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• How do I efficiently parse a CSV file in Perl?

  - by Mike

  I'm working on a project that involves parsing a large csv formatted file in Perl and am looking to make things more efficient. My approach has been to split() the file by lines first, and then split() each line again by commas to get the fields. But this suboptimal since at least two passes on the data are required. (once to split by lines, then once again for each line). This is a very large file, so cutting processing in half would be a significant improvement to the entire application. My question is, what is the most time efficient means of parsing a large CSV file using only built in tools? note: Each line has a varying number of tokens, so we can't just ignore lines and split by commas only. Also we can assume fields will contain only alphanumeric ascii data (no special characters or other tricks). Also, i don't want to get into parallel processing, although it might work effectively. edit It can only involve built-in tools that ship with Perl 5.8. For bureaucratic reasons, I cannot use any third party modules (even if hosted on cpan) another edit Let's assume that our solution is only allowed to deal with the file data once it is entirely loaded into memory. yet another edit I just grasped how stupid this question is. Sorry for wasting your time. Voting to close.

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• Was Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 written to use multi cores?

  - by Erx_VB.NExT.Coder

  basically i want to know if the visual studio IDE and/or compiler in 2010 was written to make use of a multi core environment (i understand we can target multi core environments in 08 and 10, but that is not my question). i am trying to decide on if i should get a higher clock dual core or a lower clock quad core, as i want to try and figure out which processor will give me the absolute best possible experience with Visual Studio 2010 (ide and background compiler). if they are running the most important section (background compiler and other ide tasks) in one core, then the core will get cut off quicker if running a quad core, esp if background compiler is the heaviest task, i would imagine this would b e difficult to seperate in more then one process, so even if it uses multi cores you might still be better off with going for a higher clock cpu if the majority of the processing is still bound to occur in one core (ie the most significant part of the VS environment). i am a vb programmer, they've made great performance improvements in beta 2, congrats, but i would love to be able to use VS seamlessly... anyone have any ideas? thanks, erx

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• Parallel doseq for Clojure

  - by andrew cooke

  I haven't used multithreading in Clojure at all so am unsure where to start. I have a doseq whose body can run in parallel. What I'd like is for there always to be 3 threads running (leaving 1 core free) that evaluate the body in parallel until the range is exhausted. There's no shared state, nothing complicated - the equivalent of Python's multiprocessing would be just fine. So something like: (dopar 3 [i (range 100)] ; repeated 100 times in 3 parallel threads... ...) Where should I start looking? Is there a command for this? A standard package? A good reference? So far I have found pmap, and could use that (how do I restrict to 3 at a time? looks like it uses 32 at a time - no, source says 2 + number of processors), but it seems like this is a basic primitive that should already exist somewhere. clarification: I really would like to control the number of threads. I have processes that are long-running and use a fair amount of memory, so creating a large number and hoping things work out OK isn't a good approach (example which uses a significant chunk available mem). update: Starting to write a macro that does this, and I need a semaphore (or a mutex, or an atom i can wait on). Do semaphores exist in Clojure? Or should I use a ThreadPoolExecutor? It seems odd to have to pull so much in from Java - I thought parallel programming in Clojure was supposed to be easy... Maybe I am thinking about this completely the wrong way? Hmmm. Agents?

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• Expose webservice directly to webclients or keep a thin server-side script layer in between?

  - by max

  Hi, I'm developing a REST webservice (Java, Jersey). The people I'm doing this for want to directly access the webservice via Javascript. Some instinct tells me this is not a good idea, but I cannot really explain that instinct. My natural approach would have been to have the webservice do the real logic and database access, but also have some (relatively thin) server-side script layer (e.g. in PHP). Clients would talk to the PHP layer which in turn would talk to the webservice. (The webservice would be pretty local to the apache/PHP server and implicitly trust calls from the script layer. The script layer would take care of session management.) (Btw, I am not talking about just hiding the webservice behind an Apache which simply redirects calls.) But as I find myself at a lack of words/arguments to explain my instinct, I wonder whether my instinct is right - note that while I have been developing all kinds of software in all kinds of languages and frameworks for like 17 years, this is the first time I develop a webservice. So my question is basically: what are your opinions? Are there any standard setups? Is my instinct totally wrong? Or partially? ;P Many thanks, Max PS: I might add a few bits of information about the planned usage of the whole application: will be accessed by different kinds of users, partly general public, partly privileged thus, all major OS/browser combinations can be expected as clients however, writing the client is not my responsibility will potentially have very high load/traffic logic of webservice will later be massively expanded for another product which is basically a superset of the functionality of the current project there is a significant likelihood that at some point an API should be exposed which can be used by 3rd party developers - obviously, with some restrictions at some point, the public view of the product should become accessible via smartphones, too (in other words, maybe a customized version of the site to adapt to the smaller display and different input methods)

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• Should '#include' and 'using' statements be repeated in both header and implementation files (C++)?

  - by Dr. Monkey

  I'm fairly new to C++, but my understanding is that a #include statement will essentially just dump the contents of the #included file into the location of that statement. This means that if I have a number of '#include' and 'using' statements in my header file, my implementation file can just #include the header file, and the compiler won't mind if I don't repeat the other statements. What about people though? My main concern is that if I don't repeat the '#include', 'using', and also 'typedef' (now that I think of it) statements, it takes that information away from the file in which it's used, which could lead to confusion. I am just working on small projects at the moment where it won't really cause any issues, but I can imagine that in larger projects with more people working on them it could become a significant issue. An example follows: //Unit.h #include <string> #include <ostream> #include "StringSet.h" using std::string; using std::ostream; class Unit { public: //public members private: //private members //unrelated side-question: should private members //even be included in the header file? } ; //Unit.cpp #include "Unit.h" //The following are all redundant from a compiler perspective: #include <string> #include <ostream> #include "StringSet.h" using std::string; using std::ostream; //implementation goes here

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• First-time software contractor, building a system for a multi-site client; who should own the intell

  - by matthew

  I'm very new to software contracting; this is my first project. I've just built a point-of-sale software system for a client, and neither of us put a lot of work into the contract. I wrote that the software was "jointly owned" with exclusive license for use given to the client. The client is using it at one store and is very pleased with it. The client is also planning to expand to numerous stores over time, and wants to use it in every store. The client also now wants full ownership of the software, with me as the exclusive developer. I am very hesitant to allow this, and I am seeking previous experience. Should I sell the IP but demand royalties for every site at which it's installed? Should I demand royalties for every sale made using the software? Should I really start talking to a lawyer? A couple of other details: in terms of risk, it is fair to say that the client is assuming the risk, but the client is now using the software and exclaiming how great it is (and so I assume, how it is improving business). Also, the software is tailored to the client specifically, but could, with a bit of work, be repackaged and resold to other clients. Even if the client owned the IP I would certainly want to make sure that I then did have (significant) royalties on such sales.

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• Build OpenGL model in parallel?

  - by Brendan Long

  I have a program which draws some terrain and simulates water flowing over it (in a cheap and easy way). Updating the water was easy to parallelize using OpenMP, so I can do ~50 updates per second. The problem is that even with a small amounts of water, my draws per second are very very low (starts at 5 and drops to around 2 once there's a significant amount of water). It's not a problem with the video card because the terrain is more complicated and gets drawn so quickly that boost::timer tells me that I get infinity draws per second if I turn the water off. It may be related to memory bandwidth though (since I assume the model stays on the card and doesn't have to be transfered every time). What I'm concerned about is that on every draw, I'm calling glVertex3f() about a million times (max size is 450*600, 4 vertices each), and it's done entirely sequentially because Glut won't let me call anything in parallel. So.. is if there's some way of building the list in parallel and then passing it to OpenGL all at once? Or some other way of making it draw this faster? Am I using the wrong method (besides the obvious "use less vertices")?

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• Whether to put method code in a VB.Net data storage class, or put it in a separate class?

  - by Alan K

  TLDR summary: (a) Should I include (lengthy) method code in classes which may spawn multiple objects at runtime, (b) does doing so cause memory usage bloat, (c) if so should I "outsource" the code to a class that is loaded only once and have the class methods call that, or alternatively (d) does the code get loaded only once with the object definition anyway and I'm worrying about nothing? ........ I don't know whether there's a good answer to this but if there is I haven't found it yet by searching in the usual places. In my VB.Net (2010 if it matters) WinForms project I have about a dozen or so class objects in an object model. Some of these are pretty simple and do little more than act as data storage repositories. The ones further up the object model, however, have an increasing number of methods. There can be a significant number of higher level objects in use though the exact number will be runtime dependent so I can't be more precise than that. As I was writing the method code for one of the top level ones I noticed that it was starting to get quite lengthy. Memory optimisation is something of a lost art given how much memory the average PC has these days but I don't want to make my application a resource hog. So my questions for anyone who knows .Net way better than I do (of which there will be many) are: Is the code loaded into memory with each instance of the class that's created? Alternatively is it loaded only once with the definition of the class, and all derived objects just refer to that definition? (I'm not really sure how that could be possible given that, for example, event handlers can be assigned dynamically, but no harm asking.) If the answer to the first one is yes, would it be more efficient to write the code in a "utility" object which is loaded only once and called from the real class' methods? Any thoughts appreciated.

