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• Change Remote Connection port on Windows Vista to accept incoming connection?

  - by jdk

  How can I assign an incoming port #, of my choosing, to the Terminal Services server software built into Windows Vista Ultimate?

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• Can I install applications to Remote Desktop Session Hosts via Group Policy?

  - by CC.

  I have a GPO that installs an application using the Software installation policy under Computer Configuration. I assign this GPO to the OU with our desktop/laptop computers, and my clients all install the software fine. I have another separate OU that covers our new Server 2012 RD session hosts. Previously, we've manually installed applications on our one Terminal Server. Now we have one Broker and two Session Hosts. I'd like to take my existing GPO, assign it to the session hosts, and have it install on the next reboot after a gpupdate so I'm sure that each is identically configured. Given this info: Should I be able to install applications via GPO to Session Hosts? Will Group Policy automatically install the applications as if I put the session host into /install mode, or do I need to do that?

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• execute script after desktop loaded?

  - by Andre

  I want to execute bash script on startup that opens several terminals in different workspaces. Script works just fine if I call it from terminal, but it doesn't work if executed from crontab using @reboot: #!/usr/bin/env bash #1 make sure we have enough workspaces gconftool-2 --set -t int /apps/metacity/general/num_workspaces 7 #2. Launch programs in these terminals wmctrl -s 6 gnome-terminal --full-screen --execute bash -c "tmux attach; bash" wmctrl -s 5 gnome-terminal --full-screen --execute bash -c "weechat-curses; bash" wmctrl -s 4 gnome-terminal --full-screen --execute bash -c "export TERM=xterm-256color; mutt; bash" wmctrl -s 3 gnome-terminal --full-screen wmctrl -s 2 gnome-terminal --full-screen wmctrl -s 1 gnome-terminal --full-screen wmctrl -s 0 google-chrome --start-maximized I think it's because crontab job triggers before desktop environment is loaded...maybe...? How can I execute this script after desktop environment is loaded? thanks:) Update 1: i've started it from crontab initially like this: @reboot $HOME/andreiscripts/startup.sh >> $HOME/andreiscripts/testlog.txt 2>&1 and was getting these errors: Cannot open display. Failed to parse arguments: Cannot open display: Cannot open display. Failed to parse arguments: Cannot open display: Cannot open display. ..... Update 2 I've tried to launch script from System Preferences Startup Applications /home/andrei/andreiscripts/startup.sh >> /home/andrei/Desktop/out.txt 2>&1 but script only opened first gnome-terminal in workspace 6... and wouldn't continue executing the rest of the script until I close that gnome-terminal and so on....

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• Desktop icons disappears when Nautilus is launched, until next boot

  - by Santosh

  What happens: When I log in into my Ubuntu everything is normal, I have some icons on my desktop and I can see them at this point of time. As soon as I click on the explorer (nautilus) on the Launcher bar, everything goes (disappers) and never comes. No matter how many time you click on the launcher, you can't open nautilus. I tried opening nautilus from the terminal, get the following: santosh@santosh:~$ nautilus Initializing nautilus-gdu extension ** (nautilus:2158): DEBUG: SyncDaemon already running, initializing SyncdaemonDaemon object Initializing nautilus-open-terminal extension (nautilus:2158): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_action_set_visible: assertion `GTK_IS_ACTION (action)' failed (nautilus:2158): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_action_set_visible: assertion `GTK_IS_ACTION (action)' failed Segmentation fault I suspect on "Segmentation fault" on the last line, whats that? I was amazed when I run this command in sudo.: santosh@santosh:~$ sudo nautilus Initializing nautilus-gdu extension ** (nautilus:2216): DEBUG: Syncdaemon not running, waiting for it to start in NameOwnerChanged Initializing nautilus-open-terminal extension (nautilus:2216): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_action_set_visible: assertion `GTK_IS_ACTION (action)' failed (nautilus:2216): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_action_set_visible: assertion `GTK_IS_ACTION (action)' failed Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error No such file or directory Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing. As soon as I type sudo nautilus and hit enter, nautilus starts and the desktop background changes (to the default which ubuntu has). Don't know why but at this point as soon as I click on Desktop (from the left pane) then nautilus closes. Did anyone has same issue? I am corrently working with commandline to do my work and its a big pain. Additional Information: Another thing I have noticed that when I want to open the location of PDF file I am reading in document viewer (by clicking the folder icon). It gives error "Could not open the containing folder" and "Failed to execute child process "nautilus" (Permission denied)". Any idea?                

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• IoT end-to-end demo – Remote Monitoring and Service By Harish Doddala

  - by JuergenKress

  Historically, data was generated from predictable sources, stored in storage systems and accessed for further processing. This data was correlated, filtered and analyzed to derive insights and/or drive well constructed processes. There was little ambiguity in the kinds of data, the sources it would originate from and the routes that it would follow. Internet of Things (IoT) creates many opportunities to extract value from data that result in significant improvements across industries such as Automotive, Industrial Manufacturing, Smart Utilities, Oil and Gas, High Tech and Professional Services, etc. This demo showcases how the health of remotely deployed machinery can be monitored to illustrate how data coming from devices can be analyzed in real-time, integrated with back-end systems and visualized to initiate action as may be necessary. Use-case: Remote Service and Maintenance Critical machinery once deployed on the field, is expected to work with minimal failures, while delivering high performance and reliability. In typical remote monitoring and industrial automation scenarios, although many physical objects from machinery to equipment may already be “smart and connected,” they are typically operated in a standalone fashion and not integrated into existing business processes. IoT adds an interesting dynamic to remote monitoring in industrial automation solutions in that it allows equipment to be monitored, upgraded, maintained and serviced in ways not possible before. Read the complete article here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Technorati Tags: IoT,Iot demo,sales,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Windows Intune, Cloud Desktop management

  - by David Nudelman

  As a part of Microsoft Cloud computing strategy, Windows Intune beta was released today. Here’s a quick overview of what customers and IT consultants can do with the cloud service component of Windows Intune: Manage PCs through web-based console: Windows Intune provides a web-based console for IT to administrate their PCs. Administrators can manage PCs from anywhere. Manage updates: Administrators can centrally manage the deployment of Microsoft updates and service packs to all PCs. Protection from malware: Windows Intune helps protect PCs from the latest threats with malware protection built on the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine that you can manage through the Web-based console. Proactively monitor PCs: Receive alerts on updates and threats so that you can proactively identify and resolve problems with your PCs—before it impacts end users and your business. Provide remote assistance: Resolve PC issues, regardless of where you or your users are located, with remote assistance. Track hardware and software inventory: Track hardware and software assets used in your business to efficiently manage your assets, licenses, and compliance. Set security policies: Centrally manage update, firewall, and malware protection policies, even on remote machines outside the corporate network. And here a quick video about Windows Intune For support and questions go to : TechNet Forums for Intune Regards, David Nudelman

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• How to Skip the Start Screen and Boot to the Desktop in Windows 8.1

  - by Mark Wilson

  For almost everyone who made the upgrade, Windows 8 proved to be something of a disappointment for one reason or another. Windows 8.1 (or Windows Blue) was released to address many of the issues users had complained about including reintroducing the ability to boot straight to the desktop. Being able to boot to the desktop rather than the Start screen is something that people have been clammering for ever since the first preview versions of Windows 8 were unveiled. There have been various third-party tools released as numerous workarounds used to get around the problem, but now it is an option that is built directly into the operating system. You’ll need to have downloaded and installed the update in order to proceed, but once you have done this, things are very simple. When you have Windows up and running after the upgrade, right click an empty section of the taskbar and select properties to bring up the newly named “Taskbar and Navigation properties” dialog.  Move to the Navigation tab and look in the “Start screen” section in the lower half of the dialog. Check the box labelled ‘Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in” and click OK.    

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• How to enable services Discovery API in GoogleCL?

