sets a foundation for meaningful and beneficial relationships. Innovation, communication, and creativity are the natural byproducts of engagement and transformation. As a social brand, we are competing for the moment. As a social business, we are competing the future in all that we do today.

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• AIX Grid Control 10.2.0.5 Communication and Monitoring Issue since 31-DEC-2010

  - by jayatheertha.rao(at)oracle.com

  Detailed symptoms for Oracle Management Server (OMS) 10.2.0.5 on AIX Oracle Management Service 10.2.0.5 instances on AIX 5L remain active and functional, but the OMS instances fail to communicate with the Grid Control Management Agents.An SSLPeerUnverified exception will be reported in the file $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/log/emoms.trc when OMS attempts to connect with an Agent:Javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticatedat com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSessionImpl.getPeerCertificateChain(DashoA12275)at oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.authenticateHTTPConnection(EMDClient.java:2002)at oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.getConnection(EMDClient.java:1877)at oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.getConnection(EMDClient.java:1810)at oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.verifyHttpConnection(EMDClient.java:2540)at oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.getResponseForRequest(EMDClient.java:2323)at oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.getUploadManagerStatus(EMDClient.java:4853)at oracle.sysman.eml.admin.rep.emdConfig.EmdConfigTargetsData.getEmdUploadData(EmdConfigTargetsData.java:1640)at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)This error may be reported when:- Accessing the Agent home page in Grid Control- Setting preferred credentials for a target monitored by the Agent- Managing metrics for a target monitored by the Agent The jobs scheduled to be run by Agents can become non-responsiveThe OMS log file $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/log/emoms.trc can show:2010-12-31 00:06:58,204 [JobWorker 430:Thread-34] DEBUG emSDK.comm getStreamResponse.4015 - oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.CommException: java.io.IOException: javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticatedoracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.CommException: java.io.IOException: javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticatedat oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.getStreamResponse_(EMDClient.java:4088)at oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.getStreamResponse(EMDClient.java:4009)at oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.EMDClient.remoteOperation(EMDClient.java:3404)at oracle.sysman.emdrep.jobs.CommandManager.requestRemoteCommand(CommandManager.java:765)at oracle.sysman.emdrep.jobs.commands.RemoteOp.executeCommand(RemoteOp.java:434)at oracle.sysman.emdrep.jobs.commands.RemoteOp.executeCommand(RemoteOp.java:491)at oracle.sysman.emdrep.jobs.BaseJobWorker.runStep(BaseJobWorker.java:614)at oracle.sysman.emdrep.jobs.BaseJobWorker.doOneOperation(BaseJobWorker.java:738)at oracle.sysman.emdrep.jobs.JobWorker.doOneOperation(JobWorker.java:306)at oracle.sysman.emdrep.jobs.JobWorker.run(JobWorker.java:288)at oracle.sysman.util.threadPoolManager.WorkerThread.run(Worker.java:261) Detailed symptoms for Grid Control Management Agent 10.2.0.5 on AIX Beginning 31-DEC-2010 00:00:00, 10.2.0.5 Management Agents running on the AIX 5L operating system will fail to monitor Oracle Application Server targets. As a result, the Availability Status for the Oracle Application Server targets will be in the "Metric Error" state. NOTE: The 10.2.0.5.0 Agents would experience these errors regardless of the version/platform of the OMS.The following metric error is seen in the console for the Oracle Application Server targets monitored by a Grid Control Management Agent 10.2.0.5 installed on AIX and experiencing a Root Certificate Authority issue:Message oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.fetchlet.FetchletException: oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.fetchlet.FetchletException: oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.fetchlet.FetchletException: oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.CommException: java.io.IOException: javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticated The Grid Control Management Agent log file $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/log/emagentfetchlet.log (or $ORACLE_HOME/hostname/sysman/log/emagentfetchlet.log for a clustered Agent) includes the following errors:2010-12-31 00:01:03,626 [nmefmgr_getJNIFetchlet] ERROR ias.ResponseMetric getResponseMetric.154 - Unable tocompute application server statusoracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.fetchlet.FetchletException: oracle.sysman.emSDK.emd.comm.CommException: java.io.IOException: javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticatedat oracle.sysman.ias.ias.ResponseMetric.getResponseMetric(ResponseMetric.java:108)at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:79)at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:618)at oracle.sysman.emd.fetchlets.JavaWrapperFetchlet.getMetric(JavaWrapperFetchlet.java:217)at oracle.sysman.emd.fetchlets.FetchletWrapper.getMetric(FetchletWrapper.java:382) Beginning 31-DEC-2010, 10.2.0.5 Management Agents on the AIX 5L platform will fail to secure or re-secure with Oracle Management Service (OMS). This failure will cause installation of 10.2.0.5 Agents on the AIX 5L platform to fail.NOTE: The 10.2.0.5.0 Agents would experience these errors regardless of the version/platform of the OMS.The "emctl secure agent" command will fail with the following error, which will be written to the $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/log/secure.log file (or $ORACLE_HOME/hostname/sysman/log/secure.log for a clustered Agent) :2011-01-03 21:06:11,941 [main] ERROR agent.SecureAgentCmd main.207 - Failedto secure the Agent:javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticatedatcom.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSessionImpl.getPeerCertificateChain(DashoA6275)atoracle.sysman.emctl.secure.agent.SecureAgentCmd.checkUpload(SecureAgentCmd.java:478)atoracle.sysman.emctl.secure.agent.SecureAgentCmd.secureAgent(SecureAgentCmd.java:249)atoracle.sysman.emctl.secure.agent.SecureAgentCmd.main(SecureAgentCmd.java:200)  For solution, refer to AIX Grid Control 10.2.0.5 SSL Communication and Monitoring Issue since 31-DEC-2010 (Doc ID 1275070.1)

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• MSMQ messages using HTTP just won't get delivered

  - by John Breakwell

  I'm starting off the blog with a discussion of an unusual problem that has hit a couple of my customers this month. It's not a problem you'd expect to bump into and the solution is potentially painful. Scenario You want to make use of the HTTP protocol to send MSMQ messages from one machine to another. You have installed HTTP support for MSMQ and have addressed your messages correctly but they will not leave the outgoing queue. There is no configuration for HTTP support - setup has already done all that for you (although you may want to check the most recent "Installation of the MSMQ HTTP Support Subcomponent" section of MSMQINST.LOG to see if anything DID go wrong) - so you can't tweak anything. Restarting services and servers makes no difference - the messages just will not get delivered. The problem is documented and resolved by Knowledgebase article 916699 "The message may not be delivered when you use the HTTP protocol to send a message to a server that is running Message Queuing 3.0". It is unlikely that you would be able to resolve the problem without the assistance of PSS because there are no messages that can be seen to assist you and only access to the source code exposes the root cause. As this communication is over HTTP, the IIS logs would be a good place to start. POST entries are logged which show that connectivity is working and message delivery is being attempted: #Software: Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 #Version: 1.0 #Date: 2006-09-12 12:11:29 #Fields: date time s-sitename s-ip cs-method cs-uri-stem cs-uri-query s-port cs-username c-ip cs(User-Agent) sc-status sc-substatus sc-win32-status 2006-09-12 12:12:12 W3SVC1 10.1.17.219 POST /msmq/private$/test - 80 - 10.2.200.3 - 200 0 0 If you capture the traffic with Network Monitor you can see the POST being sent to the server but you also see a response being returned to the client: HTTP: Response to Client; HTTP/1.1; Status Code = 500 - Internal Server Error "Internal Server Error" means we can probably stop looking at IIS and instead focus on the Message Queuing ISAPI extension (Mqise.dll). MSMQ 3.0 (Windows XP and Windows Server 2003) comes with error logging enabled by default but the log files are in binary format - MSMQ 2.0 generated logging in plain text. The symbolic information needed for formatting the files is not currently publicly available so log files have to be sent in to Microsoft PSS.  Although this does mean raising a support case, formatting the log files to text and returning them to the customer shouldn't take long. Obviously the engineer analyses them for you - I just want to point out that you can see the logging output in text format if you want it. The important entries in the log for this problem are: [7]b48.928 09/12/2006-13:20:44.552 [mqise GetNetBiosNameFromIPAddr] ERROR:Failed to get the NetBios name from the DNS name, error = 0xea [7]b48.928 09/12/2006-13:20:44.552 [mqise RPCToServer] ERROR:RPC call R_ProcessHTTPRequest failed, error code = 1702(RPC_S_INVALID_BINDING) which allow a Microsoft escalation engineer to check the MQISE source code to see what is going wrong. This problem according to the article occurs when the extension tries to bind to the local MSMQ service after the extension receives a POST request that contains an MSMQ message. MSMQ resolves the server name by using the DNS host name but the extension cannot bind to the service because the buffer that MSMQ uses to resolve the server name is too small - server names that are exactly 15 characters long will not fit. RPC exception 0x6a6 (RPC_S_INVALID_BINDING) occurs in the W3wp.exe process but the exception is handled and so you do not receive an error message. The workaround is to rename the MSMQ server to something less than 15 characters. If the problem has only just been noticed in a production environment - an application may have been modified to get through a newly-implemented firewall, for example - then renaming is going to be an issue. Other applications may need to be reinstalled or modified if server names are hard-coded or stored in the registry. The renaming may also break a company naming convention where the name is built up from something like location+department+number. If you want to learn more about MSMQ logging then check out Chapter 15 of the MSMQ FAQ. In fact, even if you DON'T want to learn anything about MSMQ logging you should read the FAQ anyway as there is a huge amount of useful information on known issues and the like.

