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• How to tell if SPARC T4 crypto is being used?

  - by danx

  A question that often comes up when running applications on SPARC T4 systems is "How can I tell if hardware crypto accleration is being used?" To review, the SPARC T4 processor includes a crypto unit that supports several crypto instructions. For hardware crypto these include 11 AES instructions, 4 xmul* instructions (for AES GCM carryless multiply), mont for Montgomery multiply (optimizes RSA and DSA), and 5 des_* instructions (for DES3). For hardware hash algorithm optimization, the T4 has the md5, sha1, sha256, and sha512 instructions (the last two are used for SHA-224 an SHA-384). First off, it's easy to tell if the processor T4 crypto instructions—use the isainfo -v command and look for "sparcv9" and "aes" (and other hash and crypto algorithms) in the output: $ isainfo -v 64-bit sparcv9 applications crc32c cbcond pause mont mpmul sha512 sha256 sha1 md5 camellia kasumi des aes ima hpc vis3 fmaf asi_blk_init vis2 vis popc These instructions are not-privileged, so are available for direct use in user-level applications and libraries (such as OpenSSL). Here is the "openssl speed -evp" command shown with the built-in t4 engine and with the pkcs11 engine. Both run the T4 AES instructions, but the t4 engine is faster than the pkcs11 engine because it has less overhead (especially for smaller packet sizes): t-4 $ /usr/bin/openssl version OpenSSL 1.0.0j 10 May 2012 t-4 $ /usr/bin/openssl engine (t4) SPARC T4 engine support (dynamic) Dynamic engine loading support (pkcs11) PKCS #11 engine support t-4 $ /usr/bin/openssl speed -evp aes-128-cbc # t4 engine used by default . . . The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed. type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes aes-128-cbc 487777.10k 816822.21k 986012.59k 1017029.97k 1053543.08k t-4 $ /usr/bin/openssl speed -engine pkcs11 -evp aes-128-cbc engine "pkcs11" set. . . . The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed. type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes aes-128-cbc 31703.58k 116636.39k 350672.81k 696170.50k 993599.49k Note: The "-evp" flag indicates use the OpenSSL "EnVeloPe" API, which gives more accurate results. That's because it tells OpenSSL to use the same API that external programs use when calling OpenSSL libcrypto functions, evp(3openssl). DTrace Shows if T4 Crypto Functions Are Used OK, good enough, the isainfo(1) command shows the instructions are present, but how does one know if they are being used? Chi-Chang Lin, who works on Oracle Solaris performance, wrote a Dtrace script to show if T4 instructions are being executed. To show the T4 instructions are being used, run the following Dtrace script. Look for functions named "t4" and "yf" in the output. The OpenSSL T4 engine uses functions named "t4" and the PKCS#11 engine uses functions named "yf". To demonstrate, I'll first run "openssl speed" with the built-in t4 engine then with the pkcs11 engine. The performance numbers are not valid due to dtrace probes slowing things down. t-4 # dtrace -Z -n ' pid$target::*yf*:entry,pid$target::*t4_*:entry{ @[probemod, probefunc] = count();}' \ -c "/usr/bin/openssl speed -evp aes-128-cbc" dtrace: description 'pid$target::*yf*:entry' matched 101 probes . . . dtrace: pid 2029 has exited libcrypto.so.1.0.0 ENGINE_load_t4 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_DH 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_DSA 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_RSA 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_destroy 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_free_aes_ctr_NIDs 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_init 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_add_NID 3 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_aes_expand128 5 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_cipher_init_aes 5 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_get_all_ciphers 6 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_get_all_digests 59 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_digest_final_sha1 65 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_digest_init_sha1 65 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_sha1_multiblock 126 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_digest_update_sha1 261 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_aes128_cbc_encrypt 1432979 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_aes128_load_keys_for_encrypt 1432979 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_cipher_do_aes_128_cbc 1432979 t-4 # dtrace -Z -n 'pid$target::*yf*:entry{ @[probemod, probefunc] = count();}   pid$target::*yf*:entry,pid$target::*t4_*:entry{ @[probemod, probefunc] = count();}' \ -c "/usr/bin/openssl speed -engine pkcs11 -evp aes-128-cbc" dtrace: description 'pid$target::*yf*:entry' matched 101 probes engine "pkcs11" set. . . . dtrace: pid 2033 has exited libcrypto.so.1.0.0 ENGINE_load_t4 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_DH 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_DSA 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_RSA 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_destroy 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_free_aes_ctr_NIDs 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_get_all_ciphers 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_get_all_digests 1 libsoftcrypto.so.1 rijndael_key_setup_enc_yf 1 libsoftcrypto.so.1 yf_aes_expand128 1 libcrypto.so.1.0.0 t4_add_NID 3 libsoftcrypto.so.1 yf_aes128_cbc_encrypt 1542330 libsoftcrypto.so.1 yf_aes128_load_keys_for_encrypt 1542330 So, as shown above the OpenSSL built-in t4 engine executes t4_* functions (which are hand-coded assembly executing the T4 AES instructions) and the OpenSSL pkcs11 engine executes *yf* functions. Programmatic Use of OpenSSL T4 engine The OpenSSL t4 engine is used automatically with the /usr/bin/openssl command line. Chi-Chang Lin also points out that if you're calling the OpenSSL API (libcrypto.so) from a program, you must call ENGINE_load_built_engines(), otherwise the built-in t4 engine will not be loaded. You do not call ENGINE_set_default(). That's because "openssl speed -evp" test calls ENGINE_load_built_engines() even though the "-engine" option wasn't specified. OpenSSL T4 engine Availability The OpenSSL t4 engine is available with Solaris 11 and 11.1. For Solaris 10 08/11 (U10), you need to use the OpenSSL pkcs311 engine. The OpenSSL t4 engine is distributed only with the version of OpenSSL distributed with Solaris (and not third-party or self-compiled versions of OpenSSL). The OpenSSL engine implements the AES cipher for Solaris 11, released 11/2011. For Solaris 11.1, released 11/2012, the OpenSSL engine adds optimization for the MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-2 hash algorithms, and DES-3. Although the T4 processor has Camillia and Kasumi block cipher instructions, these are not implemented in the OpenSSL T4 engine. The following charts may help view availability of optimizations. The first chart shows what's available with Solaris CLIs and APIs, the second chart shows what's available in Solaris OpenSSL. Native Solaris Optimization for SPARC T4 This table is shows Solaris native CLI and API support. As such, they are all available with the OpenSSL pkcs11 engine. CLIs: "openssl -engine pkcs11", encrypt(1), decrypt(1), mac(1), digest(1), MD5sum(1), SHA1sum(1), SHA224sum(1), SHA256sum(1), SHA384sum(1), SHA512sum(1) APIs: PKCS#11 library libpkcs11(3LIB) (incluDES Openssl pkcs11 engine), libMD(3LIB), and Solaris kernel modules AlgorithmSolaris 1008/11 (U10)Solaris 11Solaris 11.1 AES-ECB, AES-CBC, AES-CTR, AES-CBC AES-CFB128 XXX DES3-ECB, DES3-CBC, DES2-ECB, DES2-CBC, DES-ECB, DES-CBC XXX bignum Montgomery multiply (RSA, DSA) XXX MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512 XXX SHA-224 X ARCFOUR (RC4) X Solaris OpenSSL T4 Engine Optimization This table is for the Solaris OpenSSL built-in t4 engine. Algorithms listed above are also available through the OpenSSL pkcs11 engine. CLI: openssl(1openssl) APIs: openssl(5), engine(3openssl), evp(3openssl), libcrypto crypto(3openssl) AlgorithmSolaris 11Solaris 11SRU2Solaris 11.1 AES-ECB, AES-CBC, AES-CTR, AES-CBC AES-CFB128 XXX DES3-ECB, DES3-CBC, DES-ECB, DES-CBC X bignum Montgomery multiply (RSA, DSA) X MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512 XX SHA-224 X Source Code Availability Solaris Most of the T4 assembly code that called the new T4 crypto instructions was written by Ferenc Rákóczi of the Solaris Security group, with assistance from others. You can download the Solaris source for this and other parts of Solaris as a few zip files at the Oracle Download website. The relevant source files are generally under directories usr/src/common/crypto/{aes,arcfour,des,md5,modes,sha1,sha2}}/sun4v/. and usr/src/common/bignum/sun4v/. Solaris 11 binary is available from the Oracle Solaris 11 download website. OpenSSL t4 engine The source for the OpenSSL t4 engine, which is based on the Solaris source above, is viewable through the OpenGrok source code browser in directory src/components/openssl/openssl-1.0.0/engines/t4 . You can download the source from the same website or through Mercurial source code management, hg(1). Conclusion Oracle Solaris with SPARC T4 provides a rich set of accelerated cryptographic and hash algorithms. Using the latest update, Solaris 11.1, provides the best set of optimized algorithms, but alternatives are often available, sometimes slightly slower, for releases back to Solaris 10 08/11 (U10). Reference See also these earlier blogs. SPARC T4 OpenSSL Engine by myself, Dan Anderson (2011), discusses the Openssl T4 engine and reviews the SPARC T4 processor for the Solaris 11 release. Exciting Crypto Advances with the T4 processor and Oracle Solaris 11 by Valerie Fenwick (2011) discusses crypto algorithms that were optimized for the T4 processor with the Solaris 11 FCS (11/11) and Solaris 10 08/11 (U10) release. T4 Crypto Cheat Sheet by Stefan Hinker (2012) discusses how to make T4 crypto optimization available to various consumers (such as SSH, Java, OpenSSL, Apache, etc.) High Performance Security For Oracle Database and Fusion Middleware Applications using SPARC T4 (PDF, 2012) discusses SPARC T4 and its usage to optimize application security. Configuring Oracle iPlanet WebServer / Oracle Traffic Director to use crypto accelerators on T4-1 servers by Meena Vyas (2012)