  - by Marcos

  There are bits and pieces of information all over the place but I'm trying to put it all together so that GoogleCL finally accesses more than the initial 7 services. Does anyone know of a step-by-step? Right now any attempt outside these result in the error message: google tasks list Did you specify the service correctly? Must be one of 'picasa', 'blogger', 'youtube', 'docs', 'contacts', 'calendar', 'finance' I installed GoogleCL from the Ubuntu repos, authenticated a few bundled services like contacts, docs etc. and those work great, giving me access to do certain operations like upload from the command line. I would really like to get it going to support tasks and all the other elegible Google services shown at https://code.google.com/apis/explorer/#_s=tasks Here are some guides/partial steps I've found: http://code.google.com/p/googlecl/wiki/DiscoveryManual (indicates needing to check it out updated GoogleCL from the subversion repository.) http://code.google.com/p/google-api-python-client/wiki/Installation easy_install --upgrade google-api-python-client http://code.google.com/p/googlecl/wiki/Install http://code.google.com/p/googlecl/source/checkout sudo -i cd /usr/local/src/ svn checkout http://googlecl.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ googlecl-read-only cat googlecl-read-only/INSTALL.txt cd /usr/local/src/googlecl-read-only/ python setup.py install Result: $ google discovery list Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/google", line 488, in run_interactive run_once(options, args) File "/usr/bin/google", line 540, in run_once options.config) File "/usr/bin/google", line 364, in import_service force_gdata_v1 = config.lazy_get(package.SECTION_HEADER, AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'SECTION_HEADER'

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• Error when I try to installth desktop integration features for Openoffice

  - by PENG TENG

  peng@peng-ThinkPad-SL410:~$ cd '/home/peng/Downloads/en-US/DEBS/desktop-integration' peng@peng-ThinkPad-SL410:~/Downloads/en-US/DEBS/desktop-integration$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb (Reading database ... 357248 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking openoffice.org-debian-menus (from openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb) ... dpkg: error processing openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb (--install): trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/soffice', which is also in package libreoffice-common 1:3.6.2~rc2-0ubuntu3 /usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully. /usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully. Processing triggers for menu ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ... Processing triggers for gnome-icon-theme ... Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ... Unknown media type in type 'all/all' Unknown media type in type 'all/allfiles' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mms' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmst' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmsu' Unknown media type in type 'uri/pnm' Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspt' Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspu' Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ... Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Errors were encountered while processing: openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb Can anyone solve the problem?

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• Ubuntu security with services running from /opt

  - by thejartender

  It took me a while to understand what's going on here (I think), but can someone explain to me if there are security risks with regards to my logic of what's going on here as I am trying to set up a home web server as a developer with some good Linux knowledge? Ubuntu is not like other systems, as it has restricted the root user account. You can not log in as root or su to root. This was a problem for me as I have had to install numerous applications and services to /opt as per user documentation (XAMPPfor Linux is a good example). The problem here is that this directory is owned by root:root. I notice that my admin user account does not belong to root group through the following command: groups username so my understanding is that even though the files and services that I place in /opt belong to root, executing them by means of sudo (as required) does not mean that they are run as root? I imagine that the sudo command is hidden somewhere under belonging to the root user and has a 775 permission? So the question I have is if running a service like Tomcat, Apcahe, etc exposes my system like on other systems? Obviously I need to secure these in configurations, but isn't the golden rule to never run something as root? What happens if I have multiple services running under same user/group with regards to a compromised server?

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• Oracle Solaris Remote Lab (OSRL) Fact Sheet

  - by user13333379

  The Oracle Solaris Remote Lab allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to test and qualify their applications in a self service Solaris cloud. ISVs who are Oracle Partner Network Gold members with a specialization in the Solaris knowledge zone can apply for free access in OPN. The lab offers the following features to it's users: Lifetime of project: 45 days (extensions granted on demand)  Up to 5 virtual machines in a private network  Virtual Machine technology: Solaris zones  Resources per VM processor support: SPARC or x86  OS version: OracleSolaris 11.0 4GB physical memory  4GB swap space  10GB local filesystem storage  10GB network filesystem (NFS) mounted on all virtual machines Networking configuration The only external network routes are to Partner's other Virtual Machines  No network routing to the Internet  The SMB (CIFS) sharing protocol is not available between Virtual Machines  Device Access  Applications that assume the existence of /devices will not run in a Virtual Machine  Applications that use eeprom to modify SPARC eeprom setting will not run in a Virtual Machine The following utilities do not work properly in Virtual Machines:  add_drv, disks, prtconf, prtdiag, rem_dev Access technology: Secure Global Desktop, file up and download root access within VM Available VM templates (both processor architectures) Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3) for Solaris with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Weblogic 12c  SAMP: Apache http server, PHP, MySQL, phpadmin on all templates and images: Oracle Solaris Studio 12.3 for application development  More resources: Online application for Oracle Solaris remote Lab Developer Webinar about the Oracle Solaris Remote Lab Everything an Oracle Solaris Developer needs...

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• Oracle Solaris Remote Lab (OSRL) Fact Sheet

  - by user13333379

  The Oracle Solaris Remote Lab allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to test and qualify their applications in a self service Solaris cloud. ISVs who are Oracle Partner Network Gold members with a specialization in the Solaris knowledge zone can apply for free access in OPN. The lab offers the following features to it's users: Lifetime of project: 45 days (extensions granted on demand)  Up to 5 virtual machines in a private network  Virtual Machine technology: Solaris zones  Resources per VM processor support: SPARC or x86  OS version: OracleSolaris 11.0 4GB physical memory  4GB swap space  10GB local filesystem storage  10GB network filesystem (NFS) mounted on all virtual machines Networking configuration The only external network routes are to Partner's other Virtual Machines  No network routing to the Internet  The SMB (CIFS) sharing protocol is not available between Virtual Machines  Device Access  Applications that assume the existence of /devices will not run in a Virtual Machine  Applications that use eeprom to modify SPARC eeprom setting will not run in a Virtual Machine The following utilities do not work properly in Virtual Machines:  add_drv, disks, prtconf, prtdiag, rem_dev Access technology: Secure Global Desktop, file up and download root access within VM Available VM templates (both processor architectures) Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3) for Solaris with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Weblogic 12c  SAMP: Apache http server, PHP, MySQL, phpadmin on all templates and images: Oracle Solaris Studio 12.3 for application development  More resources: Online application for Oracle Solaris remote Lab Developer Webinar about the Oracle Solaris Remote Lab Everything an Oracle Solaris Developer needs...

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• Develop for Desktop and mobile use?

  - by ran2

  I am in the very beginning of developing an app / desktop program. I want it to be cross-platform and possibly also as a tablet version (preferably Android Icecream sandwich). Note that I need to run it offline. I thought about the following approaches: ADOBE Air, since I do not need much performance. Plus I did some web programming in the past which might be of some use. Afaik it would run on OS X and Windows and should run on mobile OSes, too. Qt. Found some nice Qt based desktop recently and read it also works on android. Plus I like the SDK. HTML5 / JS. Again my web background should help me here. I wont need no sever side scripts, thus it should work without installing anything but a browser. How easy could this be converted into an Android app? There might be a plethora of other (better) ways to do it, but I haven't thought of them yet. Can you help out? How would you create such an application. Would it be better to do some pure desktop client and then create tablet versions? Would you rather start to create a website and worry later on how to turn into an app?

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• Accessing Secure Web Services from ADF Mobile

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  Most of the enterprise Web services you'll access are going to be secured - meaning they'll require you to pass a user/password in order to get to their data.  If you never created a secured Web service, it's simple in JDeveloper! For the below video I just right clicked on a Java class that I exposed as a Web service, and chose  "Web Service Properties" and then checked the "oracle/wss_username_token_service_policy" box from the list of options (that's the option supported by ADF Mobile right now): In the demo below we are going to use a "remote" login server that does the authentication of the user/pass.The easiest way to "create" a remote login server is to create a "regular" web ADF application, secure it, and deploy it on a server. The secured ADF application can just require ADF Authentication with a simple HTTP Basic Authentication - basically the next two images in the Application->Secure->Configure ADF Security menu wizard. ok - so now you have a secured ADF application - deploy it on a server and get the URL for that application.  From this point on you'll see the process in the video which deals with the configuration of your ADF Mobile app. First you'll need to enable security for your ADF mobile application, so it will prompt users to provide a user/pass combination. You'll also need to configure security on specific features. And you can have them use remote login pointing to your regular secured ADF application. Next define your Web service data control. Right click on the web service data control to "define Web Service Security". You'll also need to define the adfCredentialStoreKey property for the Web Service data control in the connections.xml file. This should be it. Here is the flow: If you haven't already - you can read more about this in the Mobile developer guide, and Andrejus has a sample for you.