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• Asp.NET ReportViewer “report execution has expired or cannot be found” error when using session state service or SQL Server session state

  - by dotneteer

  We encountered an error like: ReportServerException: The report execution x5pl2245iwvvq055khsxzlj5 has expired or cannot be found. (rsExecutionNotFound)]    Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ServerReportSoapProxy.OnSoapException(SoapException e) +72    Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.Internal.Soap.ReportingServices2005.Execution.ProxyMethodInvocation.Execute(RSExecutionConnection connection, ProxyMethod`1 initialMethod, ProxyMethod`1 retryMethod) +428    Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.Internal.Soap.ReportingServices2005.Execution.RSExecutionConnection.GetExecutionInfo() +133    Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ServerReport.EnsureExecutionSession() +197    Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ServerReport.LoadViewState(Object viewStateObj) +256    Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ServerReport..ctor(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) +355 [TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.]    System.RuntimeMethodHandle._SerializationInvoke(Object target, SignatureStruct&amp; declaringTypeSig, SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) +0    System.Reflection.RuntimeConstructorInfo.SerializationInvoke(Object target, SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) +108    System.Runtime.Serialization.ObjectManager.CompleteISerializableObject(Object obj, SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) +273    System.Runtime.Serialization.ObjectManager.FixupSpecialObject(ObjectHolder holder) +49    System.Runtime.Serialization.ObjectManager.DoFixups() +223    System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectReader.Deserialize(HeaderHandler handler, __BinaryParser serParser, Boolean fCheck, Boolean isCrossAppDomain, IMethodCallMessage methodCallMessage) +188    System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Deserialize(Stream serializationStream, HeaderHandler handler, Boolean fCheck, Boolean isCrossAppDomain, IMethodCallMessage methodCallMessage) +203    System.Web.Util.AltSerialization.ReadValueFromStream(BinaryReader reader) +788    System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateItemCollection.ReadValueFromStreamWithAssert() +55    System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateItemCollection.DeserializeItem(String name, Boolean check) +281    System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateItemCollection.DeserializeItem(Int32 index) +110    System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateItemCollection.get_Item(Int32 index) +17    System.Web.SessionState.HttpSessionStateContainer.get_Item(Int32 index) +13    System.Web.Util.AspCompatApplicationStep.OnPageStartSessionObjects() +71    System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +2065 This error occurs long after the report viewer page has closed. It occurs to any asp.net page in the application, rendering the entire application unusable until the user gets a new session. The cause of the problem is that the ReportViewer uses session state. When a page retrieves session from any out-of-state session, the session variable of type Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ReportHierarchy is deserialized from the session storage. The deserialization could cause the object to connect to the report server when the report is no longer available. The solution is simple but not pretty. We need to clean up the session variable when the report viewer page is closed. One way is to add some Javascript to the page to handle the window.onunload event. In the event handler, call a web service to clean up the session variable. The name of the session variable appears to be randomly generated. So we need to loop through the session variable to find a variable of the type Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ReportHierarchy. Microsoft has implemented pinging between the report viewer and the report server to keep the report alive on the server when the report viewer is up; I hope they will go one step further to take care of this problem.

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• Windows Azure Use Case: Web Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: Many applications have a requirement to be located outside of the organization’s internal infrastructure control. For instance, the company website for a brick-and-mortar retail company may want to post not only static but interactive content to be available to their external customers, and not want the customers to have access inside the organization’s firewall. There are also cases of pure web applications used for a great many of the internal functions of the business. This allows for remote workers, shared customer/employee workloads and data and other advantages. Some firms choose to host these web servers internally, others choose to contract out the infrastructure to an “ASP” (Application Service Provider) or an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) company. In any case, the design of these applications often resembles the following: In this design, a server (or perhaps more than one) hosts the presentation function (http or https) access to the application, and this same system may hold the computational aspects of the program. Authorization and Access is controlled programmatically, or is more open if this is a customer-facing application. Storage is either placed on the same or other servers, hosted within an RDBMS or NoSQL database, or a combination of the options, all coded into the application. High-Availability within this scenario is often the responsibility of the architects of the application, and by purchasing more hosting resources which must be built, licensed and configured, and manually added as demand requires, although some IaaS providers have a partially automatic method to add nodes for scale-out, if the architecture of the application supports it. Disaster Recovery is the responsibility of the system architect as well. Implementation: In a Windows Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment, many of these architectural considerations are designed into the system. The Azure “Fabric” (not to be confused with the Azure implementation of Application Fabric - more on that in a moment) is designed to provide scalability. Compute resources can be added and removed programmatically based on any number of factors. Balancers at the request-level of the Fabric automatically route http and https requests. The fabric also provides High-Availability for storage and other components. Disaster recovery is a shared responsibility between the facilities (which have the ability to restore in case of catastrophic failure) and your code, which should build in recovery. In a Windows Azure-based web application, you have the ability to separate out the various functions and components. Presentation can be coded for multiple platforms like smart phones, tablets and PC’s, while the computation can be a single entity shared between them. This makes the applications more resilient and more object-oriented, and lends itself to a SOA or Distributed Computing architecture. It is true that you could code up a similar set of functionality in a traditional web-farm, but the difference here is that the components are built into the very design of the architecture. The API’s and DLL’s you call in a Windows Azure code base contains components as first-class citizens. For instance, if you need storage, it is simply called within the application as an object.  Computation has multiple options and the ability to scale linearly. You also gain another component that you would either have to write or bolt-in to a typical web-farm: the Application Fabric. This Windows Azure component provides communication between applications or even to on-premise systems. It provides authorization in either person-based or claims-based perspectives. SQL Azure provides relational storage as another option, and can also be used or accessed from on-premise systems. It should be noted that you can use all or some of these components individually. Resources: Design Strategies for Scalable Active Server Applications - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972349.aspx  Physical Tiers and Deployment  - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx

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• 2010 April Fools Joke

  - by Dane Morgridge

  I started at my current job at the end of March last year and there were some pretty funny April fools jokes.  Nothing super crazy, but pretty funny.  One guy came in and there was a tree in his cube.  We (me and the rest of my team) were planning for a couple of weeks on what we could do that would be just awesome.  We had a lot of really good ideas but nothing was spectacular.  Then Steve Andrews had a brilliant idea (yes it's true).  Since we have internal DNS servers we could redirect DNS to our internal servers for a site such as cnn.com.  Then we would lift the code from the site and create our own home page that would contain news about people in the company.  Steve was actually laughing so hard when he thought of the idea that it took him almost 30 minutes to spit it out. I thought, "this is perfect". I had enlisted a couple of people to help come up with the stories and at the same time we were trying to figure out how to get everybody to the site the morning of the 1st.  Then it hit me.  We could have the main article be one of my getting picked up by the FBI on hacking charges.  Then Chris (my boss) could send an email out telling everyone that I would not be there today and direct them to the site.  That would for sure get everyone to go to cnn.com first thing and see our prank.  I begun the process of looking for photos I could crop myself into and found the perfect one.  Then my wife took a good pic with our Canon 40D and I went to work.  The night before I didn't have any other stories due to everyone being really busy at work, but I decided to go ahead with just the FBI bust on it's own.  I got everything working and tested and coordinated with Chris for me to come in late so no one would see me at the office until after everyone had seen the joke. And so the morning of April fools came and I was waiting at home and the email was perfect.  Chris told everyone that I wouldn't be in and that not to answer any questions if you got any calls from anybody.  The Photoshop job I did was not perfect, but good enough and I even wrote an article with it that went into more detail about how I had been classified as a terrorist and all kinds of stuff. People at work started getting the emails and a few people didn't realize it was a joke (as I had hoped), including some from senior management (one person in particular who shall remain nameless in this post).  Emails started flying around about how to contain the situation and how to handle bad PR.  He basically bought it hook, line and sinker and then went in to crisis mode.  It was awesome! He did finally realize it was a joke and I will likely print and frame the email he sent out.  In short, April fools this year was a huge success.