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• The Red Gate and .NET Reflector Debacle

  - by Rick Strahl

  About a month ago Red Gate – the company who owns the NET Reflector tool most .NET devs use at one point or another – decided to change their business model for Reflector and take the product from free to a fully paid for license model. As a bit of history: .NET Reflector was originally created by Lutz Roeder as a free community tool to inspect .NET assemblies. Using Reflector you can examine the types in an assembly, drill into type signatures and quickly disassemble code to see how a particular method works.  In case you’ve been living under a rock and you’ve never looked at Reflector, here’s what it looks like drilled into an assembly from disk with some disassembled source code showing: Note that you get tons of information about each element in the tree, and almost all related types and members are clickable both in the list and source view so it’s extremely easy to navigate and follow the code flow even in this static assembly only view. For many year’s Lutz kept the the tool up to date and added more features gradually improving an already amazing tool and making it better. Then about two and a half years ago Red Gate bought the tool from Lutz. A lot of ruckus and noise ensued in the community back then about what would happen with the tool and… for the most part very little did. Other than the incessant update notices with prominent Red Gate promo on them life with Reflector went on. The product didn’t die and and it didn’t go commercial or to a charge model. When .NET 4.0 came out it still continued to work mostly because the .NET feature set doesn’t drastically change how types behave.  Then a month back Red Gate started making noise about a new Version Version 7 which would be commercial. No more free version - and a shit storm broke out in the community. Now normally I’m not one to be critical of companies trying to make money from a product, much less for a product that’s as incredibly useful as Reflector. There isn’t day in .NET development that goes by for me where I don’t fire up Reflector. Whether it’s for examining the innards of the .NET Framework, checking out third party code, or verifying some of my own code and resources. Even more so recently I’ve been doing a lot of Interop work with a non-.NET application that needs to access .NET components and Reflector has been immensely valuable to me (and my clients) if figuring out exact type signatures required to calling .NET components in assemblies. In short Reflector is an invaluable tool to me. Ok, so what’s the problem? Why all the fuss? Certainly the $39 Red Gate is trying to charge isn’t going to kill any developer. If there’s any tool in .NET that’s worth $39 it’s Reflector, right? Right, but that’s not the problem here. The problem is how Red Gate went about moving the product to commercial which borders on the downright bizarre. It’s almost as if somebody in management wrote a slogan: “How can we piss off the .NET community in the most painful way we can?” And that it seems Red Gate has a utterly succeeded. People are rabid, and for once I think that this outrage isn’t exactly misplaced. Take a look at the message thread that Red Gate dedicated from a link off the download page. Not only is Version 7 going to be a paid commercial tool, but the older versions of Reflector won’t be available any longer. Not only that but older versions that are already in use also will continually try to update themselves to the new paid version – which when installed will then expire unless registered properly. There have also been reports of Version 6 installs shutting themselves down and failing to work if the update is refused (I haven’t seen that myself so not sure if that’s true). In other words Red Gate is trying to make damn sure they’re getting your money if you attempt to use Reflector. There’s a lot of temptation there. Think about the millions of .NET developers out there and all of them possibly upgrading – that’s a nice chunk of change that Red Gate’s sitting on. Even with all the community backlash these guys are probably making some bank right now just because people need to get life to move on. Red Gate also put up a Feedback link on the download page – which not surprisingly is chock full with hate mail condemning the move. Oddly there’s not a single response to any of those messages by the Red Gate folks except when it concerns license questions for the full version. It puzzles me what that link serves for other yet than another complete example of failure to understand how to handle customer relations. There’s no doubt that that all of this has caused some serious outrage in the community. The sad part though is that this could have been handled so much less arrogantly and without pissing off the entire community and causing so much ill-will. People are pissed off and I have no doubt that this negative publicity will show up in the sales numbers for their other products. I certainly hope so. Stupidity ought to be painful! Why do Companies do boneheaded stuff like this? Red Gate’s original decision to buy Reflector was hotly debated but at that the time most of what would happen was mostly speculation. But I thought it was a smart move for any company that is in need of spreading its marketing message and corporate image as a vendor in the .NET space. Where else do you get to flash your corporate logo to hordes of .NET developers on a regular basis?  Exploiting that marketing with some goodwill of providing a free tool breeds positive feedback that hopefully has a good effect on the company’s visibility and the products it sells. Instead Red Gate seems to have taken exactly the opposite tack of corporate bullying to try to make a quick buck – and in the process ruined any community goodwill that might have come from providing a service community for free while still getting valuable marketing. What’s so puzzling about this boneheaded escapade is that the company doesn’t need to resort to underhanded tactics like what they are trying with Reflector 7. The tools the company makes are very good. I personally use SQL Compare, Sql Data Compare and ANTS Profiler on a regular basis and all of these tools are essential in my toolbox. They certainly work much better than the tools that are in the box with Visual Studio. Chances are that if Reflector 7 added useful features I would have been more than happy to shell out my $39 to upgrade when the time is right. It’s Expensive to give away stuff for Free At the same time, this episode shows some of the big problems that come with ‘free’ tools. A lot of organizations are realizing that giving stuff away for free is actually quite expensive and the pay back is often very intangible if any at all. Those that rely on donations or other voluntary compensation find that they amount contributed is absolutely miniscule as to not matter at all. Yet at the same time I bet most of those clamouring the loudest on that Red Gate Reflector feedback page that Reflector won’t be free anymore probably have NEVER made a donation to any open source project or free tool ever. The expectation of Free these days is just too great – which is a shame I think. There’s a lot to be said for paid software and having somebody to hold to responsible to because you gave them some money. There’s an incentive –> payback –> responsibility model that seems to be missing from free software (not all of it, but a lot of it). While there certainly are plenty of bad apples in paid software as well, money tends to be a good motivator for people to continue working and improving products. Reasons for giving away stuff are many but often it’s a naïve desire to share things when things are simple. At first it might be no problem to volunteer time and effort but as products mature the fun goes out of it, and as the reality of product maintenance kicks in developers want to get something back for the time and effort they’re putting in doing non-glamorous work. It’s then when products die or languish and this is painful for all to watch. For Red Gate however, I think there was always a pretty good payback from the Reflector acquisition in terms of marketing: Visibility and possible positioning of their products although they seemed to have mostly ignored that option. On the other hand they started this off pretty badly even 2 and a half years back when they aquired Reflector from Lutz with the same arrogant attitude that is evident in the latest episode. You really gotta wonder what folks are thinking in management – the sad part is from advance emails that were circulating, they were fully aware of the shit storm they were inciting with this and I suspect they are banking on the sheer numbers of .NET developers to still make them a tidy chunk of change from upgrades… Alternatives are coming For me personally the single license isn’t a problem, but I actually have a tool that I sell (an interop Web Service proxy generation tool) to customers and one of the things I recommend to use with has been Reflector to view assembly information and to find which Interop classes to instantiate from the non-.NET environment. It’s been nice to use Reflector for this with its small footprint and zero-configuration installation. But now with V7 becoming a paid tool that option is not going to be available anymore. Luckily it looks like the .NET community is jumping to it and trying to fill the void. Amidst the Red Gate outrage a new library called ILSpy has sprung up and providing at least some of the core functionality of Reflector with an open source library. It looks promising going forward and I suspect there will be a lot more support and interest to support this project now that Reflector has gone over to the ‘dark side’…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, February 29, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, February 