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• MySQL Binary Storage using BLOB VS OS File System: large files, large quantities, large problems.

  - by Quantico773

  Hi Guys, Versions I am running (basically latest of everything): PHP: 5.3.1 MySQL: 5.1.41 Apache: 2.2.14 OS: CentOS (latest) Here is the situation. I have thousands of very important documents, ranging from customer contracts to voice signatures (recordings of customer authorisation for contracts), with file types including, but not limited to jpg, gif, png, tiff, doc, docx, xls, wav, mp3, pdf, etc. All of these documents are currently stored on several servers including Windows 32 bit, CentOS and Mac, among others. Some files are also stored on employees desktop computers and laptops, and some are still hard copies stored in hundreds of boxes and filing cabinets. Now because customers or lawyers could demand evidence of contracts at any time, my company has to be able to search and locate the correct document(s) effectively, for this reason ALL of these files have to be digitised (if not already) and correlated into some sort of order for searching and accessing. As the programmer, I have created a full Customer Relations Management tool that the whole company uses. This includes Customer Profiles management, Order and job Tracking tools, Job/sale creation and management modules, etc, and at the moment any file that is needed at a customer profile level (drivers licence, credit authority, etc) or at a job/sale level (contracts, voice signatures, etc) can be uploaded to the server and sits in a parent/child hierarchy structure, just like Windows Explorer or any other typical file managment model. The structure appears as such: drivers_license |- DL_123.jpg voice_signatures |- VS_123.wav |- VS_4567.wav contracts So the files are uplaoded using PHP and Apache, and are stored in the file system of the OS. At the time of uploading, certain information about the file(s) is stored in a MySQL database. Some of the information stored is: TABLE: FileUploads FileID CustomerID (the customer id that the file belongs to, they all have this.) JobID/SaleID (the id of the job/sale associated, if any.) FileSize FileType UploadedDateTime UploadedBy FilePath (the directory path the file is stored in.) FileName (current file name of uploaded file, combination of CustomerID and JobID/SaleID if applicable.) FileDescription OriginalFileName (original name of the source file when uploaded, including extension.) So as you can see, the file is linked to the database by the File Name. When I want to provide a customers' files for download to a user all I have to do is "SELECT * FROM FileUploads WHERE CustomerID = 123 OR JobID = 2345;" and this will output all the file details I require, and with the FilePath and FileName I can provide the link for download. http... server / FilePath / FileName There are a number of problems with this method: Storing files in this "database unconcious" environment means data integrity is not kept. If a record is deleted, the file may not be deleted also, or vice versa. Files are strewn all over the place, different servers, computers, etc. The file name is the ONLY thing matching the binary to the database and customer profile and customer records. etc, etc. There are so many reasons, some of which are described here: http://www.dreamwerx.net/site/article01 . Also there is an interesting article here too: sietch.net/ViewNewsItem.aspx?NewsItemID=124 . SO, after much research I have pretty much decided I am going to store ALL of these files in the database, as a BLOB or LONGBLOB, but there are still many considerations before I do this. I know that storing them in the database is a viable option, however there are a number of methods of storing them. I also know storing them is one thing; correlating and accessing them in a manageable way is another thing entirely. The article provided at this link: dreamwerx.net/site/article01 describes a way of splitting the uploaded binary files into 64kb chunks and storing each chunk with the FileID, and then streaming the actual binary file to the client using headers. This is a really cool idea since it alleviates preassure on the servers memory; instead of loading an entire 100mb file into the RAM and then sending it to the client, it is doing it 64kb at a time. I have tried this (and updated his scripts) and this is totally successful, in a very small frame of testing. So if you are in agreeance that this method is a viable, stable and robust long-term option to store moderately large files (1kb to couple hundred megs), and large quantities of these files, let me know what other considerations or ideas you have. Also, I am considering getting a current "File Management" PHP script that gives an interface for managing files stored in the File System and converting it to manage files stored in the database. If there is already any software out there that does this, please let me know. I guess there are many questions I could ask, and all the information is up there ^^ so please, discuss all aspects of this and we can pass ideas back and forth and teach each other. Cheers, Quantico773

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• Storage model for various user setting and attributes in database?

  - by dvd

  I'm currently trying to upgrade a user management system for one web application. This web application is used to provide remote access to various networking equipment for educational purposes. All equipment is assigned to various pods, which users can book for periods of time. The current system is very simple - just 2 user types: administrators and students. All their security and other attributes are mostly hardcoded. I want to change this to something like the following model: user <-- (1..n)profile <--- (1..n) attributes. I.e. user can be assigned several profiles and each profile can have multiple attributes. At runtime all profiles and attributes are merged into single active profile. Some examples of attributes i'm planning to implement: EXPIRATION_DATE - single value, value type: date, specifies when user account will expire; ACCESS_POD - single value, value type: ref to object of Pod class, specifies which pod the user is allowed to book, user profile can have multiple such attributes with different values; TIME_QUOTA - single value, value type: integer, specifies maximum length of time for which student can reserve equipment. CREDIT_CHARGING - multi valued, specifies how much credits will be assigned to user over period of time. (Reservation of devices will cost credits, which will regenerate over time); Security permissions and user preferences can end up as profile or user attributes too: i.e CAN_CREATE_USERS, CAN_POST_NEWS, CAN_EDIT_DEVICES, FONT_SIZE, etc.. This way i could have, for example: students of course A will have profiles STUDENT (with basic attributes) and PROFILE A (wich grants acces to pod A). Students of course B will have profiles: STUDENT, PROFILE B(wich grants to pod B and have increased time quotas). I'm using Spring and Hibernate frameworks for this application and MySQL for database. For this web application i would like to stay within boundaries of these tools. The problem is, that i can't figure out how to best represent all these attributes in database. I also want to create some kind of unified way of retrieveing these attributes and their values. Here is the model i've come up with. Base classes. public abstract class Attribute{ private Long id; Attribute() {} abstract public String getName(); public Long getId() {return id; } void setId(Long id) {this.id = id;} } public abstract class SimpleAttribute extends Attribute{ public abstract Serializable getValue(); abstract void setValue(Serializable s); @Override public boolean equals(Object obj) { ... } @Override public int hashCode() { ... } } Simple attributes can have only one value of any type (including object and enum). Here are more specific attributes: public abstract class IntAttribute extends SimpleAttribute { private Integer value; public Integer getValue() { return value; } void setValue(Integer value) { this.value = value;} void setValue(Serializable s) { setValue((Integer)s); } } public class MaxOrdersAttribute extends IntAttribute { public String getName() { return "Maximum outstanding orders"; } } public final class CreditRateAttribute extends IntAttribute { public String getName() { return "Credit Regeneration Rate"; } } All attributes stored stored using Hibenate variant "table per class hierarchy". Mapping: <class name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.Attribute" table="ATTRIBUTES" abstract="true" > <id name="id" column="id"> <generator class="increment" /> </id> <discriminator column="attributeType" type="string"/> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.SimpleAttribute" abstract="true"> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.IntAttribute" abstract="true" > <property name="value" column="intVal" type="integer"/> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.CreditRateAttribute" discriminator-value="CreditRate" /> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.MaxOrdersAttribute" discriminator-value="MaxOrders" /> </subclass> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.DateAttribute" abstract="true" > <property name="value" column="dateVal" type="timestamp"/> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.ExpirationDateAttribute" discriminator-value="ExpirationDate" /> </subclass> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.PodAttribute" abstract="true" > <many-to-one name="value" column="podVal" class="ru.mirea.rea.model.pods.Pod"/> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.PodAccessAttribute" discriminator-value="PodAccess" lazy="false"/> </subclass> <subclass name="ru.mirea.rea.model.abac.SecurityPermissionAttribute" discriminator-value="SecurityPermission" lazy="false"> <property name="value" column="spVal" type="ru.mirea.rea.db.hibernate.customTypes.SecurityPermissionType"/> </subclass> </subclass> </class> SecurityPermissionAttribute uses enumeration of various permissions as it's value. Several types of attributes imlement GrantedAuthority interface and can be used with Spring Security for authentication and authorization. Attributes can be created like this: public final class AttributeManager { public <T extends SimpleAttribute> T createSimpleAttribute(Class<T> c, Serializable value) { Session session = HibernateUtil.getCurrentSession(); T att = null; ... att = c.newInstance(); att.setValue(value); session.save(att); session.flush(); ... return att; } public <T extends SimpleAttribute> List<T> findSimpleAttributes(Class<T> c) { List<T> result = new ArrayList<T>(); Session session = HibernateUtil.getCurrentSession(); List<T> temp = session.createCriteria(c).list(); result.addAll(temp); return result; } } And retrieved through User Profiles to which they are assigned. I do not expect that there would be very large amount of rows in the ATTRIBUTES table, but are there any serious drawbacks of such design?

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• Blog Engine .NET with XML Data Storage How is it so fast ?

  - by Kubi

  I am looking for a way to embed a blog engine into my own application and I am too curious about Blog Engine algorithm. This may not be the correct place to ask but, How is that possible to store blog entry data in an XML file like BlogEngine.Net with Default Configuration. It must be getting slower everyday while the file is getting larger and larger. I am wondering the algorithm behind that. Is it loading with a different way ? Or Am I wrong with the time estimation ? I know it is open source but I thought it would be better to see a discussion here for some others might be thinking the same and this thread can be a reference.

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• Best practice for storage and retrieval of error messages.

  - by ferrari fan

  What is a best practice for storing user messages in a configuration file and then retrieving them for certain events throughout an application? I was thinking of having 1 single configuration file with entries such as REQUIRED_FIELD = {0} is a required field INVALID_FORMAT = The format for {0} is {1} etc. and then calling them from a class that would be something like this public class UIMessages { public static final String REQUIRED_FIELD = "REQUIRED_FIELD"; public static final String INVALID_FORMAT = "INVALID_FORMAT"; static { // load configuration file into a "Properties" object } public static String getMessage(String messageKey) { // return properties.getProperty(messageKey); } } Is this the right way to approach this problem or is there some de-facto standard already in place?