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• Know Your Audience, And/Or Your Customer

  - by steve.diamond

  Yesterday I gave an internal presentation to about 20 Oracle employees on "messaging," not messaging technology, but embarking on the process of building messages. One of the elements I covered was the importance of really knowing and understanding your audience. As a humorous reference I included two side-by-side photos of Oakland A's fans and Oakland Raiders fans. The Oakland A's fans looked like happy-go-lucky drunk types. The Oakland Raiders fans looked like angry extras from a low budget horror flick. I then asked my presentation attendees what these two groups had in common. Here's what I heard. --They're human (at least I THINK they're human). --They're from Oakland. --They're sports fans. After that, it was anyone's guess. A few days earlier we were putting the finishing touches on a sales presentation for one of our product lines. We had included an upfront "lead in" addressing how the economy is improving, yet that doesn't mean sales executives will have any more resources to add to their teams, invest in technology, etc. This "lead in" included miscellaneous news article headlines and statistics validating the slowly improving economy. When we subjected this presentation to internal review two days ago, this upfront section in particular was scrutinized. "Is the economy really getting better? I (exclamation point) don't think it's really getting better. Haven't you seen the headlines coming out of Greece and Europe?" Then the question TO ME became, "Who will actually be in the audience that sees and hears this presentation? Will s/he be someone like me? Or will s/he be someone like the critic who didn't like our lead-in?" We took the safe route and removed that lead in. After all, why start a "pitch" with a component that is arguably subjective? What if many of our audience members are individuals at organizations still facing a strong headwind? For reasons I won't go into here, it was the right decision to make. The moral of the story: Make sure you really know your audience. Harness the wisdom of the information your organization's CRM systems collect to get that fully informed "customer view." Conduct formal research. Conduct INFORMAL research. Ask lots of questions. Study industries and scenarios that have nothing to do with yours to see "how they do it." Stop strangers in coffee shops and on the street...seriously. Last week I caught up with an old friend from high school who recently retired from a 25 year career with the USMC. He said, "I can learn something from every single person I come into contact with." What a great way of approaching the world. Then, think about and write down what YOU like and dislike as a customer. But also remember that when it comes to your company's products, you are most likely NOT the customer, so don't go overboard in superimposing your own world view. Approaching the study of customers this way adds rhyme, reason and CONTEXT to lengthy blog posts like this one. Know your audience.

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• Unit Testing DateTime – The Crazy Way

  - by João Angelo

  We all know that the process of unit testing code that depends on DateTime, particularly the current time provided through the static properties (Now, UtcNow and Today), it’s a PITA. If you go ask how to unit test DateTime.Now on stackoverflow I’ll bet that you’ll get two kind of answers: Encapsulate the current time in your own interface and use a standard mocking framework; Pull out the big guns like Typemock Isolator, JustMock or Microsoft Moles/Fakes and mock the static property directly. Now each alternative has is pros and cons and I would have to say that I glean more to the second approach because the first adds a layer of abstraction just for the sake of testability. However, the second approach depends on commercial tools that not every shop wants to buy or in the not so friendly Microsoft Moles. (Sidenote: Moles is now named Fakes and it will ship with VS 2012) This tends to leave people without an acceptable and simple solution so after reading another of these types of questions in SO I came up with yet another alternative, one based on the first alternative that I presented here but tries really hard to not get in your way with yet another layer of abstraction. So, without further dues, I present you, the Tardis. The Tardis is single section of conditionally compiled code that overrides the meaning of the DateTime expression inside a single class. You still get the normal coding experience of using DateTime all over the place, but in a DEBUG compilation your tests will be able to mock every static method or property of the DateTime class. An example follows, while the full Tardis code can be downloaded from GitHub: using System; using NSubstitute; using NUnit.Framework; using Tardis; public class Example { public Example() : this(string.Empty) { } public Example(string title) { #if DEBUG this.DateTime = DateTimeProvider.Default; this.Initialize(title); } internal IDateTimeProvider DateTime { get; set; } internal Example(string title, IDateTimeProvider provider) { this.DateTime = provider; #endif this.Initialize(title); } private void Initialize(string title) { this.Title = title; this.CreatedAt = DateTime.UtcNow; } private string title; public string Title { get { return this.title; } set { this.title = value; this.UpdatedAt = DateTime.UtcNow; } } public DateTime CreatedAt { get; private set; } public DateTime UpdatedAt { get; private set; } } public class TExample { public void T001() { // Arrange var tardis = Substitute.For<IDateTimeProvider>(); tardis.UtcNow.Returns(new DateTime(2000, 1, 1, 6, 6, 6)); // Act var sut = new Example("Title", tardis); // Assert Assert.That(sut.CreatedAt, Is.EqualTo(tardis.UtcNow)); } public void T002() { // Arrange var tardis = Substitute.For<IDateTimeProvider>(); var sut = new Example("Title", tardis); tardis.UtcNow.Returns(new DateTime(2000, 1, 1, 6, 6, 6)); // Act sut.Title = "Updated"; // Assert Assert.That(sut.UpdatedAt, Is.EqualTo(tardis.UtcNow)); } } This approach is also suitable for other similar classes with commonly used static methods or properties like the ConfigurationManager class.

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• General website publishing questions involving domain forwarding issue

  - by Gorgeousyousuf

  Even though I have been having a certain level of knowledge and experience about web development I have never interested in obtaining a domain and publishing a website from my own server. Since today I have been struggling with getting my own domain and configuring it utilizing web sources. I started with learning the outline of web publishing process including web server installation, deploying a website for testing purpose,router port forwarding, getting a domain and forwarding domain to my router which will also forward http requests to my web server I am confused about some parts and so far could not get the web site accessed from outside of the network. All I try to do is just for learning purpose so I do not pay much attention to security issues for now. I have Server 2008 and IIS 7.5 installed. I use a laptop and have access to the modem over wireless and my modem is Zoom x6 5590. Well I will continue explaining what I have done so far and what I think will be after each action I did, I have successfully had access to my website on any local computer entering the internal ip address and port pair of the host machine in a browser. Next, I forwarded port 80 of my host machine creating a virtual server like 10.0.0.x(internal ip(static) of the host) - tcp - start port : 80 - end port : 80 in router options. Now I suppose every request that will come to the public Ip on port 80 will be forwarded to my host machine(10.0.0.x) over port 80. So If everyhing went as desired, the website listening on port 80 will accept the request and process the issue and finally respond bla bla bla... I suppose to access my website from outside of the network by entering http://MyPublicIp:80 in a browser but I couldn't accomplish this task by now despite using godady's domain forwarding tool,I see a small view of my website when I click the "preview" button that checks whether the address(http://publicip/Index.aspx) I entered where my domain will be forwarded is available or not. I am sure that configuring domain does not play a role in solving such a problem since using public ip and port matching does not help. So here is the first question, What is the fact that I face this problem? After that, I have couple of question regarding domain forwarding using godaddy tool. Can I forward my domain to a any port for example port 8080 other than default http port 80? Additionally, can I use a sub-domain to forward to a different port of the host? What I want to design is if the client enters www.mydomain.com, website1 will respond over a specified port and after when a client enters info.mydomain.com, another website which listens on different port will respond. I tried to add a sub-domain and forward it to a address like http://www.mydomain.com:8080/Index.aspx with no success. Can I really do that? Finally, what if I have a ftp site listening on the default port 21 and I create a domain like ftp.mydomain.com that will forward to that ftp site address. Is it possible to use sub-domains for ftp site access? I know I am more than confused but no matter whatever and however you reply to me, you will help me have a more clear view on this subject. Thank you very much from now.