29, 2012Popular ReleasesZXing.Net: ZXing.Net 0.4.0.0: sync with rev. 2196 of the java version important fix for RGBLuminanceSource generating barcode bitmaps Windows Phone demo client (only tested with emulator, because I don't have a Windows Phone) Barcode generation support for Windows Forms demo client Webcam support for Windows Forms demo clientOrchard Project: Orchard 1.4: Please read our release notes for Orchard 1.4: http://docs.orchardproject.net/Documentation/Orchard-1-4-Release-NotesFluentData -Micro ORM with a fluent API that makes it simple to query a database: FluentData version 1.2: New features: - QueryValues method - Added support for automapping to enumerations (both int and string are supported). Fixed 2 reported issues.NetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.15: 3.6.0.15 28-Feb-2012 • Fix: The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state. Work Item 10435: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10435 • Fix: Made StorageCache thread safe. Thanks to tangrl. • Fix: Members property of SqlAzManApplicationGroup is not functioning. Thanks to tangrl. Work Item 10267: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10267 • Fix: Indexer are making database calls. Thanks to t...SCCM Client Actions Tool: Client Actions Tool v1.1: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.1 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Added stop button to stop the ongoing process. Added action "Query update status". Added option "saveOnlineComputers" in config.ini to enable saving list of online computers from last session. Default value for "LatestClientVersion" set to SP2 R3 (4.00.6487.2157). Wuauserv service manual startup mode is considered healthy on Windows 7. Errors are now suppressed in checkReleases...Document.Editor: 2012.1: Whats new for Document.Editor 2012.1: Improved Recent Documents list Improved Insert Shape Improved Dialogs Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsKinect PowerPoint Control: Kinect PowerPoint Control v1.1: Updated for Kinect SDK 1.0.SharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.8: API Updates: SOLID Extract Method for Archives (7Zip and RAR). ExtractAllEntries method on Archive classes will extract archives as a streaming file. This can offer better 7Zip extraction performance if any of the entries are solid. The IsSolid method on 7Zip archives will return true if any are solid. Removed IExtractionListener was removed in favor of events. Unit tests show example. Bug fixes: PPMd passes tests plus other fixes (Thanks Pavel) Zip used to always write a Post Descri...Social Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.3): This new version includes: - Download new networks for Facebook fan pages. - New options for downloading more posts - Bug fixes To use the new graph data provider, do the following: Unzip the Zip file into the "PlugIns" folder that can be found in the NodeXL installation folder (i.e "C:\Program Files\Social Media Research Foundation\NodeXL Excel Template\PlugIns") Open NodeXL template and you can access the new importer from the "Import" menuASP.NET REST Services Framework: Release 1.1 - Standard version: Beginning from v1.1 the REST-services Framework is compatible with ASP.NET Routing model as well with CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) principle. These two are often important when building REST API functionality within your application. It also includes ability to apply Filters to a class to target all WebRest methods, as well as some performance enhancements. New version includes Metadata Explorer providing ability exploring the existing services that becomes essential as the number ...SQL Live Monitor: SQL Live Monitor 1.31: A quick fix to make it this version work with SQL 2012. Version 2 already has 2012 working, but am still developing the UI in version 2, so this is just an interim fix to allow user to monitor SQL 2012.DotNet.Highcharts: DotNet.Highcharts 1.1 with Examples: Fixed small bug in JsonSerializer about the numbers represented as string. Fixed Issue 310: decimal values don't work Fixed Issue 345: Disable Animation Refactored Highcharts class. Implemented Issue 341: More charts on one page. Added new class Container which can combine and display multiple charts. Usage: new Container(new[] { chart1, chart2, chart3, chart4 }) Implemented Feature 302: Inside an UpdatePanel - Added method (InFunction) which create the Highchart inside JavaScript f...Content Slider Module for DotNetNuke: 01.02.00: This release has the following updates and new features: Feature: One-Click Enabling of Pager Setting Feature: Cache Sliders for Performance Feature: Configurable Cache Setting Enhancement: Transitions can be Selected Bug: Secure Folder Images not Viewable Bug: Sliders Disappear on Postback Bug: Remote Images Cause Error Bug: Deleted Images Cause Error System Requirements DotNetNuke v06.00.00 or newer .Net Framework v3.5 SP1 or newer SQL Server 2005 or newerImage Resizer for Windows: Image Resizer 3 Preview 3: Here is yet another iteration toward what will eventually become Image Resizer 3. This release is stable. However, I'm calling it a preview since there are still many features I'd still like to add before calling it complete. Updated on February 28 to fix an issue with installing on multi-user machines. As usual, here is my progress report. Done Preview 3 Fix: 3206 3076 3077 5688 Fix: 7420 Fix: 7527 Fix: 7576 7612 Preview 2 6308 6309 Fix: 7339 Fix: 7357 Preview 1 UI...Finestra Virtual Desktops: 2.5.4500: This is a bug fix release for version 2.5. It fixes several things and adds a couple of minor features. See the 2.5 release notes for more information on the major new features in that version. Important - If Finestra crashes on startup for you, you must install the Visual C++ 2010 runtime from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5555. Fixes a bug with window animations not refreshing the screen on XP and with DWM off Fixes a bug with with crashing on XP due to a bug in t...AutoExpandOver - Show popup on mouseover, focus, click in Silverlight: AutoExpandOver 2.1: Many fixes. All leaks are gone. Features added.FileSquirrel: FileSquirrel Alpha 1.2.1 32bit and x64: FileSquirrel Alpha 1.2.1Publishing SCSM Work Item to a Sharepoint Calendar: PublishWI command line tool (Updated): Updated for SCSM 2012 (RC) PublishWI command line tool Usage: PublishWI.exe WIID URL CalendarName WIID: ID of the Work Item to publish (for example, CR3333) URL: URL of the SharePoint site, such as http://www.sharepoint.com CalendarName: The name of the sharepoint calendar to publish WI to.HttpRider - Tool for Web Site Performance and Stress Tests: HttpRider 1.0: Please let me know any issues you face. ThanksMedia Companion: MC 3.432b Release: General Now remembers window location. Catching a few more exceptions when an image is blank TV A couple of UI tweaks Movies Fixed the actor name displaying HTML Fixed crash when using Save files as "movie.nfo", "movie.tbn", & "fanart.jpg" New CSV template for HTML output function Added <createdate> tag for HTML output A couple of UI tweaks Known Issues Multiepisodes are not handled correctly in MC. The created nfo is valid, but they are not displayed in MC correctly & saving the...New Projects.NET Implementation of Extensions for Financial Services: NXFS is planned to be a compliant .Net implementation of CEN/XFS (currently version 3.20) to overcome some deficits of native implementation such as not supporting highly productive programming languages (like C#) and supporting only Windows XP and x86 platform.BigCoder WebMaster Tools: BigCoder WebMaster ToolsBigCoder Whois Program: BigCoder Whois ProgrambiscuitCMS: biscuitCMS makes it easier for <target user group> to <activity>. You'll no longer have to <activity>. It's developed in <programming language>. BridgeSeismic: BridgeSeismicData Normilizer: Decomposer for SQL fact tables, for BI projectsDownload Indexed Cache: "Download Indexed Cache" implements the Bing API Version 2 to retrieve content indexed within the Bing Cache to support the "Search Engine Reconnaissance" section of the OWASP Testing Guide v3. FITSExplorer: FITS Explorer is designed to allow astronomers to quickly and easily browse and preview the image and metadata stored in FITS files. The application was developed using primarily WPF and C#, with some low-level data manipulation routines written in C++ for high-performance.ICalSync: icalsyncLeague Manager: Nosso gerenciador de campeonatosLemcube SISTRI: interfacciamento ai servizi di Interoperabilità SIS.: Lemcube SISTRI: interfacciamento ai servizi di Interoperabilità SIS.LittlePluginLib: A small plugin system based on the .net framework 3.5Log reading: Reading and parsing huge log files, download from ftp server and upload to msql database.Mail Aggregator Service: To address the problem of being 'spammed' by your own alert emails this service was created to group/batch mail messages sent to the same 'to' address. It can integrate into QuickMon or even be used as a stand-alone tool to send out alert notifications. MangoTicTacToe: Demo application of a simple Silverlight game for Windows Phone 7. This tictactoe game features some of the most basics requirements for making a Silverlight game for Windows Phone 7.MonkeyButt: Web alternatives to commercial software like Facebook and Google.PizzaSoft: PizzaSoftproject: project demoSharePoint 2010 Automatically Generated Solution Demo: In this demo project I show how to generate Sandboxed Solutions by code at runtime.SoftService: Software ServiceSPAdmin: SharePoint WarmUp ToolSSASNet: SSASNetSSIS Data Masker: A SSIS Data Flow Transformation Component To Provide Basic Data Masking Capabilities.UpiGppf: This is a high shcool projectXMPP/Media Library for .NET and Windows Phone 7.5: .NET libraries for XMPP, TLS, RTP, STUN, SOCKS and more for windows and windows phone.