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• Awesome and LXDE desktop managers messed up KDE

  - by Caleb1994

  I saw a desktop manager named "Awesome" earlier on Google+, and thought I'd give it a try. In short, I didn't like it, but it got me wondering what other desktops were like, which I hadn't tried. The first one to come to mind was LXDE. I installed that, and tried it. I wasn't a big fan, so I just went to log back into KDE. Only, when I log in, everything is screwy. My theme is weird (although, according to system settings, it is still the same). All the categories and application short cuts in the KMenu are gone, except my favorites, which are now renamed with the "short name", it seems. I know these things are global resources, so it is very likely that one of these Window Managers screwed it up, but I need it fixed. Actually, it seems that after restarting the theme problem fixed itself, but the KMenu items disappearing is still a problem. Does anyone know where these items are stored? (I know they are are just .desktop files somewhere, IIRC, but I don't remember where they are usually stored so I can see if they are still there). I'm hoping it's just a matter of a broken link or something somewhere, not deleted shortcuts... :/ In summary: Any ideas on what caused this? Do you know how to fix the KMenu, or at least where the .desktop shortcuts are stored for the KMenu so I can see if they still exist (crosses fingers).

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• Managed Cloud Services Wins Another Prestigious Industry Award

  - by Dori DiMassimo-Oracle

  Over the last 90 days, Oracle Managed Cloud Services has been the proud recipient of TWO prestigious industry awards for service excellence and customer value leadership.  The most recent award is last month's 2014 Frost & Sullivan Best Practice Award - North America Managed Cloud Customer Value Leadership Award, which rated Oracle Managed Cloud Services as the clear leader versus other providers; Managed Cloud received an "exceptional" rating in 9 of 10 evaluation categories.  The research report  is an excellent look at our industry and what is valued by cloud customers looking for a managed solution.   In April, Managed Cloud was a repeat winner of the Outsourcing Excellence Award - 2014 Outsourcing Excellence Award - Best ITO Infrastructure (Sony Computer Entertainment America).  Last year we won the award for Best Cloud: 2013 Outsourcing Excellence Award - Best Cloud (Take-Two Interactive)  These awards are a great testimony of the transformation of Managed Cloud Services to a true Cloud-based business and a strategic and relevant part of the Oracle Cloud Solutions portfolio.  Frost & Sullivan, in particular, recognizes our vision and our capability of successfully managing business transactions in the cloud.

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• Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

  - by Fat Bloke

  A lot of the recent blog entries here have been about Oracle VM VirtualBox, possibly the coolest personal desktop virtualization product known to man. Deploying VirtualBox on your PC or Mac lets you run many virtual desktops at the same time to one user, you. But did you know that VirtualBox can also power an Enterprise-scale virtual desktop deployment too, delivering many desktops to many users?  As part of another Oracle product, Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), VirtualBox can run your Windows, Linux or Solaris desktops on servers located in the datacenter. Oracle VDI orchestrates the whole deal by looking after : creating or cloning the virtual desktops from a master template; managing the lifecycle of the desktops (create, start, suspend, resume, stop, delete); assigning which users get which desktops;  delivering easy and fast access to these virtual desktops from almost any device, such as existing PCs or Macs, iPads, or specially designed Sun Ray client devices too; load balancing and session management of all of this.  Architecturally the solution looks something like this: This is an increasingly hot area of the IT landscape, so the Fat Bloke has decided to create a new blog category (VDI) and dedicate a few blog entries to look into this in a bit more detail over the next few weeks. Watch this space... - FB 

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• WCF WS-Security and WSE Nonce Authentication