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• Spotlight on an office - Denmark

  - by jessica.ebbelaar(at)oracle.com

  Hi, my name is Michael. I work as an Intern at the Danish office in Ballerup. My job is a part-time position beside my bachelor study in International Business at Copenhagen Business School. I joined Oracle end of February last year, and what a thrilling ride it has been! Last year, when I was offered the position, there was no doubt that I wanted to go for it. Back then, I only had little idea about Oracle as a company and what kind of exciting assignments lay ahead of me. My main role is internal communications, i.e. editor of a monthly employee’s news letter; Newszone. It is an interesting task, since it requires that I am updated on the different activities that take place within the Oracle Denmark office. I try to bring interesting articles, which are relevant and interesting news to my colleagues and it allows me to interact with many different persons at the office and to learn from their experience, which give me great inspiration and ideas for the magazine. Besides being the editor of Newszone, I also make sure that other communication flow freely at the Oracle Denmark office. I do this through our LCD screen channels. I update the internal channel with the latest information and important messages for employees, and on the external channel I circulate marketing videos featuring Oracle products and customer reference stories. In addition to this, I have the responsibility acting as a content manager of the Local Communication Denmark site on MyOracle (UCM). These are more or less my usual work assignments. On top of these I take care of various ad hoc assignments such as updating the GCM database, renew newspaper subscriptions etc. The Oracle Denmark office Being part of the local employees club I also assist with arranging social events outside working hours – e.g. evenings at the theater or cinema or by attending many of the sportsactivities;such as our running club, cycling club, food club and book club. These activities have indeed helped me grow my personal network within Oracle.  The office is packed with engaging, high-paced and motivated people who manage to take time off to spend a day attending Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, one of them being GVD (Global Volunteer Day) with approximately 40 employees attending. This proofs some of the social responsible aspects of Oracle. I was positively surprised on how the office (named O-Zone) is designed. The office is designed into three distinct zones, namely Call zone, Project and Dialogue zone and Quiet zone, having different working environments for different job roles. The other thing which I like is that you do not have your own desk, which means you get to sit next to different people every day, getting new ideas and inspiration as well as getting to know more people in the organization you work in. To sum up: If you are considering pursuing an intern or a career after graduation in Oracle, do it! You will not regret it. It has given me many relevant practical experiences beside my study, and I am sure many great experiences will await you too.   Want to know more about the current vacancies in Denmark? Check http://campus.oracle.com for all of our vacancies.

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• Why you shouldn't add methods to interfaces in APIs

  - by Simon Cooper

  It is an oft-repeated maxim that you shouldn't add methods to a publically-released interface in an API. Recently, I was hit hard when this wasn't followed. As part of the work on ApplicationMetrics, I've been implementing auto-reporting of MVC action methods; whenever an action was called on a controller, ApplicationMetrics would automatically report it without the developer needing to add manual ReportEvent calls. Fortunately, MVC provides easy hook when a controller is created, letting me log when it happens - the IControllerFactory interface. Now, the dll we provide to instrument an MVC webapp has to be compiled against .NET 3.5 and MVC 1, as the lowest common denominator. This MVC 1 dll will still work when used in an MVC 2, 3 or 4 webapp because all MVC 2+ webapps have a binding redirect redirecting all references to previous versions of System.Web.Mvc to the correct version, and type forwards taking care of any moved types in the new assemblies. Or at least, it should. IControllerFactory In MVC 1 and 2, IControllerFactory was defined as follows: public interface IControllerFactory { IController CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName); void ReleaseController(IController controller); } So, to implement the logging controller factory, we simply wrap the existing controller factory: internal sealed class LoggingControllerFactory : IControllerFactory { private readonly IControllerFactory m_CurrentController; public LoggingControllerFactory(IControllerFactory currentController) { m_CurrentController = currentController; } public IController CreateController( RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName) { // log the controller being used FeatureSessionData.ReportEvent("Controller used:", controllerName); return m_CurrentController.CreateController(requestContext, controllerName); } public void ReleaseController(IController controller) { m_CurrentController.ReleaseController(controller); } } Easy. This works as expected in MVC 1 and 2. However, in MVC 3 this type was throwing a TypeLoadException, saying a method wasn't implemented. It turns out that, in MVC 3, the definition of IControllerFactory was changed to this: public interface IControllerFactory { IController CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName); SessionStateBehavior GetControllerSessionBehavior( RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName); void ReleaseController(IController controller); } There's a new method in the interface. So when our MVC 1 dll was redirected to reference System.Web.Mvc v3, LoggingControllerFactory tried to implement version 3 of IControllerFactory, was missing the GetControllerSessionBehaviour method, and so couldn't be loaded by the CLR. Implementing the new method Fortunately, there was a workaround. Because interface methods are normally implemented implicitly in the CLR, if we simply declare a virtual method matching the signature of the new method in MVC 3, then it will be ignored in MVC 1 and 2 and implement the extra method in MVC 3: internal sealed class LoggingControllerFactory : IControllerFactory { ... public virtual SessionStateBehaviour GetControllerSessionBehaviour( RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName) {} ... } However, this also has problems - the SessionStateBehaviour type only exists in .NET 4, and we're limited to .NET 3.5 by support for MVC 1 and 2. This means that the only solutions to support all MVC versions are: Construct the LoggingControllerFactory type at runtime using reflection Produce entirely separate dlls for MVC 1&2 and MVC 3. Ugh. And all because of that blasted extra method! Another solution? Fortunately, in this case, there is a third option - System.Web.Mvc also provides a DefaultControllerFactory type that can provide the implementation of GetControllerSessionBehaviour for us in MVC 3, while still allowing us to override CreateController and ReleaseController. However, this does mean that LoggingControllerFactory won't be able to wrap any calls to GetControllerSessionBehaviour. This is an acceptable bug, given the other options, as very few developers will be overriding GetControllerSessionBehaviour in their own custom controller factory. So, if you're providing an interface as part of an API, then please please please don't add methods to it. Especially if you don't provide a 'default' implementing type. Any code compiled against the previous version that can't be updated will have some very tough decisions to make to support both versions.

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• Get Your Enterprise Working With Oracle On Track Communication 1.0

  - by Josh Lannin

  The On Track Development team is very pleased to announce that today On Track is available for our customers to download and evaluate.  To learn more about what On Track does start with our whitepaper and datasheet.   If you are a developer, take a look at our documentation and samples posted to our OTN page. For this first blog post, I’ll be speaking to several notable points about our product. Graceful Escalation via Conversations: On Track addresses the “Collaboration Problem” through a single guiding principle – graceful escalation – within the construct of a Conversation. In On Track, collaboration is based on a context (called a “Conversation”) that gracefully escalates in form, structure, and content, as dictated by the particular needs of a given collaboration.  Within that context, On Track provides a rich set of tools to choose from.  These tools provide for communication, coordination, content management, organization, decision making, and analysis -- all essential aspects of collaboration, but not all of them are essential all of the time.  Every collaborative interaction will evolve differently.  Some will evolve to represent work spreading over the course of years and involving a large, distributed team, while others may involve few people and not evolve at all.  Regardless, all collaborative contexts are built from the same parts, utilize the same concepts, and start the same way.  The principle of graceful escalation is that you only use the tools and structure you need; so you only incur the complexity you need. Purposeful Collaboration: Through application integration, On Track Conversations bring enterprise application users the communication and collaboration capabilities required to complete business process.  By association with specific processes or business objects conversations extend the possible interactions and broaden participation to internal or external non-application users and provide a sophisticated interaction experience, all the while enhancing the data set within the owning application.  Purposeful collaboration not only needs to happen in the context of applications, it must support a full range of real-time and long-running interactions to provide the greatest value. Multi Client, Multi Modal: This On Track 1.0 product release includes the same day availability of  multiple clients, including iPhone and iPad applications which are now available on the Apple Store, a fully capable and accessible Outlook Add-In, along with our browser web client.  With each client we have sought to leverage the strengths of each unique device- our iPhone client supports picture and voice posts, the iPad is optimized for meeting room situations and document viewing, and our Outlook add-in allows you to take emails in context and bring them into On Track.  In addition to supporting a diverse array of clients, On Track provides a unified multi modal experience support starting with basic messages moving through to integrated documents with live annotations, snapshots, application sharing, and voice. Next Generation Web Architecture: We believe On Track will help move the bar higher for what users can expect from all web applications, most notably ones that involve real-time activity.  On Track is built from the ground up with an innovative, real-time architecture that leverages the extensive push capabilities of our server.  Whether you are receiving a new message, viewing where crowds of people are collaborating, or doing live annotation on a document with a set of people, that information comes to you immediately without refreshes or moving back and forth between pages.  We’ve leveraged this core architecture across the product experience and raised the user experience bar for this type of application.  As well these capabilities are based on open standards and protocols, and are fully extensible by anyone- enabling sophisticated integrations to be created with a wide variety of both legacy and next-generation applications. Agile Product Development: As a product team we operate using continuous feedback and modified agile development methodologies.  We have thousands of active internal Oracle users who have helped pilot our product for critical business functions, and the On Track product development team uses our product as our primary vehicle for all our collaboration.  Additionally we been working with early access customers who are adopting our technology and providing us valuable feedback - which our process has rapidly realized in improvements to our software.  On Track agility extends to our server as well, which is built to scale, and is very simple to install and configure. We are pleased to make this product announcement and encourage you to join us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, as well as checking back here for the latest product information.

