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• Spirent Communications Improves Customer Experience with Knowledge Management

  - by Tony Berk

  Spirent Communications plc is a global leader in test and measurement inspiring innovation within development labs, communication networks and IT organizations. The world’s leading communications companies rely on Spirent to help design, develop, validate, and deliver world-class network, devices, and services. Spirent’s customers require high levels of support for a diverse and complex product portfolio, and the company is committed to delivering on this requirement. Spirent needed a solution to help its customers get the information they need quickly and at their convenience through its Web site. After evaluating several solutions, Spirent selected and deployed Oracle Knowledge for Web Self Service Enterprise Edition. Oracle Knowledge Management uses natural language processing to understand the true intent of each inquiry logged via the support portal’s search function. The Spirent Knowledge Base on the company’s Customer Support Center (CSC) finds the best possible answer using search enhancement features?such as communications industry-specific libraries and federation to search external sources. Spirent has reduced contact center call volume while better serving its customers. Each time a customer uses the knowledge base, they find answers faster than by calling, and it saves Spirent an average of US$210 per call?which is significant when multiplied across the thousands of calls received monthly. Oracle Knowledge also helps support engineers find answers more quickly, enabling the company to scale without adding additional support engineers. Oracle Knowledge is integrated with Spirent's Siebel Contact Center implementation to provide an integrated desktop for CRM and agent intelligence, avoiding the need for contact center personnel to toggle between various screens to address customer inquiries, thereby accelerating customer service. Click here to learn more about Sprient's use of Siebel CRM and Oracle Knowledge Management.

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• Opportunities in Development in our Swedish office

  - by anca.rosu

  Hi everyone, my name is Henrik and I joined the JRockit group in 2004. Before that my background was Microsoft, as both a Test Competence lead and as a Program Manager. As an Engineering Manager at Oracle I lead a team of 11 developers. I focus on people management and the daily operations of the department with a heavy focus on interaction and dependencies between the groups and departments here at the Stockholm development site. I also make sure my team deliver on our commitments. I would like to give you a brief summary of the Oracle JRockit team: -The development group in Stockholm delivers several products for the Oracle Fusion Middleware stack. Our main products are JRockitVE which allows you to run a Java Virtual Machine without an operating system, the JRockit Java Virtual Machine which is the default jvm for all Oracle middleware products, and the JRockit MissionControl, a set of tools that allows developers to monitor their applications at runtime and perform advanced latency analysis as well as in-production memory leak detection etc. -The office has several departments focusing on different aspects of the product development process, not only to build features and test them but everything from building the infrastructure needed to automatically build and test the products to sustaining engineering that tracks down bugs in customer systems and provide them with patches. Some inspirational lines around what the Oracle JRockit group can offer you in terms of progress, development and learning: - It is a unique chance to get insight and experience building enterprise class software for one of the worlds largest software companies. Here there are almost unlimited possibilities for the right candidate to learn about silicon features and how to implement support for this in software, and to compile optimizations. The position will also give insight into the processes needed to produce software at this level in the industry. If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact  [email protected].  You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com. Technorati Tags: Development,Sweden,Jrockit,Java,Virtual Machine,Oracle Fusion Middleware,software

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• Complex Release Vehicle Management

  - by Sharon

  I'm looking into improving our build and release system. We are a .Net/Windows shop, and I don't see any really good tools for Windows for generating the files that are to be dropped in patch or hotfix. We are currently using TFSBuild 2010 with Windows Workflows for our continuous integration builds as well as our daily full build which includes an Installshield package for deployment. What is a good way of generating the list of files to be included in a "patch" style release, where one does not redistribute all the files, but only those necessary to accomplish the necessary changes? Are there any open source tools that work well for this, or do teams usually roll their own? I have considered using Beyond Compare but I would prefer something open source. The file "patch" creation must be 100% automatable. Which release vehicles really ought to be patch style? And which releases should replace all system files related to our application? Assume we have a very large amount of resources necessary to maintain. Is there any established material that is trusted within the industry for strategies about this? I realize it is different for "enterprise" rather than with typical websites. I am looking more for "enterprise" strategies due to our product distribution style. tl;dr Looking for info on how to ship more reliable packages?

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• What type of career path / jobs for a developer to have best work life balance?