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• Page Entirely Blank Despite Having Source Code! (TinyMCE, FireFox)

  - by Chris Cooper

  Alright guys, here's a tough one... In reference to this page. The page will seemingly randomly not display the output of server when using Firefox (version 3.5). I have not seen this problem occur in Safari or IE. The best way to have the problem occur is just reload the page about 10 times and it ought to have happened by then, and once it does - it'll continue on subsequent refreshes until you change the page. The problem is literally the browser not displaying the output (code). Viewing the source shows all the appropriate code yet the browser displays a blank white page. The web developer and firebug plugins don't show any errors that would indicate the problem. I have tested this on a separate system and OS and it occurs in Firefox on that system as well. The problem did not occur until after TinyMCE (A Rich Text Editor JavaScript library for textareas) was added to the project. TinyMCE works however, where it should. I know this is a confusing problem, but I am completely lost as to what could be causing this significant issue. Thanks in advance. EDIT: If it's any help... I've noticed that if I cause a css file error by changing a stylesheet source to something non-existant (xxx.css), the page will continuously display without a problem (besides whatever related css not showing due to the src change). I've also noticed that causing any simple javascript error with some bad code will cause the page to load properly continuously (besides of course javascript not running on the page). EDIT#2: Moving all <script> tags down at the tail of the <body> 'fixes' (well, hides) this error and the page shows normally. A band-aid.

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• Multithreading for loop while maintaining order

  - by David

  I started messing around with multithreading for a CPU intensive batch process I'm running. Essentially I'm trying to condense multiple single page tiffs into single PDF documents. This works fine with a foreach loop or standard iteration but can be very slow for several 100 page documents. I tried the following based on a some examples I found to use multithreading and it has significant performance improvements however it obliterates the page order instead of 1,2,3,4 it will be 1,3,4,2,6,5 on what thread completes first. My question is how would I utilize this technique while maintaining the page order and if I can will it negate the performance benefit of the multithreading? Thank you in advance. PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument(); string mail = textBox1.Text; string[] split = mail.Split(new string[] { Environment.NewLine }, StringSplitOptions.None); int counter = split.Count(); // Source must be array or IList. var source = Enumerable.Range(0, 100000).ToArray(); // Partition the entire source array. var rangePartitioner = Partitioner.Create(0, counter); double[] results = new double[counter]; // Loop over the partitions in parallel. Parallel.ForEach(rangePartitioner, (range, loopState) => { // Loop over each range element without a delegate invocation. for (int i = range.Item1; i < range.Item2; i++) { f_prime = split[i].Replace(" " , ""); PdfPage page = doc.AddPage(); XGraphics gfx = XGraphics.FromPdfPage(page); XImage image = XImage.FromFile(f_prime); double x = 0; gfx.DrawImage(image, x, 0); } });

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• Optimizing near-duplicate value search

  - by GApple

  I'm trying to find near duplicate values in a set of fields in order to allow an administrator to clean them up. There are two criteria that I am matching on One string is wholly contained within the other, and is at least 1/4 of its length The strings have an edit distance less than 5% of the total length of the two strings The Pseudo-PHP code: foreach($values as $value){ foreach($values as $match){ if( ( $value['length'] < $match['length'] && $value['length'] * 4 > $match['length'] && stripos($match['value'], $value['value']) !== false ) || ( $match['length'] < $value['length'] && $match['length'] * 4 > $value['length'] && stripos($value['value'], $match['value']) !== false ) || ( abs($value['length'] - $match['length']) * 20 < ($value['length'] + $match['length']) && 0 < ($match['changes'] = levenshtein($value['value'], $match['value'])) && $match['changes'] * 20 <= ($value['length'] + $match['length']) ) ){ $matches[] = &$match; } } } I've tried to reduce calls to the comparatively expensive stripos and levenshtein functions where possible, which has reduced the execution time quite a bit. However, as an O(n^2) operation this just doesn't scale to the larger sets of values and it seems that a significant amount of the processing time is spent simply iterating through the arrays. Some properties of a few sets of values being operated on Total | Strings | # of matches per string | | Strings | With Matches | Average | Median | Max | Time (s) | --------+--------------+---------+--------+------+----------+ 844 | 413 | 1.8 | 1 | 58 | 140 | 593 | 156 | 1.2 | 1 | 5 | 62 | 272 | 168 | 3.2 | 2 | 26 | 10 | 157 | 47 | 1.5 | 1 | 4 | 3.2 | 106 | 48 | 1.8 | 1 | 8 | 1.3 | 62 | 47 | 2.9 | 2 | 16 | 0.4 | Are there any other things I can do to reduce the time to check criteria, and more importantly are there any ways for me to reduce the number of criteria checks required (for example, by pre-processing the input values), since there is such low selectivity?

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• Application HANGS UP if 3G connection is used (WiFi is OK)

  - by SkyEagle888

  Hi, My application uses the following codes to connect to web site and download a web page for processing. HttpURLConnection c = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection(); c.setRequestMethod("GET"); c.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Mozilla/3.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0; Windows NT)"); c.setRequestProperty("Accept-Language", "zh-hk"); c.setRequestProperty("Connection", "Keep-Alive"); c.setConnectTimeout(6000); // mTimeout is in seconds intTries = 3; do { c.connect(); if (c.getResponseCode() == 200) { break; } else { intTries --; } } while (intTries > 0); The codes are run in main thread only. If WiFi is being used, it is nice and clean. If 3G connection is being used, sometimes, it cannot get connected OR application HANGS. Is there any significant difference between handling WiFi and 3G ? Thanks.

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• Fastest method to define whether a number is a triangular number

  - by psihodelia

  A triangular number is the sum of the n natural numbers from 1 to n. What is the fastest method to find whether a given positive integer number is a triangular one? I suppose, there must be a hidden pattern in a binary representation of such numbers (like if you need to find whether a number is even/odd you check its least significant bit). Here is a cut of the first 1200th up to 1300th triangular numbers, you can easily see a bit-pattern here (if not, try to zoom out): (720600, '10101111111011011000') (721801, '10110000001110001001') (723003, '10110000100000111011') (724206, '10110000110011101110') (725410, '10110001000110100010') (726615, '10110001011001010111') (727821, '10110001101100001101') (729028, '10110001111111000100') (730236, '10110010010001111100') (731445, '10110010100100110101') (732655, '10110010110111101111') (733866, '10110011001010101010') (735078, '10110011011101100110') (736291, '10110011110000100011') (737505, '10110100000011100001') (738720, '10110100010110100000') (739936, '10110100101001100000') (741153, '10110100111100100001') (742371, '10110101001111100011') (743590, '10110101100010100110') (744810, '10110101110101101010') (746031, '10110110001000101111') (747253, '10110110011011110101') (748476, '10110110101110111100') (749700, '10110111000010000100') (750925, '10110111010101001101') (752151, '10110111101000010111') (753378, '10110111111011100010') (754606, '10111000001110101110') (755835, '10111000100001111011') (757065, '10111000110101001001') (758296, '10111001001000011000') (759528, '10111001011011101000') (760761, '10111001101110111001') (761995, '10111010000010001011') (763230, '10111010010101011110') (764466, '10111010101000110010') (765703, '10111010111100000111') (766941, '10111011001111011101') (768180, '10111011100010110100') (769420, '10111011110110001100') (770661, '10111100001001100101') (771903, '10111100011100111111') (773146, '10111100110000011010') (774390, '10111101000011110110') (775635, '10111101010111010011') (776881, '10111101101010110001') (778128, '10111101111110010000') (779376, '10111110010001110000') (780625, '10111110100101010001') (781875, '10111110111000110011') (783126, '10111111001100010110') (784378, '10111111011111111010') (785631, '10111111110011011111') (786885, '11000000000111000101') (788140, '11000000011010101100') (789396, '11000000101110010100') (790653, '11000001000001111101') (791911, '11000001010101100111') (793170, '11000001101001010010') (794430, '11000001111100111110') (795691, '11000010010000101011') (796953, '11000010100100011001') (798216, '11000010111000001000') (799480, '11000011001011111000') (800745, '11000011011111101001') (802011, '11000011110011011011') (803278, '11000100000111001110') (804546, '11000100011011000010') (805815, '11000100101110110111') (807085, '11000101000010101101') (808356, '11000101010110100100') (809628, '11000101101010011100') (810901, '11000101111110010101') (812175, '11000110010010001111') (813450, '11000110100110001010') (814726, '11000110111010000110') (816003, '11000111001110000011') (817281, '11000111100010000001') (818560, '11000111110110000000') (819840, '11001000001010000000') (821121, '11001000011110000001') (822403, '11001000110010000011') (823686, '11001001000110000110') (824970, '11001001011010001010') (826255, '11001001101110001111') (827541, '11001010000010010101') (828828, '11001010010110011100') (830116, '11001010101010100100') (831405, '11001010111110101101') (832695, '11001011010010110111') (833986, '11001011100111000010') (835278, '11001011111011001110') (836571, '11001100001111011011') (837865, '11001100100011101001') (839160, '11001100110111111000') (840456, '11001101001100001000') (841753, '11001101100000011001') (843051, '11001101110100101011') (844350, '11001110001000111110') For example, can you also see a rotated normal distribution curve, represented by zeros between 807085 and 831405?

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• Radiobutton validation.

  - by _sh

  The question is on the client side validation using java script. Significant parts of the program related to the question are given below.. ... <form name="results" action="" method="post"> ... <input type="radio" name="id" value="<%= id_edit %>" /> <!-- Don't bother about id_edit --> .... <input type="button" name="Edit" value="Edit" onclick="invoke(0)"><input type="button" name="Delete" value="Delete" onclick="return invoke(1)"> .... The script, function invoke(btn) { if(btn == 0) document.results.action="gev.do"; if(btn == 1) document.results.action="del.do"; document.results.submit(); } What basically i do is, depending on the selection of button, i pass a value to the servlet, either for updation or deletion. My question is, how can i validate the radiobutton, ie, i can any one help me out writing the js to validate if any one of the radio button is selected. All my efforts are in vein and i now use server side validation.