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• Is this more suited for key value storage or a tree?

  - by JC

  I'm trying to figure out the best way to represent some data. It basically follows the form Manufacturer.Product.Attribute = Value. Something like: Acme.*.MinimumPrice = 100 Acme.ProductA.MinimumPrice = 50 Acme.ProductB.MinimumPrice = 60 Acme.ProductC.DefaultColor = Blue So the minimum price across all Acme products is 100 except in the case of product A and B. I want to store this data in C# and have some function where GetValue("Acme.ProductC.MinimumPrice") returns 100 but GetValue("Acme.ProductA.MinimumPrice") return 50. I'm not sure how to best represent the data. Is there a clean way to code this in C#?

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• Objective-C / Cocoa: Uploading Images, Working Memory, And Storage.

  - by Finley Still

  Hello. I'm in the process of porting an application originally in java to cocoa, but I'm rewriting it to make it much better, since I prefer cocoa a lot anyway. One of the problems I had in the application, was that when you uploaded images to it, I had the images created, (as say an NSImage object) and then I just had them sitting in memory, the more I uploaded the more memory they took up, and I ended up running out of memory. My question is this: if I am going to have users upload images to this application in cocoa, how should I go about storing them? I don't just want to copy the file paths, because I want what is saved to contain the images, etc. Is there any way to upload an image and copy it into a different place only for my application? Then load that image with the new path name as needed? Only I would like it all to be consolidated. I'm going to implement saving by archiving one "master" object into an NSData*- so I'd like the images to be saved with that. Is there a temporary location maybe where I could write the images to disk for my application, and then when I saved, they would all be archived into a single file? Also, how do I do this? Thanks.

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• How to access GMAIL for storage in custom CRM SQL Server DB?

  - by Optimal Solutions

  I have a client who wants his custom-written CRM to be able to access his sales people's emails so that, effectively, a history of email conversations between customer and salesperson is stored inside the CRM's database. The CRM is written in VB 2008 and the database is SQL Server 2008. The only email these people use, in the shop and on the road, is GMAIL. Each sales person has their own GMAIL address. Thats how they operate. If they're on the road and respond to a customer's email inquiry about a product, they would like that email conversation to be stored in a table in the database. I think thats the part I cant wrap my head around. How to get access to the email data (knowing the user id and password) and doing so from VB 2008

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• Is there a way to easily serialize form input into xml or yaml for database storage?

  - by aaandre

  I am dealing with an old app in asp classic vbscript. I'd like to store the input of a form in a database text field as the form fields are a subject to frequent change and I don't feel like normalizing the old database. Any solutions for serialization in vbscript? Thank you!

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• T-SQL: How to know how much storage space is left in sql server express?

  - by user193655

  How is it possible to know how much of the "DB quota" imposed by SQL Server express edition (4GB in old versions, 10GB in 2008R2) is in use? Let's say I have a DB that is using 1GB, I want to know "9GB of free space". Is it there a T-SQL command for this?

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• What should i do for accomodating large scale data storage and retrieval?

  - by kailashbuki

  There's two columns in the table inside mysql database. First column contains the fingerprint while the second one contains the list of documents which have that fingerprint. It's much like an inverted index built by search engines. An instance of a record inside the table is shown below; 34 "doc1, doc2, doc45" The number of fingerprints is very large(can range up to trillions). There are basically following operations in the database: inserting/updating the record & retrieving the record accoring to the match in fingerprint. The table definition python snippet is: self.cursor.execute("CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `fingerprint` (fp BIGINT, documents TEXT)") And the snippet for insert/update operation is: if self.cursor.execute("UPDATE `fingerprint` SET documents=CONCAT(documents,%s) WHERE fp=%s",(","+newDocId, thisFP))== 0L: self.cursor.execute("INSERT INTO `fingerprint` VALUES (%s, %s)", (thisFP,newDocId)) The only bottleneck i have observed so far is the query time in mysql. My whole application is web based. So time is a critical factor. I have also thought of using cassandra but have less knowledge of it. Please suggest me a better way to tackle this problem.

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• Is there performance to be gained by moving storage allocation local to a member function to its cla

  - by neuviemeporte

  Suppose I have the following C++ class: class Foo { double bar(double sth); }; double Foo::bar(double sth) { double a,b,c,d,e,f a = b = c = d = e = f = 0; /* do stuff with a..f and sth */ } The function bar() will be called millions of times in a loop. Obviously, each time it's called, the variables a..f have to be allocated. Will I gain any performance by making the variables a..f members of the Foo class and just initializing them at the function's point of entry? On the other hand, the values of a..f will be dereferenced through this-, so I'm wondering if it isn't actually a possible performance degradation. Is there any overhead to accessing a value through a pointer? Thanks!

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• How to map a Entity Data Model conceptual model property to a storage model column using the "Serial

  - by codekaizen

  I have a conceptual model in EDM where one of the entities has a property which is essentially a big value object whose properties aren't really useful as columns in the datamodel. I'd like to apply the Serialized LOB pattern to it so that I can fit it into a 192 byte binary column. How do I map this in the EDM v4? Is it even possible at this time? Actually, is it possible in any ORM?

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• How do you calculate the storage size of a SimpleDB domain?

  - by C. Dragon 76

  The official documentation states: Raw byte size (GB) of all item IDs + 45 bytes per item + Raw byte size (GB) of all attribute names + 45 bytes per attribute name + Raw byte size (GB) of all attribute-value pairs + 45 bytes per attribute-value pair What is the raw size of an attribute-value pair? Is it precisely the size of the value? (I would expect so, but then why is it worded "attribute-value pair"?) Or is it the size of the attribute name plus the size of the attribute value? (In that case, there would be motivation to give your attributes really short names.) For example, what is the size of the tiny domain below? +---------------------------------------------------------+ | Item Name/ID | "Price" attribute | "Calories" attribute | |--------------+-------------------+----------------------| | "apple" | "0000.43" | "0046" | | "orange" | "0000.70" | "0053" | +---------------------------------------------------------+

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• What's the name of the storage paradigm that uses cubes subdivided into 8 smaller cubes ad infinitum?

  - by Eric

  If I have a cube divided into 8 smaller cubes, each of which may be subdivided into a further 8 cubes, ad infinitum, what is the name of my system? I know that it's a special case of a tree, where each brance contains exactly 8 other leaves/branches. I remember the name starting with "Oct", and there was a wikipedia article on it, but I honestly can't find it! Does anyone know what such a data structure is actually known as?

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• Do you know of some performances test of the different ways to get thread local storage in C++?

  - by Vicente Botet Escriba

  I'm doing a library that makes extensive use of a thread local variable. Can you point to some benchmarks that test the performances of the different ways to get thread local variables in C++: C++0x thread_local variables compiler extension (Gcc __thread, ...) boost::threads_specific_ptr pthread Windows ... Does C++0x thread_local performs much better on the compilers providing it?

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• Is there any way to prevent a Delphi application from using Virtual Storage on Vista/Win 7 without e

  - by croceldon

  The question pretty much says it all. I have an app with an older component that doesn't work right if runtime themes are enabled. But if I don't enable them, the app always ends up messing with the virtual store. Thanks! Update: Using Mark's solution below, the application no longer writes to the Virtual Store. But, now it won't access a tdb file (Tiny Database file) that it needs. This tdb file is the same file that was being written to the Virtual store. Any ideas on how I can give it access to the tdb file and still prevent writing the Virtual Store?

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• how to increase the storage space in Android emulator? (Installation error: INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICI

  - by newgeek

  Hi, I am creating an Android application. My Application has audio and png files which i have saved in res/drawable folder. When i run the app , its giving error Installation error: INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE and in the logcat it says - ERROR/PackageManager(54): Couldn't copy package file to temp file. I tried creating new avd also.But i am getting the same error. I want all those png and audio files. I dont want to store them in sdcard. Please Suggest me how to solve this problem. Thanks in Advance

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• Azure Grid Computing - Worker Roles as HPC Compute Nodes