  - by programmx10

  I know some people may look down on a question like this but I've been thinking lately a lot about what direction I can take my career to have a good work life balance, since I have been working for a startup where hours tend to drag on, etc and I find it often drains the life out of me. I have been going to interviews and some other companies are also startups / new companies and seem to have a similar attitude about working long hours. Maybe its the technologies I use, the type of development, I don't know but I'm curious if anyone can offer advice on what a path is to be a programmer / developer but work for a company that respects a regular work week and would only rarely find the need to move past this. I realize this won't lead to being the highest paid in my field but I'm ok with that and feel the tradeoff would be worth it as it would also give me time for my own projects, etc. I know some people may say this is too general but I believe it is a programmer specific question because I believe there tends to be a higher than average rate of working overtime, etc and people working in "startup" venture situations than in many other fields and there is definitely a mindset among a lot of people in the field of working long hours that doesn't exist in every industry.

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• SAP or Navision? Career Path

  - by codebased

  This could be tricky to ask; I may or may not ask this question here but I thought to give it a try. I've been in Software Industry since 2002 and now it has been a time that I'm at Senior level where I normally code, lead and define the architect; giving technical solutions to the management is one of my asset that I've earned during my services. Now it is the time to define the road map for the future, $$$. I am not in favor of Project Management roles. I've been thinking of going through the ERP and my current company does provide me an option to go for Navision/ Microsoft Dynamics. They are currently on 4.0 but they are planning to move for 2009 and also to build one of their own plug-in. Indeed the option is good because Microsoft is trying to accomplish the market for Dynamics products. However, they have less success in Australia. Now, Another option is with SAP where person can go with 200 K $ a year. Where as I'd doubt that if the same kind of growth, financial, is available for Microsoft geek. What is your opinion on Navision or SAP? If I try to completely move to SAP it could be bit challenging as market will consider me a fresher. However the return is quite good. Where in case of Microsoft, I think technology changes so fast that there is a less chance to grow in, within, the same experience; in other word, if any new framework comes in .net then market look for that person who knows this new framework and not .net But in case of SAP, where the base remain same and chances are to grab more money from the market. What would you do if you were me? In stackoverflow - Navision questions are 20+ where in SAP 200+///?? :-)

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• Introducing Deep Fried Devcast

  - by Matt Christian

  I've been working on a new podcast for the game development community called the Deep Fried Devcast.  Currently we are in pre-production but should have some episodes up in the near future.  Here is a quick FAQ about the show: What is the Deep Fried Devcast? The Deep Fried Devcast is a bi-weekly show all about game development.  The show will feature developer interviews, a focus on the technical aspects of game development (programming, technical design), the business of team game development (time management, project management), and other areas focused around the actual development of games. Wait, no game design?  No game discussions?! Calm down, calm down.  Although the focus of the podcast is on the technical aspects of game dev, there will be episodes and content focused on all areas of the gaming industry, including discussion on design, story, recent game releases, games we've been playing, etc...  Anything could show up in the Deep Fried Devcast and nothing is off limits. How can I help? We're always looking for new content ideas, emails, and anything you want to send us (within some kind of reason!).  You can even be a guest host if you want!  Email us at: deepfrieddevcast [AT] gmail [DOT] com Where's the podcast?! We're still recording it!  Don't worry, it will be up soon.  Keep an eye on www.deepfrieddevcast.com for the latest updates (that will be up soon too!).

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• We've Been Busy: World Tour 2010

  - by [email protected]

  By Brian Dayton on March 11, 2010 11:17 PM Right after Oracle OpenWorld 2009 we went right into planning for our 2010 World Tour. An ambitious 90+ city tour visiting cities on every continent. The Oracle Applications Strategy Update Tour started January 19th and is in full swing right now. We've put some heavy hitters on the road. If you didn't get a chance to see Steve Miranda, Senior Vice President of Oracle Application Development in Tokyo, Anthony Lye, Senior Vice President of Oracle CRM Development in New Delhi or Sonny Singh, Senior Vice President of Oracle Industries Business Unit in Stockholm don't worry...we're not done yet. The theme, Smart Strategies: Your Roadmap to the Future is a nod to the fact that everyone needs to be smart about what's going on in their business and industry right now. But just as important---how to make sure that you're on the course to where you need to be down the road. Get the big picture and key trends in "The New Normal" of today's business climate and drill down and find out about the latest and greatest innovations in Oracle Applications. Check out http://www.oracle.com/events/applicationstour/index.html for an upcoming tour date near you. Pictures, feedback, summaries and learnings from the tour to come soon.

