Search Results

Search found 4159 results on 167 pages for 'deferred execution'.

Page 86/167 | < Previous Page | 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93  | Next Page >

• Investigation: Can different combinations of components effect Dataflow performance?

  - by jamiet

  Introduction The Dataflow task is one of the core components (if not the core component) of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and often the most misunderstood. This is not surprising, its an incredibly complicated beast and we’re abstracted away from that complexity via some boxes that go yellow red or green and that have some lines drawn between them. Example dataflow In this blog post I intend to look under that facade and get into some of the nuts and bolts of the Dataflow Task by investigating how the decisions we make when building our packages can affect performance. I will do this by comparing the performance of three dataflows that all have the same input, all produce the same output, but which all operate slightly differently by way of having different transformation components. I also want to use this blog post to challenge a common held opinion that I see perpetuated over and over again on the SSIS forum. That is, that people assume adding components to a dataflow will be detrimental to overall performance. Its not surprising that people think this –it is intuitive to think that more components means more work- however this is not a view that I share. I have always been of the opinion that there are many factors affecting dataflow duration and the number of components is actually one of the less important ones; having said that I have never proven that assertion and that is one reason for this investigation. I have actually seen evidence that some people think dataflow duration is simply a function of number of rows and number of components. I’ll happily call that one out as a myth even without any investigation!  The Setup I have a 2GB datafile which is a list of 4731904 (~4.7million) customer records with various attributes against them and it contains 2 columns that I am going to use for categorisation: [YearlyIncome] [BirthDate] The data file is a SSIS raw format file which I chose to use because it is the quickest way of getting data into a dataflow and given that I am testing the transformations, not the source or destination adapters, I want to minimise external influences as much as possible. In the test I will split the customers according to month of birth (12 of those) and whether or not their yearly income is above or below 50000 (2 of those); in other words I will be splitting them into 24 discrete categories and in order to do it I shall be using different combinations of SSIS’ Conditional Split and Derived Column transformation components. The 24 datapaths that occur will each input to a rowcount component, again because this is the least resource intensive means of terminating a datapath. The test is being carried out on a Dell XPS Studio laptop with a quad core (8 logical Procs) Intel Core i7 at 1.73GHz and Samsung SSD hard drive. Its running SQL Server 2008 R2 on Windows 7. The Variables Here are the three combinations of components that I am going to test:     One Conditional Split - A single Conditional Split component CSPL Split by Month of Birth and income category that will use expressions on [YearlyIncome] & [BirthDate] to send each row to one of 24 outputs. This next screenshot displays the expression logic in use: Derived Column & Conditional Split - A Derived Column component DER Income Category that adds a new column [IncomeCategory] which will contain one of two possible text values {“LessThan50000”,”GreaterThan50000”} and uses [YearlyIncome] to determine which value each row should get. A Conditional Split component CSPL Split by Month of Birth and Income Category then uses that new column in conjunction with [BirthDate] to determine which of the same 24 outputs to send each row to. Put more simply, I am separating the Conditional Split of #1 into a Derived Column and a Conditional Split. The next screenshots display the expression logic in use: DER Income Category         CSPL Split by Month of Birth and Income Category       Three Conditional Splits - A Conditional Split component that produces two outputs based on [YearlyIncome], one for each Income Category. Each of those outputs will go to a further Conditional Split that splits the input into 12 outputs, one for each month of birth (identical logic in each). In this case then I am separating the single Conditional Split of #1 into three Conditional Split components. The next screenshots display the expression logic in use: CSPL Split by Income Category         CSPL Split by Month of Birth 1& 2       Each of these combinations will provide an input to one of the 24 rowcount components, just the same as before. For illustration here is a screenshot of the dataflow containing three Conditional Split components: As you can these dataflows have a fair bit of work to do and remember that they’re doing that work for 4.7million rows. I will execute each dataflow 10 times and use the average for comparison. I foresee three possible outcomes: The dataflow containing just one Conditional Split (i.e. #1) will be quicker There is no significant difference between any of them One of the two dataflows containing multiple transformation components will be quicker Regardless of which of those outcomes come to pass we will have learnt something and that makes this an interesting test to carry out. Note that I will be executing the dataflows using dtexec.exe rather than hitting F5 within BIDS. The Results and Analysis The table below shows all of the executions, 10 for each dataflow. It also shows the average for each along with a standard deviation. All durations are in seconds. I’m pasting a screenshot because I frankly can’t be bothered with the faffing about needed to make a presentable HTML table. It is plain to see from the average that the dataflow containing three conditional splits is significantly faster, the other two taking 43% and 52% longer respectively. This seems strange though, right? Why does the dataflow containing the most components outperform the other two by such a big margin? The answer is actually quite logical when you put some thought into it and I’ll explain that below. Before progressing, a side note. The standard deviation for the “Three Conditional Splits” dataflow is orders of magnitude smaller – indicating that performance for this dataflow can be predicted with much greater confidence too. The Explanation I refer you to the screenshot above that shows how CSPL Split by Month of Birth and salary category in the first dataflow is setup. Observe that there is a case for each combination of Month Of Date and Income Category – 24 in total. These expressions get evaluated in the order that they appear and hence if we assume that Month of Date and Income Category are uniformly distributed in the dataset we can deduce that the expected number of expression evaluations for each row is 12.5 i.e. 1 (the minimum) + 24 (the maximum) divided by 2 = 12.5. Now take a look at the screenshots for the second dataflow. We are doing one expression evaluation in DER Income Category and we have the same 24 cases in CSPL Split by Month of Birth and Income Category as we had before, only the expression differs slightly. In this case then we have 1 + 12.5 = 13.5 expected evaluations for each row – that would account for the slightly longer average execution time for this dataflow. Now onto the third dataflow, the quick one. CSPL Split by Income Category does a maximum of 2 expression evaluations thus the expected number of evaluations per row is 1.5. CSPL Split by Month of Birth 1 & CSPL Split by Month of Birth 2 both have less work to do than the previous Conditional Split components because they only have 12 cases to test for thus the expected number of expression evaluations is 6.5 There are two of them so total expected number of expression evaluations for this dataflow is 6.5 + 6.5 + 1.5 = 14.5. 14.5 is still more than 12.5 & 13.5 though so why is the third dataflow so much quicker? Simple, the conditional expressions in the first two dataflows have two boolean predicates to evaluate – one for Income Category and one for Month of Birth; the expressions in the Conditional Split in the third dataflow however only have one predicate thus they are doing a lot less work. To sum up, the difference in execution times can be attributed to the difference between: MONTH(BirthDate) == 1 && YearlyIncome <= 50000 and MONTH(BirthDate) == 1 In the first two dataflows YearlyIncome <= 50000 gets evaluated an average of 12.5 times for every row whereas in the third dataflow it is evaluated once and once only. Multiply those 11.5 extra operations by 4.7million rows and you get a significant amount of extra CPU cycles – that’s where our duration difference comes from. The Wrap-up The obvious point here is that adding new components to a dataflow isn’t necessarily going to make it go any slower, moreover you may be able to achieve significant improvements by splitting logic over multiple components rather than one. Performance tuning is all about reducing the amount of work that needs to be done and that doesn’t necessarily mean use less components, indeed sometimes you may be able to reduce workload in ways that aren’t immediately obvious as I think I have proven here. Of course there are many variables in play here and your mileage will most definitely vary. I encourage you to download the package and see if you get similar results – let me know in the comments. The package contains all three dataflows plus a fourth dataflow that will create the 2GB raw file for you (you will also need the [AdventureWorksDW2008] sample database from which to source the data); simply disable all dataflows except the one you want to test before executing the package and remember, execute using dtexec, not within BIDS. If you want to explore dataflow performance tuning in more detail then here are some links you might want to check out: Inequality joins, Asynchronous transformations and Lookups Destination Adapter Comparison Don’t turn the dataflow into a cursor SSIS Dataflow – Designing for performance (webinar) Any comments? Let me know! @Jamiet

  Read the article

• C#/.NET &ndash; Finding an Item&rsquo;s Index in IEnumerable&lt;T&gt;