  - by JoshReuben

  Overview ·        With HPC 2008 R2 SP1 You can add Azure worker roles as compute nodes in a local Windows HPC Server cluster. ·        The subscription for Windows Azure like any other Azure Service - charged for the time that the role instances are available, as well as for the compute and storage services that are used on the nodes. ·        Win-Win ? - Azure charges the computer hour cost (according to vm size) amortized over a month – so you save on purchasing compute node hardware. Microsoft wins because you need to purchase HPC to have a local head node for managing this compute cluster grid distributed in the cloud. ·        Blob storage is used to hold input & output files of each job. I can see how Parametric Sweep HPC jobs can be supported (where the same job is run multiple times on each node against different input units), but not MPI.NET (where different HPC Job instances function as coordinated agents and conduct master-slave inter-process communication), unless Azure is somehow tunneling MPI communication through inter-WorkerRole Azure Queues. ·        this is not the end of the story for Azure Grid Computing. If MS requires you to purchase a local HPC license (and administrate it), what's to stop a 3rd party from doing this and encapsulating exposing HPC WCF Broker Service to you for managing compute nodes? If MS doesn’t  provide head node as a service, someone else will! Process ·        requires creation of a worker node template that specifies a connection to an existing subscription for Windows Azure + an availability policy for the worker nodes. ·        After worker nodes are added to the cluster, you can start them, which provisions the Windows Azure role instances, and then bring them online to run HPC cluster jobs. ·        A Windows Azure worker role instance runs a HPC compatible Azure guest operating system which runs on the VMs that host your service. The guest operating system is updated monthly. You can choose to upgrade the guest OS for your service automatically each time an update is released - All role instances defined by your service will run on the guest operating system version that you specify. see Windows Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=190549). ·        use the hpcpack command to upload file packages and install files to run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Requirements ·        assuming you have an azure subscription account and the HPC head node installed and configured. ·        Install HPC Pack 2008 R2 SP 1 -  see Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Release Notes (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=202812). ·        Configure the head node to connect to the Internet - connectivity is provided by the connection of the head node to the enterprise network. You may need to configure a proxy client on the head node. Any cluster network topology (1-5) is supported). ·        Configure the firewall - allow outbound TCP traffic on the following ports: 80,       443, 5901, 5902, 7998, 7999 ·        Note: HPC Server  uses Admin Mode (Elevated Privileges) in Windows Azure to give the service administrator of the subscription the necessary privileges to initialize HPC cluster services on the worker nodes. ·        Obtain a Windows Azure subscription certificate - the Windows Azure subscription must be configured with a public subscription (API) certificate -a valid X.509 certificate with a key size of at least 2048 bits. Generate a self-sign certificate & upload a .cer file to the Windows Azure Portal Account page > Manage my API Certificates link. see Using the Windows Azure Service Management API (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=205526). ·        import the certificate with an associated private key on the HPC cluster head node - into the trusted root store of the local computer account. Obtain Windows Azure Connection Information for HPC Server ·        required for each worker node template ·        copy from azure portal - Get from: navigation pane > Hosted Services > Storage Accounts & CDN ·        Subscription ID - a 32-char hex string in the form xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. In Properties pane. ·        Subscription certificate thumbprint - a 40-char hex string (you need to remove spaces). In Management Certificates > Properties pane. ·        Service name - the value of <ServiceName> configured in the public URL of the service (http://<ServiceName>.cloudapp.net). In Hosted Services > Properties pane. ·        Blob Storage account name - the value of <StorageAccountName> configured in the public URL of the account (http://<StorageAccountName>.blob.core.windows.net). In Storage Accounts > Properties pane. Import the Azure Subscription Certificate on the HPC Head Node ·        enable the services for Windows HPC Server  to authenticate properly with the Windows Azure subscription. ·        use the Certificates MMC snap-in to import the certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store of the local computer account. The certificate must be in PFX format (.pfx or .p12 file) with a private key that is protected by a password. ·        see Certificates (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163918). ·        To open the certificates snapin: Run > mmc. File > Add/Remove Snap-in > certificates > Computer account > Local Computer ·        To import the certificate via wizard - Certificates > Trusted Root Certification Authorities > Certificates > All Tasks > Import ·        After the certificate is imported, it appears in the details pane in the Certificates snap-in. You can open the certificate to check its status. Configure a Proxy Client on the HPC Head Node ·        the following Windows HPC Server services must be able to communicate over the Internet (through the firewall) with the services for Windows Azure: HPCManagement, HPCScheduler, HPCBrokerWorker. ·        Create a Windows Azure Worker Node Template ·        Edit HPC node templates in HPC Node Template Editor. ·        Specify: 1) Windows Azure subscription connection info (unique service name) for adding a set of worker nodes to the cluster + 2)worker node availability policy – rules for deploying / removing worker role instances in Windows Azure o   HPC Cluster Manager > Configuration > Navigation Pane > Node Templates > Actions pane > New à Create Node Template Wizard or Edit à Node Template Editor o   Choose Node Template Type page - Windows Azure worker node template o   Specify Template Name page – template name & description o   Provide Connection Information page – Azure Subscription ID (text) & Subscription certificate (browse) o   Provide Service Information page - Azure service name + blob storage account name (optionally click Retrieve Connection Information to get list of available from azure – possible LRT). o   Configure Azure Availability Policy page - how Windows Azure worker nodes start / stop (online / offline the worker role instance -  add / remove) – manual / automatic o   for automatic - In the Configure Windows Azure Worker Availability Policy dialog -select days and hours for worker nodes to start / stop. ·        To validate the Windows Azure connection information, on the template's Connection Information tab > Validate connection information. ·        You can upload a file package to the storage account that is specified in the template - eg upload application or service files that will run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Add Azure Worker Nodes to the HPC Cluster ·        Use the Add Node Wizard – specify: 1) the worker node template, 2) The number of worker nodes   (within the quota of role instances in the azure subscription), and 3)           The VM size of the worker nodes : ExtraSmall, Small, Medium, Large, or ExtraLarge.  ·        to add worker nodes of different sizes, must run the Add Node Wizard separately for each size. ·        All worker nodes that are added to the cluster by using a specific worker node template define a set of worker nodes that will be deployed and managed together in Windows Azure when you start the nodes. This includes worker nodes that you add later by using the worker node template and, if you choose, worker nodes of different sizes. You cannot start, stop, or delete individual worker nodes. ·        To add Windows Azure worker nodes o   In HPC Cluster Manager: Node Management > Actions pane > Add Node à Add Node Wizard o   Select Deployment Method page - Add Azure Worker nodes o   Specify New Nodes page - select a worker node template, specify the number and size of the worker nodes ·        After you add worker nodes to the cluster, they are in the Not-Deployed state, and they have a health state of Unapproved. Before you can use the worker nodes to run jobs, you must start them and then bring them online. ·        Worker nodes are numbered consecutively in a naming series that begins with the root name AzureCN – this is non-configurable. Deploying Windows Azure Worker Nodes ·        To deploy the role instances in Windows Azure - start the worker nodes added to the HPC cluster and bring the nodes online so that they are available to run cluster jobs. This can be configured in the HPC Azure Worker Node Template – Azure Availability Policy -  to be automatic or manual. ·        The Start, Stop, and Delete actions take place on the set of worker nodes that are configured by a specific worker node template. You cannot perform one of these actions on a single worker node in a set. You also cannot perform a single action on two sets of worker nodes (specified by two different worker node templates). ·        ·          Starting a set of worker nodes deploys a set of worker role instances in Windows Azure, which can take some time to complete, depending on the number of worker nodes and the performance of Windows Azure. ·        To start worker nodes manually and bring them online o   In HPC Node Management > Navigation Pane > Nodes > List / Heat Map view - select one or more worker nodes. o   Actions pane > Start – in the Start Azure Worker Nodes dialog, select a node template. o   the state of the worker nodes changes from Not Deployed to track the provisioning progress – worker node Details Pane > Provisioning Log tab. o   If there were errors during the provisioning of one or more worker nodes, the state of those nodes is set to Unknown and the node health is set to Unapproved. To determine the reason for the failure, review the provisioning logs for the nodes. o   After a worker node starts successfully, the node state changes to Offline. To bring the nodes online, select the nodes that are in the Offline state > Bring Online. ·        Troubleshooting o   check node template. o   use telnet to test connectivity: telnet <ServiceName>.cloudapp.net 7999 o   check node status - Deployment status information appears in the service account information in the Windows Azure Portal - HPC queries this -  see  node status information for any failed nodes in HPC Node Management. ·        When role instances are deployed, file packages that were previously uploaded to the storage account using the hpcpack command are automatically installed. You can also upload file packages to storage after the worker nodes are started, and then manually install them on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). ·        to remove a set of role instances in Windows Azure - stop the nodes by using HPC Cluster Manager (apply the Stop action). This deletes the role instances from the service and changes the state of the worker nodes in the HPC cluster to Not Deployed. ·        Each time that you start a set of worker nodes, two proxy role instances (size Small) are configured in Windows Azure to facilitate communication between HPC Cluster Manager and the worker nodes. The proxy role instances are not listed in HPC Cluster Manager after the worker nodes are added. However, the instances appear in the Windows Azure Portal. The proxy role instances incur charges in Windows Azure along with the worker node instances, and they count toward the quota of role instances in the subscription.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 25, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 25, 2011Popular ReleasesMono.Addins: Mono.Addins 0.6: The 0.6 release of Mono.Addins includes many improvements, bug fixes and new features: Add-in engine Add-in name and description can now be localized. There are new custom attributes for defining them, and can also be specified as xml elements in an add-in manifest instead of attributes. Support for custom add-in properties. It is now possible to specify arbitrary properties in add-ins, which can be queried at install time (using the Mono.Addins.Setup API) or at run-time. Custom extensio...patterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 3 - 25 Feb 2011: IntroductionWelcome to the third community drop of Project Silk. For this drop we are requesting feedback on overall application architecture, code review of the JavaScript Conductor and Widgets, and general direction of the application. Project Silk provides guidance and sample implementations that describe and illustrate recommended practices for building modern web applications using technologies such as HTML5, jQuery, CSS3 and Internet Explorer 9. This guidance is intended for experien...PhoneyTools: Initial Release (0.1): This is the 0.1 version for preview of the features.Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.5: Now supports new Minecraft beta v1.3 map format, thanks to updated mcmap. Disabled biomes, until Minecraft Biome Extractor supports new format.Smartkernel: Smartkernel: ????，??????Document.Editor: 2011.7: Whats new for Document.Editor 2011.7: New Find dialog Improved Email dialog Improved Home tab Improved Format tab Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsChiave File Encryption: Chiave 0.9.1: Application for file encryption and decryption using 512 Bit rijndael encyrption algorithm with simple to use UI. Its written in C# and compiled in .Net version 3.5. It incorporates features of Windows 7 like Jumplists, Taskbar progress and Aero Glass. Change Log from 0.9 Beta to 0.9.1: ======================= >Added option for system shutdown, sleep, hibernate after operation completed. >Minor Changes to the UI. >Numerous Bug fixes. Feedbacks are Welcome!....Coding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.2: New control, Toast Prompt! Removed progress bar since Silverlight Toolkit Feb 2010 has it.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.7: Service release fixing 31 issues. A full changelog will be available with the final stable release of 4.7 Important when upgradingUpgrade as if it was a patch release (update /bin, /umbraco and /umbraco_client). For general upgrade information follow the guide found at http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/install-and-setup/upgrading-an-umbraco-installation 4.7 requires the .NET 4.0 framework Web.Config changes Update the web web.config to include the 4 changes found in (they're clearly marked in...HubbleDotNet - Open source full-text search engine: V1.1.0.0: Add Sqlite3 DBAdapter Add App Report when Query Cache is Collecting. Improve the performance of index through Synchronize. Add top 0 feature so that we can only get count of the result. Improve the score calculating algorithm of match. Let the score of the record that match all items large then others. Add MySql DBAdapter Improve performance for multi-fields sort . Using hash table to access the Payload data. The version before used bin search. Using heap sort instead of qui...Silverlight????[???]: silverlight????[???]2.0: ???????，?????，????????silverlight??????。DBSourceTools: DBSourceTools_1.3.0.0: Release 1.3.0.0 Changed editors from FireEdit to ICSharpCode.TextEditor. Complete re-vamp of Intellisense ( further testing needed). Hightlight Field and Table Names in sql scripts. Added field dropdown on all tables and views in DBExplorer. Added data option for viewing data in Tables. Fixed comment / uncomment bug as reported by tareq. Included Synonyms in scripting engine ( nickt_ch ).IronPython: 2.7 Release Candidate 1: We are pleased to announce the first Release Candidate for IronPython 2.7. This release contains over two dozen bugs fixed in preparation for 2.7 Final. See the release notes for 60193 for details and what has already been fixed in the earlier 2.7 prereleases. - IronPython TeamCaliburn Micro: A Micro-Framework for WPF, Silverlight and WP7: Caliburn.Micro 1.0 RC: This is the official Release Candicate for Caliburn.Micro 1.0. The download contains the binaries, samples and VS templates. VS Templates The templates included are designed for situations where the Caliburn.Micro source needs to be embedded within a single project solution. This was targeted at government and other organizations that expressed specific requirements around using an open source project like this. NuGet This release does not have a corresponding NuGet package. The NuGet pack...Caliburn: A Client Framework for WPF and Silverlight: Caliburn 2.0 RC: This is the official Release Candidate for Caliburn 2.0. It contains all binaries, samples and generated code docs.Rawr: Rawr 4.0.20 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Trac...Azure Storage Samples: Version 1.0 (February 2011): These downloads contain source code. Each is a complete sample that fully exercises Windows Azure Storage across blobs, queues, and tables. The difference between the downloads is implementation approach. Storage DotNet CS.zip is a .NET StorageClient library implementation in the C# language. This library come with the Windows Azure SDK. Contains helper classes for accessing blobs, queues, and tables. Storage REST CS.zip is a REST implementation in the C# language. The code to implement R...PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.3.2: New FeaturesPowerGUI Console Tool Window PowerShell Project Type PowerGUI 2.4 SupportMiniTwitter: 1.66: MiniTwitter 1.66 ???? ?? ?????????? 2 ??????????????????? User Streams ?????????Windows Phone 7 Isolated Storage Explorer: WP7 Isolated Storage Explorer v1.0 Beta: Current release features:WPF desktop explorer client Visual Studio integrated tool window explorer client (Visual Studio 2010 Professional and above) Supported operations: Refresh (isolated storage information), Add Folder, Add Existing Item, Download File, Delete Folder, Delete File Explorer supports operations running on multiple remote applications at the same time Explorer detects application disconnect (1-2 second delay) Explorer confirms operation completed status Explorer d...New ProjectsAgriscope: This is an open information visualization tool used to assist RADA and other Agriculture officers in retrieving and analyzing data in day to day tasks.AVCampos NF-e: Realizar a emissão e controle de nf-e, através de ambientes moveis.Babel Obfuscator NAnt Tasks: This is an NAnt task for Babel Obfuscator. Babel Obfuscator protect software components realized with Microsoft .NET Framework in order to make reverse engineering difficult. Babel Obfuscator can be downloaded at http://www.babelfor.netConcurrent Programming Library: Concurrent Programming Library provides an opportunity to develop a parallel programs using .net framework 2.0 and above. It includes an implementation of various parallel algorithms, thread-safe collections and patterns.EOrg: Gelistirme maksatli yaptigim çalismalar.Extend Grid View: Extend grid view is user control. It help paging a dataset is set on gridview.FinlogiK ReSharper Contrib: FinlogiK ReSharper Contrib is a plugin for ReSharper 5.1 which adds code cleanup and inspection options for static qualifiers.Game development with Playstation Move and Ogre3D: This project is a research aiming to develop a program which can handle the Playstation Move on PC. After that, we will implement a game based on it. The programming language is C++. The graphics is handled by Ogre3D.JAD: Projeto de software.JSARP: This tool allows describing and verifying Petri Nets with the support of a graphical interface. This tool, is being developed in Java.KangmoDB - A replacement for the storage engine of SQLite: KangmoDB claims to be a real-time storage engine that replaces the one in SQLite. KangmoDB tries to achieve the lowest latency time for a transaction with ACID properties. It will be mainly used for the stock market that requires lowest latency with highest stability. MetaprogrammingInDotNetBook: This project will contain code and other artifacts related to the "Metaprogramming in .NET" book that should be avaible in October 2011.munix workstation: The µnix project is an endeavour to create a complete workstation and UNIX-like OS using standard logic IC's and 8-bit AVR microcontrollers. The goal isn't to make something that will compete with a traditional workstation in computation but instead to have a great DIY project.PhoneyTools: Set of controls and utilities for WP7 development.Plist Builder: Serialize non-circular-referencing .NET objects to plist in .NET.Quake3.NET: A port of the Quake 3 engine to C#. This is not merely a port of Quake 3 to run in a managed environment, but a complete rewrite of the engine using C# 4.0's powerful language features.SecViz: Web server security attack graph alert correlation IDS SerialNome: This is a multiport serial applicationsprout sms: a wp7 cabbage clientUsing external assembly in Biztalk 2009 map: Using external assembly in Biztalk 2009 map.