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• Oracle Brings Analytics to Project Management

  - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP

  Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Alison Weiss  Nonprofit and for-profit organizations have many differences, but there is one way they are alike—managers struggle with huge amounts of data generated every day. Project data by itself has limited use—but any organization that can gain insight to make accurate predictions or to use resources more effectively can gain an operational advantage. Oracle’s Primavera P6 Analytics 2.0 business intelligence solution enables organizations using Oracle’s Primavera P6 Professional Project Management to do just that: identify critical issues and uncover trends in stores of project data. Primavera P6 Analytics provides management with the ability to look at not only how a single effort is progressing, but also how the entire organization is doing from a project perspective. The latest release includes new features that make it even easier to gather and analyze critical information. For example, the addition of geocoding gives Primavera P6 Analytics users the ability to track resources geographically on longitude and latitude and use a map to get an overall view of how projects, programs, and activities are deployed. “A nonprofit with relief projects in Vietnam, for example, can drill down to the project and get a world view and a regional view,” says Yasser Mahmud, vice president of product strategy and industry marketing in Oracle’s Primavera Global Business Unit. “Then they can drill down further to show statistics; key performance indicators; and how that program, portfolio, or project work is actually getting done.” The addition of new mobile capabilities to Primavera P6 Analytics puts deep-dive analysis into project managers’ hands with compatibility with major tablet operating systems. Now, nonprofits or for-profits working in remote locations can provide real-time visibility into projects to alert management if issues are occurring that need to be addressed immediately. “Primavera P6 Analytics generates information that can help organizations improve their utilization and trim down overall operating costs,” says Mahmud. “But more importantly, it gives organizations improved visibility.”

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• SOA Community Newsletter November 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Dear SOA partner community member Too many different product from Oracle, no idea how do they fit together? Get a copy of the Oracle catalog, an excellent overview of the Oracle middleware portfolio. BPM is a key solution to this portfolio. To position BPM to your customers you can find many use case ideas in the paper BPM 11g Patterns and industry specific value propositions for Financial Services & Insurance & Retail. Many more Process Accelerators (11.1.1.6.2) have become available. It is an excellent demo and starting point for BPM projects. Our SOA Suite team published the most important OOW presentation at the OTN website. The Oracle SOA proactive support team is running a series of blog posts about SOA and JMS Introductory. To become an expert in SOA, Bob highlighted the latest list of SOA books. For OSB projects we recommend the EAIESB OSB poster. Thanks to all the experts who contributed and shared their SOA & BPM knowledge this month again. Please feel free to send us the link to your blog post via twitter @soacommunity: Undeploy multiple SOA composites with WLST or ANT by Danilo Schmiedel Fault Handling Slides and Q&A by Vennester Installing Oracle Event Processing 11g by Antoney Reynolds Expanding the Oracle Enterprise Repository with functional documentation by Marc Kuijpers Build Mobile App for E-Business Suite Using SOA Suite and ADF Mobile By Michelle Kimihira A brief note for customers running SOA Suite on AIX platforms By Christian ACM - Adaptive Case Management by Peter Paul BPM 11g - Dynamic Task Assignment with Multi-level Organization Units By Mark Foster Oracle Real User Experience Insight: Oracle's Approach to User Experience Hope to see you at the Middleware Day at UK Oracle User Group Conference 2012 in Birmingham. Jürgen Kress Oracle SOA & BPM Partner Adoption EMEA To read the newsletter please visit http://tinyurl.com/soanewsNovember2012 (OPN Account required) To become a member of the SOA Partner Community please register at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Community newsletter,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• SOA Community Newsletter November 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Dear SOA partner community member Too many different product from Oracle, no idea how do they fit together? Get a copy of the Oracle catalog, an excellent overview of the Oracle middleware portfolio. BPM is a key solution to this portfolio. To position BPM to your customers you can find many use case ideas in the paper BPM 11g Patterns and industry specific value propositions for Financial Services & Insurance & Retail. Many more Process Accelerators (11.1.1.6.2) have become available. It is an excellent demo and starting point for BPM projects. Our SOA Suite team published the most important OOW presentation at the OTN website. The Oracle SOA proactive support team is running a series of blog posts about SOA and JMS Introductory. To become an expert in SOA, Bob highlighted the latest list of SOA books. For OSB projects we recommend the EAIESB OSB poster. Thanks to all the experts who contributed and shared their SOA & BPM knowledge this month again. Please feel free to send us the link to your blog post via twitter @soacommunity: Undeploy multiple SOA composites with WLST or ANT by Danilo Schmiedel Fault Handling Slides and Q&A by Vennester Installing Oracle Event Processing 11g by Antoney Reynolds Expanding the Oracle Enterprise Repository with functional documentation by Marc Kuijpers Build Mobile App for E-Business Suite Using SOA Suite and ADF Mobile By Michelle Kimihira A brief note for customers running SOA Suite on AIX platforms By Christian ACM - Adaptive Case Management by Peter Paul BPM 11g - Dynamic Task Assignment with Multi-level Organization Units By Mark Foster Oracle Real User Experience Insight: Oracle's Approach to User Experience Hope to see you at the Middleware Day at UK Oracle User Group Conference 2012 in Birmingham. Jürgen Kress Oracle SOA & BPM Partner Adoption EMEA To read the newsletter please visit http://tinyurl.com/soanewsNovember2012 (OPN Account required) To become a member of the SOA Partner Community please register at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Community newsletter,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• How to go from mainstream to indie development?