  - by James Michael Hare

  Sorry for the long blogging hiatus.  First it was, of course, the holidays hustle and bustle, then my brother and his wife gave birth to their son, so I’ve been away from my blogging for two weeks. Background: Finding an item’s index in List<T> is easy… Many times in our day to day programming activities, we want to find the index of an item in a collection.  Now, if we have a List<T> and we’re looking for the item itself this is trivial: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // can find the exact item using IndexOf() 5: var pos = list.IndexOf(64); This will return the position of the item if it’s found, or –1 if not.  It’s easy to see how this works for primitive types where equality is well defined.  For complex types, however, it will attempt to compare them using EqualityComparer<T>.Default which, in a nutshell, relies on the object’s Equals() method. So what if we want to search for a condition instead of equality?  That’s also easy in a List<T> with the FindIndex() method: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // finds index of first even number or -1 if not found. 5: var pos = list.FindIndex(i => i % 2 == 0);   Problem: Finding an item’s index in IEnumerable<T> is not so easy... This is all well and good for lists, but what if we want to do the same thing for IEnumerable<T>?  A collection of IEnumerable<T> has no indexing, so there’s no direct method to find an item’s index.  LINQ, as powerful as it is, gives us many tools to get us this information, but not in one step.  As with almost any problem involving collections, there are several ways to accomplish the same goal.  And once again as with almost any problem involving collections, the choice of the solution somewhat depends on the situation. So let’s look at a few possible alternatives.  I’m going to express each of these as extension methods for simplicity and consistency. Solution: The TakeWhile() and Count() combo One of the things you can do is to perform a TakeWhile() on the list as long as your find condition is not true, and then do a Count() of the items it took.  The only downside to this method is that if the item is not in the list, the index will be the full Count() of items, and not –1.  So if you don’t know the size of the list beforehand, this can be confusing. 1: // a collection of extra extension methods off IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // Finds an item in the collection, similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: // note if item not found, result is length and not -1! 8: return list.TakeWhile(i => !finder(i)).Count(); 9: } 10: } Personally, I don’t like switching the paradigm of not found away from –1, so this is one of my least favorites.  Solution: Select with index Many people don’t realize that there is an alternative form of the LINQ Select() method that will provide you an index of the item being selected: 1: list.Select( (item,index) => do something here with the item and/or index... ) This can come in handy, but must be treated with care.  This is because the index provided is only as pertains to the result of previous operations (if any).  For example: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // you'd hope this would give you the indexes of the even numbers 5: // which would be 2, 3, 8, but in reality it gives you 0, 1, 2 6: list.Where(item => item % 2 == 0).Select((item,index) => index); The reason the example gives you the collection { 0, 1, 2 } is because the where clause passes over any items that are odd, and therefore only the even items are given to the select and only they are given indexes. Conversely, we can’t select the index and then test the item in a Where() clause, because then the Where() clause would be operating on the index and not the item! So, what we have to do is to select the item and index and put them together in an anonymous type.  It looks ugly, but it works: 1: // extensions defined on IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // finds an item in a collection, similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: // if you don't name the anonymous properties they are the variable names 8: return list.Select((item, index) => new { item, index }) 9: .Where(p => finder(p.item)) 10: .Select(p => p.index + 1) 11: .FirstOrDefault() - 1; 12: } 13: }     So let’s look at this, because i know it’s convoluted: First Select() joins the items and their indexes into an anonymous type. Where() filters that list to only the ones matching the predicate. Second Select() picks the index of the matches and adds 1 – this is to distinguish between not found and first item. FirstOrDefault() returns the first item found from the previous clauses or default (zero) if not found. Subtract one so that not found (zero) will be –1, and first item (one) will be zero. The bad thing is, this is ugly as hell and creates anonymous objects for each item tested until it finds the match.  This concerns me a bit but we’ll defer judgment until compare the relative performances below. Solution: Convert ToList() and use FindIndex() This solution is easy enough.  We know any IEnumerable<T> can be converted to List<T> using the LINQ extension method ToList(), so we can easily convert the collection to a list and then just use the FindIndex() method baked into List<T>. 1: // a collection of extension methods for IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // find the index of an item in the collection similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: return list.ToList().FindIndex(finder); 8: } 9: } This solution is simplicity itself!  It is very concise and elegant and you need not worry about anyone misinterpreting what it’s trying to do (as opposed to the more convoluted LINQ methods above). But the main thing I’m concerned about here is the performance hit to allocate the List<T> in the ToList() call, but once again we’ll explore that in a second. Solution: Roll your own FindIndex() for IEnumerable<T> Of course, you can always roll your own FindIndex() method for IEnumerable<T>.  It would be a very simple for loop which scans for the item and counts as it goes.  There’s many ways to do this, but one such way might look like: 1: // extension methods for IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // Finds an item matching a predicate in the enumeration, much like List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: int index = 0; 8: foreach (var item in list) 9: { 10: if (finder(item)) 11: { 12: return index; 13: } 14:  15: index++; 16: } 17:  18: return -1; 19: } 20: } Well, it’s not quite simplicity, and those less familiar with LINQ may prefer it since it doesn’t include all of the lambdas and behind the scenes iterators that come with deferred execution.  But does having this long, blown out method really gain us much in performance? Comparison of Proposed Solutions So we’ve now seen four solutions, let’s analyze their collective performance.  I took each of the four methods described above and run them over 100,000 iterations of lists of size 10, 100, 1000, and 10000 and here’s the performance results.  Then I looked for targets at the begining of the list (best case), middle of the list (the average case) and not in the list (worst case as must scan all of the list). Each of the times below is the average time in milliseconds for one execution as computer over the 100,000 iterations: Searches Matching First Item (Best Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0003 0.0003 0.0003 0.0003 Select 0.0005 0.0005 0.0005 0.0005 ToList 0.0002 0.0003 0.0013 0.0121 Manual 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001   Searches Matching Middle Item (Average Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0004 0.0020 0.0191 0.1889 Select 0.0008 0.0042 0.0387 0.3802 ToList 0.0002 0.0007 0.0057 0.0562 Manual 0.0002 0.0013 0.0129 0.1255   Searches Where Not Found (Worst Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0006 0.0039 0.0381 0.3770 Select 0.0012 0.0081 0.0758 0.7583 ToList 0.0002 0.0012 0.0100 0.0996 Manual 0.0003 0.0026 0.0253 0.2514   Notice something interesting here, you’d think the “roll your own” loop would be the most efficient, but it only wins when the item is first (or very close to it) regardless of list size.  In almost all other cases though and in particular the average case and worst case, the ToList()/FindIndex() combo wins for performance, even though it is creating some temporary memory to hold the List<T>.  If you examine the algorithm, the reason why is most likely because once it’s in a ToList() form, internally FindIndex() scans the internal array which is much more efficient to iterate over.  Thus, it takes a one time performance hit (not including any GC impact) to create the List<T> but after that the performance is much better. Summary If you’re concerned about too many throw-away objects, you can always roll your own FindIndex() method, but for sheer simplicity and overall performance, using the ToList()/FindIndex() combo performs best on nearly all list sizes in the average and worst cases.    Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Litte Wonders,BlackRabbitCoder,Software,LINQ,List

  Read the article

• What do you think are the biggest software development issues, in small to medium businesses?

  - by Ron-Damon

  Hi, I own a small software development company that developes Web software to other small and medium companies in Chile. The business process is very complex and it is hard to stablish where to put the efforts to make our company better, more efficient, and give better solutions. I'm also a TI master's degree student and i'm making a paper about this subject, so any help would be great to help my company and my paper. I have considered 3 areas for the problems: 1) Software development problems 2) Web development problems 3) Small and Medium companies problems I don't know about you, but at least this "business formula" in Chile has not received very much support but it is getting better, but today my company is far from being self-sufficient. UPDATE: Thanks guys for your support so far, i'm updating because i have somewhat enough information so i decided to go deeper within the subjects, wish i would like you to consider for your next answers/commentaries on the subject: 1) Software development problems (3) 1.1 Incomplete problem picture 1.2 Useless delivered software 1.3 Unrealistic or inadequate schedule 2) Web development problems (3) 2.1 Apparently non-viable implementation 2.2 Unefficient module construction design 2.3 Reduced result system inter-operability 3) Small and Medium companies problems (3) 3.1 Very specific, but narrowed requerired system characteristics 3.2 Developed system is not used 3.3 Positivist demand for activities in project execution There are only 3 problems for category, to deliberately keep a thiner scope. Also, i have considered that it would have been apropiated to separate the third clasification on two, but won't be doing it just now: 3) Small and Medium software developement providers problems 4) Small and Medium software developement clients problems In that case, i think i would have made the scope of the problem wider and it is not what i want to do now, until at least i'm very trough with the other two clasifications. What you think?