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• Windows Azure Evolution &ndash; TFS Integration (WAWS Part 2)

  - by Shaun

  So this is the fourth blog post about the new features of Windows Azure and the second part of Windows Azure Web Sites. But this is not just focus on the WAWS since the function I’m going to introduce is available in both Windows Azure Web Sites and Windows Azure Cloud Service (a.k.a. hosted service). In the previous post I talked about the Windows Azure Web Sites and how to use its gallery to build a WordPress personal blog without coding. Besides the gallery we can create an empty web site and upload our website from vary approaches. And one of the highlighted feature here is that, we can make our web site integrated with a source control service, such as TFS and Git, so that it will be deployed automatically once a new commit or build available.   Create New Empty Web Site In the developer portal when creating a new web site, we can select QUICK CREATE item. This will create an empty web site with only one shared instance without any database associated. Let’s specify the URL, region and subscription and click OK. After a few seconds our website will be ready. And now we can click the BROWSE button to open this empty website. As you can see there is a welcome page available in my website even thought I didn’t upload or deploy anything. This means even though the website will be charged even before anything was deployed, similar as the cloud service (hosted service). It is because once we created a website, Windows Azure platform had arranged a hosting process (w3wp.exe) in the group of virtual machines.   Create Project in TFS Preview Service and Setup Link Currently the Windows Azure Web Sites can integrate with TFS and Git as its deployment source, and it only support the Microsoft TFS Preview Service for now. I will not deep into how to use the TFS preview service in this post but once we click into the website we had just created and then clicked the “Set up TFS publishing”, there will be a dialog helping us to connect to this service. If you don’t have an account you can click the link shown below to request one. Assuming we have already had an account of TFS service then we need to create a new project firstly. Go to your TFS service website and create a new project, giving the project name, description and the process template. Then, back to the developer portal and clicked the “Set up TFS publishing” link. In the popping up window I will provide my TFS service URL and click the “Authorize now” link. Click “Accept” button to allow my windows azure to connect to my TFS service. Then it will be back to the developer portal and list all projects in my account. Just select the one I had just created and click OK. Then our website is linking to the TFS project I specified and finally it will show similar like this below. This means the web site had been linked to the TFS successfully.   Work with TFS Preview Service in VS2010 In the figure above there are some links to guide us how to connect to the TFS server through Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 RC. If you are using Visual Studio 2012 RC, you don’t need any extension. But if you are using Visual Studio 2010 you must have SP1 and KB2581206 installed. To connect to my TFS service just open the Visual Studio and in the Team Explorer, we can add a new TFS server and paste the URL of my TFS service from the developer portal. And select the project I had just created, then it will be listed in my Team Explorer. Now let’s start to build our website. Since the website we are going to build will be deployed to WAWS, it’s NOT a cloud service, NOT a web role. So in this case we need to create a normal ASP.NET web application. For example, an ASP.NET MVC 3 web application. Next, right click on the solution and select “Add Solution to Source Control”, select the project I had just created. Then check my code in. Once the check-in finished we can see that there is a build running in the TFS server. And if we back to the developer portal, we will see in our web site deployment page there’s a deployment running. In fact, once we linked our web site to our TFS then it will create a new build definition in our TFS project. It will be triggered by each check-in and deploy to the web site we linked automatically. So that when our code had been compiled it will be published to our web site from our TFS server. Once the build and deployment finished we can see it’s now active on our developer portal. Now we can see the web site that created from my Visual Studio and deployed by my TFS.   Continue Deployment through VS and TFS A big benefit when using TFS publishing is the continue deployment. Now if I changed some code in my Visual Studio, for example update some text on the home page and check in my changes, then it will trigger an new build and deploy to my WAWS automatically. And even more, if we wanted to rollback to a previous version we can just select an existing deployment listed in the portal and click REDEPLOY at the bottom.   Q&A: Can Web Site use Storage work with a Worker Role? Stacy asked a question in my previous post, which was “can a web site use Windows Azure Storage and furthermore working with a worker role”. Since the web site is deployed on the windows azure virtual machines in data center, it must be able to use all windows azure features such as the storage, SQL databases, CDN, etc.. But since when using web site we normally have a standard ASP.NET web application, PHP website or NodeJS, the windows azure SDK was not referenced by default. But we can add them by ourselves. In our sample project let’s right click on my MVC project and clicked the “Manage NuGet packages”. And in the dialog I will search windows azure packages and select the “Windows Azure Storage” to install. Then we will have the assemblies to access windows azure storage such as tables, queues and blobs. Since I have a storage account already, let’s have a quick demo, just to list all blobs in a container. The code would be like this. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: using System.Linq; 4: using System.Web; 5: using System.Web.Mvc; 6: using Microsoft.WindowsAzure; 7: using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient; 8:  9: namespace WAASTFSDemo.Controllers 10: { 11: public class HomeController : Controller 12: { 13: public ActionResult Index() 14: { 15: ViewBag.Message = "Welcome to Windows Azure!"; 16:  17: var credentials = new StorageCredentialsAccountAndKey("[STORAGE_ACCOUNT]", "[STORAGE_KEY]"); 18: var account = new CloudStorageAccount(credentials, false); 19: var client = account.CreateCloudBlobClient(); 20: var container = client.GetContainerReference("shared"); 21: ViewBag.Blobs = container.ListBlobs().Select(b => b.Uri.AbsoluteUri); 22:  23: return View(); 24: } 25:  26: public ActionResult About() 27: { 28: return View(); 29: } 30: } 31: } 1: @{ 2: ViewBag.Title = "Home Page"; 3: } 4:  5: <h2>@ViewBag.Message</h2> 6: <p> 7: To learn more about ASP.NET MVC visit <a href="http://asp.net/mvc" title="ASP.NET MVC Website">http://asp.net/mvc</a>. 8: </p> 9: <div> 10: <ul> 11: @foreach (var blob in ViewBag.Blobs) 12: { 13: <li>@blob</li> 14: } 15: </ul> 16: </div> And then just check in the code, it will be deployed to my web site. Finally we can see the blobs in my storage.   This is just an example but it proves that web sites can connect to storage, table, blob and queue as well. So the answer to Stacy should be “yes”. The web site can use queue storage to work with worker role.   Summary In this post I demonstrated how to integrate with TFS from Windows Azure Web Sites. You can see our website can be built, uploaded and deployed automatically by TFS service. All we need to do is to provide the TFS name and select the project. Not only the Windows Azure Web Site, in this upgrade the Windows Azure Cloud Services (hosted service) can be published through TFS as well. Very similar as what we have shown below. But currently, only Microsoft TFS Service Preview can be integrated with Windows Azure. But I think in the future we can link the TFS in our enterprise and some 3rd party TFS such as CodePlex to Windows Azure.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• EM12c Release 4: Database as a Service Enhancements