  - by Salano Software

  I'm currently working as a game programmer for a AAA-level developer and publisher - which falls into the 'nice problem to have' category, I know, except that I'm growing more and more disenchanted with the direction of both the company and the AAA portion of the industry as a whole. I don't see any games on the studio's calendar for the next several years that I'm actually interested in working on; it looks like a continuing parade of sequels, license extensions and largely-derivative work. Which isn't to say that there won't be interesting things to do on those projects; but more and more I find myself wanting to do something fundamentally different. It seems like the market's never been better for smaller-scale projects, and I'd love to jump into that (and I've done small demos for Android and have started digging into iOS), but I obviously can't put anything out while I'm working for the company, and I'm concerned that I shouldn't even do substantial development in my spare time on anything I'd eventually like to release on my own. At the same time, I'm leery of leaving the job I've got for hopefully-obvious reasons, especially without a specific plan in place. Has anyone out there got experience with 'going indie' out of a mainstream job, and does anyone have specific suggestions as to what the best approach is and what I should specifically be thinking about or be careful of?

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• Real world pitfalls of introducing F# into a large codebase and engineering team

  - by nganju

  I'm CTO of a software firm with a large existing codebase (all C#) and a sizable engineering team. I can see how certain parts of the code would be far easier to write in F#, resulting in faster development time, fewer bugs, easier parallel implementations, etc., basically overall productivity gains for my team. However, I can also see several productivity pitfalls of introducing F#, namely: 1) Everyone has to learn F#, and it's not as trivial as switching from, say, Java to C#. Team members that have not learned F# will be unable to work on F# parts of the codebase. 2) The pool of hireable F# programmers, as of now (Dec 2010) is non-existent. Search various software engineer resume databases for "F#", way less than 1% of resumes contain the keyword. 3) Community support as of now (Dec 2010) is less available. You can google almost any problem in C# and find someone that has already dealt with it, not so with F#. Third party tool support (NUnit, Resharper etc) is also sketchy. I realize that this is a bit Catch-22, i.e. if people like me don't use F# then the community and tools will never materialize, etc. But, I've got a company to run, and I can be cutting edge but not bleeding edge. Any other pitfalls I'm not considering? Or anyone care to rebut the pitfalls I've mentioned? I think this is an important discussion and would love to hear your counter-arguments in this public forum that may do a lot to increase F# adoption by industry. Thanks.

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• Profit at Oracle OpenWorld 2012