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• SharePoint 2010 Single Page Apps without a Master Page

  - by David Jacobus

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/djacobus/archive/2014/06/06/156827.aspxWell, maybe a stretch, but I am inclined to believe it is so.  I have been using  the JavaScript Client Object Model (JCSOM) for about 6 months now and I believe it can do about 80% of my job quickly without much fanfare.  When building sites in SharePoint no one wants the OOTB list views, etc. They want a custom look and feel!  I used to think in previous engagements that this would mean some custom server code or at least a data-form web part.   Since coming on-board in my current engagement, I have been forced because we don’t own the hosting site to come up with innovative ways to customize the UI of SharePoint.  We can push content via sandbox solutions and use JCSOM from within SharePoint Designer to do almost all customizations.  I have been using the following methodology to accomplish this: 1. Create an HTML file, which links CSS and JavaScript Files 2. Create and ASPX Web Part Page, Include a Content Editor Web Part and link to the HTML page created above.   So basically once it was done, I could copy , paste,  and rename those 4 items: CC, JS, HTML. ASPX and using MVVM just change the Model, View, and View-Model in the JavaScript file.  in about 5 minutes, I could create a completely new web part with SharePoint data.  Styling would take a little longer.  Some issues that would crop up: 1.  Multiple(s) of these web parts would not work well together on the same page (context). 2.  To separate the Web parts and context I would create a separate page for each web part and link them to a tabs layout via a Page Viewer web part or I frame.  Easy to do and not a problem but a big load problem as these web part pages even with minimal master had huge footprints.  (master page and page web part zones)   I kept thinking of my experience with SharePoint 2013 and apps!  The JavaScript was loaded from within the app, why can’t we do that in 2010 and skip the master page and web part zones. I thought at first, just link to sp.js but that didn’t work so I searched the web and found a link which did not work at all in my environment but helped me create a solution that would kudos to (Will). <!DOCTYPE html> <%@ Page %> <%@ Register Tagprefix="SharePoint" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> <%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %> <html> <head> <link rel="Stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../CSS/smoothness/jquery-ui-1.10.4.custom.min.css"> </head> <body > <form runat="server"> <!-- the following 5 js files are required to use CSOM --> <script src="/_layouts/1033/init.js" type="text/javascript" ></script> <script src="/_layouts/MicrosoftAjax.js" type="text/javascript" ></script> <script src="/_layouts/sp.core.js" type="text/javascript" ></script> <script src="/_layouts/sp.runtime.js" type="text/javascript" ></script> <script src="/_layouts/sp.js" type="text/javascript" ></script> <!-- include your app code --> <script src="../scripts/jquery-1.9.1.js" type="text/javascript" ></script> <script src="../Scripts/jquery-ui-1.10.3.custom.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="../scripts/App.js" type="text/javascript" ></script> <div ID="Wrapper"> </div> <SharePoint:FormDigest ID="FormDigest1" runat="server"></SharePoint:FormDigest> </form> </body> </html> Notice that I have the scripts loaded within the body! I discovered this by accident in trying to get Will’s solution to work, it made this work just like normal JCSOM from the master page.  I am sure there are other ways to do this, but I am a full time developer, so I’ll let someone else investigate the alternatives.  I have an example page showing an Announcements list as a Booklet which is a JQuery Plug-In.  Here is the page source notice the footprint is light.   <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <link rel="Stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../CSS/smoothness/jquery-ui-1.10.4.custom.min.css"> <link href="../CSS/jquery.booklet.latest.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen, projection, tv" /> <link href="../CSS/bookletannouncement.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen, projection, tv" /> </head> <body > <form name="ctl00" method="post" action="BookletAnnouncements2.aspx" onsubmit="javascript:return WebForm_OnSubmit();" id="ctl00"> <div> <input type="hidden" name="__REQUESTDIGEST" id="__REQUESTDIGEST" value="0x3384922A8349572E3D76DC68A3F7A0984CEC14CB9669817CCA584681B54417F7FDD579F940335DCEC95CFFAC78ADDD60420F7AA82F60A8BC1BB4B9B9A57F9309,06 Jun 2014 14:13:27 -0000" /> <input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE" id="__VIEWSTATE" value="/wEPDwUBMGRk20t+bh/NWY1sZwphwb24pIxjUbo=" /> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ var g_presenceEnabled = true;var _fV4UI=true;var _spPageContextInfo = {webServerRelativeUrl: "\u002fsites\u002fDemo50\u002fTeamSite", webLanguage: 1033, currentLanguage: 1033, webUIVersion:4,pageListId:"{ee707b5f-e246-4246-9e55-8db11d09a8cb}",pageItemId:167,userId:1, alertsEnabled:false, siteServerRelativeUrl: "\u002fsites\u002fdemo50", allowSilverlightPrompt:'True'};//]]> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_layouts/1033/init.js?rev=lEi61hsCxcBAfvfQNZA%2FsQ%3D%3D"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ function WebForm_OnSubmit() { UpdateFormDigest('\u002fsites\u002fDemo50\u002fTeamSite', 1440000); return true; } //]]> </script> <!-- the following 5 js files are required to use CSOM --> <script src="/_layouts/1033/init.js"></script> <script src="/_layouts/MicrosoftAjax.js"></script> <script src="/_layouts/sp.core.js"></script> <script src="/_layouts/sp.runtime.js"></script> <script src="/_layouts/sp.js"></script> <!-- include your app code --> <script src="../scripts/jquery-1.9.1.js"></script> <script src="../Scripts/jquery-ui-1.10.3.custom.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="../Scripts/jquery.easing.1.3.js"></script> <script src="../Scripts/jquery.booklet.latest.min.js"></script> <script src="../scripts/Announcementsbooklet.js"></script> <div ID="Accord"> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ var _spFormDigestRefreshInterval = 1440000;//]]> </script> </form> </body> </html> Here is the source to make the booklet work: ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded(retrieveListItems, "sp.js"); var context; var collListItem; var web; var listRootFolder; var oList; //retieve the list items from the host web function retrieveListItems() { context = SP.ClientContext.get_current(); web = context.get_web(); oList = context.get_web().get_lists().getByTitle('Announcements'); var camlQuery = new SP.CamlQuery(); camlQuery.set_viewXml('<View><RowLimit>10</RowLimit></View>'); collListItem = oList.getItems(camlQuery); listRootFolder = oList.get_rootFolder(); context.load(listRootFolder); context.load(web); context.load(collListItem); context.executeQueryAsync(onQuerySucceeded, onQueryFailed); } //Model object var Dev = function (id, title, body, expires, url) { var self = this; self.ID = id; self.Title = title; self.Body = body; self.Expires = expires; self.Url = url; } //View model var DevVM = new ListViewModel() function ListViewModel() { var self = this; self.items = new Array(); } function onQuerySucceeded(sender, args) { var listItemEnumerator = collListItem.getEnumerator(); while (listItemEnumerator.moveNext()) { var oListItem = listItemEnumerator.get_current(); var javaDate = oListItem.get_item('Expires'); var fmtExpires = javaDate.format('dd MMM yyyy'); var url = ""; var goodUrl = oListItem.get_item('Url'); if (goodUrl == null) { url = web.get_serverRelativeUrl() + "/Lists/Announcements/EditForm.aspx?ID=" + oListItem.get_item('ID'); } else { url = web.get_serverRelativeUrl() + oListItem.get_item('Url') } DevVM.items.push(new Dev(oListItem.get_item('ID'), oListItem.get_item('Title'), oListItem.get_item('Body'), fmtExpires, url)); } $.each(DevVM.items, function (index) { $("#Accord").append(createAccordNode(DevVM.items[index].Title, DevVM.items[index].Body, " Expires: " + DevVM.items[index].Expires, DevVM.items[index].Url)); }); $("#Accord").booklet(); } function createAccordNode(title, body, expires, url) { return ( $("<div><h3>" + title + "</h3><p><span class='titlespan'><a href='" + url + "'>" + title + "</a></span><span class='dicussionspan'>" + body + "</span><span class='expiresspan'>" + expires + "</span></p></div>") ); } function onQueryFailed(sender, args) { alert('Request failed. ' + args.get_message() + '\n' + args.get_stackTrace()); } The idea behind this post is that this could be used to: 1.   Create landing pages that are very un-SharePoint like! 2.   Make lightweight pages that could be used in page viewer web part or I Frame. 3.  Utilize Deep Zoom Composer and Sea-Dragon/or Silver light I will be using this for much of my development work!