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• DataContractSerializer: type is not serializable because it is not public?

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  I recently ran into an odd and annoying error when working with the DataContractSerializer class for a WP7 project. I thought I’d share it to save others who might encounter it the same annoyance I had. So I had an instance of  ObservableCollection<T> that I was trying to serialize (with T being a class I wrote for the project) and whenever it would hit the code to save it, it would give me: The data contract type 'ProjectName.MyMagicItemsClass' is not serializable because it is not public. Making the type public will fix this error. Alternatively, you can make it internal, and use the InternalsVisibleToAttribute attribute on your assembly in order to enable serialization of internal members - see documentation for more details. Be aware that doing so has certain security implications. This, of course, was malarkey. I was trying to write an instance of MyAwesomeClass that looked like this: [DataContract] public class MyAwesomeClass { [DataMember] public ObservableCollection<MyMagicItemsClass> GreatItems { get; set; }   [DataMember] public ObservableCollection<MyMagicItemsClass> SuperbItems { get; set; }     public MyAwesomeClass { GreatItems = new ObservableCollection<MyMagicItemsClass>(); SuperbItems = new ObservableCollection<MyMagicItemsClass>(); } }   That’s all well and fine. And MyMagicItemsClass was also public with a parameterless public constructor. It too had DataContractAttribute applied to it and it had DataMemberAttribute applied to all the properties and fields I wanted to serialize. Everything should be cool, but it’s not because I keep getting that “not public” exception. I could tell you about all the things I tried (generating a List<T> on the fly to make sure it wasn’t ObservableCollection<T>, trying to serialize the the Collections directly, moving it all to a separate library project, etc.), but I want to keep this short. In the end, I remembered my the “Debug->Exceptions…” VS menu option that brings up the list of exception-related circumstances under which the Visual Studio debugger will break. I checked the “Thrown” checkbox for “Common Language Runtime Exceptions”, started the project under the debugger, and voilà: the true problem revealed itself. Some of my properties had fairly elaborate setters whose logic I wanted to ignore. So for some of them, I applied an IgnoreDataMember attribute to them and applied the DataMember attribute to the underlying fields instead. All of which, in line with good programming practices, were private. Well, it just so happens that WP7 apps run in a “partial trust” environment and outside of “full trust”-land, DataContractSerializer refuses to serialize or deserialize non-public members. Of course that exception was swallowed up internally by .NET so all I ever saw was that bizarre message about things that I knew for certain were public being “not public”. I changed all the private fields I was serializing to public and everything worked just fine. In hindsight it all makes perfect sense. The serializer uses reflection to build up its graph of the object in order to write it out. In partial trust, you don’t want people using reflection to get at non-public members of an object since there are potential security problems with allowing that (you could break out of the sandbox pretty quickly by reflecting and calling the appropriate methods and cause some havoc by reflecting and setting the appropriate fields in certain circumstances. The fact that you cannot reflect your own assembly seems a bit heavy-handed, but then again I’m not a compiler writer or a framework designer and I have no idea what sorts of difficulties would go into allowing that from a compilation standpoint or what sorts of security problems allowing that could present (if any). So, lesson learned. If you get an incomprehensible exception message, turn on break on all thrown exceptions and try running it again (it might take a couple of tries, depending) and see what pops out. Chances are you’ll find the buried exception that actually explains what was going on. And if you’re getting a weird exception when trying to use DataContractSerializer complaining about public types not being public, chances are you’re trying to serialize a private or protected field/property.

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• Tuning Default WorkManager - Advantages and Disadvantages

  - by Murali Veligeti

  Before discussing on Tuning Default WorkManager, lets have a brief introduction on What is Default WorkManger Before Weblogic Server 9.0 release, we had the concept of Execute Queues. WebLogic Server (before WLS 9.0), processing was performed in multiple execute queues. Different classes of work were executed in different queues, based on priority and ordering requirements, and to avoid deadlocks. In addition to the default execute queue, weblogic.kernel.default, there were pre-configured queues dedicated to internal administrative traffic, such as weblogic.admin.HTTP and weblogic.admin.RMI.Users could control thread usage by altering the number of threads in the default queue, or configure custom execute queues to ensure that particular applications had access to a fixed number of execute threads, regardless of overall system load. From WLS 9.0 release onwards WebLogic Server uses is a single thread pool (single thread pool which is called Default WorkManager), in which all types of work are executed. WebLogic Server prioritizes work based on rules you define, and run-time metrics, including the actual time it takes to execute a request and the rate at which requests are entering and leaving the pool.The common thread pool changes its size automatically to maximize throughput. The queue monitors throughput over time and based on history, determines whether to adjust the thread count. For example, if historical throughput statistics indicate that a higher thread count increased throughput, WebLogic increases the thread count. Similarly, if statistics indicate that fewer threads did not reduce throughput, WebLogic decreases the thread count. This new strategy makes it easier for administrators to allocate processing resources and manage performance, avoiding the effort and complexity involved in configuring, monitoring, and tuning custom executes queues. The Default WorkManager is used to handle thread management and perform self-tuning.This Work Manager is used by an application when no other Work Managers are specified in the application’s deployment descriptors. In many situations, the default Work Manager may be sufficient for most application requirements. WebLogic Server’s thread-handling algorithms assign each application its own fair share by default. Applications are given equal priority for threads and are prevented from monopolizing them. The default work-manager, as its name tells, is the work-manager defined by default.Thus, all applications deployed on WLS will use it. But sometimes, when your application is already in production, it's obvious you can't take your EAR / WAR, update the deployment descriptor(s) and redeploy it.The default work-manager belongs to a thread-pool, as initial thread-pool comes with only five threads, that's not much. If your application has to face a large number of hits, you may want to start with more than that.Well, that's quite easy. You have  two option to do so.1) Modify the config.xmlJust add the following line(s) in your server definition : <server> <name>AdminServer</name> <self-tuning-thread-pool-size-min>100</self-tuning-thread-pool-size-min> <self-tuning-thread-pool-size-max>200</self-tuning-thread-pool-size-max> [...] </server> 2) Adding some JVM parameters Add the following system property in setDomainEnv.sh/setDomainEnv.cmd or startWebLogic.sh/startWebLogic.cmd : -Dweblogic.threadpool.MinPoolSize=100 -Dweblogic.threadpool.MaxPoolSize=100 Reboot WLS and see the option has been taken into account . Disadvantage: So far its fine. But here there is an disadvantage in tuning Default WorkManager. Internally Weblogic Server has many work managers configured for different types of work.  if we run out of threads in the self-tuning pool(because of system property -Dweblogic.threadpool.MaxPoolSize) due to being undersized, then important work that WLS might need to do could be starved.  So, while limiting the self-tuning would limit the default WorkManager and internally it also limits all other internal WorkManagers which WLS uses.So the best alternative is to override the default WorkManager that means creating a WorkManager for the Application and assign the WorkManager for the application instead of tuning the Default WorkManager.