  - by user462779

  It's only a week away: Oracle OpenWorld descends on San Francisco from September 30 to October 4. It's always a frantic week for the Profit editorial staff, but here's a few thing we've got going in San Francisco that you'll want to watch out for: Profit on Oracle OpenWorld Live: The Oracle video team will be broadcasting live from the event all week. I have a few interesting on-air interviews booked, including a conversation with business/technology researcher Andrew Mcafee (Monday Oct 1 @ 11:45am), Acorn Paper CEO David Weissberg (Tuesday, Oct 2 @ 12:15pm) and Abhay Parasnis, Oracle Senior Vice President, Oracle Public Cloud (Wednesday, Oct 3, @ 10:45am). Profit in the Oracle Partner Network Lounge: This summer, I worked with the amazing Oracle Partner Network (OPN) team to create the Profit Oracle Specialized Partner Edition 2012. It's a great catalog of Oracle partner success stories and insight into the OPN strategy from its leadership. Look for the special issue of Profit in the Oracle PartnerNetwork Lounge: the place where partners can meet formally or informally with colleagues, customers, prospects, and other industry professionals. Moscone South, Exhibit Hall, Room 100 Oracle Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld: There's been a lot of discussion within my editorial team (and content published, as well)about Customer Experience. To keep pace with this evolving subject, I'll be attending this special embedded conference on Wednesday and Thursday (Oct. 3-4). Especially looking forward to Seth Godin's presentation: he was one of the first experts we interviewed forProfit Online five years ago. The Executive Edge @ OpenWorld: Of course, my Oracle OpenWorld is mostly filled with meetings/interviews with Oracle customers about completed Oracle projects and the strategic impact of enterprise IT on business. The ideal place for these conversations is The Executive Edge @ OpenWorld embedded conference. Samovar Tea Lounge at Moscone Center: I spend my down time on the roof of Moscone North, preparing for meetings or having impromptu conversations with attendees at this little oasis overlooking Yerba Buena Gardens. Fee free to drop my for a chat! See you in San Francisco! -Aaron Lazenby

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• Are there any "best practices" on cross-device development?

  - by vstrien

  Developing for smartphones in the way the industry is currently doing is relatively new. Of course, there has been enterprise-level mobile development for several decades. The platforms have changed, however. Think of: from stylus-input to touch-input (different screen res, different control layout etc.) new ways of handling multi-tasking on mobile platforms (e.g. WP7's "tombstoning") The way these platforms work aren't totally new (iPhone has been around for quite awhile now for example), but at the moment when developing a functionally equal application for both desktop and smartphone it comes down to developing two applications from ground up. Especially with the birth of Windows Phone with the .NET-platform on board and using Silverlight as UI-language, it's becoming appealing to promote the re-use of (parts of the UI). Still, it's fairly obvious that the needs of an application on a smartphone (or tablet) are very different compared to the needs of a desktop application. An (almost) one-on-one conversion will therefore be impossible. My question: are there "best practices", pitfalls etc. documented about developing "cross-device" applications (for example, developing an app for both the desktop and the smartphone/tablet)? I've been looking at weblogs, scientific papers and more for a week or so, but what I've found so far is only about "migratory interfaces".

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• How common is prototyping as the first stage of development?

  - by EpsilonVector

  I've been taking some software design courses in the past few semesters, and while I see the benefit in a lot of the formalism, I still feel like it doesn't tell me anything about the program itself. You can't tell how the program is going to operate from the Use Case spec, even though it discusses what the program can do, and you can't tell anything about the user experience from the requirements document, even though it can include QA requirements. ...sequence diagrams are as good a description of how the software works as the call stack, in other words- very limited, highly partial view of the overall system, and a class diagram is great for describing how the system is built, but is utterly useless in helping you figure out what the software needs to be. Where in all this formalism is the bottom line- how the program looks, operates, and what experience it gives? Doesn't it make more sense to design off of that? Isn't it better to figure out how the program should work via a prototype and strive to implement it for real? I know that I'm probably suffering from being taught engineering by theoreticians, but I got to ask, do they do this in the industry? How do people figure out what the program actually is, not what it should conform to? Do people prototype a lot? ...or do they mostly use the formal tools like UML and I just didn't get the hang of using them yet?

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• A Year of Upheaval for Procurement Professionals-New Report & Webinar

  - by DanAshton

  2013 will see significant changes in priorities and initiatives among procurement professionals as they balance the needs of their enterprises with efforts to add capabilities for long-term procurement success. In response, procurement managers will expand their organization’s spend influence via supplier relationship management, sourcing, and category management. These findings are part of the new report, “2013 Procurement Key Issues: Going Deeper and Broader to Deliver Borderless Procurement Services,” by the Hackett Group. The authors say that compared to similar studies over the last five years, 2013 is registering the greatest year-over-year changes in priorities for both procurement performance and capability issues. Three Important PrioritiesThe survey found that procurement professionals are focusing their attention in three key areas. Cost reduction. Controlling expenses is always a high priority, but with 90 percent of the respondents now placing this at the top of their performance concerns, the Hackett analysts say this “clearly shows that, for better or worse, cost reduction is king” in 2013. Technology innovation. Innovation has shot up significantly in the priority rankings and is now tied with spend influence for second among procurement professionals. Sixty-five percent of the survey participants said pursuing game-changing innovation and technology is a top procurement initiative. Managing supply risk. This area registered a sharp rise in importance because of its role in protecting profits, Hackett says. Supplier compliance with performance milestones and regulatory requirements is receiving particular attention, with an emphasis on efficient management of cross-functional workflows. “These processes create headaches for suppliers and buyers alike, and can detract from strategic value creation when participants are bogged down in processing paper and spreadsheets,” the report explains.  For more insights into the current state of the procurement industry, download the full report, “2013 Procurement Key Issues: Going Deeper and Broader to Deliver Borderless Procurement Services” and watch a Webcast featuring Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader for The Hackett Group, Chis Sawchuk, and Managing Supervisor of Supply Chain Processes and Systems for Ameren, Chris Nelms. 