  - by Adeesh Fulay

  Oracle Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.4 (or simply put EM12c R4) is the latest update to the product. As previous versions, this release provides tons of enhancements and bug fixes, attributing to improved stability and quality. One of the areas that is most exciting and has seen tremendous growth in the last few years is that of Database as a Service. EM12c R4 provides a significant update to Database as a Service. The key themes are: Comprehensive Database Service Catalog (includes single instance, RAC, and Data Guard) Additional Storage Options for Snap Clone (includes support for Database feature CloneDB) Improved Rapid Start Kits Extensible Metering and Chargeback Miscellaneous Enhancements 1. Comprehensive Database Service Catalog Before we get deep into implementation of a service catalog, lets first understand what it is and what benefits it provides. Per ITIL, a service catalog is an exhaustive list of IT services that an organization provides or offers to its employees or customers. Service catalogs have been widely popular in the space of cloud computing, primarily as the medium to provide standardized and pre-approved service definitions. There is already some good collateral out there that talks about Oracle database service catalogs. The two whitepapers i recommend reading are: Service Catalogs: Defining Standardized Database Service High Availability Best Practices for Database Consolidation: The Foundation for Database as a Service [Oracle MAA] EM12c comes with an out-of-the-box service catalog and self service portal since release 1. For the customers, it provides the following benefits: Present a collection of standardized database service definitions, Define standardized pools of hardware and software for provisioning, Role based access to cater to different class of users, Automated procedures to provision the predefined database definitions, Setup chargeback plans based on service tiers and database configuration sizes, etc Starting Release 4, the scope of services offered via the service catalog has been expanded to include databases with varying levels of availability - Single Instance (SI) or Real Application Clusters (RAC) databases with multiple data guard based standby databases. Some salient points of the data guard integration: Standby pools can now be defined across different datacenters or within the same datacenter as the primary (this helps in modelling the concept of near and far DR sites) The standby databases can be single instance, RAC, or RAC One Node databases Multiple standby databases can be provisioned, where the maximum limit is determined by the version of database software The standby databases can be in either mount or read only (requires active data guard option) mode All database versions 10g to 12c supported (as certified with EM 12c) All 3 protection modes can be used - Maximum availability, performance, security Log apply can be set to sync or async along with the required apply lag The different service levels or service tiers are popularly represented using metals - Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and so on. The Oracle MAA whitepaper (referenced above) calls out the various service tiers as defined by Oracle's best practices, but customers can choose any logical combinations from the table below:  Primary  Standby [1 or more]  EM 12cR4  SI  -  SI  SI  RAC -  RAC SI  RAC RAC  RON -  RON RON where RON = RAC One Node is supported via custom post-scripts in the service template A sample service catalog would look like the image below. Here we have defined 4 service levels, which have been deployed across 2 data centers, and have 3 standardized sizes. Again, it is important to note that this is just an example to get the creative juices flowing. I imagine each customer would come up with their own catalog based on the application requirements, their RTO/RPO goals, and the product licenses they own. In the screenwatch titled 'Build Service Catalog using EM12c DBaaS', I walk through the complete steps required to setup this sample service catalog in EM12c. 2. Additional Storage Options for Snap Clone In my previous blog posts, i have described the snap clone feature in detail. Essentially, it provides a storage agnostic, self service, rapid, and space efficient approach to solving your data cloning problems. The net benefit is that you get incredible amounts of storage savings (on average 90%) all while cloning databases in a matter of minutes. Space and Time, two things enterprises would love to save on. This feature has been designed with the goal of providing data cloning capabilities while protecting your existing investments in server, storage, and software. With this in mind, we have pursued with the dual solution approach of Hardware and Software. In the hardware approach, we connect directly to your storage appliances and perform all low level actions required to rapidly clone your databases. While in the software approach, we use an intermediate software layer to talk to any storage vendor or any storage configuration to perform the same low level actions. Thus delivering the benefits of database thin cloning, without requiring you to drastically changing the infrastructure or IT's operating style. In release 4, we expand the scope of options supported by snap clone with the addition of database CloneDB. While CloneDB is not a new feature, it was first introduced in 11.2.0.2 patchset, it has over the years become more stable and mature. CloneDB leverages a combination of Direct NFS (or dNFS) feature of the database, RMAN image copies, sparse files, and copy-on-write technology to create thin clones of databases from existing backups in a matter of minutes. It essentially has all the traits that we want to present to our customers via the snap clone feature. For more information on cloneDB, i highly recommend reading the following sources: Blog by Tim Hall: Direct NFS (DNFS) CloneDB in Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Oracle OpenWorld Presentation by Cern: Efficient Database Cloning using Direct NFS and CloneDB The advantages of the new CloneDB integration with EM12c Snap Clone are: Space and time savings Ease of setup - no additional software is required other than the Oracle database binary Works on all platforms Reduce the dependence on storage administrators Cloning process fully orchestrated by EM12c, and delivered to developers/DBAs/QA Testers via the self service portal Uses dNFS to delivers better performance, availability, and scalability over kernel NFS Complete lifecycle of the clones managed by EM12c - performance, configuration, etc 3. Improved Rapid Start Kits DBaaS deployments tend to be complex and its setup requires a series of steps. These steps are typically performed across different users and different UIs. The Rapid Start Kit provides a single command solution to setup Database as a Service (DBaaS) and Pluggable Database as a Service (PDBaaS). One command creates all the Cloud artifacts like Roles, Administrators, Credentials, Database Profiles, PaaS Infrastructure Zone, Database Pools and Service Templates. Once the Rapid Start Kit has been successfully executed, requests can be made to provision databases and PDBs from the self service portal. Rapid start kit can create complex topologies involving multiple zones, pools and service templates. It also supports standby databases and use of RMAN image backups. The Rapid Start Kit in reality is a simple emcli script which takes a bunch of xml files as input and executes the complete automation in a matter of seconds. On a full rack Exadata, it took only 40 seconds to setup PDBaaS end-to-end. This kit works for both Oracle's engineered systems like Exadata, SuperCluster, etc and also on commodity hardware. One can draw parallel to the Exadata One Command script, which again takes a bunch of inputs from the administrators and then runs a simple script that configures everything from network to provisioning the DB software. Steps to use the kit: The kit can be found under the SSA plug-in directory on the OMS: EM_BASE/oracle/MW/plugins/oracle.sysman.ssa.oms.plugin_12.1.0.8.0/dbaas/setup It can be run from this default location or from any server which has emcli client installed For most scenarios, you would use the script dbaas/setup/database_cloud_setup.py For Exadata, special integration is provided to reduce the number of inputs even further. The script to use for this scenario would be dbaas/setup/exadata_cloud_setup.py The database_cloud_setup.py script takes two inputs: Cloud boundary xml: This file defines the cloud topology in terms of the zones and pools along with host names, oracle home locations or container database names that would be used as infrastructure for provisioning database services. This file is optional in case of Exadata, as the boundary is well know via the Exadata system target available in EM. Input xml: This file captures inputs for users, roles, profiles, service templates, etc. Essentially, all inputs required to define the DB services and other settings of the self service portal. Once all the xml files have been prepared, invoke the script as follows for PDBaaS: emcli @database_cloud_setup.py -pdbaas -cloud_boundary=/tmp/my_boundary.xml -cloud_input=/tmp/pdb_inputs.xml          The script will prompt for passwords a few times for key users like sysman, cloud admin, SSA admin, etc. Once complete, you can simply log into EM as the self service user and request for databases from the portal. More information available in the Rapid Start Kit chapter in Cloud Administration Guide.  4. Extensible Metering and Chargeback  Last but not the least, Metering and Chargeback in release 4 has been made extensible in all possible regards. The new extensibility features allow customer, partners, system integrators, etc to : Extend chargeback to any target type managed in EM Promote any metric in EM as a chargeback entity Extend list of charge items via metric or configuration extensions Model abstract entities like no. of backup requests, job executions, support requests, etc  A slew of emcli verbs have also been added that allows administrators to create, edit, delete, import/export charge plans, and assign cost centers all via the command line. More information available in the Chargeback API chapter in Cloud Administration Guide. 5. Miscellaneous Enhancements There are other miscellaneous, yet important, enhancements that are worth a mention. These mostly have been asked by customers like you. These are: Custom naming of DB Services Self service users can provide custom names for DB SID, DB service, schemas, and tablespaces Every custom name is validated for uniqueness in EM 'Create like' of Service Templates Now creating variants of a service template is only a click away. This would be vital when you publish service templates to represent different database sizes or service levels. Profile viewer View the details of a profile like datafile, control files, snapshot ids, export/import files, etc prior to its selection in the service template Cleanup automation - for failed and successful requests Single emcli command to cleanup all remnant artifacts of a failed request Cleanup can be performed on a per request bases or by the entire pool As an extension, you can also delete successful requests Improved delete user workflow Allows administrators to reassign cloud resources to another user or delete all of them Support for multiple tablespaces for schema as a service In addition to multiple schemas, user can also specify multiple tablespaces per request I hope this was a good introduction to the new Database as a Service enhancements in EM12c R4. I encourage you to explore many of these new and existing features and give us feedback. Good luck! References: Cloud Management Page on OTN Cloud Administration Guide [Documentation] -- Adeesh Fulay (@adeeshf)