  - by Rick Strahl

  WCF makes it fairly easy to access WS-* Web Services, except when you run into a service format that it doesn't support. Even then WCF provides a huge amount of flexibility to make the service clients work, however finding the proper interfaces to make that happen is not easy to discover and for the most part undocumented unless you're lucky enough to run into a blog, forum or StackOverflow post on the matter. This is definitely true for the Password Nonce as part of the WS-Security/WSE protocol, which is not natively supported in WCF. Specifically I had a need to create a WCF message on the client that includes a WS-Security header that looks like this from their spec document:<soapenv:Header> <wsse:Security soapenv:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"> <wsse:UsernameToken wsu:Id="UsernameToken-8" xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd"> <wsse:Username>TeStUsErNaMe1</wsse:Username> <wsse:Password Type="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#PasswordText" >TeStPaSsWoRd1</wsse:Password> <wsse:Nonce EncodingType="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-soap-message-security-1.0#Base64Binary" >f8nUe3YupTU5ISdCy3X9Gg==</wsse:Nonce> <wsu:Created>2011-05-04T19:01:40.981Z</wsu:Created> </wsse:UsernameToken> </wsse:Security> </soapenv:Header> Specifically, the Nonce and Created keys are what WCF doesn't create or have a built in formatting for. Why is there a nonce? My first thought here was WTF? The username and password are there in clear text, what does the Nonce accomplish? The Nonce and created keys are are part of WSE Security specification and are meant to allow the server to detect and prevent replay attacks. The hashed nonce should be unique per request which the server can store and check for before running another request thus ensuring that a request is not replayed with exactly the same values. Basic ServiceUtl Import - not much Luck The first thing I did when I imported this service with a service reference was to simply import it as a Service Reference. The Add Service Reference import automatically detects that WS-Security is required and appropariately adds the WS-Security to the basicHttpBinding in the config file:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <system.serviceModel> <bindings> <basicHttpBinding> <binding name="RealTimeOnlineSoapBinding"> <security mode="Transport" /> </binding> <binding name="RealTimeOnlineSoapBinding1" /> </basicHttpBinding> </bindings> <client> <endpoint address="https://notarealurl.com:443/services/RealTimeOnline" binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="RealTimeOnlineSoapBinding" contract="RealTimeOnline.RealTimeOnline" name="RealTimeOnline" /> </client> </system.serviceModel> </configuration> If if I run this as is using code like this:var client = new RealTimeOnlineClient(); client.ClientCredentials.UserName.UserName = "TheUsername"; client.ClientCredentials.UserName.Password = "ThePassword"; … I get nothing in terms of WS-Security headers. The request is sent, but the the binding expects transport level security to be applied, rather than message level security. To fix this so that a WS-Security message header is sent the security mode can be changed to: <security mode="TransportWithMessageCredential" /> Now if I re-run I at least get a WS-Security header which looks like this:<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:u="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd"> <s:Header> <o:Security s:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:o="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"> <u:Timestamp u:Id="_0"> <u:Created>2012-11-24T02:55:18.011Z</u:Created> <u:Expires>2012-11-24T03:00:18.011Z</u:Expires> </u:Timestamp> <o:UsernameToken u:Id="uuid-18c215d4-1106-40a5-8dd1-c81fdddf19d3-1"> <o:Username>TheUserName</o:Username> <o:Password Type="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#PasswordText" >ThePassword</o:Password> </o:UsernameToken> </o:Security> </s:Header> Closer! Now the WS-Security header is there along with a timestamp field (which might not be accepted by some WS-Security expecting services), but there's no Nonce or created timestamp as required by my original service. Using a CustomBinding instead My next try was to go with a CustomBinding instead of basicHttpBinding as it allows a bit more control over the protocol and transport configurations for the binding. Specifically I can explicitly specify the message protocol(s) used. Using configuration file settings here's what the config file looks like:<?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <system.serviceModel> <bindings> <customBinding> <binding name="CustomSoapBinding"> <security includeTimestamp="false" authenticationMode="UserNameOverTransport" defaultAlgorithmSuite="Basic256" requireDerivedKeys="false" messageSecurityVersion="WSSecurity10WSTrustFebruary2005WSSecureConversationFebruary2005WSSecurityPolicy11BasicSecurityProfile10"> </security> <textMessageEncoding messageVersion="Soap11"></textMessageEncoding> <httpsTransport maxReceivedMessageSize="2000000000"/> </binding> </customBinding> </bindings> <client> <endpoint address="https://notrealurl.com:443/services/RealTimeOnline" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="CustomSoapBinding" contract="RealTimeOnline.RealTimeOnline" name="RealTimeOnline" /> </client> </system.serviceModel> <startup> <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0"/> </startup> </configuration> This ends up creating a cleaner header that's missing the timestamp field which can cause some services problems. The WS-Security header output generated with the above looks like this:<s:Header> <o:Security s:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:o="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"> <o:UsernameToken u:Id="uuid-291622ca-4c11-460f-9886-ac1c78813b24-1"> <o:Username>TheUsername</o:Username> <o:Password Type="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#PasswordText" >ThePassword</o:Password> </o:UsernameToken> </o:Security> </s:Header> This is closer as it includes only the username and password. The key here is the protocol for WS-Security:messageSecurityVersion="WSSecurity10WSTrustFebruary2005WSSecureConversationFebruary2005WSSecurityPolicy11BasicSecurityProfile10" which explicitly specifies the protocol version. There are several variants of this specification but none of them seem to support the nonce unfortunately. This protocol does allow for optional omission of the Nonce and created timestamp provided (which effectively makes those keys optional). With some services I tried that requested a Nonce just using this protocol actually worked where the default basicHttpBinding failed to connect, so this is a possible solution for access to some services. Unfortunately for my target service that was not an option. The nonce has to be there. Creating Custom ClientCredentials As it turns out WCF doesn't have support for the Digest Nonce as part of WS-Security, and so as far as I can tell there's no way to do it just with configuration settings. I did a bunch of research on this trying to find workarounds for this, and I did find a couple of entries on StackOverflow as well as on the MSDN forums. However, none of these are particularily clear and I ended up using bits and pieces of several of them to arrive at a working solution in the end. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/896901/wcf-adding-nonce-to-usernametoken http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wcf/thread/4df3354f-0627-42d9-b5fb-6e880b60f8ee The latter forum message is the more useful of the two (the last message on the thread in particular) and it has most of the information required to make this work. But it took some experimentation for me to get this right so I'll recount the process here maybe a bit more comprehensively. In order for this to work a number of classes have to be overridden: ClientCredentials ClientCredentialsSecurityTokenManager WSSecurityTokenizer The idea is that we need to create a custom ClientCredential class to hold the custom properties so they can be set from the UI or via configuration settings. The TokenManager and Tokenizer are mainly required to allow the custom credentials class to flow through the WCF pipeline and eventually provide custom serialization. Here are the three classes required and their full implementations:public class CustomCredentials : ClientCredentials { public CustomCredentials() { } protected CustomCredentials(CustomCredentials cc) : base(cc) { } public override System.IdentityModel.Selectors.SecurityTokenManager CreateSecurityTokenManager() { return new CustomSecurityTokenManager(this); } protected override ClientCredentials CloneCore() { return new CustomCredentials(this); } } public class CustomSecurityTokenManager : ClientCredentialsSecurityTokenManager { public CustomSecurityTokenManager(CustomCredentials cred) : base(cred) { } public override System.IdentityModel.Selectors.SecurityTokenSerializer CreateSecurityTokenSerializer(System.IdentityModel.Selectors.SecurityTokenVersion version) { return new CustomTokenSerializer(System.ServiceModel.Security.SecurityVersion.WSSecurity11); } } public class CustomTokenSerializer : WSSecurityTokenSerializer { public CustomTokenSerializer(SecurityVersion sv) : base(sv) { } protected override void WriteTokenCore(System.Xml.XmlWriter writer, System.IdentityModel.Tokens.SecurityToken token) { UserNameSecurityToken userToken = token as UserNameSecurityToken; string tokennamespace = "o"; DateTime created = DateTime.Now; string createdStr = created.ToString("yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss.fffZ"); // unique Nonce value - encode with SHA-1 for 'randomness' // in theory the nonce could just be the GUID by itself string phrase = Guid.NewGuid().ToString(); var nonce = GetSHA1String(phrase); // in this case password is plain text // for digest mode password needs to be encoded as: // PasswordAsDigest = Base64(SHA-1(Nonce + Created + Password)) // and profile needs to change to //string password = GetSHA1String(nonce + createdStr + userToken.Password); string password = userToken.Password; writer.WriteRaw(string.Format( "<{0}:UsernameToken u:Id=\"" + token.Id + "\" xmlns:u=\"http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd\">" + "<{0}:Username>" + userToken.UserName + "</{0}:Username>" + "<{0}:Password Type=\"http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#PasswordText\">" + password + "</{0}:Password>" + "<{0}:Nonce EncodingType=\"http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-soap-message-security-1.0#Base64Binary\">" + nonce + "</{0}:Nonce>" + "<u:Created>" + createdStr + "</u:Created></{0}:UsernameToken>", tokennamespace)); } protected string GetSHA1String(string phrase) { SHA1CryptoServiceProvider sha1Hasher = new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider(); byte[] hashedDataBytes = sha1Hasher.