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• Presenting the Cloud in a Different Way

  - by BuckWoody

  I had the honor of presenting the Developers at the Portland PASS chapter, and decided to go a different way than just using PowerPoint Slides…. (click on any picture to enlarge) The point is that when you need to get a point across, it’s OK to change tactics to make sure the information sticks. In this case, I decided to make the audience the PowerPoint. I used a few props to show the various paradigms we use to describe what the industry uses for the word “cloud” First, we talked about Infrastructure as a Service. I picked a gentleman who didn’t quite fit the hard hat and safety vest I picked out for him. Notice our “user” as she accesses our “Server” (complete with tray and glass) which has been virtualized.    Software as a service comes next. In this case, the user and potentially even customers just access software (represented here as a Windows ME box…) remotely – everything is virtualized. Finally, Platform as a Service – Yup, Platform shoes as a necklace, and a tie-dye shirt to represent the 70’s – a decade when mainframes used stateless programming as well. Notice also the components of Windows Azure – Compute (Keyboard) Application Fabric (Toy Bus) and Storage (Bucket).   And at the end of the day, it’s all about serving those customers…

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• New Content: Customer Engagement & Oracle OpenWorld Preview

  - by user462779

  Two new bits of content available on Profit Online: In A Cross-Channel Approach to Consumer Engagement, Cassandra Moren, senior director of consumer goods industry marketing at Oracle, shares her thoughts on how consumer goods manufacturers are reaping benefits from developing a direct relationship with customers: "Consumer goods manufacturers are starting to adapt in ways that mirror retailers. They are making investments in innovative technologies and processes to build the infrastructure to support the market demand. With advances in aspects like social networking, digital marketing and mobility fundamentally changing the way consumers behave, the door has opened to building a more direct relationship with their customers." We've also published a Special Report on Oracle OpenWorld that gives a great overview of recommendations for must-see sessions and insider advice from experienced attendees. For example, this top from John Matelski, newly elected president of the Independent Oracle Users Group: “Based on developments of the last 12 months, I think big data is definitely going to be hot. The challenges and opportunities of data governance will be another biggie. And there will obviously be a big emphasis on Oracle Exadata and the other Oracle Engineered Systems, with more than 100 sessions.” More updates to come as we continue to add content to Profit Online on a regular basis. Thanks for reading!

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• How to hire support people?

  - by Martin

  I manage a tech support team at a mid-sized software company. We are the last line of support, so issues that we can't fix need to be escalated to the development team. When I joined the company, our team wasn't capable of much beyond using a specific set of troubleshooting steps to solve known issues and escalating anything else to the developers. It's always been a goal of mine for our team to shoulder as much of the support burden as possible without ever bothering a developer. Over the past few years, I, along with several new hires I've made, have made pretty good progress in that direction. We've coded our own troubleshooting tools which now ship with several of our products. When users have never-before-seen issues, we analyze stack traces and troubleshoot down to the code level, and if we need to submit a bug, half the time we've already identified in the code where in the code the bug is and offered a patch to fix it. Here's the problem I've always had: finding support people capable of the work I've described above is really difficult. I've hired 3 people in the past 3 years, and I've probably looked at several thousand resumes and conducted several hundred phone screens to do so. I know it's pretty well accepted that hiring good people is tough in the tech industry, but it seems that support is especially difficult -- there are clearly thousands of people walking around calling themselves support analysts, but 99%+ of them seemingly aren't capable of anything beyond reading a script. I'm curious if anyone has experience recruiting the sort of folks I'm talking about, and if you have any suggestions to share. We've tried all sorts of things -- different job titles/descriptions, using headhunters, etc. And while we've managed to hire a few good folks, it's basically taken us a year to find an appropriate candidate for each opening we've had, and I can't help but wonder if there's something we could be doing differently.