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• WCF Bidirectional serialization fails

  - by Gena Verdel

  I'm trying to take advantage of Bidirectional serialization of some relational Linq-2-Sql generated entity classes. When using Unidirectional option everything works just fine, bu the moment I add IsReferenceType=true, objects fail to get transported over the tcp binding. Sample code: Entity class: [Table(Name="dbo.Blocks")] [DataContract()] public partial class Block : INotifyPropertyChanging, INotifyPropertyChanged { private static PropertyChangingEventArgs emptyChangingEventArgs = new PropertyChangingEventArgs(String.Empty); private long _ID; private int _StatusID; private string _Name; private bool _IsWithControlPoints; private long _DivisionID; private string _SHAPE; private EntitySet<BlockByWorkstation> _BlockByWorkstations; private EntitySet<PlanningPointAppropriation> _PlanningPointAppropriations; private EntitySet<Neighbor> _Neighbors; private EntitySet<Neighbor> _Neighbors1; private EntitySet<Task> _Tasks; private EntitySet<PlanningPointByBlock> _PlanningPointByBlocks; private EntitySet<ControlPointByBlock> _ControlPointByBlocks; private EntityRef<Division> _Division; private bool serializing; #region Extensibility Method Definitions partial void OnLoaded(); partial void OnValidate(System.Data.Linq.ChangeAction action); partial void OnCreated(); partial void OnIDChanging(long value); partial void OnIDChanged(); partial void OnStatusIDChanging(int value); partial void OnStatusIDChanged(); partial void OnNameChanging(string value); partial void OnNameChanged(); partial void OnIsWithControlPointsChanging(bool value); partial void OnIsWithControlPointsChanged(); partial void OnDivisionIDChanging(long value); partial void OnDivisionIDChanged(); partial void OnSHAPEChanging(string value); partial void OnSHAPEChanged(); #endregion public Block() { this.Initialize(); } [Column(Storage="_ID", AutoSync=AutoSync.OnInsert, DbType="BigInt NOT NULL IDENTITY", IsPrimaryKey=true, IsDbGenerated=true)] [DataMember(Order=1)] public override long ID { get { return this._ID; } set { if ((this._ID != value)) { this.OnIDChanging(value); this.SendPropertyChanging(); this._ID = value; this.SendPropertyChanged("ID"); this.OnIDChanged(); } } } [Column(Storage="_StatusID", DbType="Int NOT NULL")] [DataMember(Order=2)] public int StatusID { get { return this._StatusID; } set { if ((this._StatusID != value)) { this.OnStatusIDChanging(value); this.SendPropertyChanging(); this._StatusID = value; this.SendPropertyChanged("StatusID"); this.OnStatusIDChanged(); } } } [Column(Storage="_Name", DbType="NVarChar(255)")] [DataMember(Order=3)] public string Name { get { return this._Name; } set { if ((this._Name != value)) { this.OnNameChanging(value); this.SendPropertyChanging(); this._Name = value; this.SendPropertyChanged("Name"); this.OnNameChanged(); } } } [Column(Storage="_IsWithControlPoints", DbType="Bit NOT NULL")] [DataMember(Order=4)] public bool IsWithControlPoints { get { return this._IsWithControlPoints; } set { if ((this._IsWithControlPoints != value)) { this.OnIsWithControlPointsChanging(value); this.SendPropertyChanging(); this._IsWithControlPoints = value; this.SendPropertyChanged("IsWithControlPoints"); this.OnIsWithControlPointsChanged(); } } } [Column(Storage="_DivisionID", DbType="BigInt NOT NULL")] [DataMember(Order=5)] public long DivisionID { get { return this._DivisionID; } set { if ((this._DivisionID != value)) { if (this._Division.HasLoadedOrAssignedValue) { throw new System.Data.Linq.ForeignKeyReferenceAlreadyHasValueException(); } this.OnDivisionIDChanging(value); this.SendPropertyChanging(); this._DivisionID = value; this.SendPropertyChanged("DivisionID"); this.OnDivisionIDChanged(); } } } [Column(Storage="_SHAPE", DbType="Text", UpdateCheck=UpdateCheck.Never)] [DataMember(Order=6)] public string SHAPE { get { return this._SHAPE; } set { if ((this._SHAPE != value)) { this.OnSHAPEChanging(value); this.SendPropertyChanging(); this._SHAPE = value; this.SendPropertyChanged("SHAPE"); this.OnSHAPEChanged(); } } } [Association(Name="Block_BlockByWorkstation", Storage="_BlockByWorkstations", ThisKey="ID", OtherKey="BlockID")] [DataMember(Order=7, EmitDefaultValue=false)] public EntitySet<BlockByWorkstation> BlockByWorkstations { get { if ((this.serializing && (this._BlockByWorkstations.HasLoadedOrAssignedValues == false))) { return null; } return this._BlockByWorkstations; } set { this._BlockByWorkstations.Assign(value); } } [Association(Name="Block_PlanningPointAppropriation", Storage="_PlanningPointAppropriations", ThisKey="ID", OtherKey="MasterBlockID")] [DataMember(Order=8, EmitDefaultValue=false)] public EntitySet<PlanningPointAppropriation> PlanningPointAppropriations { get { if ((this.serializing && (this._PlanningPointAppropriations.HasLoadedOrAssignedValues == false))) { return null; } return this._PlanningPointAppropriations; } set { this._PlanningPointAppropriations.Assign(value); } } [Association(Name="Block_Neighbor", Storage="_Neighbors", ThisKey="ID", OtherKey="FirstBlockID")] [DataMember(Order=9, EmitDefaultValue=false)] public EntitySet<Neighbor> Neighbors { get { if ((this.serializing && (this._Neighbors.HasLoadedOrAssignedValues == false))) { return null; } return this._Neighbors; } set { this._Neighbors.Assign(value); } } [Association(Name="Block_Neighbor1", Storage="_Neighbors1", ThisKey="ID", OtherKey="SecondBlockID")] [DataMember(Order=10, EmitDefaultValue=false)] public EntitySet<Neighbor> Neighbors1 { get { if ((this.serializing && (this._Neighbors1.HasLoadedOrAssignedValues == false))) { return null; } return this._Neighbors1; } set { this._Neighbors1.Assign(value); } } [Association(Name="Block_Task", Storage="_Tasks", ThisKey="ID", OtherKey="BlockID")] [DataMember(Order=11, EmitDefaultValue=false)] public EntitySet<Task> Tasks { get { if ((this.serializing && (this._Tasks.HasLoadedOrAssignedValues == false))) { return null; } return this._Tasks; } set { this._Tasks.Assign(value); } } [Association(Name="Block_PlanningPointByBlock", Storage="_PlanningPointByBlocks", ThisKey="ID", OtherKey="BlockID")] [DataMember(Order=12, EmitDefaultValue=false)] public EntitySet<PlanningPointByBlock> PlanningPointByBlocks { get { if ((this.serializing && (this._PlanningPointByBlocks.HasLoadedOrAssignedValues == false))) { return null; } return this._PlanningPointByBlocks; } set { this._PlanningPointByBlocks.Assign(value); } } [Association(Name="Block_ControlPointByBlock", Storage="_ControlPointByBlocks", ThisKey="ID", OtherKey="BlockID")] [DataMember(Order=13, EmitDefaultValue=false)] public EntitySet<ControlPointByBlock> ControlPointByBlocks { get { if ((this.serializing && (this._ControlPointByBlocks.HasLoadedOrAssignedValues == false))) { return null; } return this._ControlPointByBlocks; } set { this._ControlPointByBlocks.Assign(value); } } [Association(Name="Division_Block", Storage="_Division", ThisKey="DivisionID", OtherKey="ID", IsForeignKey=true, DeleteOnNull=true, DeleteRule="CASCADE")] public Division Division { get { return this._Division.Entity; } set { Division previousValue = this._Division.Entity; if (((previousValue != value) || (this._Division.HasLoadedOrAssignedValue == false))) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); if ((previousValue != null)) { this._Division.Entity = null; previousValue.Blocks.Remove(this); } this._Division.Entity = value; if ((value != null)) { value.Blocks.Add(this); this._DivisionID = value.ID; } else { this._DivisionID = default(long); } this.SendPropertyChanged("Division"); } } } public event PropertyChangingEventHandler PropertyChanging; public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; protected virtual void SendPropertyChanging() { if ((this.PropertyChanging != null)) { this.PropertyChanging(this, emptyChangingEventArgs); } } protected virtual void SendPropertyChanged(String propertyName) { if ((this.PropertyChanged != null)) { this.PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); } } private void attach_BlockByWorkstations(BlockByWorkstation entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = this; } private void detach_BlockByWorkstations(BlockByWorkstation entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = null; } private void attach_PlanningPointAppropriations(PlanningPointAppropriation entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = this; } private void detach_PlanningPointAppropriations(PlanningPointAppropriation entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = null; } private void attach_Neighbors(Neighbor entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.FirstBlock = this; } private void detach_Neighbors(Neighbor entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.FirstBlock = null; } private void attach_Neighbors1(Neighbor entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.SecondBlock = this; } private void detach_Neighbors1(Neighbor entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.SecondBlock = null; } private void attach_Tasks(Task entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = this; } private void detach_Tasks(Task entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = null; } private void attach_PlanningPointByBlocks(PlanningPointByBlock entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = this; } private void detach_PlanningPointByBlocks(PlanningPointByBlock entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = null; } private void attach_ControlPointByBlocks(ControlPointByBlock entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = this; } private void detach_ControlPointByBlocks(ControlPointByBlock entity) { this.SendPropertyChanging(); entity.Block = null; } private void Initialize() { this._BlockByWorkstations = new EntitySet<BlockByWorkstation>(new Action<BlockByWorkstation>(this.attach_BlockByWorkstations), new Action<BlockByWorkstation>(this.detach_BlockByWorkstations)); this._PlanningPointAppropriations = new EntitySet<PlanningPointAppropriation>(new Action<PlanningPointAppropriation>(this.attach_PlanningPointAppropriations), new Action<PlanningPointAppropriation>(this.detach_PlanningPointAppropriations)); this._Neighbors = new EntitySet<Neighbor>(new Action<Neighbor>(this.attach_Neighbors), new Action<Neighbor>(this.detach_Neighbors)); this._Neighbors1 = new EntitySet<Neighbor>(new Action<Neighbor>(this.attach_Neighbors1), new Action<Neighbor>(this.detach_Neighbors1)); this._Tasks = new EntitySet<Task>(new Action<Task>(this.attach_Tasks), new Action<Task>(this.detach_Tasks)); this._PlanningPointByBlocks = new EntitySet<PlanningPointByBlock>(new Action<PlanningPointByBlock>(this.attach_PlanningPointByBlocks), new Action<PlanningPointByBlock>(this.detach_PlanningPointByBlocks)); this._ControlPointByBlocks = new EntitySet<ControlPointByBlock>(new Action<ControlPointByBlock>(this.attach_ControlPointByBlocks), new Action<ControlPointByBlock>(this.detach_ControlPointByBlocks)); this._Division = default(EntityRef<Division>); OnCreated(); } [OnDeserializing()] [System.ComponentModel.EditorBrowsableAttribute(EditorBrowsableState.Never)] public void OnDeserializing(StreamingContext context) { this.Initialize(); } [OnSerializing()] [System.ComponentModel.EditorBrowsableAttribute(EditorBrowsableState.Never)] public void OnSerializing(StreamingContext context) { this.serializing = true; } [OnSerialized()] [System.ComponentModel.EditorBrowsableAttribute(EditorBrowsableState.Never)] public void OnSerialized(StreamingContext context) { this.serializing = false; } } App.config: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <system.web> <compilation debug="true" /> </system.web> <!-- When deploying the service library project, the content of the config file must be added to the host's app.config file. System.Configuration does not support config files for libraries. --> <system.serviceModel> <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="debugging" name="DBServicesLibrary.DBService"> </service> </services> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="DBServicesLibrary.DBServiceBehavior"> <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment --> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True"/> <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set the value below to true. Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing exception information --> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="False" /> </behavior> <behavior name="debugging"> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> </system.serviceModel> </configuration> Host part: ServiceHost svh = new ServiceHost(typeof(DBService)); svh.AddServiceEndpoint( typeof(DBServices.Contract.IDBService), new NetTcpBinding(), "net.tcp://localhost:8000"); Client part: ChannelFactory<DBServices.Contract.IDBService> scf; scf = new ChannelFactory<DBServices.Contract.IDBService>(new NetTcpBinding(),"net.tcp://localhost:8000"); _serv = scf.CreateChannel(); ((IContextChannel)_serv).OperationTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 5, 0);