  Read the article

• concurrency::accelerator

  - by Daniel Moth

  Overview An accelerator represents a "target" on which C++ AMP code can execute and where data can reside. Typically (but not necessarily) an accelerator is a GPU device. Accelerators are represented in C++ AMP as objects of the accelerator class. For many scenarios, you do not need to obtain an accelerator object, since the runtime has a notion of a default accelerator, which is what it thinks is the best one in the system. Examples where you need to deal with accelerator objects are if you need to pick your own accelerator (based on your specific criteria), or if you need to use more than one accelerators from your app. Construction and operator usage You can query and obtain a std::vector of all the accelerators on your system, which the runtime discovers on startup. Beyond enumerating accelerators, you can also create one directly by passing to the constructor a system-wide unique path to a device if you know it (i.e. the “Device Instance Path” property for the device in Device Manager), e.g. accelerator acc(L"PCI\\VEN_1002&DEV_6898&SUBSYS_0B001002etc"); There are some predefined strings (for predefined accelerators) that you can pass to the accelerator constructor (and there are corresponding constants for those on the accelerator class itself, so you don’t have to hardcode them every time). Examples are the following: accelerator::default_accelerator represents the default accelerator that the C++ AMP runtime picks for you if you don’t pick one (the heuristics of how it picks one will be covered in a future post). Example: accelerator acc; accelerator::direct3d_ref represents the reference rasterizer emulator that simulates a direct3d device on the CPU (in a very slow manner). This emulator is available on systems with Visual Studio installed and is useful for debugging. More on debugging in general in future posts. Example: accelerator acc(accelerator::direct3d_ref); accelerator::direct3d_warp represents a target that I will cover in future blog posts. Example: accelerator acc(accelerator::direct3d_warp); accelerator::cpu_accelerator represents the CPU. In this first release the only use of this accelerator is for using the staging arrays technique that I'll cover separately. Example: accelerator acc(accelerator::cpu_accelerator); You can also create an accelerator by shallow copying another accelerator instance (via the corresponding constructor) or simply assigning it to another accelerator instance (via the operator overloading of =). Speaking of operator overloading, you can also compare (for equality and inequality) two accelerator objects between them to determine if they refer to the same underlying device. Querying accelerator characteristics Given an accelerator object, you can access its description, version, device path, size of dedicated memory in KB, whether it is some kind of emulator, whether it has a display attached, whether it supports double precision, and whether it was created with the debugging layer enabled for extensive error reporting. Below is example code that accesses some of the properties; in your real code you'd probably be checking one or more of them in order to pick an accelerator (or check that the default one is good enough for your specific workload): void inspect_accelerator(concurrency::accelerator acc) { std::wcout << "New accelerator: " << acc.description << std::endl; std::wcout << "is_debug = " << acc.is_debug << std::endl; std::wcout << "is_emulated = " << acc.is_emulated << std::endl; std::wcout << "dedicated_memory = " << acc.dedicated_memory << std::endl; std::wcout << "device_path = " << acc.device_path << std::endl; std::wcout << "has_display = " << acc.has_display << std::endl; std::wcout << "version = " << (acc.version >> 16) << '.' << (acc.version & 0xFFFF) << std::endl; } accelerator_view In my next blog post I'll cover a related class: accelerator_view. Suffice to say here that each accelerator may have from 1..n related accelerator_view objects. You can get the accelerator_view from an accelerator via the default_view property, or create new ones by invoking the create_view method that creates an accelerator_view object for you (by also accepting a queuing_mode enum value of deferred or immediate that we'll also explore in the next blog post). Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

  Read the article

• Executing a Batch file from remote Ax client on an AOS server

  - by Anisha

  Is it possible to execute a batch file on an AOS server from a remote AX client? Answer is yes, provided you have necessary permission for this execution on the server. Please create a batch file on your AOS server. Some thing as below for creating a directory on the server.    Insert a command something like this in a .BAT file (batch file) and place any were on the server.   Mkdir “c:\test”      Copy the following code into your server static method of your class and call this piece of code from a button click on Ax form. Please execute this button click from a remote AX client and see the result . This should execute the batch file on the server and should create a directory called ‘test’ on the root directoryof the server.     server static void AOS_batch_file_create() { boolean b; System.Diagnostics.Process process; System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo processStartInfo; ; b = Global::isRunningOnServer(); infolog.add(0, int2str(b)); new InteropPermission(InteropKind::ClrInterop).assert(); process = new System.Diagnostics.Process(); processStartInfo = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo(); processStartInfo.set_FileName("C:\\create_dir.bat"); // batch file path on the AOS server process.set_StartInfo(processStartInfo); process.Start(); //process.Refresh(); //process.Close(); //process.WaitForExit(); info("Finished"); }

  Read the article

• Assembly load and execute issue

  - by Jean Carlos Suárez Marranzini

  I'm trying to develop Assembly code allowing me to load and execute(by input of the user) 2 other Assembly .EXE programs. I'm having two problems: -I don't seem to be able to assign the pathname to a valid register(Or maybe incorrect syntax) -I need to be able to execute the other program after the first one (could be either) started its execution. This is what I have so far: mov ax,cs ; moving code segment to data segment mov ds,ax mov ah,1h ; here I read from keyboard int 21h mov dl,al cmp al,'1' ; if 1 jump to LOADRUN1 JE LOADRUN1 popf cmp al,'2' ; if 1 jump to LOADRUN2 JE LOADRUN2 popf LOADRUN1: MOV AH,4BH MOV AL,00 LEA DX,[PROGNAME1] ; Not sure if it works INT 21H LOADRUN2: MOV AH,4BH MOV AL,00 LEA DX,[PROGNAME2] ; Not sure if it works INT 21H ; Here I define the bytes containing the pathnames PROGNAME1 db 'C:\Users\Usuario\NASM\Adding.exe',0 PROGNAME2 db 'C:\Users\Usuario\NASM\Substracting.exe',0 I just don't know how start another program by input in the 'parent' program, after one is already executing. Thanks in advance for your help! Any additional information I'll be more than happy to provide. -I'm using NASM 16 bits, Windows 7 32 bits.

  Read the article

• How can I get the palette of an 8-bit surface in SDL.NET/Tao.SDL?

  - by lolmaster

  I'm looking to get the palette of an 8-bit surface in SDL.NET if possible, or (more than likely) using Tao.SDL. This is because I want to do palette swapping with the palette directly, instead of blitting surfaces together to replace colours like how you would do it with a 32-bit surface. I've gotten the SDL_Surface and the SDL_PixelFormat, however when I go to get the palette in the same way, I get a System.ExecutionEngineException: private Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Palette GetPalette(Surface surf) { // Get surface. Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Surface sdlSurface = (Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Surface)System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.PtrToStructure(surf.Handle, typeof(Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Surface)); // Get pixel format. Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_PixelFormat pixelFormat = (Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_PixelFormat)System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.PtrToStructure(sdlSurface.format, typeof(Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_PixelFormat)); // Execution exception here. Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Palette palette = (Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Palette)System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.PtrToStructure(pixelFormat.palette, typeof(Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Palette)); return palette; } When I used unsafe code to get the palette, I got a compile time error: "Cannot take the address of, get the size of, or declare a pointer to a managed type ('Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Palette')". My unsafe code to get the palette was this: unsafe { Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Palette* pal = (Tao.Sdl.Sdl.SDL_Palette*)pixelFormat.palette; } From what I've read, a managed type in this case is when a structure has some sort of reference inside it as a field. The SDL_Palette structure happens to have an array of SDL_Color's, so I'm assuming that's the reference type that is causing issues. However I'm still not sure how to work around that to get the underlying palette. So if anyone knows how to get the palette from an 8-bit surface, whether it's through safe or unsafe code, the help would be greatly appreciated.