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• Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 4: Application Development Considerations

  - by Tim Murphy

  This is the final part in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Application Development Considerations Now we get to the actual building of your solutions.  What are the skills and resources that will be needed in order to develop a smartphone application in the enterprise? Language Knowledge One of the first things you need to consider when you are deciding which platform language do you either have the most in house skill base or can you easily acquire.  If you already have developers who know Java or C# you may want to use either Android or Windows Phone.  You should also take into consideration the market availability of developers.  If your key developer leaves how easy is it to find a knowledgeable replacement? A second consideration when it comes to programming languages is the qualities exposed by the languages of a particular platform.  How well does that development language and its associated frameworks support things like security and access to the features of the smartphone hardware?  This will play into your overall cost of ownership if you have to create this infrastructure on your own. Manage Limited Resources Everything is limited on a smartphone: battery, memory, processing power, network bandwidth.  When developing your applications you will have to keep your footprint as small as possible in every way.  This means not running unnecessary processes in the background that will drain the battery or pulling more data over the airwaves than you have to.  You also want to keep your on device in as compact a format as possible. Mobile Design Patterns There are a number of design patterns that have either come to life because of smartphone development or have been adapted for this use.  The main pattern in the Windows Phone environment is the MVVM (Model-View-View-Model).  This is great for overall application structure and separation of concerns.  The fun part is trying to keep that separation as pure as possible.  Many of the other patterns may or may not have strict definitions, but some that you need to be concerned with are push notification, asynchronous communication and offline data storage. Real estate is limited on smartphones and even tablets. You are also limited in the type of controls that can be represented in the UI. This means rethinking how you modularize your application. Typing is also much harder to do so you want to reduce this as much as possible.  This leads to UI patterns.  While not what we would traditionally think of as design patterns the guidance each platform has for UI design is critical to the success of your application.  If user find the application difficult navigate they will not use it. Development Process Because of the differences in development tools required, test devices and certification and deployment processes your teams will need to learn new way of working together.  This will include the need to integrate service contracts of back-end systems with mobile applications.  You will also want to make sure that you present consistency across different access points to corporate data.  Your web site may have more functionality than your smartphone application, but it should have a consistent core set of functionality.  This all requires greater communication between sub-teams of your developers. Testing Process Testing of smartphone apps has a lot more to do with what happens when you lose connectivity or if the user navigates away from your application. There are a lot more opportunities for the user or the device to perform disruptive acts.  This should be your main testing concentration aside from the main business requirements.  You will need to do things like setting the phone to airplane mode and seeing what the application does in order to weed out any gaps in your handling communication interruptions. Need For Outside Experts Since this is a development area that is new to most companies the need for experts is a lot greater. Whether these are consultants, vendor representatives or just development community forums you will need to establish expert contacts. Nothing is more dangerous for your project timelines than a lack of knowledge.  Make sure you know who to call to avoid lengthy delays in your project because of knowledge gaps. Security Security has to be a major concern for enterprise applications. You aren't dealing with just someone's game standings. You are dealing with a companies intellectual property and competitive advantage. As such you need to start by limiting access to the application itself.  Once the user is in the app you need to ensure that the data is secure at all times.  This includes both local storage and across the wire.  This means if a platform doesn’t natively support encryption for these functions you will need to find alternatives to secure your data.  You also need to keep secret (encryption) keys obfuscated or locked away outside of the application. People can disassemble the code otherwise and break your encryption. Offline Capabilities As we discussed earlier one your biggest concerns is not having connectivity.  Because of this a good portion of your code may be dedicated to handling loss of connection and reconnection situations.  What do you do if you lose the network?  Back up all your transactions and store of any supporting data so that operations can continue off line. In order to support this you will need to determine the available flat file or local data base capabilities of the platform.  Any failed transactions will need to support a retry mechanism whether it is automatic or user initiated.  This also includes your services since they will need to be able to roll back partially completed transactions.  What ever you do, don’t ignore this area when you are designing your system. Deployment Each platform has different deployment capabilities. Some are more suited to enterprise situations than others. Apple's approach is probably the most mature at the moment. Prior to the current generation of smartphone platforms it would have been Windows CE. Windows Phone 7 has the limitation that the app has to be distributed through the same network as public facing applications. You mark them as private which means that they are only accessible by a direct URL. Unfortunately this does not make them undiscoverable (although it is very difficult). This will change with Windows Phone 8 where companies will be able to certify their own applications and distribute them.  Given this Windows Phone applications need to be more diligent with application access in order to keep them restricted to the company's employees. My understanding of the Android deployment schemes is that it is much less standardized then either iOS or Windows Phone. Someone would have to confirm or deny that for me though since I have not yet put the time into researching this platform further. Given my limited exposure to the iOS and Android platforms I have not been able to confirm this, but there are varying degrees of user involvement to install and keep applications updated. At one extreme the user just goes to a website to do the install and in other case they may need to download files and perform steps to install them. Future Bluetooth Today we use Bluetooth for keyboards, mice and headsets.  In the future it could be used to interrogate car computers or manufacturing systems or possibly retail machines by service techs.  This would open smartphones to greater use as a almost a Star Trek Tricorder.  You would get you all your data as well as being able to use it as a universal remote for just about any device or machine. Better corporation controlled deployment At least in the Windows Phone world the upcoming release of Windows Phone 8 will include a private certification and deployment option that is currently not available with Windows Phone 7 (Mango). We currently have to run the apps through the Marketplace certification process and use a targeted distribution method. Platform independent approaches HTML5 and JavaScript with Web Service has become a popular topic lately for not only creating flexible web site, but also creating cross platform mobile applications.  I’m not yet convinced that this lowest common denominator approach is viable in most cases, but it does have it’s place and seems to be growing.  Be sure to keep an eye on it. Summary From my perspective enterprise smartphone applications can offer a great competitive advantage to many companies.  They are not cheap to build and should be approached cautiously.  Understand the factors I have outlined in this series, do you due diligence and see if there is a portion of your business that can benefit from the mobile experience. del.icio.us Tags: Architecture,Smartphones,Windows Phone,iOS,Android