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• CDN on Hosted Service in Windows Azure

  - by Shaun

  Yesterday I told Wang Tao, an annoying colleague sitting beside me, about how to make the static content enable the CDN in his website which had just been published on Windows Azure. The approach would be Move the static content, the images, CSS files, etc. into the blob storage. Enable the CDN on his storage account. Change the URL of those static files to the CDN URL. I think these are the very common steps when using CDN. But this morning I found that the new Windows Azure SDK 1.4 and new Windows Azure Developer Portal had just been published announced at the Windows Azure Blog. One of the new features in this release is about the CDN, which means we can enabled the CDN not only for a storage account, but a hosted service as well. Within this new feature the steps I mentioned above would be turned simpler a lot.   Enable CDN for Hosted Service To enable the CDN for a hosted service we just need to log on the Windows Azure Developer Portal. Under the “Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN” item we will find a new menu on the left hand side said “CDN”, where we can manage the CDN for storage account and hosted service. As we can see the hosted services and storage accounts are all listed in my subscriptions. To enable a CDN for a hosted service is veru simple, just select a hosted service and click the New Endpoint button on top. In this dialog we can select the subscription and the storage account, or the hosted service we want the CDN to be enabled. If we selected the hosted service, like I did in the image above, the “Source URL for the CDN endpoint” will be shown automatically. This means the windows azure platform will make all contents under the “/cdn” folder as CDN enabled. But we cannot change the value at the moment. The following 3 checkboxes next to the URL are: Enable CDN: Enable or disable the CDN. HTTPS: If we need to use HTTPS connections check it. Query String: If we are caching content from a hosted service and we are using query strings to specify the content to be retrieved, check it. Just click the “Create” button to let the windows azure create the CDN for our hosted service. The CDN would be available within 60 minutes as Microsoft mentioned. My experience is that about 15 minutes the CDN could be used and we can find the CDN URL in the portal as well.   Put the Content in CDN in Hosted Service Let’s create a simple windows azure project in Visual Studio with a MVC 2 Web Role. When we created the CDN mentioned above the source URL of CDN endpoint would be under the “/cdn” folder. So in the Visual Studio we create a folder under the website named “cdn” and put some static files there. Then all these files would be cached by CDN if we use the CDN endpoint. The CDN of the hosted service can cache some kind of “dynamic” result with the Query String feature enabled. We create a controller named CdnController and a GetNumber action in it. The routed URL of this controller would be /Cdn/GetNumber which can be CDN-ed as well since the URL said it’s under the “/cdn” folder. In the GetNumber action we just put a number value which specified by parameter into the view model, then the URL could be like /Cdn/GetNumber?number=2. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: using System.Linq; 4: using System.Web; 5: using System.Web.Mvc; 6:  7: namespace MvcWebRole1.Controllers 8: { 9: public class CdnController : Controller 10: { 11: // 12: // GET: /Cdn/ 13:  14: public ActionResult GetNumber(int number) 15: { 16: return View(number); 17: } 18:  19: } 20: } And we add a view to display the number which is super simple. 1: <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/Site.Master" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<int>" %> 2:  3: <asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="TitleContent" runat="server"> 4: GetNumber 5: </asp:Content> 6:  7: <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server"> 8:  9: <h2>The number is: <% 1: : Model.ToString() %></h2> 10:  11: </asp:Content> Since this action is under the CdnController the URL would be under the “/cdn” folder which means it can be CDN-ed. And since we checked the “Query String” the content of this dynamic page will be cached by its query string. So if I use the CDN URL, http://az25311.vo.msecnd.net/GetNumber?number=2, the CDN will firstly check if there’s any content cached with the key “GetNumber?number=2”. If yes then the CDN will return the content directly; otherwise it will connect to the hosted service, http://aurora-sys.cloudapp.net/Cdn/GetNumber?number=2, and then send the result back to the browser and cached in CDN. But to be notice that the query string are treated as string when used by the key of CDN element. This means the URLs below would be cached in 2 elements in CDN: http://az25311.vo.msecnd.net/GetNumber?number=2&page=1 http://az25311.vo.msecnd.net/GetNumber?page=1&number=2 The final step is to upload the project onto azure. Test the Hosted Service CDN After published the project on azure, we can use the CDN in the website. The CDN endpoint we had created is az25311.vo.msecnd.net so all files under the “/cdn” folder can be requested with it. Let’s have a try on the sample.htm and c_great_wall.jpg static files. Also we can request the dynamic page GetNumber with the query string with the CDN endpoint. And if we refresh this page it will be shown very quickly since the content comes from the CDN without MCV server side process. We style of this page was missing. This is because the CSS file was not includes in the “/cdn” folder so the page cannot retrieve the CSS file from the CDN URL.   Summary In this post I introduced the new feature in Windows Azure CDN with the release of Windows Azure SDK 1.4 and new Developer Portal. With the CDN of the Hosted Service we can just put the static resources under a “/cdn” folder so that the CDN can cache them automatically and no need to put then into the blob storage. Also it support caching the dynamic content with the Query String feature. So that we can cache some parts of the web page by using the UserController and CDN. For example we can cache the log on user control in the master page so that the log on part will be loaded super-fast. There are some other new features within this release you can find here. And for more detailed information about the Windows Azure CDN please have a look here as well.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• Effectiveness and Efficiency