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• Windows Azure and Server App Fabric &ndash; kinsmen or distant relatives?

  - by kaleidoscope

  Technorati Tags: tinu,windows azure,windows server,app fabric,caching windows azure If you are into Windows Azure then it would be rather demeaning to ask if you are aware of Windows Azure App Fabric. Just in case you are not - Windows Azure App Fabric provides a secure connectivity service by means of which developers can build distributed applications as well as services that work across network and organizational boundaries in the cloud. But some of you may have heard of another similar term floating around forums and blog posts - Windows Server App Fabric. The momentary déjà vu that you might have felt upon encountering it is not unheard of in the Cloud Computing circles - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/netservices/thread/5ad4bf92-6afb-4ede-b4a8-6c2bcf8f2f3f http://forums.virtualizationtimes.com/session-state-management-using-windows-server-app-fabric Many have fallen prey to this ambiguous nomenclature but its not without a purpose. First announced at PDC 2009, Windows Server AppFabric is a set of application services focused on improving the speed, scale, and management of Web, Composite, and Enterprise applications. Initially codenamed Dublin the app fabric (oops....Windows Server App Fabric) provides add-ons like Monitoring,Tracking and Persistence into your hosted Workflow and Services without the Developer worried about these Functionalities. Alongwith this it also provides Distributed In-Memory caching features from Velocity caching. In short it is a healthy equivalent of Windows Azure App Fabric minus the cloud part. So why bring this up while talking about Windows Azure? Well, apart from their similar last names these powers are soon to be combined if Microsoft's roadmap is to be believed - "Together, Windows Server AppFabric and Windows Azure platform AppFabric provide a comprehensive set of services that help developers rapidly develop new applications spanning Windows Azure and Windows Server, and which also interoperate with other industry platforms such as Java, Ruby, and PHP." One of the most powerful features of the Windows Server App Fabric is its distributed caching mechanism which if appropriately leveraged with the Windows Azure App Fabric could very well mean a revolution in the Session Management techniques for the Azure platform. Well Microsoft, we do have our fingers crossed..... Read on... http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2010/03/01/windows-server-appfabric-beta-2-available.aspx

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• How do you stay productive when dealing with extremely badly written code?

  - by gaearon

  I don't have much experience in working in software industry, being self-taught and having participated in open source before deciding to take a job. Now that I work for money, I also have to deal with some unpleasant stuff, which is normal of course. Recently I was assigned to add logging to a large SharePoint project which is written by some programmer who obviously was learning to code on the job. After 2 years of collaboration, the client switched to our company, but the damage was done, and now somehow I need to maintain this code. Not that the code was too hard to read. Despite problems - each project has one class with several copy-pasted methods, enormous if nestings, Systems Hungarian, undisposed connections — it's still readable. However, I found myself absolutely unproductive despite working on something as simple as adding logging. Basically, I just need to go through the code step by step and add some trace calls. However, the idiocy of the code is so annoying that I get tired within 10 minutes of starting. In the beginning, I used to add using constructs, reduce nesting by reversing if's, rename the variables to readable names—but the project is large, and eventually I gave up. I know this is not the task I should be doing, but at least reducing the mess gave me some kind of psychological reward so I could keep going. Now the trick stopped working, and I still have 60% of my work to do. I started having headaches after work, and I no longer get the feeling of satisfaction I used to get - which would usually allow me to code for 10 hours straight and still feel fresh. This is not just one big rant, for I really do have an actual question: Is there a way to stay productive and not to fight the windmills? Is there some kind of psychological trick to stay focused on the task, instead of thinking “How stupid is that?” each time I see another clever trick by the previous programmer? The problem with adding logging is that I actually have to understand what the code does, and doing so hurts my brain in an unpleasant fashion.

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• Is what someone publishes on the Internet fair game when considering them for employment as a programmer?