  Read the article

• Apache VERY high page load time

  - by Aaron Waller

  My Drupal 6 site has been running smoothly for years but recently has experienced intermittent periods of extreme slowness (10-60 sec page loads). Several hours of slowness followed by hours of normal (4-6 sec) page loads. The page always loads with no error, just sometimes takes forever. My setup: Windows Server 2003 Apache/2.2.15 (Win32) Jrun/4.0 PHP 5 MySql 5.1 Drupal 6 Cold fusion 9 Vmware virtual environment DMZ behind a corporate firewall Traffic: 1-3 hits/sec avg Troubleshooting No applicable errors in apache error log No errors in drupal event log Drupal devel module shows 242 queries in 366.23 milliseconds,page execution time 2069.62 ms. (So it looks like queries and php scripts are not the problem) NO unusually high CPU, memory, or disk IO Cold fusion apps, and other static pages outside of drupal also load slow webpagetest.org test shows very high time-to-first-byte The problem seems to be with Apache responding to requests, but previously I've only seen this behavior under 100% cpu load. Judging solely by resource monitoring, it looks as though very little is going on. Here is the kicker - roughly half of the site's access comes from our LAN, but if I disable the firewall rule and block access from outside of our network, internal (LAN) access (1000+ devices) is speedy. But as soon as outside access is restored the site is crippled. Apache config? Crawlers/bots? Attackers? I'm at the end of my rope, where should I be looking to determine where the problem lies?

  Read the article

• Architecting Python application consisting of many small scripts

  - by Duke Dougal

  I am building an application which, at the moment, consists of many small Python scripts. Each Python script processes items from one Amazon SQS queue. Emails come into an initial queue and are processed by a script and typically the script will do a small unit of processing (for example, parse email and store some database fields), then an item will be placed on the next queue for further processing, until eventually the email has finished going through the various scripts and queues. What I like about this approach is that it is very loosely coupled. However, I'm not sure how I should implement live. Should I make each script a daemon which is constantly polling it's inbound queue for things to do? Or should there be some overarching orchestration program or process? Or maybe I should not have lots of small Python scripts but one large application? Specific questions: How should I run each of these scripts - as a daemon with some sort or restart monitor to restart them in case they stop for any reason? If yes, should I have some program which orchestrates this? Or is the idea of many small script not a good one, would it make more sense to have a larger python program which contains all the functionality and does all the queue polling and execution of functionality for each queue? What is the current preferred approach to daemonising Python scripts? Broadly I would welcome any comments or opinions on any aspect of this. thanks

  Read the article

• Other games that employ mechanics like the game "Diplomacy"

  - by Kevin Peno

  I'm doing a little bit of research and I'm hoping you can help me track down any games, other than Diplomacy (online version here), that employ all or some of the mechanics in Diplomacy (rules, short form). Examples I'm looking for: Simultaneous orders given prior to execution of orders In Diplomacy, players "write down" their moves and execute them "at the same time" Support, in terms of supporting an attacker or defender "take" a territory. In Diplomacy, no one unit is stronger than another you need to combine the strength of multiple units to attack other territories. Rules for how move conflicts are resolved Example, 2 units move into a space, but only one is allowed, what happens. I may add to this list later, but these are the primary things I'm looking for. If you need clarification on anything just let me know. Note: I tried asking this on GamingSE, but it was shot down. So, I am unsure where else I could post this. Since I am researching this for game development purposes, I assume this post is on topic. Please let me know if this is not the case. Please also feel free to re-categorize this. Thanks!

  Read the article

• My experience working with Teradata SQL Assistant

  - by Kevin Shyr

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/LifeLongTechie/archive/2014/05/28/my-experience-working-with-teradata-sql-assistant.aspx To this date, I still haven't figure out how to "toggle" between my query windows. It seems like unless I click on that "new" button on top, whatever SQL I generate from right-click just overrides the current SQL in the window. I'm probably missing a "generate new sql in new window" setting The default Teradata SQL Assistant doesn't execute just the SQL query I highlighted. There is a setting I have to change first. I'm not really happy that the SQL assistant and SQL admin are different app. Still trying to get used to the fact that I can't quickly look up a table's keys/relationships while writing query. I have to switch between windows. LOVE the execution plan / explanation. I think that part is better done than MS SQL in some ways. The error messages can be better. I feel that Teradata .NET provider sends smaller query command over than others. I don't have any hard data to support my claim. One of my query in SSRS was passing multi-valued parameters to another query, and got error "Teradata 3577 row size or sort key size overflow". The search on this error says the solution is to cast result column into smaller data type, but I found that the problem was that the parameter passed into the where clause could not be too large. I wish Teradata SQL Assistant would remember the window size I just adjusted to. Every time I execute the query, the result set, query, and exec log auto re-adjust back to the default size. In SSMS, if I adjust the result set area to be smaller, it would stay like that if I execute query in the same window.

  Read the article

• Oracle SCM at APICS Denver Oct 14-16

  - by Stephen Slade

  Join us in Denver, October 14–16, 2012, for the 2012 APICS International Conference & Expo. One of the world's largest gatherings of supply chain and operations management professionals, APICS provides an annual interactive learning environment for operations and supply chain professionals to lead and apply best practices. For those of you considering attending APICS  next month, be sure to keep Oracle Supply Chain applications on your radar. Oracle will again have a prominent position at the annual global conference. Our product booth with have supply chain demonstrations for manufacturing, value chain planning, value chain execution and Agile product lifecycle management offerings. Stop by our booth to register for one of numerous prizes and awards and chat with one of our supply chain product experts. Oracle customers will be presenting at various sessions throughout the event.  One of the great stories to be shared is the SUN supply chain transformation. For those interested in moving costs down to the bottom line, this is the session you should attend. http://www.apics.org/sites/conference/2012/home

  Read the article

• July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO’s – Day 28 (sys.dm_db_stats_properties)

  - by Tamarick Hill

  The sys.dm_db_stats_properties Dynamic Management Function returns information about the statistics that are currently on your database objects. This function takes two parameters, an object_id and a stats_id. Let’s have a look at the result set from this function against the AdventureWorks2012.Sales.SalesOrderHeader table. To obtain the object_id and stats_id I will use a CROSS APPLY with the sys.stats system table. SELECT sp.* FROM sys.stats s CROSS APPLY sys.dm_db_stats_properties(s.object_id, s.Stats_id) sp WHERE sp.object_id = object_id('Sales.SalesOrderHeader') The first two columns returned by this function are the object_id and the stats_id columns. The next column, ‘last_updated’, gives you the date and the time that a particular statistic was last updated. The next column, ‘rows’, gives you the total number of rows in the table as of the last statistic update date. The ‘rows_sampled’ column gives you the number of rows that were sampled to create the statistic. The ‘steps’ column represents the number of specific value ranges from the statistic histogram. The ‘unfiltered_rows’ column represents the number of rows before any filters are applied. If a particular statistic is not filtered, the ‘unfiltered_rows’ column will always equal the ‘rows’ column. Lastly we have the ‘modification_counter’ column which represents the number of modification to the leading column in a given statistic since the last time the statistic was updated. Probably the most important column from this Dynamic Management Function is the ‘last_updated’ column. You want to always ensure that you have accurate and updated statistics on your database objects. Accurate statistics are vital for the query optimizer to generate efficient and reliable query execution plans. Without accurate and updated statistics, the performance of your SQL Server would likely suffer. For more information about this Dynamic Management Function, please see the below Books Online link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj553546.aspx Folllow me on Twitter @PrimeTimeDBA

  Read the article

• BizTalk Pipeline Component Error: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object"

  - by Stuart Brierley

  Yesterday I posted about my BizTalk Archiving Pipeline Component, which can be found on Codeplex if anyone is interested in taking a look. During testing of this component I began to encounter an error whereby the component would throw an "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error when processing as a part of a Custom Pipeline. This was occurring when the component was reading a ReadOnlySeekableStream so that the data can be archived to file, but the actual code throwing the error was somewhere in the depths of the Microsoft.BizTalk.Streaming stack. It turns out that there is a known issue where this exception can be thrown because the garbage collector has disposed of of the stream before execution of the custom pipeline has completed. To get around this you need to add the streams in your code to the pipeline context resource tracker.   So a block of my code goes from:                         originalStrm = bodyPart.GetOriginalDataStream();                         if (!originalStrm.CanSeek)                         {                             ReadOnlySeekableStream seekableStream = new ReadOnlySeekableStream(originalStrm);                             inmsg.BodyPart.Data = seekableStream;                             originalStrm = inmsg.BodyPart.Data;                         }                         fileArchive = new FileStream(FullPath, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);                         binWriter = new BinaryWriter(fileArchive);                         byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize];                         int sizeRead = 0;                         while ((sizeRead = originalStrm.Read(buffer, 0, bufferSize)) != 0)                         {                             binWriter.Write(buffer, 0, sizeRead);                         } to                         originalStrm = bodyPart.GetOriginalDataStream();                         if (!originalStrm.CanSeek)                         {                             ReadOnlySeekableStream seekableStream = new ReadOnlySeekableStream(originalStrm);                             inmsg.BodyPart.Data = seekableStream;                             originalStrm = inmsg.BodyPart.Data;                         }                         pc.ResourceTracker.AddResource(originalStrm);                         fileArchive = new FileStream(FullPath, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);                         binWriter = new BinaryWriter(fileArchive);                         byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize];                         int sizeRead = 0;                         while ((sizeRead = originalStrm.Read(buffer, 0, bufferSize)) != 0)                         {                             binWriter.Write(buffer, 0, sizeRead);                         } So far this seems to have solved the issue, the error is no more, and my archive component is continuing its way through testing.