  - by Daniel Moth

  In the professional environment, i.e. at work, I am always seeking personal growth and to be challenged. The result is that my assignments, my work list, my tasks, my goals, my commitments, my [insert whatever word resonates with you] keep growing (in scope and desired impact). Which in turn means I have to keep finding new ways to deliver more value, while not falling into the trap of working more hours. To do that I continuously evaluate both my effectiveness and my efficiency. EFFECTIVENESS The first thing I check is my effectiveness: Am I doing the right things? Am I focusing too much on unimportant things? Am I spending more time doing stuff that is important to my team/org/division/business/company, or am I spending it on stuff that is important to me and that I enjoy doing? Am I valuing activities that maybe I have outgrown and should be delegated to others who are at a stage I have surpassed (in Microsoft speak: is the work I am doing level appropriate or am I still operating at the previous level)? Notice how the answers to those questions change over time and due to certain events, so I have to remind myself to revisit them frequently. Events that force me to re-examine them are: change of role, change of team/org/etc, change of direction of team/org/etc, re-org, new hires on the team that take on some of the work I did, personal promotion, change of manager... and if none of those events has occurred since the last annual review, I ask myself those at each annual review anyway. If you think you are not being effective at work, make a list of the stuff that you do and start tracking where your time goes. In parallel, have a discussion with your manager about where they think your time should go. Ultimately your time is finite and hence it is your most precious investment, don't waste it. If your management doesn't value as highly what you spend your time on, then either convince your management, or stop spending your time on it, or find different management: Lead, Follow, or get out of the way! That's my view on effectiveness. You have to fix that before moving to being efficient, or you may end up being very efficient at stuff that nobody wants you to be doing in the first place. For example, you may be spending your time writing blog posts and becoming better and faster at it all the time. If your manager thinks that is not even part of your job description, you are wasting your time to satisfy your inner desires. Nobody can help you with your effectiveness other than your management chain and your management peers - they are the judges of it. EFFICIENCY The second thing I check is my efficiency: Am I doing things right? For me, doing things right means that I deliver the same quality of work faster [than what I used to, and than my peers, and than expected of me]. The result is that I can achieve more [than what I used to, and than my peers, and than expected of me]. Notice how the efficiency goal is a more portable one. If, by whatever criteria, you think you are the best at [insert your own skill here], this can change at two events: because you have new colleagues (who are potentially better than your older ones), and it can change with a change of manager (who has potentially higher expectations). That's about it. Once you are efficient at something, you carry that with you... All you need to really be doing here is, when taking on new kinds of work that you haven't done before, try a few approaches and devise a system so that you can become efficient at this new activity too... Just keep "collecting" stuff that you are efficient at. If you think you are not being efficient at something, break it down: What are the steps you take to complete that task? How long do you spend on each step? Talk to others about what steps they take, to see if you can optimize some steps away or trade them for better steps, or just learn how to complete a step faster. Have a system for every task you take so that you can have repeatable success. That's my view on efficiency. You have to fix it so that you can free up time to do more. When you plan a route from A to B - all else being equal - you try to get there as fast as possible so why would you not want to do that with your everyday work? For example, imagine you are inefficient at processing email: You spend more time than necessary dealing with email, and you still end up with dropped email threads and with slower response times than others. How can you improve? Talk to someone that you think is good at this, understand their system (e.g. here is my email processing system) and come up with one that works for you. Parting Thoughts Are you considered, by your colleagues and manager, an effective and efficient person at your workplace? If you are, what would you change if you were asked by your management to do the job of two people? Seriously, think about that! Your immediate reaction may be "that is not possible", but it actually is. You just have to re-assess what things that were previously important will now stop being important, by discussing them with your management and reaching agreement on relative priorities. For example, stuff that was previously on your plate may now have to be delegated or dropped. Where you thought you were efficient, maybe now you have to find an even faster path to completion, perhaps keeping in mind that Perfect is the Enemy of “Good Enough”. My personal experience (from both observing others and from my own reflection) is that when folks are struggling to keep up at work it is because of two reasons: They are investing energy in stuff that they enjoy doing which the business regards as having a lower priority than a lot of other things on their plate. They are completing tasks to a level of higher quality than what is required (due to personal pride) missing the big picture which almost always mandates completing three tasks at good enough quality than knocking only one of them out of the park while the other two come in late or not at all. There is a lot of content on the web, so I strongly encourage you to use your favorite search engine to read other views on effectiveness and efficiency (Bing, Google). Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Talend Enterprise Data Integration overperforms on Oracle SPARC T4

  - by Amir Javanshir

  The SPARC T microprocessor, released in 2005 by Sun Microsystems, and now continued at Oracle, has a good track record in parallel execution and multi-threaded performance. However it was less suited for pure single-threaded workloads. The new SPARC T4 processor is now filling that gap by offering a 5x better single-thread performance over previous generations. Following our long-term relationship with Talend, a fast growing ISV positioned by Gartner in the “Visionaries” quadrant of the “Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools”, we decided to test some of their integration components with the T4 chip, more precisely on a T4-1 system, in order to verify first hand if this new processor stands up to its promises. Several tests were performed, mainly focused on: Single-thread performance of the new SPARC T4 processor compared to an older SPARC T2+ processor Overall throughput of the SPARC T4-1 server using multiple threads The tests consisted in reading large amounts of data --ten's of gigabytes--, processing and writing them back to a file or an Oracle 11gR2 database table. They are CPU, memory and IO bound tests. Given the main focus of this project --CPU performance--, bottlenecks were removed as much as possible on the memory and IO sub-systems. When possible, the data to process was put into the ZFS filesystem cache, for instance. Also, two external storage devices were directly attached to the servers under test, each one divided in two ZFS pools for read and write operations. Multi-thread: Testing throughput on the Oracle T4-1 The tests were performed with different number of simultaneous threads (1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, 32, 48 and 64) and using different storage devices: Flash, Fibre Channel storage, two stripped internal disks and one single internal disk. All storage devices used ZFS as filesystem and volume management. Each thread read a dedicated 1GB-large file containing 12.5M lines with the following structure: customerID;FirstName;LastName;StreetAddress;City;State;Zip;Cust_Status;Since_DT;Status_DT 1;Ronald;Reagan;South Highway;Santa Fe;Montana;98756;A;04-06-2006;09-08-2008 2;Theodore;Roosevelt;Timberlane Drive;Columbus;Louisiana;75677;A;10-05-2009;27-05-2008 3;Andrew;Madison;S Rustle St;Santa Fe;Arkansas;75677;A;29-04-2005;09-02-2008 4;Dwight;Adams;South Roosevelt Drive;Baton Rouge;Vermont;75677;A;15-02-2004;26-01-2007 […] The following graphs present the results of our tests: Unsurprisingly up to 16 threads, all files fit in the ZFS cache a.k.a L2ARC : once the cache is hot there is no performance difference depending on the underlying storage. From 16 threads upwards however, it is clear that IO becomes a bottleneck, having a good IO subsystem is thus key. Single-disk performance collapses whereas the Sun F5100 and ST6180 arrays allow the T4-1 to scale quite seamlessly. From 32 to 64 threads, the performance is almost constant with just a slow decline. For the database load tests, only the best IO configuration --using external storage devices-- were used, hosting the Oracle table spaces and redo log files. Using the Sun Storage F5100 array allows the T4-1 server to scale up to 48 parallel JVM processes before saturating the CPU. The final result is a staggering 646K lines per second insertion in an Oracle table using 48 parallel threads. Single-thread: Testing the single thread performance Seven different tests were performed on both servers. Given the fact that only one thread, thus one file was read, no IO bottleneck was involved, all data being served from the ZFS cache. Read File ? Filter ? Write File: Read file, filter data, write the filtered data in a new file. The filter is set on the “Status” column: only lines with status set to “A” are selected. This limits each output file to about 500 MB. Read File ? Load Database Table: Read file, insert into a single Oracle table. Average: Read file, compute the average of a numeric column, write the result in a new file. Division & Square Root: Read file, perform a division and square root on a numeric column, write the result data in a new file. Oracle DB Dump: Dump the content of an Oracle table (12.5M rows) into a CSV file. Transform: Read file, transform, write the result data in a new file. The transformations applied are: set the address column to upper case and add an extra column at the end, which is the concatenation of two columns. Sort: Read file, sort a numeric and alpha numeric column, write the result data in a new file. The following table and graph present the final results of the tests: Throughput unit is thousand lines per second processed (K lines/second). Improvement is the % of improvement between the T5140 and T4-1. Test T4-1 (Time s.) T5140 (Time s.) Improvement T4-1 (Throughput) T5140 (Throughput) Read/Filter/Write 125 806 645% 100 16 Read/Load Database 195 1111 570% 64 11 Average 96 557 580% 130 22 Division & Square Root 161 1054 655% 78 12 Oracle DB Dump 164 945 576% 76 13 Transform 159 1124 707% 79 11 Sort 251 1336 532% 50 9 The improvement of single-thread performance is quite dramatic: depending on the tests, the T4 is between 5.4 to 7 times faster than the T2+. It seems clear that the SPARC T4 processor has gone a long way filling the gap in single-thread performance, without sacrifying the multi-threaded capability as it still shows a very impressive scaling on heavy-duty multi-threaded jobs. Finally, as always at Oracle ISV Engineering, we are happy to help our ISV partners test their own applications on our platforms, so don't hesitate to contact us and let's see what the SPARC T4-based systems can do for your application! "As describe in this benchmark, Talend Enterprise Data Integration has overperformed on T4. I was generally happy to see that the T4 gave scaling opportunities for many scenarios like complex aggregations. Row by row insertion in Oracle DB is faster with more than 650,000 rows per seconds without using any bulk Oracle capabilities !" Cedric Carbone, Talend CTO.

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