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(phrase)); return Convert.ToBase64String(hashedDataBytes); } } Realistically only the CustomTokenSerializer has any significant code in. The code there deals with actually serializing the custom credentials using low level XML semantics by writing output into an XML writer. I can't take credit for this code - most of the code comes from the MSDN forum post mentioned earlier - I made a few adjustments to simplify the nonce generation and also added some notes to allow for PasswordDigest generation. Per spec the nonce is nothing more than a unique value that's supposed to be 'random'. I'm thinking that this value can be any string that's unique and a GUID on its own probably would have sufficed. Comments on other posts that GUIDs can be potentially guessed are highly exaggerated to say the least IMHO. To satisfy even that aspect though I added the SHA1 encryption and binary decoding to give a more random value that would be impossible to 'guess'. The original example from the forum post used another level of encoding and decoding to string in between - but that really didn't accomplish anything but extra overhead. The header output generated from this looks like this:<s:Header> <o:Security s:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:o="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"> <o:UsernameToken u:Id="uuid-f43d8b0d-0ebb-482e-998d-f544401a3c91-1" xmlns:u="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd"> <o:Username>TheUsername</o:Username> <o:Password Type="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#PasswordText">ThePassword</o:Password> <o:Nonce EncodingType="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-soap-message-security-1.0#Base64Binary" >PjVE24TC6HtdAnsf3U9c5WMsECY=</o:Nonce> <u:Created>2012-11-23T07:10:04.670Z</u:Created> </o:UsernameToken> </o:Security> </s:Header> which is exactly as it should be. Password Digest? In my case the password is passed in plain text over an SSL connection, so there's no digest required so I was done with the code above. Since I don't have a service handy that requires a password digest,  I had no way of testing the code for the digest implementation, but here is how this is likely to work. If you need to pass a digest encoded password things are a little bit trickier. The password type namespace needs to change to: http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#Digest and then the password value needs to be encoded. The format for password digest encoding is this: Base64(SHA-1(Nonce + Created + Password)) and it can be handled in the code above with this code (that's commented in the snippet above): string password = GetSHA1String(nonce + createdStr + userToken.Password); The entire WriteTokenCore method for digest code looks like this:protected override void WriteTokenCore(System.Xml.XmlWriter writer, System.IdentityModel.Tokens.SecurityToken token) { UserNameSecurityToken userToken = token as UserNameSecurityToken; string tokennamespace = "o"; DateTime created = DateTime.Now; string createdStr = created.ToString("yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss.fffZ"); // unique Nonce value - encode with SHA-1 for 'randomness' // in theory the nonce could just be the GUID by itself string phrase = Guid.NewGuid().ToString(); var nonce = GetSHA1String(phrase); string password = GetSHA1String(nonce + createdStr + userToken.Password); writer.WriteRaw(string.Format( "<{0}:UsernameToken u:Id=\"" + token.Id + "\" xmlns:u=\"http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd\">" + "<{0}:Username>" + userToken.UserName + "</{0}:Username>" + "<{0}:Password Type=\"http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#Digest\">" + password + "</{0}:Password>" + "<{0}:Nonce EncodingType=\"http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-soap-message-security-1.0#Base64Binary\">" + nonce + "</{0}:Nonce>" + "<u:Created>" + createdStr + "</u:Created></{0}:UsernameToken>", tokennamespace)); } I had no service to connect to to try out Digest auth - if you end up needing it and get it to work please drop a comment… How to use the custom Credentials The easiest way to use the custom credentials is to create the client in code. Here's a factory method I use to create an instance of my service client:  public static RealTimeOnlineClient CreateRealTimeOnlineProxy(string url, string username, string password) { if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) url = "https://notrealurl.com:443/cows/services/RealTimeOnline"; CustomBinding binding = new CustomBinding(); var security = TransportSecurityBindingElement.CreateUserNameOverTransportBindingElement(); security.IncludeTimestamp = false; security.DefaultAlgorithmSuite = SecurityAlgorithmSuite.Basic256; security.MessageSecurityVersion = MessageSecurityVersion.WSSecurity10WSTrustFebruary2005WSSecureConversationFebruary2005WSSecurityPolicy11BasicSecurityProfile10; var encoding = new TextMessageEncodingBindingElement(); encoding.MessageVersion = MessageVersion.Soap11; var transport = new HttpsTransportBindingElement(); transport.MaxReceivedMessageSize = 20000000; // 20 megs binding.Elements.Add(security); binding.Elements.Add(encoding); binding.Elements.Add(transport); RealTimeOnlineClient client = new RealTimeOnlineClient(binding, new EndpointAddress(url)); // to use full client credential with Nonce uncomment this code: // it looks like this might not be required - the service seems to work without it client.ChannelFactory.Endpoint.Behaviors.Remove<System.ServiceModel.Description.ClientCredentials>(); client.ChannelFactory.Endpoint.Behaviors.Add(new CustomCredentials()); client.ClientCredentials.UserName.UserName = username; client.ClientCredentials.UserName.Password = password; return client; } This returns a service client that's ready to call other service methods. The key item in this code is the ChannelFactory endpoint behavior modification that that first removes the original ClientCredentials and then adds the new one. The ClientCredentials property on the client is read only and this is the way it has to be added.   Summary It's a bummer that WCF doesn't suport WSE Security authentication with nonce values out of the box. From reading the comments in posts/articles while I was trying to find a solution, I found that this feature was omitted by design as this protocol is considered unsecure. While I agree that plain text passwords are rarely a good idea even if they go over secured SSL connection as WSE Security does, there are unfortunately quite a few services (mosly Java services I suspect) that use this protocol. I've run into this twice now and trying to find a solution online I can see that this is not an isolated problem - many others seem to have struggled with this. It seems there are about a dozen questions about this on StackOverflow all with varying incomplete answers. Hopefully this post provides a little more coherent content in one place. Again I marvel at WCF and its breadth of support for protocol features it has in a single tool. And even when it can't handle something there are ways to get it working via extensibility. But at the same time I marvel at how freaking difficult it is to arrive at these solutions. I mean there's no way I could have ever figured this out on my own. It takes somebody working on the WCF team or at least being very, very intricately involved in the innards of WCF to figure out the interconnection of the various objects to do this from scratch. Luckily this is an older problem that has been discussed extensively online and I was able to cobble together a solution from the online content. I'm glad it worked out that way, but it feels dirty and incomplete in that there's a whole learning path that was omitted to get here… Man am I glad I'm not dealing with SOAP services much anymore. REST service security - even when using some sort of federation is a piece of cake by comparison :-) I'm sure once standards bodies gets involved we'll be right back in security standard hell…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in WCF  Web Services   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Windows Azure: Import/Export Hard Drives, VM ACLs, Web Sockets, Remote Debugging, Continuous Delivery, New Relic, Billing Alerts and More