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• Are "strings.xml" string arrays always parsed/deserialized in the same order?

  - by PhilaPhan80

  Can I count on string arrays within the "strings.xml" resource file to be parsed/deserialized in the same order every time? If anyone can cite any documentation that clearly spells out this guarantee, I'd appreciate it. Or, at the very least, offer a significant amount of experience with this topic. Also, is this a best practice or am I missing a simpler solution? Note: This will be a small list, so I'm not looking to implement a more complicated database or custom XML solution unless I absolutely have to. <!--KEYS (ALWAYS CORRESPONDS TO LIST BELOW ??)--> <string-array name="keys"> <item>1</item> <item>2</item> <item>3</item> </string-array> <!--VALUES (ALWAYS CORRESPONDS TO LIST ABOVE ??)--> <string-array name="values"> <item>one</item> <item>two</item> <item>three</item> </string-array>

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• Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

  - by raul.goycoolea

  @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Abstract   Reference architecture provides needed architectural information that can be provided in advance to an enterprise to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps business owners to actualize their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. It evaluates the IT systems, based on Reference Architecture goals, principles, and standards. It helps to reduce IT costs by increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc. Telecom Reference Architecture provides customers with the flexibility to view bundled service bills online with the provision of multiple services. It provides real-time, flexible billing and charging systems, to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Enterprises. It lays the foundation for a Telecom Reference Architecture by articulating the requirements, drivers, and pitfalls for telecom service providers. It describes generic reference architecture for telecom enterprises and moves on to explain how to achieve Enterprise Reference Architecture by using SOA.   Introduction   A Reference Architecture provides a methodology, set of practices, template, and standards based on a set of successful solutions implemented earlier. These solutions have been generalized and structured for the depiction of both a logical and a physical architecture, based on the harvesting of a set of patterns that describe observations in a number of successful implementations. It helps as a reference for the various architectures that an enterprise can implement to solve various problems. It can be used as the starting point or the point of comparisons for various departments/business entities of a company, or for the various companies for an enterprise. It provides multiple views for multiple stakeholders.   Major artifacts of the Enterprise Reference Architecture are methodologies, standards, metadata, documents, design patterns, etc.   Purpose of Reference Architecture   In most cases, architects spend a lot of time researching, investigating, defining, and re-arguing architectural decisions. It is like reinventing the wheel as their peers in other organizations or even the same organization have already spent a lot of time and effort defining their own architectural practices. This prevents an organization from learning from its own experiences and applying that knowledge for increased effectiveness.   Reference architecture provides missing architectural information that can be provided in advance to project team members to enable consistent architectural best practices.   Enterprise Reference Architecture helps an enterprise to achieve the following at the abstract level:   ·       Reference architecture is more of a communication channel to an enterprise ·       Helps the business owners to accommodate to their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. ·       Evaluates the IT systems based on Reference Architecture Principles ·       Reduces IT spending through increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc ·       A Real-time Integration Model helps to reduce the latency of the data updates Is used to define a single source of Information ·       Provides a clear view on how to manage information and security ·       Defines the policy around the data ownership, product boundaries, etc. ·       Helps with cost optimization across project and solution portfolios by eliminating unused or duplicate investments and assets ·       Has a shorter implementation time and cost   Once the reference architecture is in place, the set of architectural principles, standards, reference models, and best practices ensure that the aligned investments have the greatest possible likelihood of success in both the near term and the long term (TCO).     Common pitfalls for Telecom Service Providers   Telecom Reference Architecture serves as the first step towards maturity for a telecom service provider. During the course of our assignments/experiences with telecom players, we have come across the following observations – Some of these indicate a lack of maturity of the telecom service provider:   ·       In markets that are growing and not so mature, it has been observed that telcos have a significant amount of in-house or home-grown applications. In some of these markets, the growth has been so rapid that IT has been unable to cope with business demands. Telcos have shown a tendency to come up with workarounds in their IT applications so as to meet business needs. ·       Even for core functions like provisioning or mediation, some telcos have tried to manage with home-grown applications. ·       Most of the applications do not have the required scalability or maintainability to sustain growth in volumes or functionality. ·       Applications face interoperability issues with other applications in the operator's landscape. Integrating a new application or network element requires considerable effort on the part of the other applications. ·       Application boundaries are not clear, and functionality that is not in the initial scope of that application gets pushed onto it. This results in the development of the multiple, small applications without proper boundaries. ·       Usage of Legacy OSS/BSS systems, poor Integration across Multiple COTS Products and Internal Systems. Most of the Integrations are developed on ad-hoc basis and Point-to-Point Integration. ·       Redundancy of the business functions in different applications • Fragmented data across the different applications and no integrated view of the strategic data • Lot of performance Issues due to the usage of the complex integration across OSS and BSS systems   However, this is where the maturity of the telecom industry as a whole can be of help. The collaborative efforts of telcos to overcome some of these problems have resulted in bodies like the TM Forum. They have come up with frameworks for business processes, data, applications, and technology for telecom service providers. These could be a good starting point for telcos to clean up their enterprise landscape.   Industry Trends in Telecom Reference Architecture   Telecom reference architectures are evolving rapidly because telcos are facing business and IT challenges.   “The reality is that there probably is no killer application, no silver bullet that the telcos can latch onto to carry them into a 21st Century.... Instead, there are probably hundreds – perhaps thousands – of niche applications.... And the only way to find which of these works for you is to try out lots of them, ramp up the ones that work, and discontinue the ones that fail.” – Martin Creaner President & CTO TM Forum.   The following trends have been observed in telecom reference architecture:   ·       Transformation of business structures to align with customer requirements ·       Adoption of more Internet-like technical architectures. The Web 2.0 concept is increasingly being used. ·       Virtualization of the traditional operations support system (OSS) ·       Adoption of SOA to support development of IP-based services ·       Adoption of frameworks like Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and IP Multimedia Subsystem ·       (IMS) to enable seamless deployment of various services over fixed and mobile networks ·       Replacement of in-house, customized, and stove-piped OSS/BSS with standards-based COTS products ·       Compliance with industry standards and frameworks like eTOM, SID, and TAM to enable seamless integration with other standards-based products   Drivers of Reference Architecture   The drivers of the Reference Architecture are Reference Architecture Goals, Principles, and Enterprise Vision and Telecom Transformation. The details are depicted below diagram. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Figure 1. Drivers for Reference Architecture @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Today’s telecom reference architectures should seamlessly integrate traditional legacy-based applications and transition to next-generation network technologies (e.g., IP multimedia subsystems). This has resulted in new requirements for flexible, real-time billing and OSS/BSS systems and implications on the service provider’s organizational requirements and structure.   Telecom reference architectures are today expected to:   ·       Integrate voice, messaging, email and other VAS over fixed and mobile networks, back end systems ·       Be able to provision multiple services and service bundles • Deliver converged voice, video and data services ·       Leverage the existing Network Infrastructure ·       Provide real-time, flexible billing and charging systems to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. ·       Support charging of advanced data services such as VoIP, On-Demand, Services (e.g.  Video), IMS/SIP Services, Mobile Money, Content Services and IPTV. ·       Help in faster deployment of new services • Serve as an effective platform for collaboration between network IT and business organizations ·       Harness the potential of converging technology, networks, devices and content to develop multimedia services and solutions of ever-increasing sophistication on a single Internet Protocol (IP) ·       Ensure better service delivery and zero revenue leakage through real-time balance and credit management ·       Lower operating costs to drive profitability   Enterprise Reference Architecture   The Enterprise Reference Architecture (RA) fills the gap between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the reference model and the implementation. Reference architecture provides detailed architectural information in a common format such that solutions can be repeatedly designed and deployed in a consistent, high-quality, supportable fashion. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Application Usage and how to achieve the Enterprise Level Reference Architecture using SOA.   • Telecom Reference Architecture • Enterprise SOA based Reference Architecture   Telecom Reference Architecture   Tele Management Forum’s New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) is an architectural framework for organizing, integrating, and implementing telecom systems. NGOSS is a component-based framework consisting of the following elements:   ·       The enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) is a business process framework. ·       The Shared Information Data (SID) model provides a comprehensive information framework that may be specialized for the needs of a particular organization. ·       The Telecom Application Map (TAM) is an application framework to depict the functional footprint of applications, relative to the horizontal processes within eTOM. ·       The Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA) is an integrated framework. TNA is an architecture that is sustainable through technology changes.   NGOSS Architecture Standards are:   ·       Centralized data ·       Loosely coupled distributed systems ·       Application components/re-use  ·       A technology-neutral system framework with technology specific implementations ·       Interoperability to service provider data/processes ·       Allows more re-use of business components across multiple business scenarios ·       Workflow automation   The traditional operator systems architecture consists of four layers,   ·       Business Support System (BSS) layer, with focus toward customers and business partners. Manages order, subscriber, pricing, rating, and billing information. ·       Operations Support System (OSS) layer, built around product, service, and resource inventories. ·       Networks layer – consists of Network elements and 3rd Party Systems. ·       Integration Layer – to maximize application communication and overall solution flexibility.   Reference architecture for telecom enterprises is depicted below. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 2. Telecom Reference Architecture   The major building blocks of any Telecom Service Provider architecture are as follows:   1. Customer Relationship Management   CRM encompasses the end-to-end lifecycle of the customer: customer initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering, and service activation, customer care and support, proactive campaigns, cross sell/up sell, and retention/loyalty.   CRM also includes the collection of customer information and its application to personalize, customize, and integrate delivery of service to a customer, as well as to identify opportunities for increasing the value of the customer to the enterprise.   The key functionalities related to Customer Relationship Management are   ·       Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of a customer request for products. ·       Create and manage customer profiles. ·       Manage all interactions with customers – inquiries, requests, and responses. ·       Provide updates to Billing and other south bound systems on customer/account related updates such as customer/ account creation, deletion, modification, request bills, final bill, duplicate bills, credit limits through Middleware. ·       Work with Order Management System, Product, and Service Management components within CRM. ·       Manage customer preferences – Involve all the touch points and channels to the customer, including contact center, retail stores, dealers, self service, and field service, as well as via any media (phone, face to face, web, mobile device, chat, email, SMS, mail, the customer's bill, etc.). ·       Support single interface for customer contact details, preferences, account details, offers, customer premise equipment, bill details, bill cycle details, and customer interactions.   