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Get Directory Structure using Extended Stored Procedure xp_dirtree

  - by pinaldave

  Many years ago I wrote article SQL SERVER – Get a List of Fixed Hard Drive and Free Space on Server where I demonstrated using undocumented Stored Procedure to find the drive letter in local system and available free space. I received question in email from reader asking if there any way he can list directory structure within the T-SQL. When I inquired more he suggested that he needs this because he wanted set up backup of the data in certain structure. Well, there is one undocumented stored procedure exists which can do the same. However, please be vary to use any undocumented procedures. xp_dirtree 'C:\Windows' Execution of the above stored procedure will give following result. If you prefer you can insert the data in the temptable and use the same for further use. Here is the quick script which will insert the data into the temptable and retrieve from the same. CREATE TABLE #TempTable (Subdirectory VARCHAR(512), Depth INT); INSERT INTO #TempTable (Subdirectory, Depth) EXEC xp_dirtree 'C:\Windows' SELECT Subdirectory, Depth FROM #TempTable; DROP TABLE #TempTable; Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Stored Procedure, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Making a Statement: How to retrieve the T-SQL statement that caused an event

  - by extended_events

  If you’ve done any troubleshooting of T-SQL, you know that sooner or later, probably sooner, you’re going to want to take a look at the actual statements you’re dealing with. In extended events we offer an action (See the BOL topic that covers Extended Events Objects for a description of actions) named sql_text that seems like it is just the ticket. Well…not always – sounds like a good reason for a blog post. When is a statement not THE statement? The sql_text action returns the same information that is returned from DBCC INPUTBUFFER, which may or may not be what you want. For example, if you execute a stored procedure, the sql_text action will return something along the lines of “EXEC sp_notwhatiwanted” assuming that is the statement you sent from the client. Often times folks would like something more specific, like the actual statements that are being run from within the stored procedure or batch. Enter the stack Extended events offers another action, this one with the descriptive name of tsql_stack, that includes the sql_handle and offset information about the statements being run when an event occurs. With the sql_handle and offset values you can retrieve the specific statement you seek using the DMV dm_exec_sql_statement. The BOL topic for dm_exec_sql_statement provides an example for how to extract this information, so I’ll cover the gymnastics required to get the sql_handle and offset values out of the tsql_stack data collected by the action. I’m the first to admit that this isn’t pretty, but this is what we have in SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2. We will be making it easier to get statement level information in the next major release of SQL Server. The sample code For this example I have a stored procedure that includes multiple statements and I have a need to differentiate between those two statements in my tracing. I’m going to track two events: module_end tracks the completion of the stored procedure execution and sp_statement_completed tracks the execution of each statement within a stored procedure. I’m adding the tsql_stack events (since that’s the topic of this post) and the sql_text action for comparison sake. (If you have questions about creating event sessions, check out Pedro’s post Introduction to Extended Events.) USE AdventureWorks2008GO -- Test SPCREATE PROCEDURE sp_multiple_statementsASSELECT 'This is the first statement'SELECT 'this is the second statement'GO -- Create a session to look at the spCREATE EVENT SESSION track_sprocs ON SERVERADD EVENT sqlserver.module_end (ACTION (sqlserver.tsql_stack, sqlserver.sql_text)),ADD EVENT sqlserver.sp_statement_completed (ACTION (sqlserver.tsql_stack, sqlserver.sql_text))ADD TARGET package0.ring_bufferWITH (MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY = 1 SECONDS)GO -- Start the sessionALTER EVENT SESSION track_sprocs ON SERVERSTATE = STARTGO -- Run the test procedureEXEC sp_multiple_statementsGO -- Stop collection of events but maintain ring bufferALTER EVENT SESSION track_sprocs ON SERVERDROP EVENT sqlserver.module_end,DROP EVENT sqlserver.sp_statement_completedGO Aside: Altering the session to drop the events is a neat little trick that allows me to stop collection of events while keeping in-memory targets such as the ring buffer available for use. If you stop the session the in-memory target data is lost. Now that we’ve collected some events related to running the stored procedure, we need to do some processing of the data. I’m going to do this in multiple steps using temporary tables so you can see what’s going on; kind of like having to “show your work” on a math test. The first step is to just cast the target data into XML so I can work with it. After that you can pull out the interesting columns, for our purposes I’m going to limit the output to just the event name, object name, stack and sql text. You can see that I’ve don a second CAST, this time of the tsql_stack column, so that I can further process this data. -- Store the XML data to a temp tableSELECT CAST( t.target_data AS XML) xml_dataINTO #xml_event_dataFROM sys.dm_xe_sessions s INNER JOIN sys.dm_xe_session_targets t    ON s.address = t.event_session_addressWHERE s.name = 'track_sprocs' SELECT * FROM #xml_event_data -- Parse the column data out of the XML blockSELECT    event_xml.value('(./@name)', 'varchar(100)') as [event_name],    event_xml.value('(./data[@name="object_name"]/value)[1]', 'varchar(255)') as [object_name],    CAST(event_xml.value('(./action[@name="tsql_stack"]/value)[1]','varchar(MAX)') as XML) as [stack_xml],    event_xml.value('(./action[@name="sql_text"]/value)[1]', 'varchar(max)') as [sql_text]INTO #event_dataFROM #xml_event_data    CROSS APPLY xml_data.nodes('//event') n (event_xml) SELECT * FROM #event_data event_name object_name stack_xml sql_text sp_statement_completed NULL <frame level="1" handle="0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000" line="4" offsetStart="94" offsetEnd="172" /><frame level="2" handle="0x01000500CF3F0331B05EC084000000000000000000000000" line="1" offsetStart="0" offsetEnd="-1" /> EXEC sp_multiple_statements sp_statement_completed NULL <frame level="1" handle="0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000" line="6" offsetStart="174" offsetEnd="-1" /><frame level="2" handle="0x01000500CF3F0331B05EC084000000000000000000000000" line="1" offsetStart="0" offsetEnd="-1" /> EXEC sp_multiple_statements module_end sp_multiple_statements <frame level="1" handle="0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000" line="0" offsetStart="0" offsetEnd="0" /><frame level="2" handle="0x01000500CF3F0331B05EC084000000000000000000000000" line="1" offsetStart="0" offsetEnd="-1" /> EXEC sp_multiple_statements After parsing the columns it’s easier to see what is recorded. You can see that I got back two sp_statement_completed events, which makes sense given the test procedure I’m running, and I got back a single module_end for the entire statement. As described, the sql_text isn’t telling me what I really want to know for the first two events so a little extra effort is required. -- Parse the tsql stack information into columnsSELECT    event_name,    object_name,    frame_xml.value('(./@level)', 'int') as [frame_level],    frame_xml.value('(./@handle)', 'varchar(MAX)') as [sql_handle],    frame_xml.value('(./@offsetStart)', 'int') as [offset_start],    frame_xml.value('(./@offsetEnd)', 'int') as [offset_end]INTO #stack_data    FROM #event_data        CROSS APPLY    stack_xml.nodes('//frame') n (frame_xml)    SELECT * from #stack_data event_name object_name frame_level sql_handle offset_start offset_end sp_statement_completed NULL 1 0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000 94 172 sp_statement_completed NULL 2 0x01000500CF3F0331B05EC084000000000000000000000000 0 -1 sp_statement_completed NULL 1 0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000 174 -1 sp_statement_completed NULL 2 0x01000500CF3F0331B05EC084000000000000000000000000 0 -1 module_end sp_multiple_statements 1 0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000 0 0 module_end sp_multiple_statements 2 0x01000500CF3F0331B05EC084000000000000000000000000 0 -1 Parsing out the stack information doubles the fun and I get two rows for each event. If you examine the stack from the previous table, you can see that each stack has two frames and my query is parsing each event into frames, so this is expected. There is nothing magic about the two frames, that’s just how many I get for this example, it could be fewer or more depending on your statements. The key point here is that I now have a sql_handle and the offset values for those handles, so I can use dm_exec_sql_statement to get the actual statement. Just a reminder, this DMV can only return what is in the cache – if you have old data it’s possible your statements have been ejected from the cache. “Old” is a relative term when talking about caches and can be impacted by server load and how often your statement is actually used. As with most things in life, your mileage may vary. SELECT    qs.*,     SUBSTRING(st.text, (qs.offset_start/2)+1,         ((CASE qs.offset_end          WHEN -1 THEN DATALENGTH(st.text)         ELSE qs.offset_end         END - qs.offset_start)/2) + 1) AS statement_textFROM #stack_data AS qsCROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(CONVERT(varbinary(max),sql_handle,1)) AS st event_name object_name frame_level sql_handle offset_start offset_end statement_text sp_statement_completed NULL 1 0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000 94 172 SELECT 'This is the first statement' sp_statement_completed NULL 1 0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000 174 -1 SELECT 'this is the second statement' module_end sp_multiple_statements 1 0x03000500D0057C1403B79600669D00000100000000000000 0 0 C Now that looks more like what we were after, the statement_text field is showing the actual statement being run when the sp_statement_completed event occurs. You’ll notice that it’s back down to one row per event, what happened to frame 2? The short answer is, “I don’t know.” In SQL Server 2008 nothing is returned from dm_exec_sql_statement for the second frame and I believe this to be a bug; this behavior has changed in the next major release and I see the actual statement run from the client in frame 2. (In other words I see the same statement that is returned by the sql_text action  or DBCC INPUTBUFFER) There is also something odd going on with frame 1 returned from the module_end event; you can see that the offset values are both 0 and only the first letter of the statement is returned. It seems like the offset_end should actually be –1 in this case and I’m not sure why it’s not returning this correctly. This behavior is being investigated and will hopefully be corrected in the next major version. You can workaround this final oddity by ignoring the offsets and just returning the entire cached statement. SELECT    event_name,    sql_handle,    ts.textFROM #stack_data    CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(CONVERT(varbinary(max),sql_handle,1)) as ts event_name sql_handle text sp_statement_completed 0x0300070025999F11776BAF006F9D00000100000000000000 CREATE PROCEDURE sp_multiple_statements AS SELECT 'This is the first statement' SELECT 'this is the second statement' sp_statement_completed 0x0300070025999F11776BAF006F9D00000100000000000000 CREATE PROCEDURE sp_multiple_statements AS SELECT 'This is the first statement' SELECT 'this is the second statement' module_end 0x0300070025999F11776BAF006F9D00000100000000000000 CREATE PROCEDURE sp_multiple_statements AS SELECT 'This is the first statement' SELECT 'this is the second statement' Obviously this gives more than you want for the sp_statement_completed events, but it’s the right information for module_end. I leave it to you to determine when this information is needed and use the workaround when appropriate. Aside: You might think it’s odd that I’m showing apparent bugs with my samples, but you’re going to see this behavior if you use this method, so you need to know about it.I’m all about transparency. Happy Eventing- Mike Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• SSIS Reporting Pack – a performance tip