  - by ScottGu

  Two weeks ago we released a giant set of improvements to Windows Azure, as well as a significant update of the Windows Azure SDK. This morning we released another massive set of enhancements to Windows Azure.  Today’s new capabilities include: Storage: Import/Export Hard Disk Drives to your Storage Accounts HDInsight: General Availability of our Hadoop Service in the cloud Virtual Machines: New VM Gallery, ACL support for VIPs Web Sites: WebSocket and Remote Debugging Support Notification Hubs: Segmented customer push notification support with tag expressions TFS & GIT: Continuous Delivery Support for Web Sites + Cloud Services Developer Analytics: New Relic support for Web Sites + Mobile Services Service Bus: Support for partitioned queues and topics Billing: New Billing Alert Service that sends emails notifications when your bill hits a threshold you define All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note that some features are still in preview).  Below are more details about them. Storage: Import/Export Hard Disk Drives to Windows Azure I am excited to announce the preview of our new Windows Azure Import/Export Service! The Windows Azure Import/Export Service enables you to move large amounts of on-premises data into and out of your Windows Azure Storage accounts. It does this by enabling you to securely ship hard disk drives directly to our Windows Azure data centers. Once we receive the drives we’ll automatically transfer the data to or from your Windows Azure Storage account.  This enables you to import or export massive amounts of data more quickly and cost effectively (and not be constrained by available network bandwidth). Encrypted Transport Our Import/Export service provides built-in support for BitLocker disk encryption – which enables you to securely encrypt data on the hard drives before you send it, and not have to worry about it being compromised even if the disk is lost/stolen in transit (since the content on the transported hard drives is completely encrypted and you are the only one who has the key to it).  The drive preparation tool we are shipping today makes setting up bitlocker encryption on these hard drives easy. How to Import/Export your first Hard Drive of Data You can read our Getting Started Guide to learn more about how to begin using the import/export service.  You can create import and export jobs via the Windows Azure Management Portal as well as programmatically using our Server Management APIs. It is really easy to create a new import or export job using the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Simply navigate to a Windows Azure storage account, and then click the new Import/Export tab now available within it (note: if you don’t have this tab make sure to sign-up for the Import/Export preview): Then click the “Create Import Job” or “Create Export Job” commands at the bottom of it.  This will launch a wizard that easily walks you through the steps required: For more comprehensive information about Import/Export, refer to Windows Azure Storage team blog.  You can also send questions and comments to the [email protected] email address. We think you’ll find this new service makes it much easier to move data into and out of Windows Azure, and it will dramatically cut down the network bandwidth required when working on large data migration projects.  We hope you like it. HDInsight: 100% Compatible Hadoop Service in the Cloud Last week we announced the general availability release of Windows Azure HDInsight. HDInsight is a 100% compatible Hadoop service that allows you to easily provision and manage Hadoop clusters for big data processing in Windows Azure.  This release is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported 24x7 by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production scenarios. HDInsight allows you to use Apache Hadoop tools, such as Pig and Hive, to process large amounts of data in Windows Azure Blob Storage. Because data is stored in Windows Azure Blob Storage, you can choose to dynamically create Hadoop clusters only when you need them, and then shut them down when they are no longer required (since you pay only for the time the Hadoop cluster instances are running this provides a super cost effective way to use them).  You can create Hadoop clusters using either the Windows Azure Management Portal (see below) or using our PowerShell and Cross Platform Command line tools: The import/export hard drive support that came out today is a perfect companion service to use with HDInsight – the combination allows you to easily ingest, process and optionally export a limitless amount of data.  We’ve also integrated HDInsight with our Business Intelligence tools, so users can leverage familiar tools like Excel in order to analyze the output of jobs.  You can find out more about how to get started with HDInsight here. Virtual Machines: VM Gallery Enhancements Today’s update of Windows Azure brings with it a new Virtual Machine gallery that you can use to create new VMs in the cloud.  You can launch the gallery by doing New->Compute->Virtual Machine->From Gallery within the Windows Azure Management Portal: The new Virtual Machine Gallery includes some nice enhancements that make it even easier to use: Search: You can now easily search and filter images using the search box in the top-right of the dialog.  For example, simply type “SQL” and we’ll filter to show those images in the gallery that contain that substring. Category Tree-view: Each month we add more built-in VM images to the gallery.  You can continue to browse these using the “All” view within the VM Gallery – or now quickly filter them using the category tree-view on the left-hand side of the dialog.  For example, by selecting “Oracle” in the tree-view you can now quickly filter to see the official Oracle supplied images. MSDN and Supported checkboxes: With today’s update we are also introducing filters that makes it easy to filter out types of images that you may not be interested in. The first checkbox is MSDN: using this filter you can exclude any image that is not part of the Windows Azure benefits for MSDN subscribers (which have highly discounted pricing - you can learn more about the MSDN pricing here). The second checkbox is Supported: this filter will exclude any image that contains prerelease software, so you can feel confident that the software you choose to deploy is fully supported by Windows Azure and our partners. Sort options: We sort gallery images by what we think customers are most interested in, but sometimes you might want to sort using different views. So we’re providing some additional sort options, like “Newest,” to customize the image list for what suits you best. Pricing information: We now provide additional pricing information about images and options on how to cost effectively run them directly within the VM Gallery. The above improvements make it even easier to use the VM Gallery and quickly create launch and run Virtual Machines in the cloud. Virtual Machines: ACL Support for VIPs A few months ago we exposed the ability to configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) for Virtual Machines using Windows PowerShell cmdlets and our Service Management API. With today’s release, you can now configure VM ACLs using the Windows Azure Management Portal as well. You can now do this by clicking the new Manage ACL command in the Endpoints tab of a virtual machine instance: This will enable you to configure an ordered list of permit and deny rules to scope the traffic that can access your VM’s network endpoints. For example, if you were on a virtual network, you could limit RDP access to a Windows Azure virtual machine to only a few computers attached to your enterprise. Or if you weren’t on a virtual network you could alternatively limit traffic from public IPs that can access your workloads: Here is the default behaviors for ACLs in Windows Azure: By default (i.e. no rules specified), all traffic is permitted. When using only Permit rules, all other traffic is denied. When using only Deny rules, all other traffic is permitted. When there is a combination of Permit and Deny rules, all other traffic is denied. Lastly, remember that configuring endpoints does not automatically configure them within the VM if it also has firewall rules enabled at the OS level.  So if you create an endpoint using the Windows Azure Management Portal, Windows PowerShell, or REST API, be sure to also configure your guest VM firewall appropriately as well. Web Sites: Web Sockets Support With today’s release you can now use Web Sockets with Windows Azure Web Sites.  This feature enables you to easily integrate real-time communication scenarios within your web based applications, and is available at no extra charge (it even works with the free tier).  Higher level programming libraries like SignalR and socket.io are also now supported with it. You can enable Web Sockets support on a web site by navigating to the Configure tab of a Web Site, and by toggling Web Sockets support to “on”: Once Web Sockets is enabled you can start to integrate some really cool scenarios into your web applications.  Check out the new SignalR documentation hub on www.asp.net to learn more about some of the awesome scenarios you can do with it. Web Sites: Remote Debugging Support The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 we released two weeks ago introduced remote debugging support for Windows Azure Cloud Services. With today’s Windows Azure release we are extending this remote debugging support to also work with Windows Azure Web Sites. With live, remote debugging support inside of Visual Studio, you are able to have more visibility than ever before into how your code is operating live in Windows Azure. It is now super easy to attach the debugger and quickly see what is going on with your application in the cloud. Remote Debugging of a Windows Azure Web Site using VS 2013 Enabling the remote debugging of a Windows Azure Web Site using VS 2013 is really easy.  Start by opening up your web application’s project within Visual Studio. Then navigate to the “Server Explorer” tab within Visual Studio, and click on the deployed web-site you want to debug that is running within Windows Azure using the Windows Azure->Web Sites node in the Server Explorer.  Then right-click and choose the “Attach Debugger” option on it: When you do this Visual Studio will remotely attach the debugger to the Web Site running within Windows Azure.  The debugger will then stop the web site’s execution when it hits any break points that you have set within your web application’s project inside Visual Studio.  For example, below I set a breakpoint on the “ViewBag.Message” assignment statement within the HomeController of the standard ASP.NET MVC project template.  When I hit refresh on the “About” page of the web site within the browser, the breakpoint was triggered and I am now able to debug the app remotely using Visual Studio: Note above how we can debug variables (including autos/watchlist/etc), as well as use the Immediate and Command Windows. In the debug session above I used the Immediate Window to explore some of the request object state, as well as to dynamically change the ViewBag.Message property.  When we click the the “Continue” button (or press F5) the app will continue execution and the Web Site will render the content back to the browser.  This makes it super easy to debug web apps remotely. Tips for Better Debugging To get the best experience while debugging, we recommend publishing your site using the Debug configuration within Visual Studio’s Web Publish dialog. This will ensure that debug symbol information is uploaded to the Web Site which will enable a richer debug experience within Visual Studio.  You can find this option on the Web Publish dialog on the Settings tab: When you ultimately deploy/run the application in production we recommend using the “Release” configuration setting – the release configuration is memory optimized and will provide the best production performance.  To learn more about diagnosing and debugging Windows Azure Web Sites read our new Troubleshooting Windows Azure Web Sites in Visual Studio guide. Notification Hubs: Segmented Push Notification support with tag expressions In August we announced the General Availability of Windows Azure Notification Hubs - a powerful Mobile Push Notifications service that makes it easy to send high volume push notifications with low latency from any mobile app back-end.  Notification hubs can be used with any mobile app back-end (including ones built using our Mobile Services capability) and can also be used with back-ends that run in the cloud as well as on-premises. Beginning with the initial release, Notification Hubs allowed developers to send personalized push notifications to both individual users as well as groups of users by interest, by associating their devices with tags representing the logical target of the notification. For example, by registering all devices of customers interested in a favorite MLB team with a corresponding tag, it is possible to broadcast one message to millions of Boston Red Sox fans and another message to millions of St. Louis Cardinals fans with a single API call respectively. New support for using tag expressions to enable advanced customer segmentation With today’s release we are adding support for even more advanced customer targeting.  