CRM applications interact with customers through customer touch points like portals, point-of-sale terminals, interactive voice response systems, etc. The requests by customers are sent via fulfillment/provisioning to billing system for ordering processing.   2. Billing and Revenue Management   Billing and Revenue Management handles the collection of appropriate usage records and production of timely and accurate bills – for providing pre-bill usage information and billing to customers; for processing their payments; and for performing payment collections. In addition, it handles customer inquiries about bills, provides billing inquiry status, and is responsible for resolving billing problems to the customer's satisfaction in a timely manner. This process grouping also supports prepayment for services.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       To ensure that enterprise revenue is billed and invoices delivered appropriately to customers. ·       To manage customers’ billing accounts, process their payments, perform payment collections, and monitor the status of the account balance. ·       To ensure the timely and effective fulfillment of all customer bill inquiries and complaints. ·       Collect the usage records from mediation and ensure appropriate rating and discounting of all usage and pricing. ·       Support revenue sharing; split charging where usage is guided to an account different from the service consumer. ·       Support prepaid and post-paid rating. ·       Send notification on approach / exceeding the usage thresholds as enforced by the subscribed offer, and / or as setup by the customer. ·       Support prepaid, post paid, and hybrid (where some services are prepaid and the rest of the services post paid) customers and conversion from post paid to prepaid, and vice versa. ·       Support different billing function requirements like charge prorating, promotion, discount, adjustment, waiver, write-off, account receivable, GL Interface, late payment fee, credit control, dunning, account or service suspension, re-activation, expiry, termination, contract violation penalty, etc. ·       Initiate direct debit to collect payment against an invoice outstanding. ·       Send notification to Middleware on different events; for example, payment receipt, pre-suspension, threshold exceed, etc.   Billing systems typically get usage data from mediation systems for rating and billing. They get provisioning requests from order management systems and inquiries from CRM systems. Convergent and real-time billing systems can directly get usage details from network elements.   3. Mediation   Mediation systems transform/translate the Raw or Native Usage Data Records into a general format that is acceptable to billing for their rating purposes.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Mediation system in the end-to-end solution.   ·       Collect Usage Data Records from different data sources – like network elements, routers, servers – via different protocol and interfaces. ·       Process Usage Data Records – Mediation will process Usage Data Records as per the source format. ·       Validate Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Segregates Usage Data Records coming from each source to multiple, based on the segregation requirement of end Application. ·       Aggregates Usage Data Records based on the aggregation rule if any from different sources. ·       Consolidates multiple Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Delivers formatted Usage Data Records to different end application like Billing, Interconnect, Fraud Management, etc. ·       Generates audit trail for incoming Usage Data Records and keeps track of all the Usage Data Records at various stages of mediation process. ·       Checks duplicate Usage Data Records across files for a given time window.   4. Fulfillment   This area is responsible for providing customers with their requested products in a timely and correct manner. It translates the customer's business or personal need into a solution that can be delivered using the specific products in the enterprise's portfolio. This process informs the customers of the status of their purchase order, and ensures completion on time, as well as ensuring a delighted customer. These processes are responsible for accepting and issuing orders. They deal with pre-order feasibility determination, credit authorization, order issuance, order status and tracking, customer update on customer order activities, and customer notification on order completion. Order management and provisioning applications fall into this category.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       Issuing new customer orders, modifying open customer orders, or canceling open customer orders; ·       Verifying whether specific non-standard offerings sought by customers are feasible and supportable; ·       Checking the credit worthiness of customers as part of the customer order process; ·       Testing the completed offering to ensure it is working correctly; ·       Updating of the Customer Inventory Database to reflect that the specific product offering has been allocated, modified, or cancelled; ·       Assigning and tracking customer provisioning activities; ·       Managing customer provisioning jeopardy conditions; and ·       Reporting progress on customer orders and other processes to customer.   These applications typically get orders from CRM systems. They interact with network elements and billing systems for fulfillment of orders.   5. Enterprise Management   This process area includes those processes that manage enterprise-wide activities and needs, or have application within the enterprise as a whole. They encompass all business management processes that   ·       Are necessary to support the whole of the enterprise, including processes for financial management, legal management, regulatory management, process, cost, and quality management, etc.;   ·       Are responsible for setting corporate policies, strategies, and directions, and for providing guidelines and targets for the whole of the business, including strategy development and planning for areas, such as Enterprise Architecture, that are integral to the direction and development of the business;   ·       Occur throughout the enterprise, including processes for project management, performance assessments, cost assessments, etc.     (i) Enterprise Risk Management:   Enterprise Risk Management focuses on assuring that risks and threats to the enterprise value and/or reputation are identified, and appropriate controls are in place to minimize or eliminate the identified risks. The identified risks may be physical or logical/virtual. Successful risk management ensures that the enterprise can support its mission critical operations, processes, applications, and communications in the face of serious incidents such as security threats/violations and fraud attempts. Two key areas covered in Risk Management by telecom operators are:   ·       Revenue Assurance: Revenue assurance system will be responsible for identifying revenue loss scenarios across components/systems, and will help in rectifying the problems. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Revenue Assurance system in the end-to-end solution. o   Identify all usage information dropped when networks are being upgraded. o   Interconnect bill verification. o   Identify where services are routinely provisioned but never billed. o   Identify poor sales policies that are intensifying collections problems. o   Find leakage where usage is sent to error bucket and never billed for. o   Find leakage where field service, CRM, and network build-out are not optimized.   ·       Fraud Management: Involves collecting data from different systems to identify abnormalities in traffic patterns, usage patterns, and subscription patterns to report suspicious activity that might suggest fraudulent usage of resources, resulting in revenue losses to the operator.   The key roles and responsibilities of the system component are as follows:   o   Fraud management system will capture and monitor high usage (over a certain threshold) in terms of duration, value, and number of calls for each subscriber. The threshold for each subscriber is decided by the system and fixed automatically. o   Fraud management will be able to detect the unauthorized access to services for certain subscribers. These subscribers may have been provided unauthorized services by employees. The component will raise the alert to the operator the very first time of such illegal calls or calls which are not billed. o   The solution will be to have an alarm management system that will deliver alarms to the operator/provider whenever it detects a fraud, thus minimizing fraud by catching it the first time it occurs. o   The Fraud Management system will be capable of interfacing with switches, mediation systems, and billing systems   (ii) Knowledge Management   This process focuses on knowledge management, technology research within the enterprise, and the evaluation of potential technology acquisitions.   Key responsibilities of knowledge base management are to   ·       Maintain knowledge base – Creation and updating of knowledge base on ongoing basis. ·       Search knowledge base – Search of knowledge base on keywords or category browse ·       Maintain metadata – Management of metadata on knowledge base to ensure effective management and search. ·       Run report generator. ·       Provide content – Add content to the knowledge base, e.g., user guides, operational manual, etc.   (iii) Document Management   It focuses on maintaining a repository of all electronic documents or images of paper documents relevant to the enterprise using a system.   (iv) Data Management   It manages data as a valuable resource for any enterprise. For telecom enterprises, the typical areas covered are Master Data Management, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence. It is also responsible for data governance, security, quality, and database management.   Key responsibilities of Data Management are   ·       Using ETL, extract the data from CRM, Billing, web content, ERP, campaign management, financial, network operations, asset management info, customer contact data, customer measures, benchmarks, process data, e.g., process inputs, outputs, and measures, into Enterprise Data Warehouse. ·       Management of data traceability with source, data related business rules/decisions, data quality, data cleansing data reconciliation, competitors data – storage for all the enterprise data (customer profiles, products, offers, revenues, etc.) ·       Get online update through night time replication or physical backup process at regular frequency. ·       Provide the data access to business intelligence and other systems for their analysis, report generation, and use.   (v) Business Intelligence   It uses the Enterprise Data to provide the various analysis and reports that contain prospects and analytics for customer retention, acquisition of new customers due to the offers, and SLAs. It will generate right and optimized plans – bolt-ons for the customers.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Business Intelligence system at the Enterprise Level:   ·       It will do Pattern analysis and reports problem. ·       It will do Data Analysis – Statistical analysis, data profiling, affinity analysis of data, customer segment wise usage patterns on offers, products, service and revenue generation against services and customer segments. ·       It will do Performance (business, system, and forecast) analysis, churn propensity, response time, and SLAs analysis. ·       It will support for online and offline analysis, and report drill down capability. ·       It will collect, store, and report various SLA data. ·       It will provide the necessary intelligence for marketing and working on campaigns, etc., with cost benefit analysis and predictions.   It will advise on customer promotions with additional services based on loyalty and credit history of customer   ·       It will Interface with Enterprise Data Management system for data to run reports and analysis tasks. It will interface with the campaign schedules, based on historical success evidence.   (vi) Stakeholder and External Relations Management   It manages the enterprise's relationship with stakeholders and outside entities. Stakeholders include shareholders, employee organizations, etc. Outside entities include regulators, local community, and unions. Some of the processes within this grouping are Shareholder Relations, External Affairs, Labor Relations, and Public Relations.   (vii) Enterprise Resource Planning   It is used to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the enterprise and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise wide system environment.   The key roles and responsibilities for Enterprise System are given below:   ·        It will handle responsibilities such as core accounting, financial, and management reporting. ·       It will interface with CRM for capturing customer account and details. ·       It will interface with billing to capture the billing revenue and other financial data. ·       It will be responsible for executing the dunning process. Billing will send the required feed to ERP for execution of dunning. ·       It will interface with the CRM and Billing through batch interfaces. Enterprise management systems are like horizontals in the enterprise and typically interact with all major telecom systems. E.g., an ERP system interacts with CRM, Fulfillment, and Billing systems for different kinds of data exchanges.   