  - by jamiet

  SSIS Reporting Pack is a suite of open source SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports that provide additional insight into the SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) 2012 Catalog. You can read more about SSIS Reporting Pack here on my blog or had over to the home page for the project at http://ssisreportingpack.codeplex.com/. After having used SSRS Reporting Pack on a real project for a few months now I have come to realise that if you have any sizeable data volumes in [SSISDB] then the reports in SSIS Reporting Pack will suffer from chronic performance problems – I have seen the “execution” report take upwards of 30minutes to return data. To combat this I highly recommend that you create an index on the [SSISDB].[internal].[event_messages].[operation_id] & [SSISDB].[internal].[operation_messages].[operation_id] fields. Phil Brammer has experienced similar problems himself and has since made it easy for the rest of us by preparing some scripts to create the indexes that he recommends and he has shared those scripts via his blog at http://www.ssistalk.com/SSIS_2012_Missing_Indexes.zip. If you are using SSIS Reporting Pack, or even if you are simply querying [SSISDB], I highly recommend that you download Phil’s scripts and test them out on your own SSIS Catalog(s). Those indexes will not solve all problems but they will make some of your reports run quicker. I am working on some further enhancements that should further improve the performance of the reports. Watch this space. @Jamiet

  Read the article

• 2012 Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards for Oracle Exalogic

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  Companies from around the world were honored for their innovative solutions using Oracle Fusion Middleware. This year’s 27 award winners, representing 11 countries and a wide span of industries, wowed the judges with a range of projects across eight product categories. 4 awards were given out to customers who demonstrated innovative application of Oracle Exalogic for their mission-critical applications.Below is an overview of the 4 businesses that won the Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Award for Oracle Exalogic this year. Company: Netshoes About: Leading online retailer of sporting goods in Latin America.Challenges: Rapid business growth resulted in frequent outages and poor response-time of online store-front Conventional ad-hoc approach to horizontal scaling resulted in high CAPEX and OPEX Poor performance and unavailability of online store-front resulted in revenue loss from purchase abandonment Solution: Consolidated ATG Commerce and Oracle WebLogic running on Oracle Exalogic.Business Impact:Reduced abandonment rates resulting in a two-digit increase in online conversion rates translating directly into revenue up-liftCompany: ClaroAbout: Leading communications services provider in Latin America.Challenges: Support business growth over the next 3  - 5 years while maximizing re-use of existing middleware and application investments with minimal effort and risk Solution: Consolidated Oracle Fusion Middleware components (Oracle WebLogic, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Tuxedo) and JAVA applications onto Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata. Business Impact:Improved partner SLA’s 7x while improving throughput 5X and response-time 35x for  JAVA applicationsCompany: ULAbout: Leading safety testing and certification organization in the world.Challenges: Transition from being a non-profit to a profit oriented enterprise and grow from a $1B to $5B in annual revenues in the next 5 years Undertake a massive business transformation by aligning change strategy with execution Solution: Consolidated Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite, Siebel, BI, Hyperion) and Oracle Fusion Middleware (AIA, SOA Suite) on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle ExadataBusiness Impact:Reduced financial and operating risk in re-architecting IT services to support new business capabilities supporting 87,000 manufacturersCompany: Ingersoll RandAbout: Leading manufacturer of industrial, climate, residential and security solutions.Challenges: Business continuity risks due to complexity in enforcing consistent operational and financial controls; Re-active business decisions reduced ability to offer differentiation and compete Solution: Consolidated Oracle E-business Suite on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle ExadataBusiness Impact:Service differentiation with faster order provisioning and a shorter lead-to-cash cycle translating into higher customer satisfaction and quicker cash-conversionCheck out the winners of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation awards in other categories here.

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – ORDER BY ColumnName vs ORDER BY ColumnNumber

  - by pinaldave

  I strongly favor ORDER BY ColumnName. I read one of the blog post where blogger compared the performance of the two SELECT statement and come to conclusion that ColumnNumber has no harm to use it. Let us understand the point made by first that there is no performance difference. Run following two scripts together: USE AdventureWorks GO -- ColumnName (Recommended) SELECT * FROM HumanResources.Department ORDER BY GroupName, Name GO -- ColumnNumber (Strongly Not Recommended) SELECT * FROM HumanResources.Department ORDER BY 3,2 GO If you look at the result and see the execution plan you will see that both of the query will take the same amount of the time. However, this was not the point of this blog post. It is not good enough to stop here. We need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of both the methods. Case 1: When Not Using * and Columns are Re-ordered USE AdventureWorks GO -- ColumnName (Recommended) SELECT GroupName, Name, ModifiedDate, DepartmentID FROM HumanResources.Department ORDER BY GroupName, Name GO -- ColumnNumber (Strongly Not Recommended) SELECT GroupName, Name, ModifiedDate, DepartmentID FROM HumanResources.Department ORDER BY 3,2 GO Case 2: When someone changes the schema of the table affecting column order I will let you recreate the example for the same. If your development server where your schema is different than the production server, if you use ColumnNumber, you will get different results on the production server. Summary: When you develop the query it may not be issue but as time passes by and new columns are added to the SELECT statement or original table is re-ordered if you have used ColumnNumber it may possible that your query will start giving you unexpected results and incorrect ORDER BY. One should note that the usage of ORDER BY ColumnName vs ORDER BY ColumnNumber should not be done based on performance but usability and scalability. It is always recommended to use proper ORDER BY clause with ColumnName to avoid any confusion. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Only One Month to OpenWorld-San Francisco!