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• Project Jigsaw: Late for the train: The Q&A

  - by Mark Reinhold

  I recently proposed, to the Java community in general and to the SE 8 (JSR 337) Expert Group in particular, to defer Project Jigsaw from Java 8 to Java 9. I also proposed to aim explicitly for a regular two-year release cycle going forward. Herewith a summary of the key questions I’ve seen in reaction to these proposals, along with answers. Making the decision Q Has the Java SE 8 Expert Group decided whether to defer the addition of a module system and the modularization of the Platform to Java SE 9? A No, it has not yet decided. Q By when do you expect the EG to make this decision? A In the next month or so. Q How can I make sure my voice is heard? A The EG will consider all relevant input from the wider community. If you have a prominent blog, column, or other communication channel then there’s a good chance that we’ve already seen your opinion. If not, you’re welcome to send it to the Java SE 8 Comments List, which is the EG’s official feedback channel. Q What’s the overall tone of the feedback you’ve received? A The feedback has been about evenly divided as to whether Java 8 should be delayed for Jigsaw, Jigsaw should be deferred to Java 9, or some other, usually less-realistic, option should be taken. Project Jigsaw Q Why is Project Jigsaw taking so long? A Project Jigsaw started at Sun, way back in August 2008. Like many efforts during the final years of Sun, it was not well staffed. Jigsaw initially ran on a shoestring, with just a handful of mostly part-time engineers, so progress was slow. During the integration of Sun into Oracle all work on Jigsaw was halted for a time, but it was eventually resumed after a thorough consideration of the alternatives. Project Jigsaw was really only fully staffed about a year ago, around the time that Java 7 shipped. We’ve added a few more engineers to the team since then, but that can’t make up for the inadequate initial staffing and the time lost during the transition. Q So it’s really just a matter of staffing limitations and corporate-integration distractions? A Aside from these difficulties, the other main factor in the duration of the project is the sheer technical difficulty of modularizing the JDK. Q Why is modularizing the JDK so hard? A There are two main reasons. The first is that the JDK code base is deeply interconnected at both the API and the implementation levels, having been built over many years primarily in the style of a monolithic software system. We’ve spent considerable effort eliminating or at least simplifying as many API and implementation dependences as possible, so that both the Platform and its implementations can be presented as a coherent set of interdependent modules, but some particularly thorny cases remain. Q What’s the second reason? A We want to maintain as much compatibility with prior releases as possible, most especially for existing classpath-based applications but also, to the extent feasible, for applications composed of modules. Q Is modularizing the JDK even necessary? Can’t you just put it in one big module? A Modularizing the JDK, and more specifically modularizing the Java SE Platform, will enable standard yet flexible Java runtime configurations scaling from large servers down to small embedded devices. In the long term it will enable the convergence of Java SE with the higher-end Java ME Platforms. Q Is Project Jigsaw just about modularizing the JDK? A As originally conceived, Project Jigsaw was indeed focused primarily upon modularizing the JDK. The growing demand for a truly standard module system for the Java Platform, which could be used not just for the Platform itself but also for libraries and applications built on top of it, later motivated expanding the scope of the effort. Q As a developer, why should I care about Project Jigsaw? A The introduction of a modular Java Platform will, in the long term, fundamentally change the way that Java implementations, libraries, frameworks, tools, and applications are designed, built, and deployed. Q How much progress has Project Jigsaw made? A We’ve actually made a lot of progress. Much of the core functionality of the module system has been prototyped and works at both compile time and run time. We’ve extended the Java programming language with module declarations, worked out a structure for modular source trees and corresponding compiled-class trees, and implemented these features in javac. We’ve defined an efficient module-file format, extended the JVM to bootstrap a modular JRE, and designed and implemented a preliminary API. We’ve used the module system to make a good first cut at dividing the JDK and the Java SE API into a coherent set of modules. Among other things, we’re currently working to retrofit the java.util.ServiceLoader API to support modular services. Q I want to help! How can I get involved? A Check out the project page, read the draft requirements and design overview documents, download the latest prototype build, and play with it. You can tell us what you think, and follow the rest of our work in real time, on the jigsaw-dev list. The Java Platform Module System JSR Q What’s the relationship between Project Jigsaw and the eventual Java Platform Module System JSR? A At a high level, Project Jigsaw has two phases. In the first phase we’re exploring an approach to modularity that’s markedly different from that of existing Java modularity solutions. We’ve assumed that we can change the Java programming language, the virtual machine, and the APIs. Doing so enables a design which can strongly enforce module boundaries in all program phases, from compilation to deployment to execution. That, in turn, leads to better usability, diagnosability, security, and performance. The ultimate goal of the first phase is produce a working prototype which can inform the work of the Module-System JSR EG. Q What will happen in the second phase of Project Jigsaw? A The second phase will produce the reference implementation of the specification created by the Module-System JSR EG. The EG might ultimately choose an entirely different approach than the one we’re exploring now. If and when that happens then Project Jigsaw will change course as necessary, but either way I think that the end result will be better for having been informed by our current work. Maven & OSGi Q Why not just use Maven? A Maven is a software project management and comprehension tool. As such it can be seen as a kind of build-time module system but, by its nature, it does nothing to support modularity at run time. Q Why not just adopt OSGi? A OSGi is a rich dynamic component system which includes not just a module system but also a life-cycle model and a dynamic service registry. The latter two facilities are useful to some kinds of sophisticated applications, but I don’t think they’re of wide enough interest to be standardized as part of the Java SE Platform. Q Okay, then why not just adopt the module layer of OSGi? A The OSGi module layer is not operative at compile time; it only addresses modularity during packaging, deployment, and execution. As it stands, moreover, it’s useful for library and application modules but, since it’s built strictly on top of the Java SE Platform, it can’t be used to modularize the Platform itself. Q If Maven addresses modularity at build time, and the OSGi module layer addresses modularity during deployment and at run time, then why not just use the two together, as many developers already do? A The combination of Maven and OSGi is certainly very useful in practice today. These systems have, however, been built on top of the existing Java platform; they have not been able to change the platform itself. This means, among other things, that module boundaries are weakly enforced, if at all, which makes it difficult to diagnose configuration errors and impossible to run untrusted code securely. The prototype Jigsaw module system, by contrast, aims to define a platform-level solution which extends both the language and the JVM in order to enforce module boundaries strongly and uniformly in all program phases. Q If the EG chooses an approach like the one currently being taken in the Jigsaw prototype, will Maven and OSGi be made obsolete? A No, not at all! No matter what approach is taken, to ensure wide adoption it’s essential that the standard Java Platform Module System interact well with Maven. Applications that depend upon the sophisticated features of OSGi will no doubt continue to use OSGi, so it’s critical that implementations of OSGi be able to run on top of the Java module system and, if suitably modified, support OSGi bundles that depend upon Java modules. Ideas for how to do that are currently being explored in Project Penrose. Java 8 & Java 9 Q Without Jigsaw, won’t Java 8 be a pretty boring release? A No, far from it! It’s still slated to include the widely-anticipated Project Lambda (JSR 335), work on which has been going very well, along with the new Date/Time API (JSR 310), Type Annotations (JSR 308), and a set of smaller features already in progress. Q Won’t deferring Jigsaw to Java 9 delay the eventual convergence of the higher-end Java ME Platforms with Java SE? A It will slow that transition, but it will not stop it. To allow progress toward that convergence to be made with Java 8 I’ve suggested to the Java SE 8 EG that we consider specifying a small number of Profiles which would allow compact configurations of the SE Platform to be built and deployed. Q If Jigsaw is deferred to Java 9, would the Oracle engineers currently working on it be reassigned to other Java 8 features and then return to working on Jigsaw again after Java 8 ships? A No, these engineers would continue to work primarily on Jigsaw from now until Java 9 ships. Q Why not drop Lambda and finish Jigsaw instead? A Even if the engineers currently working on Lambda could instantly switch over to Jigsaw and immediately become productive—which of course they can’t—there are less than nine months remaining in the Java 8 schedule for work on major features. That’s just not enough time for the broad review, testing, and feedback which such a fundamental change to the Java Platform requires. Q Why not ship the module system in Java 8, and then modularize the platform in Java 9? A If we deliver a module system in one release but don’t use it to modularize the JDK until some later release then we run a big risk of getting something fundamentally wrong. If that happens then we’d have to fix it in the later release, and fixing fundamental design flaws after the fact almost always leads to a poor end result. Q Why not ship Jigsaw in an 8.5 release, less than two years after 8? Or why not just ship a new release every year, rather than every other year? A Many more developers work on the JDK today than a couple of years ago, both because Oracle has dramatically increased its own investment and because other organizations and individuals have joined the OpenJDK Community. Collectively we don’t, however, have the bandwidth required to ship and then provide long-term support for a big JDK release more frequently than about every other year. Q What’s the feedback been on the two-year release-cycle proposal? A For just about every comment that we should release more frequently, so that new features are available sooner, there’s been another asking for an even slower release cycle so that large teams of enterprise developers who ship mission-critical applications have a chance to migrate at a comfortable pace.