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• Custom Templates: Using user exits

  - by Anthony Shorten

  One of the features of Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4.1 is the ability to use templates and user exits to extend the base configuration files. The configuration files used by the product are based upon a set of templates shipped with the product. When the configureEnv utility asks for configuration settings they are stored in a configuration file ENVIRON.INI which outlines the environment settings. These settings are then used by the initialSetup utility to populate the various configuration files used by the product using templates located in the templates directory of the installation. Now, whilst the majority of the installations at any site are non-production and the templates provided are generally adequate for that need, there are circumstances where extension of templates are needed to take advantage of more advanced facilities (such as advanced security and environment settings). The issue then becomes that if you alter the configuration files manually (directly or indirectly) then you may lose all your custom settings the next time you run initialSetup. To counter this we allow customers to either override templates with their own template or we now provide user exits in the templates to add fragments of configuration unique to that part of the configuration file. The latter means that the base template is still used but additions are included to provide the extensions. The provision of custom templates is supported but as soon as you use a custom template you are then responsible for reflecting any changes we put in the base template over time. Not a big task but annoying if you have to do it for multiple copies of the product. I prefer to use user exits as they seem to represent the least effort solution. The way to find the user exits available is to either read the Server Administration Guide that comes with your product or look at individual templates and look for the lines: #ouaf_user_exit <user exit name> Where <user exit name> is the name of the user exit. User exits are not always present but are in places that we feel are the most likely to be changed. If a user exit does not exist the you can always use a custom template instead. Now lets show an example. By default, the product generates a config.xml file to be used with Oracle WebLogic. This configuration file has the basic setting contained in it to manage the product. If you want to take advantage of the Oracle WebLogic advanced settings, you can use the console to make those changes and it will be reflected in the config.xml automatically. To retain those changes across invocations of initialSetup, you need to alter the template that generates the config.xml or use user exits. The technique is this. Make the change in the console and when you save the change, WebLogic will reflect it in the config.xml for you. Compare the old version and new version of the config.xml and determine what to add and then find the user exit to put it in by examining the base template. For example, by default, the console is not automatically deployed (it is deployed on demand) in the base config.xml. To make the console deploy, you can add the following line to the templates/CM_config.xml.win.exit_3.include file (for windows) or templates/CM_config.xml.exit_3.include file (for linux/unix): <internal-apps-deploy-on-demand-enabled>false</internal-apps-deploy-on-demand-enabled> Now run initialSetup to reflect the change and if you check the splapp/config/config.xml file you will see the change applied for you. Now how did I know which include file? I check the template for config.xml and found there was an user exit at the right place. I prefixed my include filename with "CM_" to denote it as a custom user exit. This will tell the upgrade tools to leave that file alone whenever you decide to upgrade (or even apply fixes). User exits can be powerful and allow customizations to be added for advanced configuration. You will see products using Oracle Utilities Application Framework use this exits themselves (usually prefixed with the product code). You are also taking advantage of them.

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• Must go through Windows Boot Loader to get to Grub

  - by Zach

  I just installed a fresh copy of Precise alongside Windows 7. I have to separate 750GB hard drives; /dev/sda holds the Windows partitions and /dev/sdb holds the Ubuntu partitions. Other than that, these are fresh installs of both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04. Whenever I boot, Grub doesn't load, instead it goes to a black screen with a single blinking (horizontal bar) cursor in the top right corner. However, if I boot, hit escape right as the BIOS/POST screen finishes up, see the Windows Boot Loader and hit escape to make it go back to the BIOS screen. After the BIOS screen, grub shows up and everything functions normally; I can boot into Ubuntu or Win7. I don't want to have to do the Escape, Escape, Wait, Boot trick every time. I have no idea what would be wrong or what information I could give you guys to help diagnose. I have run a sudo update-grub and it found everything normally. I tried adding nomodeset flag in the /etc/default/grub line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT which searching around made me think might work. Thoughts on what I could do to fix this? EDIT: I've tried changing the boot order so that both drives in the BIOS (both are labeled as "Internal HDD") have had a try booting first. I think the problem may be that every time I boot, the BIOS boot order is different... and I have to reset it. It seems to not be stable... but I'm not sure how to go about fixing that either. The machine has both traditional BIOS and UEFI. It came standard in "Legacy" mode; so it is currently set to boot through Legacy mode. I've reinstalled Ubuntu now, and now if I hit escape at the end of the BIOS/POST startup screen, it takes me to GRUB menu. Otherwise it automatically loads Windows. It seems like GRUB is now the acting bootloader, it just doesn't automatically start that unless I ask it to open a bootloader. In my other machines, it has always automatically started at the end of BIOS/POST. EDIT2: Using gparted, I just looked at my partitions, it would seem that my linux-swap partition is currently flagged as the boot partition for my Ubuntu install. I currently only have 2 partitions: one of "ext4" with a mount point of "/" and flag " "; and the "linux-swap" with mount point " " and flag "boot." If I change the boot flag to be on "/," it does not reliably solve the problem. After 10 boots: 2 Booted successfully to GRUB 5 Booted directly to Windows 7 3 booted to the black screen with the cursor and hung there Further research makes me think this is an issue of the BIOS not reliably booting hard drives in the same order or not finding both hard drives. If I ask it to create a "boot menu" sometimes it has 2 entries for "Internal HDD," sometimes 1. Also the list it creates changes order every time I bring it up; so it is not following a consistent boot sequence. Will report back if this is not an issue with GRUB.

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• PowerShell Script To Find Where SharePoint 2010 Features Are Activated

  - by Brian Jackett

  The script on this post will find where features are activated within your SharePoint 2010 farm.   Problem    Over the past few months I’ve gotten literally dozens of emails, blog comments, or personal requests from people asking “how do I find where a SharePoint feature has been activated?”  I wrote a script to find which features are installed on your farm almost 3 years ago.  There is also the Get-SPFeature PowerShell commandlet in SharePoint 2010.  The problem is that these only tell you if a feature is installed not where they have been activated.  This is especially important to know if you have multiple web applications, site collections, and /or sites.   Solution    The default call (no parameters) for Get-SPFeature will return all features in the farm.  Many of the parameter sets accept filters for specific scopes such as web application, site collection, and site.  If those are supplied then only the enabled / activated features are returned for that filtered scope.  Taking the concept of recursively traversing a SharePoint farm and merging that with calls to Get-SPFeature at all levels of the farm you can find out what features are activated at that level.  Store the results into a variable and you end up with all features that are activated at every level.    Below is the script I came up with (slight edits for posting on blog).  With no parameters the function lists all features activated at all scopes.  If you provide an Identity parameter you will find where a specific feature is activated.  Note that the display name for a feature you see in the SharePoint UI rarely matches the “internal” display name.  I would recommend using the feature id instead.  You can download a full copy of the script by clicking on the link below.    Note: This script is not optimized for medium to large farms.  In my testing it took 1-3 minutes to recurse through my demo environment.  This script is provided as-is with no warranty.  Run this in a smaller dev / test environment first.   001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 function Get-SPFeatureActivated { # see full script for help info, removed for formatting [CmdletBinding()] param(   [Parameter(position = 1, valueFromPipeline=$true)]   [Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPFeatureDefinitionPipeBind]   $Identity )#end param   Begin   {     # declare empty array to hold results. Will add custom member `     # for Url to show where activated at on objects returned from Get-SPFeature.     $results = @()         $params = @{}   }   Process   {     if([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -eq $false)     {       $params = @{Identity = $Identity             ErrorAction = "SilentlyContinue"       }     }       # check farm features     $results += (Get-SPFeature -Farm -Limit All @params |              % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty `                 -Name Url -Value ([string]::Empty) -PassThru} |              Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)     # check web application features     foreach($webApp in (Get-SPWebApplication))     {       $results += (Get-SPFeature -WebApplication $webApp -Limit All @params |                % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty `                   -Name Url -Value $webApp.Url -PassThru} |                Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)       # check site collection features in current web app       foreach($site in ($webApp.Sites))       {         $results += (Get-SPFeature -Site $site -Limit All @params |                  % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty `                     -Name Url -Value $site.Url -PassThru} |                  Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                          $site.Dispose()         # check site features in current site collection         foreach($web in ($site.AllWebs))         {           $results += (Get-SPFeature -Web $web -Limit All @params |                    % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty `                       -Name Url -Value $web.Url -PassThru} |                    Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)           $web.Dispose()         }       }     }   }   End   {     $results   } } #end Get-SPFeatureActivated   Snippet of output from Get-SPFeatureActivated   Conclusion    This script has been requested for a long time and I’m glad to finally getting a working “clean” version.  If you find any bugs or issues with the script please let me know.  I’ll be posting this to the TechNet Script Center after some internal review.  Enjoy the script and I hope it helps with your admin / developer needs.         -Frog Out

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• How do I configure WakeOnUSB properly?