You can now identify customers that you want to send push notifications to by defining rich tag expressions. With tag expressions, you can now not only broadcast notifications to Boston Red Sox fans, but take that segmenting a step farther and reach more granular segments. This opens up a variety of scenarios, for example: Offers based on multiple preferences—e.g. send a game day vegetarian special to users tagged as both a Boston Red Sox fan AND a vegetarian Push content to multiple segments in a single message—e.g. rain delay information only to users who are tagged as either a Boston Red Sox fan OR a St. Louis Cardinal fan Avoid presenting subsets of a segment with irrelevant content—e.g. season ticket availability reminder to users who are tagged as a Boston Red Sox fan but NOT also a season ticket holder To illustrate with code, consider a restaurant chain app that sends an offer related to a Red Sox vs Cardinals game for users in Boston. Devices can be tagged by your app with location tags (e.g. “Loc:Boston”) and interest tags (e.g. “Follows:RedSox”, “Follows:Cardinals”), and then a notification can be sent by your back-end to “(Follows:RedSox || Follows:Cardinals) && Loc:Boston” in order to deliver an offer to all devices in Boston that follow either the RedSox or the Cardinals. This can be done directly in your server backend send logic using the code below: var notification = new WindowsNotification(messagePayload); hub.SendNotificationAsync(notification, "(Follows:RedSox || Follows:Cardinals) && Loc:Boston"); In your expressions you can use all Boolean operators: AND (&&), OR (||), and NOT (!).  Some other cool use cases for tag expressions that are now supported include: Social: To “all my group except me” - group:id && !user:id Events: Touchdown event is sent to everybody following either team or any of the players involved in the action: Followteam:A || Followteam:B || followplayer:1 || followplayer:2 … Hours: Send notifications at specific times. E.g. Tag devices with time zone and when it is 12pm in Seattle send to: GMT8 && follows:thaifood Versions and platforms: Send a reminder to people still using your first version for Android - version:1.0 && platform:Android For help on getting started with Notification Hubs, visit the Notification Hub documentation center.  Then download the latest NuGet package (or use the Notification Hubs REST APIs directly) to start sending push notifications using tag expressions.  They are really powerful and enable a bunch of great new scenarios. TFS & GIT: Continuous Delivery Support for Web Sites + Cloud Services With today’s Windows Azure release we are making it really easy to enable continuous delivery support with Windows Azure and Team Foundation Services.  Team Foundation Services is a cloud based offering from Microsoft that provides integrated source control (with both TFS and Git support), build server, test execution, collaboration tools, and agile planning support.  It makes it really easy to setup a team project (complete with automated builds and test runners) in the cloud, and it has really rich integration with Visual Studio. With today’s Windows Azure release it is now really easy to enable continuous delivery support with both TFS and Git based repositories hosted using Team Foundation Services.  This enables a workflow where when code is checked in, built successfully on an automated build server, and all tests pass on it – I can automatically have the app deployed on Windows Azure with zero manual intervention or work required. The below screen-shots demonstrate how to quickly setup a continuous delivery workflow to Windows Azure with a Git-based ASP.NET MVC project hosted using Team Foundation Services. Enabling Continuous Delivery to Windows Azure with Team Foundation Services The project I’m going to enable continuous delivery with is a simple ASP.NET MVC project whose source code I’m hosting using Team Foundation Services.  I did this by creating a “SimpleContinuousDeploymentTest” repository there using Git – and then used the new built-in Git tooling support within Visual Studio 2013 to push the source code to it.  Below is a screen-shot of the Git repository hosted within Team Foundation Services: I can access the repository within Visual Studio 2013 and easily make commits with it (as well as branch, merge and do other tasks).  Using VS 2013 I can also setup automated builds to take place in the cloud using Team Foundation Services every time someone checks in code to the repository: The cool thing about this is that I don’t have to buy or rent my own build server – Team Foundation Services automatically maintains its own build server farm and can automatically queue up a build for me (for free) every time someone checks in code using the above settings.  This build server (and automated testing) support now works with both TFS and Git based source control repositories. Connecting a Team Foundation Services project to Windows Azure Once I have a source repository hosted in Team Foundation Services with Automated Builds and Testing set up, I can then go even further and set it up so that it will be automatically deployed to Windows Azure when a source code commit is made to the repository (assuming the Build + Tests pass).  Enabling this is now really easy.  To set this up with a Windows Azure Web Site simply use the New->Compute->Web Site->Custom Create command inside the Windows Azure Management Portal.  This will create a dialog like below.  I gave the web site a name and then made sure the “Publish from source control” checkbox was selected: When we click next we’ll be prompted for the location of the source repository.  We’ll select “Team Foundation Services”: Once we do this we’ll be prompted for our Team Foundation Services account that our source repository is hosted under (in this case my TFS account is “scottguthrie”): When we click the “Authorize Now” button we’ll be prompted to give Windows Azure permissions to connect to the Team Foundation Services account.  Once we do this we’ll be prompted to pick the source repository we want to connect to.  Starting with today’s Windows Azure release you can now connect to both TFS and Git based source repositories.  This new support allows me to connect to the “SimpleContinuousDeploymentTest” respository we created earlier: Clicking the finish button will then create the Web Site with the continuous delivery hooks setup with Team Foundation Services.  Now every time someone pushes source control to the repository in Team Foundation Services, it will kick off an automated build, run all of the unit tests in the solution , and if they pass the app will be automatically deployed to our Web Site in Windows Azure.  You can monitor the history and status of these automated deployments using the Deployments tab within the Web Site: This enables a really slick continuous delivery workflow, and enables you to build and deploy apps in a really nice way. Developer Analytics: New Relic support for Web Sites + Mobile Services With today’s Windows Azure release we are making it really easy to enable Developer Analytics and Monitoring support with both Windows Azure Web Site and Windows Azure Mobile Services.  We are partnering with New Relic, who provide a great dev analytics and app performance monitoring offering, to enable this - and we have updated the Windows Azure Management Portal to make it really easy to configure. Enabling New Relic with a Windows Azure Web Site Enabling New Relic support with a Windows Azure Web Site is now really easy.  Simply navigate to the Configure tab of a Web Site and scroll down to the “developer analytics” section that is now within it: Clicking the “add-on” button will display some additional UI.  If you don’t already have a New Relic subscription, you can click the “view windows azure store” button to obtain a subscription (note: New Relic has a perpetually free tier so you can enable it even without paying anything): Clicking the “view windows azure store” button will launch the integrated Windows Azure Store experience we have within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You can use this to browse from a variety of great add-on services – including New Relic: Select “New Relic” within the dialog above, then click the next button, and you’ll be able to choose which type of New Relic subscription you wish to purchase.  For this demo we’ll simply select the “Free Standard Version” – which does not cost anything and can be used forever:  Once we’ve signed-up for our New Relic subscription and added it to our Windows Azure account, we can go back to the Web Site’s configuration tab and choose to use the New Relic add-on with our Windows Azure Web Site.  We can do this by simply selecting it from the “add-on” dropdown (it is automatically populated within it once we have a New Relic subscription in our account): Clicking the “Save” button will then cause the Windows Azure Management Portal to automatically populate all of the needed New Relic configuration settings to our Web Site: Deploying the New Relic Agent as part of a Web Site The final step to enable developer analytics using New Relic is to add the New Relic runtime agent to our web app.  We can do this within Visual Studio by right-clicking on our web project and selecting the “Manage NuGet Packages” context menu: This will bring up the NuGet package manager.  You can search for “New Relic” within it to find the New Relic agent.  Note that there is both a 32-bit and 64-bit edition of it – make sure to install the version that matches how your Web Site is running within Windows Azure (note: you can configure your Web Site to run in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode using the Web Site’s “Configuration” tab within the Windows Azure Management Portal): Once we install the NuGet package we are all set to go.  We’ll simply re-publish the web site again to Windows Azure and New Relic will now automatically start monitoring the application Monitoring a Web Site using New Relic Now that the application has developer analytics support with New Relic enabled, we can launch the New Relic monitoring portal to start monitoring the health of it.  We can do this by clicking on the “Add Ons” tab in the left-hand side of the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Then select the New Relic add-on we signed-up for within it.  The Windows Azure Management Portal will provide some default information about the add-on when we do this.  Clicking the “Manage” button in the tray at the bottom will launch a new browser tab and single-sign us into the New Relic monitoring portal associated with our account: When we do this a new browser tab will launch with the New Relic admin tool loaded within it: We can now see insights into how our app is performing – without having to have written a single line of monitoring code.  The New Relic service provides a ton of great built-in monitoring features allowing us to quickly see: Performance times (including browser rendering speed) for the overall site and individual pages.  You can optionally set alert thresholds to trigger if the speed does not meet a threshold you specify. Information about where in the world your customers are hitting the site from (and how performance varies by region) Details on the latency performance of external services your web apps are using (for example: SQL, Storage, Twitter, etc) Error information including call stack details for exceptions that have occurred at runtime SQL Server profiling information – including which queries executed against your database and what their performance was And a whole bunch more… The cool thing about New Relic is that you don’t need to write monitoring code within your application to get all of the above reports (plus a lot more).  The New Relic agent automatically enables the CLR profiler within applications and automatically captures the information necessary to identify these.  This makes it super easy to get started and immediately have a rich developer analytics view for your solutions with very little effort. If you haven’t tried New Relic out yet with Windows Azure I recommend you do so – I think you’ll find it helps you build even better cloud applications.  Following the above steps will help you get started and deliver you a really good application monitoring solution in only minutes. Service Bus: Support for partitioned queues and topics With today’s release, we are enabling support within Service Bus for partitioned queues and topics. Enabling partitioning enables you to achieve a higher message throughput and better availability from your queues and topics. Higher message throughput is achieved by implementing multiple message brokers for each partitioned queue and topic.  The  multiple messaging stores will also provide higher availability. You can create a partitioned queue or topic by simply checking the Enable Partitioning option in the custom create wizard for a Queue or Topic: Read this article to learn more about partitioned queues and topics and how to take advantage of them today. Billing: New Billing Alert Service Today’s Windows Azure update enables a new Billing Alert Service Preview that enables you to get proactive email notifications when your Windows Azure bill goes above a certain monetary threshold that you configure.  This makes it easier to manage your bill and avoid potential surprises at the end of the month. With the Billing Alert Service Preview, you can now create email alerts to monitor and manage your monetary credits or your current bill total.  To set up an alert first sign-up for the free Billing Alert Service Preview.  Then visit the account management page, click on a subscription you have setup, and then navigate to the new Alerts tab that is available: The alerts tab allows you to setup email alerts that will be sent automatically once a certain threshold is hit.  For example, by clicking the “add alert” button above I can setup a rule to send myself email anytime my Windows Azure bill goes above $100 for the month: The Billing Alert Service will evolve to support additional aspects of your bill as well as support multiple forms of alerts such as SMS.  Try out the new Billing Alert Service Preview today and give us feedback. Summary Today’s Windows Azure release enables a ton of great new scenarios, and makes building applications hosted in the cloud even easier. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• The Other "C" in CRM