  - by Stephen Slade

  From around the world, the city is expecting 50,000+ guests to flock to this annual extravaganza.  Over 2,000 sessions will focus on Oracle’s latest product offerings, customer case studies, panels of experts and a variety of other hardware, technology, middleware and applications. For those interested  in the latest capabilities delivered by Oracle’s supply chain applications, the ‘Focus-On’ documents are now avaiable to help guide you in your schedule builder. Schedule builder allows the capability to create a personalized agenda for the sessions you wish to attend, such as: Monday October 1, 2012 TIME TITLE LOCATION  3:15 pm –4:15 pm General Session: Supply Chain Management—Strategy, Update, and Roadmap Richard Jewell, Senior Vice President, Applications Development, Oracle Moscone West Level 2 Room 3014 Tuesday October 2, 2012 TIME TITLE LOCATION  10:15 am –11:15 am Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management: Overview, Strategy, Customer Experiences, and Roadmap Jon Chorley, CSO & VP, Product Strategy, Oracle Moscone West  Level 2 Room 2006 There is an exciting lineup of about 100 supply chain sessions at OpenWorld. Contact your sales rep or Oracle Partner to obtain a copy of the most current Focus-On document, segmented by pillars such as Manufacturing, Maintenance/EAM, Value Chain Planning, Value Chain Execution, Procurement and Agile/Product Lifecycle Management.  They will provide you with a better informed view to schedule your time in San Francisco.

  Read the article

• What are the factors affecting a new programming language?

  - by Saurav Sengupta

  I am developing a new general-purpose programming language of my own design. It's currently my own personal project. I have read of some experts saying that new languages do not usually survive (unfortunately I can't find a reference to that right now). What are the most substantial problems that a new language faces? The language syntax is similar to C/Python families, it does not use S-expressions, and it is an imperative language, but I'm doing first-class functions in it to provide the facilities of currying. In particular, I am concentrating on translating the source language to an intermediate language for execution by an interpreter, but I'm not in a position to translate to native code yet. What would be the issues with that? I've not personally used many non-native code languages, so I'm not well aware of the performance issues on today's machines. I also can't decide upon a lexer and parser generator. What would be the pros and cons of Flex and Yacc vs. hand-made? And what benefits will LLVM provide? I need to get the interpreter ready as quickly as possible. Finally, what factors will affect the language's use post release? I am planning a small library of essentials and full documentation for the first phase.

  Read the article

• Why a static main method in Java and C#, rather than a constructor?

  - by Konrad Rudolph

  Why did (notably) Java and C# decide to have a static method as their entry point – rather than representing an application instance by an instance of an Application class, with the entry point being an appropriate constructor which, at least to me, seems more natural? I’m interested in a definitive answer from a primary or secondary source, not mere speculations. This has been asked before. Unfortunately, the existing answers are merely begging the question. In particular, the following answers don’t satisfy me, as I deem them incorrect: There would be ambiguity if the constructor were overloaded. – In fact, C# (as well as C and C++) allows different signatures for Main so the same potential ambiguity exists, and is dealt with. A static method means no objects can be instantiated before so order of initialisation is clear. – This is just factually wrong, some objects are instantiated before (e.g. in a static constructor). So they can be invoked by the runtime without having to instantiate a parent object. – This is no answer at all. Just to justify further why I think this is a valid and interesting question: Many frameworks do use classes to represent applications, and constructors as entry points. For instance, the VB.NET application framework uses a dedicated main dialog (and its constructor) as the entry point1. Neither Java nor C# technically need a main method. Well, C# needs one to compile, but Java not even that. And in neither case is it needed for execution. So this doesn’t appear to be a technical restriction. And, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, for a mere convention it seems oddly unfitting with the general design principle of Java and C#. To be clear, there isn’t a specific disadvantage to having a static main method, it’s just distinctly odd, which made me wonder if there was some technical rationale behind it. I’m interested in a definitive answer from a primary or secondary source, not mere speculations. 1 Although there is a callback (Startup) which may intercept this.

  Read the article

• Creating packages in code - Workflow

  This is just a quick one prompted by a question on the SSIS Forum, how to programmatically add a precedence constraint (aka workflow) between two tasks. To keep the code simple I’ve actually used two Sequence containers which are often used as anchor points for a constraint. Very often this is when you have task that you wish to conditionally execute based on an expression. If it the first or only task in the package you need somewhere to anchor the constraint too, so you can then set the expression on it and control the flow of execution. Anyway, back to my code sample, here’s a quick screenshot of the finished article: Now for the code, which is actually pretty simple and hopefully the comments should explain exactly what is going on. Package package = new Package(); package.Name = "SequenceWorkflow"; // Add the two sequence containers to provide anchor points for the constraint // If you use tasks, it follows exactly the same pattern, they all derive from Executable Sequence sequence1 = package.Executables.Add("STOCK:Sequence") as Sequence; sequence1.Name = "SEQ Start"; Sequence sequence2 = package.Executables.Add("STOCK:Sequence") as Sequence; sequence2.Name = "SEQ End"; // Add the precedence constraint, here we use the package's constraint collection // as it hosts the two objects we want to constrain (link) // The default constraint is a basic On Success constraint just like in the designer PrecedenceConstraint constraint = package.PrecedenceConstraints.Add(sequence1, sequence2); // Change the settings to use a (dummy) expression only constraint.EvalOp = DTSPrecedenceEvalOp.Expression; constraint.Expression = "1 == 1";   The complete code file is available to download below. SequenceWorkflow.cs

  Read the article

• Re-post: Two JavaFX Community Rock Stars Join Oracle

  - by oracletechnet

  from Sharat Chander, Director - Java Technology Outreach: These past 24+ months have proved momentous for Oracle's stewardship of Java. A little over 2 years ago when Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun, a lot of community speculation arose regarding Oracle's Java commitment. Whether the fears and concerns were legitimate or not, the only way to emphatically demonstrate Oracle's seriousness with moving Java forward was through positive action. In 2010, Oracle committed to putting Java back on schedule whereby large gaps between release trains would be a thing of the past. And in 2011, that promise came true. With the 2011 summer release of JDK 7, the Java ecosystem now had a version brought up to date. And then in the fall of 2011, JavaFX 2.0 righted the JavaFX ship making rich internet applications a reality. Similar progress between Oracle and the Java community continues to blossom. New-found relationship investments between Oracle and Java User Groups are taking root. Greater participation and content execution by the Java community in JavaOne is steadily increasing. The road ahead is lit with bright lights and opportunities. And now there's more good news to share. As of April 2nd, two recognized JavaFX technology luminaries and "rock stars" speakers from the Java community are joining Oracle on a new journey. We're proud to have both Jim Weaver and Stephen Chin joining Oracle's Java Evangelist Team. You'll start to see them involved in many community facing activities where their JavaFX expertise and passion will shine. Stay tuned! Welcome @JavaFXpert and @SteveonJava!