  - by wishi

  How do I configure Wake-On-USB properly on a 10.04 or 10.10 Ubuntu (2.6.36 and higher if needed)? (Wake-on-USB is when the computer is asleep and for example a USB Keyboard event wakes up the machine!) The notebook is an Acer Aspire Timeline X 1830T. I don't know in which way the Linux Kernel supports the controllers. There are different ways to approach this, for example /proc/acpi/wakeup... or UDEV... or something with HAL? /proc/acpi/wakeup shows every device in S4, but I need S3. Device S-state Status Sysfs node P0P2 S4 *disabled PEGP S4 *disabled P0P1 S0 *disabled pci:0000:00:1e.0 EHC1 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:1d.0 USB1 S4 *enabled USB2 S4 *disabled USB3 S4 *disabled USB4 S4 *disabled EHC2 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:1a.0 USB5 S4 *disabled USB6 S4 *disabled USB7 S4 *disabled HDEF S0 *disabled pci:0000:00:1b.0 RP01 S5 *disabled pci:0000:00:1c.0 PXSX S5 *disabled pci:0000:01:00.0 RP02 S0 *disabled pci:0000:00:1c.1 PXSX S5 *disabled pci:0000:02:00.0 RP03 S0 *disabled PXSX S5 *disabled RP04 S0 *disabled PXSX S5 *disabled RP05 S0 *disabled PXSX S5 *disabled RP07 S0 *disabled PXSX S5 *disabled RP08 S0 *disabled PXSX S5 *disabled GLAN S0 *disabled PEG3 S4 *disabled PEG5 S4 *disabled PEG6 S4 *disabled SLPB S3 *enabled S4, which is Suspend-To-Disk afaik... doesn't seem to work either if I echo USB1 into the wakeup table. It just sets an S4 flag. can I get the USB ports in S3? I want to make the machine wakeup from Suspend-To-Ram (S3, ACPI standard) in case a key on my external keyboard is pressed. It only wakes up if a key on the internal Laptop keyboard is pressed... from Suspend To Ram. It seems if I plug in a USB mouse, that the USB port isn't even powered. I have no BIOS option to change this. Further specific information regarding the device: usb-devices T: Bus=01 Lev=02 Prnt=02 Port=01 Cnt=01 Dev#= 13 Spd=1.5 MxCh= 0 D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1 P: Vendor=04d9 ProdID=1603 Rev=03.10 S: Manufacturer= S: Product=USB Keyboard C: #Ifs= 2 Cfg#= 1 Atr=a0 MxPwr=100mA I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=03(HID ) Sub=01 Prot=01 Driver=usbhid I: If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=03(HID ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=usbhid root@underwater-laptop:/# lsusb [...] Bus 001 Device 013: ID 04d9:1603 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:0138 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub [...] If this doesn't work I have to properly explain why :( - but I think it is very hard to research this kernel internal. Any hints for good information here? I hope it's possible... I'm just looking for any solution. edit: this, waking up on USB, works on Windows! Thanks a lot, Marius

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• Investigating on xVelocity (VertiPaq) column size

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

    In January I published an article about how to optimize high cardinality columns in VertiPaq. In the meantime, VertiPaq has been rebranded to xVelocity: the official name is now “xVelocity in-memory analytics engine (VertiPaq)” but using xVelocity and VertiPaq when we talk about Analysis Services has the same meaning. In this post I’ll show how to investigate on columns size of an existing Tabular database so that you can find the most important columns to be optimized. A first approach can be looking in the DataDir of Analysis Services and look for the folder containing the database. Then, look for the biggest files in all subfolders and you will find the name of a file that contains the name of the most expensive column. However, this heuristic process is not very optimized. A better approach is using a DMV that provides the exact information. For example, by using the following query (open SSMS, open an MDX query on the database you are interested to and execute it) you will see all database objects sorted by used size in a descending way. SELECT * FROM $SYSTEM.DISCOVER_STORAGE_TABLE_COLUMN_SEGMENTS ORDER BY used_size DESC You can look at the first rows in order to understand what are the most expensive columns in your tabular model. The interesting data provided are: TABLE_ID: it is the name of the object – it can be also a dictionary or an index COLUMN_ID: it is the column name the object belongs to – you can also see ID_TO_POS and POS_TO_ID in case they refer to internal indexes RECORDS_COUNT: it is the number of rows in the column USED_SIZE: it is the used memory for the object By looking at the ration between USED_SIZE and RECORDS_COUNT you can understand what you can do in order to optimize your tabular model. Your options are: Remove the column. Yes, if it contains data you will never use in a query, simply remove the column from the tabular model Change granularity. If you are tracking time and you included milliseconds but seconds would be enough, round the data source column to the nearest second. If you have a floating point number but two decimals are good enough (i.e. the temperature), round the number to the nearest decimal is relevant to you. Split the column. Create two or more columns that have to be combined together in order to produce the original value. This technique is described in VertiPaq optimization article. Sort the table by that column. When you read the data source, you might consider sorting data by this column, so that the compression will be more efficient. However, this technique works better on columns that don’t have too many distinct values and you will probably move the problem to another column. Sorting data starting from the lower density columns (those with a few number of distinct values) and going to higher density columns (those with high cardinality) is the technique that provides the best compression ratio. After the optimization you should be able to reduce the used size and improve the count/size ration you measured before. If you are interested in a longer discussion about internal storage in VertiPaq and you want understand why this approach can save you space (and time), you can attend my 24 Hours of PASS session “VertiPaq Under the Hood” on March 21 at 08:00 GMT.

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• Ubuntu 12.04 LXC nat prerouting not working

  - by petermolnar

  I have a running Debian Wheezy setup I copied exactly to an Ubuntu 12.04 ( elementary OS, used as desktop as well ) While the Debian setup runs flawlessly, the Ubuntu version dies on the prerouting to containers ( or so it seems ) In short: lxc works containers work and run connecting to container from host OK ( including mixed ports & services ) connecting to outside world from container is fine What does not work is connecting from another box to the host on a port that should be NATed to a container. The setups: /etc/rc.local CMD_BRCTL=/sbin/brctl CMD_IFCONFIG=/sbin/ifconfig CMD_IPTABLES=/sbin/iptables CMD_ROUTE=/sbin/route NETWORK_BRIDGE_DEVICE_NAT=lxc-bridge HOST_NETDEVICE=eth0 PRIVATE_GW_NAT=192.168.42.1 PRIVATE_NETMASK=255.255.255.0 PUBLIC_IP=192.168.13.100 ${CMD_BRCTL} addbr ${NETWORK_BRIDGE_DEVICE_NAT} ${CMD_BRCTL} setfd ${NETWORK_BRIDGE_DEVICE_NAT} 0 ${CMD_IFCONFIG} ${NETWORK_BRIDGE_DEVICE_NAT} ${PRIVATE_GW_NAT} netmask ${PRIVATE_NETMASK} promisc up Therefore lxc network is 192.168.42.0/24 and the host eth0 ip is 192.168.13.100; setup via network manager as static address. iptables: *mangle :PREROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :POSTROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] COMMIT *filter :FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0] :INPUT DROP [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0] # Accept traffic from internal interfaces -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT # accept traffic from lxc network -A INPUT -d 192.168.42.1 -s 192.168.42.0/24 -j ACCEPT # Accept internal traffic Make sure NEW incoming tcp connections are SYN # packets; otherwise we need to drop them: -A INPUT -p tcp ! --syn -m state --state NEW -j DROP # Packets with incoming fragments drop them. This attack result into Linux server panic such data loss. -A INPUT -f -j DROP # Incoming malformed XMAS packets drop them: -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL ALL -j DROP # Incoming malformed NULL packets: -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP # Accept traffic with the ACK flag set -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --tcp-flags ACK ACK -j ACCEPT # Allow incoming data that is part of a connection we established -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT # Allow data that is related to existing connections -A INPUT -m state --state RELATED -j ACCEPT # Accept responses to DNS queries -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 1024:65535 --sport 53 -j ACCEPT # Accept responses to our pings -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type echo-reply -j ACCEPT # Accept notifications of unreachable hosts -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type destination-unreachable -j ACCEPT # Accept notifications to reduce sending speed -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type source-quench -j ACCEPT # Accept notifications of lost packets -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type time-exceeded -j ACCEPT # Accept notifications of protocol problems -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type parameter-problem -j ACCEPT # Respond to pings, but limit -A INPUT -m icmp -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -m state --state NEW -m limit --limit 6/s -j ACCEPT # Allow connections to SSH server -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -m limit --limit 12/s -j ACCEPT COMMIT *nat :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :PREROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] :POSTROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] -A PREROUTING -d 192.168.13.100 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 2221 -m state --state NEW -m limit --limit 12/s -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.42.11:22 -A PREROUTING -d 192.168.13.100 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -m state --state NEW -m limit --limit 512/s -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.42.11:80 -A PREROUTING -d 192.168.13.100 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -m state --state NEW -m limit --limit 512/s -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.42.11:443 -A POSTROUTING -d 192.168.42.0/24 -o eth0 -j SNAT --to-source 192.168.13.100 -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE COMMIT sysctl: net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding = 1 net.ipv4.conf.all.mc_forwarding = 0 net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding = 1 net.ipv4.conf.default.mc_forwarding = 0 net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1 I've set up full iptables log on the container; none of the packets addressed to 192.168.13.100, port 80 is reaching the container. I've even tried different kernels ( server kernel, raring lts kernel, etc ), modprobe everything iptables & nat related, nothing. Any ideas?