  - by Brian Dayton

  Folks who know me know that I rarely, if ever, talk politics. And I never talk politicians. Having grown up in a household with one parent leaning left and the other leaning to the right it was the best way to keep the peace. This isn't about politics. It's about "constituents" and the need to improve the services and service levels for people--at the city, county, state/province, etc. level all the way up to national governments. As a citizen and tax payer it's also important to me that these services be provided at a reasonable cost. If there's a better and more efficient way to do something then it's my hope that a public sector organization takes advantage of technology the same way private sector companies do. Social services organizations have a complex job. They provide the services that people need, from healthcare and children's assistance to helping people find jobs. But many of these organizations are still managing these processes manually or outdated, home-grown applications that could have been written up to 30 years ago. A lot has changed in technology. On the (this is as political as I'm going to get) political front, stakeholders like you and me are expecting greater transparency on where and how funds are spent. I'll admit that most of the time, when I think about CRM systems, I think about my experience as a customer of my bank, utilities company or cable operator. But now that I'm older, have children and a house--I find myself interacting more and more with agencies and services organizations. My experiences are sometimes good and sometimes not so good. Along those lines, last week's announcement of Siebel CRM 8.2 for Public Sector caught my eye. You may not work in the public sector, but you are a constituent of some--actually a lot--of public sector organizations. I don't know which CRM systems city and county utilize but I'm going to start paying closer attention.

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• How to tunnel a local port onto a remote server

  - by Trevor Rudolph

  I have a domain that i bought from DynDNS. I pointed the domain at my ip adress so i can run servers. The problem I have is that I don't live near the server computer... Can I use an ssh tunnel? As I understand it, this will let me access to my servers. I want the remote computer to direct traffic from port 8080 over the ssh tunnel to the ssh client, being my laptop's port 80. Is this possible? EDIT: verbose output of tunnel macbookpro:~ trevor$ ssh -R *:8080:localhost:80 -N [email protected] -v OpenSSH_5.2p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8r 8 Feb 2011 debug1: Reading configuration data /Users/trevor/.ssh/config debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config debug1: Connecting to site.com [remote ip address] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /Users/trevor/.ssh/identity type -1 debug1: identity file /Users/trevor/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /Users/trevor/.ssh/id_dsa type 2 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5ubuntu1 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5ubuntu1 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.2 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Host 'site.com' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /Users/trevor/.ssh/known_hosts:9 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Trying private key: /Users/trevor/.ssh/identity debug1: Trying private key: /Users/trevor/.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Offering public key: /Users/trevor/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password debug1: Next authentication method: password [email protected]'s password: debug1: Authentication succeeded (password). debug1: Remote connections from *:8080 forwarded to local address localhost:80 debug1: Requesting [email protected] debug1: Entering interactive session. debug1: remote forward success for: listen 8080, connect localhost:80 debug1: All remote forwarding requests processed

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• Error installing Sony Remote Play

  - by Iszi Rory or Isznti

  I'm trying to install Remote Play software to connect my laptop to my PS3. I've found a guide with instructions which seem to be in fairly wide use (found similar walk-throughs on numerous other sites), for running the software on a non-Vaio PC. Tech-Recipies: Playstation 3 – Use Remote Play on any Windows 7 PC The setup essentially goes like this: Download Remote Play software. Download patch by NTAuthority. Install Remote Play as normal. Reboot. Extract NTAuthority patch to Remote Play program folder. Manually register patched DLLs via CLI. Run Remote Play software. Sadly, my problem is early in - Step 3. I had to use Google to find the software download, as the link from Tech-Recipies seems broken. I found the download on Sony's site here: Sony eSupport: Remote Play with PlayStation®3 After downloading and running the software, I hit "Next" at the welcome screen and "I Agree" at the EULA screen. After this, a popup informs me that Setup is checking my computer's information. Then, Setup terminates with this error: I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Is anyone familiar with this error in this software? Is there a way to work around it? Did I perhaps pick the wrong download from Sony's site?

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• SOA Governance Starts with People and Processes

  - by Jyothi Swaroop

  While we all agree that SOA Governance is about People, Processes and Technology. Some experts are of the opinion that SOA Governance begins with People and Processes but needs to be empowered with technology to achieve the best results. Here's an interesting piece from David Linthicum on eBizq: In the world of SOA, the concept of SOA governance is getting a lot of attention. However, how SOA governance is defined and implemented really depends on the SOA governance vendor who just left the building within most enterprises. Indeed, confusion is a huge issue when considering SOA governance, and the core issues are more about the fundamentals of people and processes, and not about the technology. SOA governance is a concept used for activities related to exercising control over services in an SOA, including tracking the services, monitoring the service, and controlling changes made to the services, simple put. The trouble comes in when SOA governance vendors attempt to define SOA governance around their technology, all with different approaches to SOA governance. Thus, it's important that those building SOAs within the enterprise take a step back and understand what really need to support the concept of SOA governance. The value of SOA governance is pretty simple. Since services make up the foundation of an SOA, and are at their essence the behavior and information from existing systems externalized, it's critical to make sure that those accessing, creating, and changing services do so using a well controlled and orderly mechanism. Those of you, who already have governance in place, typically around enterprise architecture efforts, will be happy to know that SOA governance does not replace those processes, but becomes a mechanism within the larger enterprise governance concept. People and processes are first thing on the list to get under control before you begin to toss technology at this problem. This means establishing an understanding of SOA governance within the team members, including why it's important, who's involved, and the core processes that are to be follow to make SOA governance work. Indeed, when creating the core SOA governance strategy should really be independent of the technology. The technology will change over the years, but the core processes and discipline should be relatively durable over time.

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• Connecting to server from remote machine

  - by Jannat Arora

  I wish to connect my machine to a server in some other city. For doing the same I am using the following command: mstsc -v ip_address_of_server remote desktop can't connect to remote computer for one of these reasons: 1) Remote access to server is not enabled. 2) Remote computer is turned off 3) Remote computer is not available on network. Make sure remote computer is turned on and connected to the network, and that remote access is enabled. As per previous posts I need to turn off my client computers firewall..which I have...but still it gives me the same message. Can someone please please help me out...so as to how i may resolve this?? I am really new to networking, etc. Also when i am pinging: ping ip_address_of server I am getting the following response: Reply from ip_address_of_server: destination host unreachable Also I did try on ubuntu with rdesktop...still its not been able to connect with it. Also i know there are other people who are able to connect their machines with the server remotely. So i guess its not working for me only. Also when I accessed the same machine through LAN I was able to do so.

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• Finding the Right Solution to Source and Manage Your Contractors

  - by mark.rosenberg(at)oracle.com

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

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