6. External Interfaces/Touch Points   The typical external parties are customers, suppliers/partners, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders. External interactions from/to a Service Provider to other parties can be achieved by a variety of mechanisms, including:   ·       Exchange of emails or faxes ·       Call Centers ·       Web Portals ·       Business-to-Business (B2B) automated transactions   These applications provide an Internet technology driven interface to external parties to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These can provide fully or partially automated service to external parties through various touch points.   Typical characteristics of these touch points are   ·       Pre-integrated self-service system, including stand-alone web framework or integration front end with a portal engine ·       Self services layer exposing atomic web services/APIs for reuse by multiple systems across the architectural environment ·       Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a portal engine or web application   These touch points mostly interact with the CRM systems for requests, inquiries, and responses.   7. Middleware   The component will be primarily responsible for integrating the different systems components under a common platform. It should provide a Standards-Based Platform for building Service Oriented Architecture and Composite Applications. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Middleware component in the end-to-end solution.   ·       As an integration framework, covering to and fro interfaces ·       Provide a web service framework with service registry. ·       Support SOA framework with SOA service registry. ·       Each of the interfaces from / to Middleware to other components would handle data transformation, translation, and mapping of data points. ·       Receive data from the caller / activate and/or forward the data to the recipient system in XML format. ·       Use standard XML for data exchange. ·       Provide the response back to the service/call initiator. ·       Provide a tracking until the response completion. ·       Keep a store transitional data against each call/transaction. ·       Interface through Middleware to get any information that is possible and allowed from the existing systems to enterprise systems; e.g., customer profile and customer history, etc. ·       Provide the data in a common unified format to the SOA calls across systems, and follow the Enterprise Architecture directive. ·       Provide an audit trail for all transactions being handled by the component.   8. Network Elements   The term Network Element means a facility or equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. Such terms also includes features, functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of such facility or equipment, including subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information sufficient for billing and collection or used in the transmission, routing, or other provision of a telecommunications service.   Typical network elements in a GSM network are Home Location Register (HLR), Intelligent Network (IN), Mobile Switching Center (MSC), SMS Center (SMSC), and network elements for other value added services like Push-to-talk (PTT), Ring Back Tone (RBT), etc.   Network elements are invoked when subscribers use their telecom devices for any kind of usage. These elements generate usage data and pass it on to downstream systems like mediation and billing system for rating and billing. They also integrate with provisioning systems for order/service fulfillment.   9. 3rd Party Applications   3rd Party systems are applications like content providers, payment gateways, point of sale terminals, and databases/applications maintained by the Government.   Depending on applicability and the type of functionality provided by 3rd party applications, the integration with different telecom systems like CRM, provisioning, and billing will be done.   10. Service Delivery Platform   A service delivery platform (SDP) provides the architecture for the rapid deployment, provisioning, execution, management, and billing of value added telecom services. SDPs are based on the concept of SOA and layered architecture. They support the delivery of voice, data services, and content in network and device-independent fashion. They allow application developers to aggregate network capabilities, services, and sources of content. SDPs typically contain layers for web services exposure, service application development, and network abstraction.   SOA Reference Architecture   SOA concept is based on the principle of developing reusable business service and building applications by composing those services, instead of building monolithic applications in silos. It’s about bridging the gap between business and IT through a set of business-aligned IT services, using a set of design principles, patterns, and techniques.   In an SOA, resources are made available to participants in a value net, enterprise, line of business (typically spanning multiple applications within an enterprise or across multiple enterprises). It consists of a set of business-aligned IT services that collectively fulfill an organization’s business processes and goals. We can choreograph these services into composite applications and invoke them through standard protocols. SOA, apart from agility and reusability, enables:   ·       The business to specify processes as orchestrations of reusable services ·       Technology agnostic business design, with technology hidden behind service interface ·       A contractual-like interaction between business and IT, based on service SLAs ·       Accountability and governance, better aligned to business services ·       Applications interconnections untangling by allowing access only through service interfaces, reducing the daunting side effects of change ·       Reduced pressure to replace legacy and extended lifetime for legacy applications, through encapsulation in services   ·       A Cloud Computing paradigm, using web services technologies, that makes possible service outsourcing on an on-demand, utility-like, pay-per-usage basis   The following section represents the Reference Architecture of logical view for the Telecom Solution. The new custom built application needs to align with this logical architecture in the long run to achieve EA benefits.   Packaged implementation applications, such as ERP billing applications, need to expose their functions as service providers (as other applications consume) and interact with other applications as service consumers.   COT applications need to expose services through wrappers such as adapters to utilize existing resources and at the same time achieve Enterprise Architecture goal and objectives.   The following are the various layers for Enterprise level deployment of SOA. This diagram captures the abstract view of Enterprise SOA layers and important components of each layer. Layered architecture means decomposition of services such that most interactions occur between adjacent layers. However, there is no strict rule that top layers should not directly communicate with bottom layers.   The diagram below represents the important logical pieces that would result from overall SOA transformation. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 3. Enterprise SOA Reference Architecture 1.          Operational System Layer: This layer consists of all packaged applications like CRM, ERP, custom built applications, COTS based applications like Billing, Revenue Management, Fulfilment, and the Enterprise databases that are essential and contribute directly or indirectly to the Enterprise OSS/BSS Transformation.   ERP holds the data of Asset Lifecycle Management, Supply Chain, and Advanced Procurement and Human Capital Management, etc.   CRM holds the data related to Order, Sales, and Marketing, Customer Care, Partner Relationship Management, Loyalty, etc.   Content Management handles Enterprise Search and Query. Billing application consists of the following components:   ·       Collections Management, Customer Billing Management, Invoices, Real-Time Rating, Discounting, and Applying of Charges ·       Enterprise databases will hold both the application and service data, whether structured or unstructured.   MDM - Master data majorly consists of Customer, Order, Product, and Service Data.     2.          Enterprise Component Layer:   This layer consists of the Application Services and Common Services that are responsible for realizing the functionality and maintaining the QoS of the exposed services. This layer uses container-based technologies such as application servers to implement the components, workload management, high availability, and load balancing.   Application Services: This Service Layer enables application, technology, and database abstraction so that the complex accessing logic is hidden from the other service layers. This is a basic service layer, which exposes application functionalities and data as reusable services. The three types of the Application access services are:   ·       Application Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application level functionalities as a reusable service between BSS to BSS and BSS to OSS integration. This layer is enabled using disparate technology such as Web Service, Integration Servers, and Adaptors, etc.   ·       Data Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application data services as a reusable reference data service. This is done via direct interaction with application data. and provides the federated query.   ·       Network Access Service: This Service Layer exposes provisioning layer as a reusable service from OSS to OSS integration. This integration service emphasizes the need for high performance, stateless process flows, and distributed design.   Common Services encompasses management of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data such as information services, portal services, interaction services, infrastructure services, and security services, etc.   3.          Integration Layer:   This consists of service infrastructure components like service bus, service gateway for partner integration, service registry, service repository, and BPEL processor. Service bus will carry the service invocation payloads/messages between consumers and providers. The other important functions expected from it are itinerary based routing, distributed caching of routing information, transformations, and all qualities of service for messaging-like reliability, scalability, and availability, etc. Service registry will hold all contracts (wsdl) of services, and it helps developers to locate or discover service during design time or runtime.   • BPEL processor would be useful in orchestrating the services to compose a complex business scenario or process. • Workflow and business rules management are also required to support manual triggering of certain activities within business process. based on the rules setup and also the state machine information. Application, data, and service mediation layer typically forms the overall composite application development framework or SOA Framework.   4.          Business Process Layer: These are typically the intermediate services layer and represent Shared Business Process Services. At Enterprise Level, these services are from Customer Management, Order Management, Billing, Finance, and Asset Management application domains.   5.          Access Layer: This layer consists of portals for Enterprise and provides a single view of Enterprise information management and dashboard services.   6.          Channel Layer: This consists of various devices; applications that form part of extended enterprise; browsers through which users access the applications.   7.          Client Layer: This designates the different types of users accessing the enterprise applications. The type of user typically would be an important factor in determining the level of access to applications.   8.          Vertical pieces like management, monitoring, security, and development cut across all horizontal layers Management and monitoring involves all aspects of SOA-like services, SLAs, and other QoS lifecycle processes for both applications and services surrounding SOA governance.     9.          EA Governance, Reference Architecture, Roadmap, Principles, and Best Practices:   EA Governance is important in terms of providing the overall direction to SOA implementation within the enterprise. This involves board-level involvement, in addition to business and IT executives. At a high level, this involves managing the SOA projects implementation, managing SOA infrastructure, and controlling the entire effort through all fine-tuned IT processes in accordance with COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology).   Devising tools and techniques to promote reuse culture, and the SOA way of doing things needs competency centers to be established in addition to training the workforce to take up new roles that are suited to SOA journey.   Conclusions   Reference Architectures can serve as the basis for disparate architecture efforts throughout the organization, even if they use different tools and technologies. Reference architectures provide best practices and approaches in the independent way a vendor deals with technology and standards. Reference Architectures model the abstract architectural elements for an enterprise independent of the technologies, protocols, and products that are used to implement an SOA. Telecom enterprises today are facing significant business and technology challenges due to growing competition, a multitude of services, and convergence. Adopting architectural best practices could go a long way in meeting these challenges. The use of SOA-based architecture for communication to each of the external systems like Billing, CRM, etc., in OSS/BSS system has made the architecture very loosely coupled, with greater flexibility. Any change in the external systems would be absorbed at the Integration Layer without affecting the rest of the ecosystem. The use of a Business Process Management (BPM) tool makes the management and maintenance of the business processes easy, with better performance in terms of lead time, quality, and cost. Since the Architecture is based on standards, it will lower the cost of deploying and managing OSS/BSS applications over their lifecycles.