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• aide --init show lots of errors

  - by newbie14

  I have a brand new centos 6.2 server. The first thing I did is yum -y install aide and then next I did aide --init. Below is a whole lot of errors I got.What does it means must I reinstall it? Or leave it ? /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/lusermod: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/NetworkManager: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/rtacct: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/tcpdump: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/dnsmasq: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/getsebool: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/ownership: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/modem-manager: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/pluginviewer: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/sasl2-shared-mechlist: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/ifdhandler: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/mklost+found: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/vpddecode: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/skdump: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/getpcaps: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/lpasswd: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/tmpwatch: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/ck-log-system-stop: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/alternatives: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/avahi-daemon: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/dump-acct: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/luseradd: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/nstat: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/efibootmgr: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/sasldblistusers2: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/e2freefrag: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/sa: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/lgroupadd: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/ss: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/dmidecode: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/sktest: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/fdformat: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/saslpasswd2: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/selinuxenabled: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/pppstats: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/capsh: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/togglesebool: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/kppp: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/lgroupmod: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/cracklib-unpacker: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/getcap: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/avcstat: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/lnstat: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/filefrag: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/lid: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/bonobo-activation-sysconf: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/lockdev: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/mcelog: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/cifs.upcall: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/pcscd: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/brctl: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/logrotate: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/wpa_passphrase: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/pppdump: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/lsof: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/ck-log-system-start: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/setcap: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/rtkitctl: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/latencytop: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/wpa_cli: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process /usr/sbin/prelink: /usr/sbin/saned: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking Error on exit of prelink child process

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• IOC Container Handling State Params in Non-Default Constructor

  - by Mystagogue

  For the purpose of this discussion, there are two kinds of parameters an object constructor might take: state dependency or service dependency. Supplying a service dependency with an IOC container is easy: DI takes over. But in contrast, state dependencies are usually only known to the client. That is, the object requestor. It turns out that having a client supply the state params through an IOC Container is quite painful. I will show several different ways to do this, all of which have big problems, and ask the community if there is another option I'm missing. Let's begin: Before I added an IOC container to my project code, I started with a class like this: class Foobar { //parameters are state dependencies, not service dependencies public Foobar(string alpha, int omega){...}; //...other stuff } I decide to add a Logger service depdendency to the Foobar class, which perhaps I'll provide through DI: class Foobar { public Foobar(string alpha, int omega, ILogger log){...}; //...other stuff } But then I'm also told I need to make class Foobar itself "swappable." That is, I'm required to service-locate a Foobar instance. I add a new interface into the mix: class Foobar : IFoobar { public Foobar(string alpha, int omega, ILogger log){...}; //...other stuff } When I make the service locator call, it will DI the ILogger service dependency for me. Unfortunately the same is not true of the state dependencies Alpha and Omega. Some containers offer a syntax to address this: //Unity 2.0 pseudo-ish code: myContainer.Resolve<IFoobar>( new parameterOverride[] { {"alpha", "one"}, {"omega",2} } ); I like the feature, but I don't like that it is untyped and not evident to the developer what parameters must be passed (via intellisense, etc). So I look at another solution: //This is a "boiler plate" heavy approach! class Foobar : IFoobar { public Foobar (string alpha, int omega){...}; //...stuff } class FoobarFactory : IFoobarFactory { public IFoobar IFoobarFactory.Create(string alpha, int omega){ return new Foobar(alpha, omega); } } //fetch it... myContainer.Resolve<IFoobarFactory>().Create("one", 2); The above solves the type-safety and intellisense problem, but it (1) forced class Foobar to fetch an ILogger through a service locator rather than DI and (2) it requires me to make a bunch of boiler-plate (XXXFactory, IXXXFactory) for all varieties of Foobar implementations I might use. Should I decide to go with a pure service locator approach, it may not be a problem. But I still can't stand all the boiler-plate needed to make this work. So then I try this: //code named "concrete creator" class Foobar : IFoobar { public Foobar(string alpha, int omega, ILogger log){...}; static IFoobar Create(string alpha, int omega){ //unity 2.0 pseudo-ish code. Assume a common //service locator, or singleton holds the container... return Container.Resolve<IFoobar>( new parameterOverride[] {{"alpha", alpha},{"omega", omega} } ); } //Get my instance: Foobar.Create("alpha",2); I actually don't mind that I'm using the concrete "Foobar" class to create an IFoobar. It represents a base concept that I don't expect to change in my code. I also don't mind the lack of type-safety in the static "Create", because it is now encapsulated. My intellisense is working too! Any concrete instance made this way will ignore the supplied state params if they don't apply (a Unity 2.0 behavior). Perhaps a different concrete implementation "FooFoobar" might have a formal arg name mismatch, but I'm still pretty happy with it. But the big problem with this approach is that it only works effectively with Unity 2.0 (a mismatched parameter in Structure Map will throw an exception). So it is good only if I stay with Unity. The problem is, I'm beginning to like Structure Map a lot more. So now I go onto yet another option: class Foobar : IFoobar, IFoobarInit { public Foobar(ILogger log){...}; public IFoobar IFoobarInit.Initialize(string alpha, int omega){ this.alpha = alpha; this.omega = omega; return this; } } //now create it... IFoobar foo = myContainer.resolve<IFoobarInit>().Initialize("one", 2) Now with this I've got a somewhat nice compromise with the other approaches: (1) My arguments are type-safe / intellisense aware (2) I have a choice of fetching the ILogger via DI (shown above) or service locator, (3) there is no need to make one or more seperate concrete FoobarFactory classes (contrast with the verbose "boiler-plate" example code earlier), and (4) it reasonably upholds the principle "make interfaces easy to use correctly, and hard to use incorrectly." At least it arguably is no worse than the alternatives previously discussed. One acceptance barrier yet remains: I also want to apply "design by contract." Every sample I presented was intentionally favoring constructor injection (for state dependencies) because I want to preserve "invariant" support as most commonly practiced. Namely, the invariant is established when the constructor completes. In the sample above, the invarient is not established when object construction completes. As long as I'm doing home-grown "design by contract" I could just tell developers not to test the invariant until the Initialize(...) method is called. But more to the point, when .net 4.0 comes out I want to use its "code contract" support for design by contract. From what I read, it will not be compatible with this last approach. Curses! Of course it also occurs to me that my entire philosophy is off. Perhaps I'd be told that conjuring a Foobar : IFoobar via a service locator implies that it is a service - and services only have other service dependencies, they don't have state dependencies (such as the Alpha and Omega of these examples). I'm open to listening to such philosophical matters as well, but I'd also like to know what semi-authorative reference to read that would steer me down that thought path. So now I turn it to the community. What approach should I consider that I havn't yet? Must I really believe I've exhausted my options?