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 26, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 26, 2012Popular ReleasesQuick Performance Monitor: Version 1.8.1: Added option to set main window to be 'Always On Top'. Use context (right-click) menu on graph to toggle..Net Rest API for Kayako Fusion 4: kayako_rest_api_2012.03.26: Added ability to search for users via organisation/email. This is much quicker than getting all users then filtering.GeoMedia PostGIS data server: PostGIS GDO 1.0.1.1: This is a new version of GeoMeda PostGIS data server which supports user rights. It means that only those feature classes, which the current user has rights to select, are visible in GeoMedia. Issues fixed in this release Fixed a problem when gdo.gfeaturesbase table has been visible in GeoMedia. To hide this table, run the previous version of Database Utilities and uncheck this table in the feature classes list. Then load the new release. Fixed a problem when coordinate system list has not...Silverlight 4 & 5 Persian DatePicker: Silverlight 4 and 5 Persian DatePicker: Added Silverlight 5 support.Y.Music: Y.Music v.1.0: ?????? ?????? ?????????. ????????: ????? ???? ????, ??????? ?????? ? ??? - Beta.Asp.NET Url Router: v1.0: build for .net 2.0 and .net 4.0menu4web: menu4web 0.0.3: menu4web 0.0.3ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap: ArcGIS Editor for OSM 2.0 Final: This release installs both the ArcGIS Editor for OSM Server Component and/or ArcGIS Editor for OSM Desktop components. The Desktop tools allow you to download data from the OpenStreetMap servers and store it locally in a geodatabase. You can then use the familiar editing environment of ArcGIS Desktop to create, modify, or delete data. Once you are done editing, you can post back the edit changes to OSM to make them available to all OSM users. The Server Component allows you to quickly create...Craig's Utility Library: Craig's Utility Library 3.1: This update adds about 60 new extension methods, a couple of new classes, and a number of fixes including: Additions Added DateSpan class Added GenericDelimited class Random additions Added static thread friendly version of Random.Next called ThreadSafeNext. AOP Manager additions Added Destroy function to AOPManager (clears out all data so system can be recreated. Really only useful for testing...) ORM additions Added PagedCommand and PageCount functions to ObjectBaseClass (same as M...XNA Electric Effect: Jason Electric Effect v1.1: The library now includes 3 effect types: Line, Bezier, CatmullRom, providing different look and feel.DotSpatial: DotSpatial 1.1: This is a Minor Release. See the changes in the issue tracker. Minimal -- includes DotSpatial core and essential extensions Extended -- includes debugging symbols and additional extensions Just want to run the software? End user (non-programmer) version available branded as MapWindow Want to add your own feature? Develop a plugin, using the template and contribute to the extension feed (you can also write extensions that you distribute in other ways). Components are available as NuGet pa...Change default Share-site group SharePoint Online (Office 365): Change default Share-site group SharePoint Online: As default when we share a site collection or site with external users, SharePoint Online show default SharePoint groups which are Visitors and Members. By using this feature, you will get a link which you can use to customize the default groups to your custom groups and other default groups.Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - a centralized code sample library: C++, .NET Coding Guideline: Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework Coding Guideline This document describes the coding style guideline for native C++ and .NET (C# and VB.NET) programming used by the Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework project team.Working with Social Data: Tag Cloud Customization: http://swatipoint.blogspot.com/2011/10/sharepoint-2010-social-featurestagging.htmlWebDAV for WHS: Version 1.0.67: - Added: Check whether the Remote Web Access is turned on or not; - Added: Check for Add-In updates;Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 3.0 (March 2012) for .NET 4.0: March release of Phalanger 3.0 significantly enhances performance, adds new features and fixes many issues. See following for the list of main improvements: New features: Phalanger Tools installable for Visual Studio 2011 Beta "filter" extension with several most used filters implemented DomDocument HTML parser, loadHTML() method mail() PHP compatible function PHP 5.4 T_CALLABLE token PHP 5.4 "callable" type hint PCRE: UTF32 characters in range support configuration supports <c...Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v8.0: Version 8.0 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing new features: Internationalization Custom authentication provider Access control list for forums and threads Webdeploy package checksum: abc62990189cf0d488ef915d4a55e4b14169bc01 Visit Roadmap for more details.BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6: This beta release is the first to support SQL Server 2012 (in addition to SQL Server 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2). Since it is marked as a beta release, we are looking for bug reports in the next few months as you use BIDS Helper on real projects. In addition to getting all existing BIDS Helper functionality working appropriately in SQL Server 2012 (SSDT), the following features are new... Analysis Services Tabular Smart Diff Tabular Actions Editor Tabular HideMemberIf Tabular Pre-Build ...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 1: New feature - Windows 8 Metro build New feature - JsonTextReader automatically reads ISO strings as dates New feature - Added DateFormatHandling to control whether dates are written in the MS format or ISO format, with ISO as the default New feature - Added DateTimeZoneHandling to control reading and writing DateTime time zone details New feature - Added async serialize/deserialize methods to JsonConvert New feature - Added Path to JsonReader/JsonWriter/ErrorContext and exceptions w...New ProjectsASIVeste: No description availableAuthor-it Sync Headings Plug-in: Author-it plug-in that allows the user to synchronize the Print, Help, and Web headings with the Description for each selected topic.BlogEngine.Web: BlogEngine.Web is a BlogEngine.Net converted to use Web Application Project model (WAP).Code Writer Helper: A quick solution to help code generator writers.CodeUITest: Practise CodeUI automation.DAX Studio: Excel Add-In for PowerPivot and Analysis Services Tabular projects that will include an Object Browser, query editing and execution, formula and measure editing ,syntax highlighting, integrated tracing and query execution breakdowns.Fated: Fated is an isometric-viewed, tile-based tactical RPG developed in C# using XNA to be deployed to XBox. This includes a character generation core, graphics engine, and storyline parser.iSufe???: “iSufe???”??????????????????????????????。???????????、????、?????????，??????????????。??，????iOS/Android/WAP???????，???????????????。????GPLv2??，?????????????。Kinect test project: Basic project for my kinect test applicationLoLTimers: LoLTimers by Christian Schubert 2012. Version 1.0.0.0 This is a small app that lets you keep track of the most important creep camp cooldowns. Developed in Visual Studio C#.London Priority Security Services Ltd: LPSS - London Priority Security Services LtdNMCNPM: code nhóm nmcnpmOffice 365 Anonymous Access Manager Sandbox Solution: The sandbox solution enables you to manage anonymous access of lists on Office 365. It allows setting read, modifying and adding rights. Additionally the configuration page adds the necessary events to be able to use moderations, when anonymous users are creating a list item. The second feature in the solution enables anonymous access on blogs sites, it allows to enable anonymous users to comment on a blog.Office 365 Google Analytics: This sandbox solution enables google analytics everywhere in your site collection. This allows you to use the google analytics reporting on all your Office 365 sites.Office 365 Mobile Access Enables for Public Sites & Blogs: This sandbox solution enables mobile access on Office 365 sites.OwnMFCSolution: MFC test solution.People Data Generator: Need to load a bunch of test data to represent people (e.g. name, address, phone, etc.)? Wish it looked realistic? People Data Generator is what you need. Features: *Realistic names *Realistic addresses, using real towns and postal codes *Realistic phone numbers and emails *Very ExtensibleProventi: Met dit programma kan je je voorraad van je onderneming beheren. Dit programma zal in eerste instantie gebruikt worden binnen de minionderneming Proventi. Het programma is geschreven in VB.Net en maakt gebruik van SQL Server CE voor de gegevensopslag.qCommerce: ??????????? ???????, ???????????? ??? ????? qSoftwareQuanLyOTo: Ð? án môn h?c C# qu?n lý garage ô tôRoyaSoft.ir Resources: i am use this project for my personal web site :)SGPF: The team does not have nothing to declare here!SharePoint 2010 Autocomplete Lookup Field: Autocomplete Lookup field allows type ahead functionality while entering lookup values in list items.Sharing Photos using SignalR: An MVC application using SignalR that can be used to share photos between friends and get realtime updates. An user connected to the website can upload a photo which will be automatically broadcasted to all clients connected at that point.Sistema Hoteleiro: Sistema Hoteleiro é o meu trabalho final da disciplina Arquitetura de Aplicativos Ambiente .NET da 4a turma do curso de pós-graduação de especialização em Arquitetura de Sistemas Distribuídos oferecido pelo Instituto de Educação Continuada da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de MSoftware Revolution: This project is core information site of Software Revolution named company which provides software solutions.tgryi: tgyrivbWSUS: Really decide which and when to install updates from a centralized server, globally or per host : - installation schedule - updates to install - email results - configure extra Windows Update parameters Works with WSUS server or Windows Update from Microsoft. See README.txt for more informations ! :) Current official website is http://sourceforge.net/projects/vbwsus/XamlCombine: Combines multiple XAML resource dictionaries in one. Replaces DynamicResources to StaticResources. And sort them in order of usage.XNA Shader-free Linear Burn effect: Sample demonstrating a Linear Burn effect in XNA without using custom shaderszhCms: zhCmszhtest: my test project

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93  | Next Page >