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• SQL SERVER – 5 Tips for Improving Your Data with expressor Studio

  - by pinaldave

  It’s no secret that bad data leads to bad decisions and poor results.  However, how do you prevent dirty data from taking up residency in your data store?  Some might argue that it’s the responsibility of the person sending you the data.  While that may be true, in practice that will rarely hold up.  It doesn’t matter how many times you ask, you will get the data however they decide to provide it. So now you have bad data.  What constitutes bad data?  There are quite a few valid answers, for example: Invalid date values Inappropriate characters Wrong data Values that exceed a pre-set threshold While it is certainly possible to write your own scripts and custom SQL to identify and deal with these data anomalies, that effort often takes too long and becomes difficult to maintain.  Instead, leveraging an ETL tool like expressor Studio makes the data cleansing process much easier and faster.  Below are some tips for leveraging expressor to get your data into tip-top shape. Tip 1:     Build reusable data objects with embedded cleansing rules One of the new features in expressor Studio 3.2 is the ability to define constraints at the metadata level.  Using expressor’s concept of Semantic Types, you can define reusable data objects that have embedded logic such as constraints for dealing with dirty data.  Once defined, they can be saved as a shared atomic type and then re-applied to other data attributes in other schemas. As you can see in the figure above, I’ve defined a constraint on zip code.  I can then save the constraint rules I defined for zip code as a shared atomic type called zip_type for example.   The next time I get a different data source with a schema that also contains a zip code field, I can simply apply the shared atomic type (shown below) and the previously defined constraints will be automatically applied. Tip 2:     Unlock the power of regular expressions in Semantic Types Another powerful feature introduced in expressor Studio 3.2 is the option to use regular expressions as a constraint.   A regular expression is used to identify patterns within data.   The patterns could be something as simple as a date format or something much more complex such as a street address.  For example, I could define that a valid IP address should be made up of 4 numbers, each 0 to 255, and separated by a period.  So 192.168.23.123 might be a valid IP address whereas 888.777.0.123 would not be.   How can I account for this using regular expressions? A very simple regular expression that would look for any 4 sets of 3 digits separated by a period would be:  ^[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}$ Alternatively, the following would be the exact check for truly valid IP addresses as we had defined above:  ^(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])$ .  In expressor, we would enter this regular expression as a constraint like this: Here we select the corrective action to be ‘Escalate’, meaning that the expressor Dataflow operator will decide what to do.  Some of the options include rejecting the offending record, skipping it, or aborting the dataflow. Tip 3:     Email pattern expressions that might come in handy In the example schema that I am using, there’s a field for email.  Email addresses are often entered incorrectly because people are trying to avoid spam.  While there are a lot of different ways to define what constitutes a valid email address, a quick search online yields a couple of really useful regular expressions for validating email addresses: This one is short and sweet:  \b[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}\b (Source: http://www.regular-expressions.info/) This one is more specific about which characters are allowed:  ^([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)@((\[[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.)|(([a-zA-Z0-9\-]+\.)+))([a-zA-Z]{2,4}|[0-9]{1,3})(\]?)$ (Source: http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp_id=26 ) Tip 4:     Reject “dirty data” for analysis or further processing Yet another feature introduced in expressor Studio 3.2 is the ability to reject records based on constraint violations.  To capture reject records on input, simply specify Reject Record in the Error Handling setting for the Read File operator.  Then attach a Write File operator to the reject port of the Read File operator as such: Next, in the Write File operator, you can configure the expressor operator in a similar way to the Read File.  The key difference would be that the schema needs to be derived from the upstream operator as shown below: Once configured, expressor will output rejected records to the file you specified.  In addition to the rejected records, expressor also captures some diagnostic information that will be helpful towards identifying why the record was rejected.  This makes diagnosing errors much easier! Tip 5:    Use a Filter or Transform after the initial cleansing to finish the job Sometimes you may want to predicate the data cleansing on a more complex set of conditions.  For example, I may only be interested in processing data containing males over the age of 25 in certain zip codes.  Using an expressor Filter operator, you can define the conditional logic which isolates the records of importance away from the others. Alternatively, the expressor Transform operator can be used to alter the input value via a user defined algorithm or transformation.  It also supports the use of conditional logic and data can be rejected based on constraint violations. However, the best tip I can leave you with is to not constrain your solution design approach – expressor operators can be combined in many different ways to achieve the desired results.  For example, in the expressor Dataflow below, I can post-process the reject data from the Filter which did not meet my pre-defined criteria and, if successful, Funnel it back into the flow so that it gets written to the target table. I continue to be impressed that expressor offers all this functionality as part of their FREE expressor Studio desktop ETL tool, which you can download from here.  Their Studio ETL tool is absolutely free and they are very open about saying that if you want to deploy their software on a dedicated Windows Server, you need to purchase their server software, whose pricing is posted on their website. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• DRY and SRP

  - by Timothy Klenke

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/06/11/dry-and-srp.aspxKent Beck’s XP Simplicity Rules (aka Four Rules of Simple Design) are a prioritized list of rules that when applied to your code generally yield a great design.  As you’ll see from the above link the list has slightly evolved over time.  I find today they are usually listed as: All Tests Pass Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) Express Intent Minimalistic These are prioritized.  If your code doesn’t work (rule 1) then everything else is forfeit.  Go back to rule one and get the code working before worrying about anything else. Over the years the community have debated whether the priority of rules 2 and 3 should be reversed.  Some say a little duplication in the code is OK as long as it helps express intent.  I’ve debated it myself.  This recent post got me thinking about this again, hence this post.   I don’t think it is fair to compare “Expressing Intent” against “DRY”.  This is a comparison of apples to oranges.  “Expressing Intent” is a principal of code quality.  “Repeating Yourself” is a code smell.  A code smell is merely an indicator that there might be something wrong with the code.  It takes further investigation to determine if a violation of an underlying principal of code quality has actually occurred. For example “using nouns for method names”, “using verbs for property names”, or “using Booleans for parameters” are all code smells that indicate that code probably isn’t doing a good job at expressing intent.  They are usually very good indicators.  But what principle is the code smell of Duplication pointing to and how good of an indicator is it? Duplication in the code base is bad for a couple reasons.  If you need to make a change and that needs to be made in a number of locations it is difficult to know if you have caught all of them.  This can lead to bugs if/when one of those locations is overlooked.  By refactoring the code to remove all duplication there will be left with only one place to change, thereby eliminating this problem. With most projects the code becomes the single source of truth for a project.  If a production code base is inconsistent with a five year old requirements or design document the production code that people are currently living with is usually declared as the current reality (or truth).  Requirement or design documents at this age in a project life cycle are usually of little value. Although comparing production code to external documentation is usually straight forward, duplication within the code base muddles this declaration of truth.  When code is duplicated small discrepancies will creep in between the two copies over time.  The question then becomes which copy is correct?  As different factions debate how the software should work, trust in the software and the team behind it erodes. The code smell of Duplication points to a violation of the “Single Source of Truth” principle.  Let me define that as: A stakeholder’s requirement for a software change should never cause more than one class to change. Violation of the Single Source of Truth principle will always result in duplication in the code.  However, the inverse is not always true.  Duplication in the code does not necessarily indicate that there is a violation of the Single Source of Truth principle. To illustrate this, let’s look at a retail system where the system will (1) send a transaction to a bank and (2) print a receipt for the customer.  Although these are two separate features of the system, they are closely related.  The reason for printing the receipt is usually to provide an audit trail back to the bank transaction.  Both features use the same data:  amount charged, account number, transaction date, customer name, retail store name, and etcetera.  Because both features use much of the same data, there is likely to be a lot of duplication between them.  This duplication can be removed by making both features use the same data access layer. Then start coming the divergent requirements.  The receipt stakeholder wants a change so that the account number has the last few digits masked out to protect the customer’s privacy.  That can be solve with a small IF statement whilst still eliminating all duplication in the system.  Then the bank wants to take a picture of the customer as well as capture their signature and/or PIN number for enhanced security.  Then the receipt owner wants to pull data from a completely different system to report the customer’s loyalty program point total. After a while you realize that the two stakeholders have somewhat similar, but ultimately different responsibilities.  They have their own reasons for pulling the data access layer in different directions.  Then it dawns on you, the Single Responsibility Principle: There should never be more than one reason for a class to change. In this example we have two stakeholders giving two separate reasons for the data access class to change.  It is clear violation of the Single Responsibility Principle.  That’s a problem because it can often lead the project owner pitting the two stakeholders against each other in a vein attempt to get them to work out a mutual single source of truth.  But that doesn’t exist.  There are two completely valid truths that the developers need to support.  How is this to be supported and honour the Single Responsibility Principle?  The solution is to duplicate the data access layer and let each stakeholder control their own copy. The Single Source of Truth and Single Responsibility Principles are very closely related.  SST tells you when to remove duplication; SRP tells you when to introduce it.  They may seem to be fighting each other, but really they are not.  The key is to clearly identify the different responsibilities (or sources of truth) over a system.  Sometimes there is a single person with that responsibility, other times there are many.  This can be especially difficult if the same person has dual responsibilities.  They might not even realize they are wearing multiple hats. In my opinion Single Source of Truth should be listed as the second rule of simple design with Express Intent at number three.  Investigation of the DRY code smell should yield to the proper application SST, without violating SRP.  When necessary leave duplication in the system and let the class names express the different people that are responsible for controlling them.  Knowing all the people with responsibilities over a system is the higher priority because you’ll need to know this before you can express it.  Although it may be a code smell when there is duplication in the code, it does not necessarily mean that the coder has chosen to be expressive over DRY or that the code is bad.