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• Investigating on xVelocity (VertiPaq) column size

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

    In January I published an article about how to optimize high cardinality columns in VertiPaq. In the meantime, VertiPaq has been rebranded to xVelocity: the official name is now “xVelocity in-memory analytics engine (VertiPaq)” but using xVelocity and VertiPaq when we talk about Analysis Services has the same meaning. In this post I’ll show how to investigate on columns size of an existing Tabular database so that you can find the most important columns to be optimized. A first approach can be looking in the DataDir of Analysis Services and look for the folder containing the database. Then, look for the biggest files in all subfolders and you will find the name of a file that contains the name of the most expensive column. However, this heuristic process is not very optimized. A better approach is using a DMV that provides the exact information. For example, by using the following query (open SSMS, open an MDX query on the database you are interested to and execute it) you will see all database objects sorted by used size in a descending way. SELECT * FROM $SYSTEM.DISCOVER_STORAGE_TABLE_COLUMN_SEGMENTS ORDER BY used_size DESC You can look at the first rows in order to understand what are the most expensive columns in your tabular model. The interesting data provided are: TABLE_ID: it is the name of the object – it can be also a dictionary or an index COLUMN_ID: it is the column name the object belongs to – you can also see ID_TO_POS and POS_TO_ID in case they refer to internal indexes RECORDS_COUNT: it is the number of rows in the column USED_SIZE: it is the used memory for the object By looking at the ration between USED_SIZE and RECORDS_COUNT you can understand what you can do in order to optimize your tabular model. Your options are: Remove the column. Yes, if it contains data you will never use in a query, simply remove the column from the tabular model Change granularity. If you are tracking time and you included milliseconds but seconds would be enough, round the data source column to the nearest second. If you have a floating point number but two decimals are good enough (i.e. the temperature), round the number to the nearest decimal is relevant to you. Split the column. Create two or more columns that have to be combined together in order to produce the original value. This technique is described in VertiPaq optimization article. Sort the table by that column. When you read the data source, you might consider sorting data by this column, so that the compression will be more efficient. However, this technique works better on columns that don’t have too many distinct values and you will probably move the problem to another column. Sorting data starting from the lower density columns (those with a few number of distinct values) and going to higher density columns (those with high cardinality) is the technique that provides the best compression ratio. After the optimization you should be able to reduce the used size and improve the count/size ration you measured before. If you are interested in a longer discussion about internal storage in VertiPaq and you want understand why this approach can save you space (and time), you can attend my 24 Hours of PASS session “VertiPaq Under the Hood” on March 21 at 08:00 GMT.

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• C# Dev Challenge Part 1 of n &ndash; Beginner Edition

  - by mbcrump

  I developed this challenge to test one’s knowledge of C Sharp. I am planning on creating several challenges with different skill sets, so don’t get mad if this challenge doesn’t well challenge you... I noticed that most people like short quizzes so this one only contains 5 questions. All of the challenges are clear and concise of what I am asking you to do. No smoke and mirrors here, meaning that none of the code has syntax errors. The purpose of this exercise is to test several OOP concepts and see how much of the C# language you really know. Question #1 – Lets start off Easy… Will the following code snippet compile successfully? What does this question test? - Can this compile without a namespace? Do you have to have an entry point of “static void Main()”? class Test { static int Main() { System.Console.WriteLine("Developer Challenge"); return 0; } } Answer (select text in box below): Yes, it will compile successfully. Question #2 – What is the value of the Console.WriteLine statements? What does this question test? – Do I understand reference types/value types? If a variable is declared with the @ symbol and its not a reserved keyword does the application compile successfully? using System; internal struct MyStruct { public int Value; } internal class MyClass { public int Value; } class Test { static void Main() { MyStruct @struct1 = new MyStruct(); MyStruct @struct2 = @struct1; @struct2.Value = 100; MyClass @ref1 = new MyClass(); MyClass @ref2 = @ref1; @ref2.Value = 100; Console.WriteLine("Value Type: {0} {1}", @struct1.Value, @struct2.Value); Console.WriteLine("Reference Type: {0} {1}", @ref1.Value, @ref2.Value); } } Answer (select text in box below): Value Type: 0 100 Reference Type: 100 100 Question #3 – What is the value of the Console.WriteLine statements? What does this question test? – Can 2 objects reference the same point in memory? using System; class Test { static void Main() { string s1 = "Testing2"; string t1 = s1; Console.WriteLine(s1 == t1); Console.WriteLine((object)s1 == (object)t1); } } Answer (select text in box below): True True Question #4 – What is the value of the Console.WriteLine statements? What does this question test? – How does the “Stack” work – LIFO or FIFO?   using System; using System.Collections; class Test { static void Main() { Stack a = new Stack(5); a.Push("1"); a.Push("2"); a.Push("3"); a.Push("4"); a.Push("5"); foreach (var o in a) { Console.WriteLine(o); } } } Answer (select text in box below): 5 4 3 2 1 Question #5 – What is the value of the Console.WriteLine statements? What does this question test? – Array and General Looping Knowledge. using System; namespace ConsoleApplication5 { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { int[] J_LIST = new int[5] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 }; int K = 10; int L = 5; foreach (var J in J_LIST) { K = K - J; L = K + 2 * J; Console.WriteLine("J = {0, 5} K = {1, 5} L = {2, 5}", J, K, L); } Console.ReadLine(); } } } Answer (select text in box below): J = 1 K = 9 L = 11 J = 2 K = 7 L = 11 J = 3 K = 4 L = 10 J = 4 K = 0 L = 8 J = 5 K = -5 L = 5 Stay Tuned for more challenges!

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• bind a WPF datagrid to a datatable

  - by Jim Thomas

  I have used the marvelous example posted at: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/WPFDataGridExamples.aspx to bind a WPF datagrid to a datatable. The source code below compiles fine; it even runs and displays the contents of the InfoWork datatable in the wpf datagrid. Hooray! But the WPF page with the datagrid will not display in the designer. I get an incomprehensible error instead on my design page which is shown at the end of this posting. I assume the designer is having some difficulty instantiating the dataview for display in the grid. How can I fix that? XAML Code: xmlns:local="clr-namespace:InfoSeeker" <Window.Resources> <ObjectDataProvider x:Key="InfoWorkData" ObjectType="{x:Type local:InfoWorkData}" /> <ObjectDataProvider x:Key="InfoWork" ObjectInstance="{StaticResource InfoWorkData}" MethodName="GetInfoWork" /> </Window.Resources> <my:DataGrid DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource InfoWork}}" AutoGenerateColumns="True" ItemsSource="{Binding}" Name="dataGrid1" xmlns:my="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wpf/2008/toolkit" /> C# Code: namespace InfoSeeker { public class InfoWorkData { private InfoTableAdapters.InfoWorkTableAdapter infoAdapter; private Info infoDS; public InfoWorkData() { infoDS = new Info(); infoAdapter = new InfoTableAdapters.InfoWorkTableAdapter(); infoAdapter.Fill(infoDS.InfoWork); } public DataView GetInfoWork() { return infoDS.InfoWork.DefaultView; } } } Error shown in place of the designer page which has the grid on it: An unhandled exception has occurred: Type 'MS.Internal.Permissions.UserInitiatedNavigationPermission' in Assembly 'PresentationFramework, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' is not marked as serializable. at System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.InternalGetSerializableMembers(RuntimeType type) at System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.GetSerializableMembers(Type type, StreamingContext context) at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitMemberInfo() at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitSerialize(Object obj, ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, StreamingContext context, SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, IFormatterConverter converter, ObjectWriter objectWriter) ...At:Ms.Internal.Designer.DesignerPane.LoadDesignerView()

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