  - by Jon Hopkins

  (Originally posted on Stack Overflow but closed there and more relevant for here) So we first interviewed a guy for a technical role and he was pretty good. Before the second interview we googled him and found his MySpace page which could, to put it mildly, be regarded as inappropriate. Just to be clear there was no doubt that it was his page (name, photos, matching biographical information and so on). The content was entirely personal and in no way related to his professional abilities or attitude. Is it fair to consider this when thinking about whether to offer them a job? In most situations my response would be what goes on in someone's private life is their own doing. However for anyone technical who professes (implicitly or explicitly) to understand the Internet and the possibilities it offers, is posting things in a way which can so obviously be discovered a significant error of judgement? EDIT: Clarification - essentially it was a fairly graphic commentary on porn (but of, shall we say, a non-academic nature). I'm actually more interested in the general concept than the specific incident as it's something we're likely to see more in the future as people put more and more of themselves on-line. My concerns are not primarily about him and how he feels about such things (he's white, straight, male and about the last possible victim of discrimination on the planet in that sense), more how it reflects on the company that a very simple search (basically his name) returns these things and that clients may also do it. We work in a relatively conservative industry.

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• DIA2012

  - by Chris Kawalek

  If you've read this blog before, you probably know that Oracle desktop virtualization is used to demonstrate Oracle Applications at many different trade shows. This week, the Oracle desktop team is at DIA2012 in Philadelphia, PA. The DIA conference is a large event, hosting about 7,000 professionals in the pharmaceutical, bio technology, and medical device fields. Healthcare and associated fields are leveraging desktop virtualization because the model is a natural fit due to their high security requirements. Keeping all the data on the server and not distributing it on laptops or PCs that could be stolen makes a lot of sense when you're talking about patient records and other sensitive information. We're proud to be supporting the Oracle Health Sciences team at DIA2012 by hosting all of the Oracle healthcare related demos on a central server, and providing simple, smart card based access using our Sun Ray Clients. And remember that you're not limited to using just Sun Ray Clients--you can also use the Oracle Virtual Desktop Client and freely move your session from your iPad, your Windows or Linux PC, your Mac, or Sun Ray Clients. It's a truly mobile solution for an industry that requires mobile, secure access in order to remain compliant. Here are some pics from the show: We also have an informative PDF on Oracle desktop virtualization and Oracle healthcare that you can have a look at.  (Many thanks to Adam Workman for the pics!) -Chris  For more information, please go to the Oracle Virtualization web page, or  follow us at :  Twitter   Facebook YouTube Newsletter

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• Woman Is the World's First Computer Programmer? [closed]

  - by Sveta Bondarenko

  This week, on 10th December, we celebrate the 197th birth anniversary of Ada Lovelace, often considered as the world's first computer programmer. Ada became famous not only as a daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron but also as an outstanding 19th century mathematician. Her works on analytical engine are recognized as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Women always played a crucial role in the computer science evolution, but unfortunately, they are considered to be not so good at programming and engineering as men. Even though the fair sex makes up a growing portion of computer and Internet users, there is still a large gender gap in the field of Computer Science. But all is not lost! According to the study women's enrollment in the computer science raised from 7 percent in 1995 to 42 percent in 2000. And it is still increasing. Soon women will take a well-deserved position among the world's top computer programmers. After all, a number of notable female computer pioneers such as Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, and Anita Borg have proven that women make great computer scientists. But will women make great contributions to the modern technologies industry? Or successful and famous female computer programmer is just a pipe dream?

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• Is it common to lie in job ads regarding the technologies in use?

  - by Desolate Planet

  Wanted: Experienced Delphi programmer to maintain ginormous legacy application and assist in migration to C# Later on, as the new hire settles into his role... "Oh, that C# migration? Yeah, we'd love to do that. But management is dead-set against it. Good thing you love Pascal, eh?" I've noticed quite a lot of this where I live (Scotland) and I'm not sure how common this is across IT: a company is using a legacy technology and they know that most developers will avoid them to keep mainstream technology on their resumes. So, they will put out a advertisement saying they are looking to move their product to some hip new tech (C#, Ruby, FORTRAN 99) and require someone who has exposure to both - but the migration is just a carrot on a stick, perpetually hung in front of the hungry developer as he spends each day maintaining the legacy app. I've experienced this myself, and heard far too many similar stories to the point where it seems like common practice. I've learned over time that every company has legacy problems of some sort, but I fail to see why they can't be honest about it. It should be common sense to any developer that the technology in place is there to support the business and not the other way round. Unless the technology is hurting the business in someway, I hardly see any just cause for reworking the software stack to be made up whatever is currently vogue in the industry. Would you say that this is commonplace? If so, how can I detect these kinds of leading advertisements beforehand?

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