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• SMB2 traffic crashes network?

  - by Phil Cross

  We've been having significant network slowdown issues over the past few weeks, primarily on a Friday morning. We run Windows 7 client machines, with Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. What generally happens is the network starts to slow down massively at 08:55 and resumes normal speeds at around 09:20 This affects everything on the network from logging on, resetting passwords, opening programs and files etc. On my client machine, Physical Memory usage remains at around 40% (normal) and CPU usage hovers around 0-10% idle. The servers show memory usage spikes massively and remains quite intense during the times mentioned above. I have taken several wireshark captures, both during the slowdown and when the network operates fine. One of the main things I noticed is the increase in SMB2 entries in the wireshark log during the slowdown. Record Time Source Destination Protocol Length Info 382 3.976460000 10.47.35.11 10.47.32.3 SMB2 362 Create Request File: pcross\My Documents 413 4.525047000 10.47.35.11 10.47.32.3 SMB2 146 Close Request File: pcross\My Documents 441 5.235927000 10.47.32.3 10.47.35.11 SMB2 298 Create Response File: pcross\My Documents\Downloads 442 5.236199000 10.47.35.11 10.47.32.3 SMB2 260 Find Request File: pcross\My Documents\Downloads SMB2_FIND_ID_BOTH_DIRECTORY_INFO Pattern: *;Find Request File: pcross\My Documents\Downloads SMB2_FIND_ID_BOTH_DIRECTORY_INFO Pattern: * 573 6.327634000 10.47.35.11 10.47.32.3 SMB2 146 Close Request File: pcross\My Documents\Downloads 703 7.664186000 10.47.35.11 10.47.32.3 SMB2 394 Create Request File: pcross\My Documents\Downloads\WestlandsProspectus\P24 __ P21.pdf These are some of the SMB2 records from a list of a couple of hundred which original from my computer with a destination of the fileserver. One of the interesting things to note is the last entry in the examples above is for a PDF file. That file was not open anywhere on my computer, or on anyone elses. No folders with the files in were open either. When I took another capture when the network was running fine, there were hardly any SMB2 entries, and the ones that were displayed were mainly from Wireshark. We currently have around 800 computers, 90 Macs and 200 Laptops and Netbooks. Our concern is if this traffic is happening on my computer, is it happening on other computers, and if so, would those computers be adding to the slow network issues? Again, this only happens during certain times. We're pretty sure its not the our antivirus. Is there anything to narrow down whats initializing this SMB traffic during the particular times? Or if anyone has any extra advice, or links to resources it would be appreciate.

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• Blank Screen After Login on Windows 7

  - by Leigh Riffel

  When unlocking a Windows 7 computer the screen briefly (less than a second) goes blank before showing the screen. Abound once a month (but sometimes within a few days) when I unlock my computer the screen doesn't come back from this brief blackout and stays black. Sometimes after five minutes or so the display will come back. Other times it has been blank for over 20 minutes, so I give up and restart the computer. It seems to happen more often when the computer has been locked for a longer period of time - I lock my computer several times a day, but the problem most happens when I come in at the start of the day. I have updated my video card and monitor drivers. I have two monitors driven by the same graphics card. The computer is a Dell Optiplex 740. When the problem occurs both monitors have a green light on to indicate that they are receiving signal. I've tried unplugging the monitors from the video card and turning the monitors on and off. The screen saver is set to one that is not blank screen. The Windows power settings are set to never turn off the display. When the problem occurs there is no significant disk activity occurring. When the problem occurs I can connect over the network to the hard drive on my computer. When the problem occurs I can't connect over the network with a VNC connection. The VNC client doesn't give an error, but also won't show the screen. The task actually seems to hang as I can see the task, but there is no window for it. This problem occurred when I was running a pre-release version of Windows 7. The hard drive was formatted for release version and the problem still occurs. I've been stopping some of my always running programs to see if one of them may be the culprit, but given the span between failures that will take some time to find the problem if it will even help at all. Some programs I have always running include IE, Firefox, Outlook, Evernote, Kana Reminder, Ditto, Macro Express, Timesnapper, and DisplayFusion. Any ideas appreciated.

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• Disk performance below expectations

  - by paulH

  this is a follow-up to a previous question that I asked (Two servers with inconsistent disk speed). I have a PowerEdge R510 server with a PERC H700 integrated RAID controller (call this Server B) that was built using eight disks with 3Gb/s bandwidth that I was comparing with an almost identical server (call this Server A) that was built using four disks with 6Gb/s bandwidth. Server A had much better I/O rates than Server B. Once I discovered the difference with the disks, I had Server A rebuilt with faster 6Gbps disks. Unfortunately this resulted in no increase in the performance of the disks. Expecting that there must be some other configuration difference between the servers, we took the 6Gbps disks out of Server A and put them in Server B. This also resulted in no increase in the performance of the disks. We now have two identical servers built, with the exception that one is built with six 6Gbps disks and the other with eight 3Gbps disks, and the I/O rates of the disks is pretty much identical. This suggests that there is some bottleneck other than the disks, but I cannot understand how Server B originally had better I/O that has subsequently been 'lost'. Comparative I/O information below, as measured by SQLIO. The same parameters were used for each test. It's not the actual numbers that are significant but rather the variations between systems. In each case D: is a 2 disk RAID 1 volume, and E: is a 4 disk RAID 10 volume (apart from the original Server A, where E: was a 2 disk RAID 0 volume). Server A (original setup with 6Gpbs disks) D: Read (MB/s) 63 MB/s D: Write (MB/s) 170 MB/s E: Read (MB/s) 68 MB/s E: Write (MB/s) 320 MB/s Server B (original setup with 3Gpbs disks) D: Read (MB/s) 52 MB/s D: Write (MB/s) 88 MB/s E: Read (MB/s) 112 MB/s E: Write (MB/s) 130 MB/s Server A (new setup with 3Gpbs disks) D: Read (MB/s) 55 MB/s D: Write (MB/s) 85 MB/s E: Read (MB/s) 67 MB/s E: Write (MB/s) 180 MB/s Server B (new setup with 6Gpbs disks) D: Read (MB/s) 61 MB/s D: Write (MB/s) 95 MB/s E: Read (MB/s) 69 MB/s E: Write (MB/s) 180 MB/s Can anybody suggest any ideas what is going on here? The drives in use are as follows: Dell Seagate F617N ST3300657SS 300GB 15K RPM SAS Dell Hitachi HUS156030VLS600 300GB 3.5 inch 15000rpm 6GB SAS Hitachi Hus153030vls300 300GB Server SAS Dell ST3146855SS Seagate 3.5 inch 146GB 15K SAS

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• Quantifying the effects of partition mis-alignment

  - by Matt

  I'm experiencing some significant performance issues on an NFS server. I've been reading up a bit on partition alignment, and I think I have my partitions mis-aligned. I can't find anything that tells me how to actually quantify the effects of mis-aligned partitions. Some of the general information I found suggests the performance penalty can be quite high (upwards of 60%) and others say it's negligible. What I want to do is determine if partition alignment is a factor in this server's performance problems or not; and if so, to what degree? So I'll put my info out here, and hopefully the community can confirm if my partitions are indeed mis-aligned, and if so, help me put a number to what the performance cost is. Server is a Dell R510 with dual E5620 CPUs and 8 GB RAM. There are eight 15k 2.5” 600 GB drives (Seagate ST3600057SS) configured in hardware RAID-6 with a single hot spare. RAID controller is a Dell PERC H700 w/512MB cache (Linux sees this as a LSI MegaSAS 9260). OS is CentOS 5.6, home directory partition is ext3, with options “rw,data=journal,usrquota”. I have the HW RAID configured to present two virtual disks to the OS: /dev/sda for the OS (boot, root and swap partitions), and /dev/sdb for a big NFS share: [root@lnxutil1 ~]# parted -s /dev/sda unit s print Model: DELL PERC H700 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 134217599s Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 63s 465884s 465822s primary ext2 boot 2 465885s 134207009s 133741125s primary lvm [root@lnxutil1 ~]# parted -s /dev/sdb unit s print Model: DELL PERC H700 (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 5720768639s Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 34s 5720768606s 5720768573s lvm Edit 1 Using the cfq IO scheduler (default for CentOS 5.6): # cat /sys/block/sd{a,b}/queue/scheduler noop anticipatory deadline [cfq] noop anticipatory deadline [cfq] Chunk size is the same as strip size, right? If so, then 64kB: # /opt/MegaCli -LDInfo -Lall -aALL -NoLog Adapter #0 Number of Virtual Disks: 2 Virtual Disk: 0 (target id: 0) Name:os RAID Level: Primary-6, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-3 Size:65535MB State: Optimal Stripe Size: 64kB Number Of Drives:7 Span Depth:1 Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAdaptive, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Current Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAdaptive, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Access Policy: Read/Write Disk Cache Policy: Disk's Default Number of Spans: 1 Span: 0 - Number of PDs: 7 ... physical disk info removed for brevity ... Virtual Disk: 1 (target id: 1) Name:share RAID Level: Primary-6, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-3 Size:2793344MB State: Optimal Stripe Size: 64kB Number Of Drives:7 Span Depth:1 Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAdaptive, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Current Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAdaptive, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Access Policy: Read/Write Disk Cache Policy: Disk's Default Number of Spans: 1 Span: 0 - Number of PDs: 7 If it's not obvious, virtual disk 0 corresponds to /dev/sda, for the OS; virtual disk 1 is /dev/sdb (the exported home directory tree).

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• Spanning-tree setup with incompatible switches

  - by wfaulk

  I have a set of eight HP ProCurve 2910al-48G Ethernet switches at my datacenter that are set up in a star topology with no physical loops. I want to partially mesh the switches for redundancy and manage the loops with a spanning-tree protocol. However, our connection to the datacenter is provided by two uplinks, each to a Cisco 3750. The datacenter's switches are handling the redundant connection using PVST spanning-tree, which is a Cisco-proprietary spanning-tree implementation that my HP switches do not support. It appears that my switches are not participating in the datacenter's spanning-tree domain, but are blindly passing the BPDUs between the two switchports on my side, which enables the datacenter's switches to recognize the loop and put one of the uplinks into the Blocking state. This is somewhat supposition, but I can confirm that, while my switches say that both of the uplink ports are forwarding, only one is passing any real quantity of data. (I am assuming that I cannot get the datacenter to move away from PVST. I don't know that I'd want them to make that significant of a change anyway.) The datacenter has also sent me this output from their switches (which I have expurgated of any identifiable info): 3750G-1#sh spanning-tree vlan nnn VLAN0nnn Spanning tree enabled protocol ieee Root ID Priority 10 Address 00d0.0114.xxxx Cost 4 Port 5 (GigabitEthernet1/0/5) Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec Bridge ID Priority 32mmm (priority 32768 sys-id-ext nnn) Address 0018.73d3.yyyy Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec Aging Time 300 sec Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type ------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- -------------------------------- Gi1/0/5 Root FWD 4 128.5 P2p Gi1/0/6 Altn BLK 4 128.6 P2p Gi1/0/8 Altn BLK 4 128.8 P2p and: 3750G-2#sh spanning-tree vlan nnn VLAN0nnn Spanning tree enabled protocol ieee Root ID Priority 10 Address 00d0.0114.xxxx Cost 4 Port 6 (GigabitEthernet1/0/6) Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec Bridge ID Priority 32mmm (priority 32768 sys-id-ext nnn) Address 000f.f71e.zzzz Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec Aging Time 300 sec Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type ------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- -------------------------------- Gi1/0/1 Desg FWD 4 128.1 P2p Gi1/0/5 Altn BLK 4 128.5 P2p Gi1/0/6 Root FWD 4 128.6 P2p Gi1/0/8 Desg FWD 4 128.8 P2p The uplinks to my switches are on Gi1/0/8 on both of their switches. The uplink ports are configured with a single tagged VLAN. I am also using a number of other tagged VLANs in my switch infrastructure. And, to be clear, I am passing the tagged VLAN I'm receiving from the datacenter to other ports on other switches in my infrastructure. My question is: how do I configure my switches so that I can use a spanning tree protocol inside my switch infrastructure without breaking the datacenter's spanning tree that I cannot participate in?

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• Persuading openldap to work with SSL on Ubuntu with cn=config

  - by Roger

  I simply cannot get this (TLS connection to openldap) to work and would appreciate some assistance. I have a working openldap server on ubuntu 10.04 LTS, it is configured to use cn=config and most of the info I can find for TLS seems to use the older slapd.conf file :-( I've been largely following the instructions here https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/openldap-server.html plus stuff I've read here and elsewhere - which of course could be part of the problem as I don't totally understand all of this yet! I have created an ssl.ldif file as follows; dn:cn=config add: olcTLSCipherSuite olcTLSCipherSuite: TLSV1+RSA:!NULL add: olcTLSCRLCheck olcTLSCRLCheck: none add: olcTLSVerifyClient olcTLSVerifyClient: never add: olcTLSCACertificateFile olcTLSCACertificateFile: /etc/ssl/certs/ldap_cacert.pem add: olcTLSCertificateFile olcTLSCertificateFile: /etc/ssl/certs/my.domain.com_slapd_cert.pem add: olcTLSCertificateKeyFile olcTLSCertificateKeyFile: /etc/ssl/private/my.domain.com_slapd_key.pem and I import it using the following command line ldapmodify -x -D cn=admin,dc=mydomain,dc=com -W -f ssl.ldif I have edited /etc/default/slapd so that it has the following services line; SLAPD_SERVICES="ldap:/// ldapi:/// ldaps:///" And everytime I'm making a change, I'm restarting slapd with /etc/init.d/slapd restart The following command line to test out the non TLS connection works fine; ldapsearch -d 9 -D cn=admin,dc=mydomain,dc=com -w mypassword \ -b dc=mydomain,dc=com -H "ldap://mydomain.com" "cn=roger*" But when I switch to ldaps using this command line; ldapsearch -d 9 -D cn=admin,dc=mydomain,dc=com -w mypassword \ -b dc=mydomain,dc=com -H "ldaps://mydomain.com" "cn=roger*" This is what I get; ldap_url_parse_ext(ldaps://mydomain.com) ldap_create ldap_url_parse_ext(ldaps://mydomain.com:636/??base) ldap_sasl_bind ldap_send_initial_request ldap_new_connection 1 1 0 ldap_int_open_connection ldap_connect_to_host: TCP mydomain.com:636 ldap_new_socket: 3 ldap_prepare_socket: 3 ldap_connect_to_host: Trying 127.0.0.1:636 ldap_pvt_connect: fd: 3 tm: -1 async: 0 TLS: can't connect: A TLS packet with unexpected length was received.. ldap_err2string ldap_sasl_bind(SIMPLE): Can't contact LDAP server (-1) Now if I check netstat -al I can see; tcp 0 0 *:www *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:ssh *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:https *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:ldaps *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:ldap *:* LISTEN I'm not sure if this is significant as well ... I suspect it is; openssl s_client -connect mydomain.com:636 -showcerts CONNECTED(00000003) 916:error:140790E5:SSL routines:SSL23_WRITE:ssl handshake failure:s23_lib.c:188: I think I've made all my certificates etc OK and here are the results of some checks; If I do this; certtool -e --infile /etc/ssl/certs/ldap_cacert.pem I get Chain verification output: Verified. certtool -e --infile /etc/ssl/certs/mydomain.com_slapd_cert.pem Gives "certtool: the last certificate is not self signed" but it otherwise seems OK? Where have I gone wrong? Surely getting openldap to run securely on ubuntu should be easy and not require a degree in rocket science! Any ideas?

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• Stack-based keyboard delay using Logitech MX3100 keyboard

  - by Mark S. Rasmussen

  I've been using a Logitech Cordless Desktop MX3100 keyboard for quite a while. I've never really had any problems, except for the occasional typo. I noticed however that I tended make the typo "Laod" instead of "Load", quite a bit more often than any other typos. As it started to get on my nerves, I decided to do some testing. What I found out was than when I write lowercase "load", I'd never make the typo. All uppercase, or just uppercase L, I'd make the typo quite often. My actual (very scientific) testing is probably best described by showing the output: moatmoatmoat MoatMoatMoat loatloatloat LaotLaotLaot loafloafloaf LaofLaofLaof hoathoathoat HoatHoatHoat hoadhoadhoad HoadHoadHoad lortlortlort LrotLrotLrot What i found out was that whenever shift was depressed, typing an uppercase "L" would induce a significant lag if the next character was an "o", compared to the lag of the any other key: High "o" lag: LoLoLoLoLoLo No "a" lag: LaLaLaLaLaLa No lag for neither "o" nor "a": lolololololo lalalalalala By realizing this I regained a slight bit of sanity as I knew I wasn't coming down with a case of Parkinsons. I was actually typing correctly, the lag just interpreted it wrongly. Now, what really bugs me is that I can't fathom how this is occurring. What I'm actually typing, in physical order, is this: L - o - a - d, and yet, the "a" is output before the "o", even though "o" was pressed before "a". So while the keyboard is processing the "Lo" combo, the "a" gets prioritized and is inserted before the "o" is done processing, resulting in Laod instead of Load. And this only happens when typing "Lo", not when typing lowercase "lo". This problem could stem from the keyboard hardware, the receiver hardware or the keyboard software driver. No matter the fault location however, I can't imagine how this could be implemented as anything but a FIFO queue. A general delay, sure, I could live with that, albeit I'd be irritated. But a lag affecting different keys differently, and even resulting in unpredictable outcome - that just doesn't make any sense. I've solved the problem by just switching to a wired keyboard. I just can't shake it off me though; what kind of bug/error/scenario would result in a case like this? Edit: It's been suggested that I stop drinking Red Bull and stick to water instead. While that may actually help solve the issue, I'm really not looking for a solution as such. I'm more interested in an explanation of how this could happen, as I can't imagine any viable technical solution that could result in this behavior.

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