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• Varnish "FetchError no backend connection" error

  - by clueless-anon

  Varnishlog: 0 CLI - Rd ping 0 CLI - Wr 200 19 PONG 1340829925 1.0 12 SessionOpen c 79.124.74.11 3063 :80 12 SessionClose c EOF 12 StatSess c 79.124.74.11 3063 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 CLI - Rd ping 0 CLI - Wr 200 19 PONG 1340829928 1.0 0 CLI - Rd ping 0 CLI - Wr 200 19 PONG 1340829931 1.0 12 SessionOpen c 108.62.115.226 46211 :80 12 ReqStart c 108.62.115.226 46211 467185881 12 RxRequest c GET 12 RxURL c / 12 RxProtocol c HTTP/1.0 12 RxHeader c User-Agent: Pingdom.com_bot_version_1.4_(http://www.pingdom.com/) 12 RxHeader c Host: www.mysite.com 12 VCL_call c recv lookup 12 VCL_call c hash 12 Hash c / 12 Hash c www.mysite.com 12 VCL_return c hash 12 VCL_call c miss fetch 12 FetchError c no backend connection 12 VCL_call c error deliver 12 VCL_call c deliver deliver 12 TxProtocol c HTTP/1.1 12 TxStatus c 503 12 TxResponse c Service Unavailable 12 TxHeader c Server: Varnish 12 TxHeader c Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 12 TxHeader c Retry-After: 5 12 TxHeader c Content-Length: 418 12 TxHeader c Accept-Ranges: bytes 12 TxHeader c Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:45:31 GMT 12 TxHeader c X-Varnish: 467185881 12 TxHeader c Age: 1 12 TxHeader c Via: 1.1 varnish 12 TxHeader c Connection: close 12 Length c 418 12 ReqEnd c 467185881 1340829931.192433119 1340829931.891024113 0.000051022 0.698516846 0.000074035 12 SessionClose c error 12 StatSess c 108.62.115.226 46211 1 1 1 0 0 0 256 418 0 CLI - Rd ping 0 CLI - Wr 200 19 PONG 1340829934 1.0 0 CLI - Rd ping 0 CLI - Wr 200 19 PONG 1340829937 1.0 netstat -tlnp Active Internet connections (only servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:8080 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 3086/nginx tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1915/varnishd tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1279/sshd tcp 0 0 127.0.0.2:25 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 3195/sendmail: MTA: tcp 0 0 127.0.0.2:6082 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1914/varnishd tcp 0 0 127.0.0.2:9000 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1317/php-fpm.conf) tcp 0 0 127.0.0.2:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1192/mysqld tcp 0 0 127.0.0.2:587 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 3195/sendmail: MTA: tcp 0 0 127.0.0.2:11211 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 3072/memcached tcp6 0 0 :::8080 :::* LISTEN 3086/nginx tcp6 0 0 :::80 :::* LISTEN 1915/varnishd tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN 1279/sshd /etc/nginx/site-enabled/default server { listen 8080; ## listen for ipv4; this line is default and implied listen [::]:8080 default ipv6only=on; ## listen for ipv6 root /usr/share/nginx/www; index index.html index.htm index.php; # Make site accessible from http://localhost/ server_name localhost; location / { # First attempt to serve request as file, then # as directory, then fall back to index.html try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; } location /doc { root /usr/share; autoindex on; allow 127.0.0.2; deny all; } location /images { root /usr/share; autoindex off; } #error_page 404 /404.html; # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html # #error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html; #location = /50x.html { # root /usr/share/nginx/www; #} # proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80 # #location ~ \.php$ { # proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1; #} # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000 # location ~ \.php$ { fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.2:9000; fastcgi_index index.php; include fastcgi_params; } # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root # concurs with nginx's one # #location ~ /\.ht { # deny all; #} } /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/www.mysite.com.vhost server { listen 8080; server_name www.mysite.com mysite.com.net; root /var/www/www.mysite.com/web; if ($http_host != "www.mysite.com") { rewrite ^ http://www.mysite.com$request_uri permanent; } index index.php index.html; location = /favicon.ico { log_not_found off; access_log off; } location = /robots.txt { allow all; log_not_found off; access_log off; } # Deny all attempts to access hidden files such as .htaccess, .htpasswd, .DS_Store (Mac). location ~ /\. { deny all; access_log off; log_not_found off; } location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args; } # Add trailing slash to */wp-admin requests. rewrite /wp-admin$ $scheme://$host$uri/ permanent; location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|css|js|ico)$ { expires max; log_not_found off; } location ~ \.php$ { try_files $uri =404; include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params; fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.2:9000; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name; } include /var/www/www.mysite.com/web/nginx.conf; location ~ /nginx.conf { deny all; access_log off; log_not_found off; } } /etc/varnish/default.vcl # This is a basic VCL configuration file for varnish. See the vcl(7) # man page for details on VCL syntax and semantics. # # Default backend definition. Set this to point to your content # server. # backend default { .host = "127.0.0.2"; .port = "8080"; # .connect_timeout = 600s; #.first_byte_timeout = 600s; # .between_bytes_timeout = 600s; # .max_connections = 800; Note: uncommenting the last four options at default.vcl made no difference. cat /etc/default/varnish # Configuration file for varnish # # /etc/init.d/varnish expects the variables $DAEMON_OPTS, $NFILES and $MEMLOCK # to be set from this shell script fragment. # # Should we start varnishd at boot? Set to "yes" to enable. START=yes # Maximum number of open files (for ulimit -n) NFILES=131072 # Maximum locked memory size (for ulimit -l) # Used for locking the shared memory log in memory. If you increase log size, # you need to increase this number as well MEMLOCK=82000 # Default varnish instance name is the local nodename. Can be overridden with # the -n switch, to have more instances on a single server. INSTANCE=$(uname -n) # This file contains 4 alternatives, please use only one. ## Alternative 1, Minimal configuration, no VCL # # Listen on port 6081, administration on localhost:6082, and forward to # content server on localhost:8080. Use a 1GB fixed-size cache file. # # DAEMON_OPTS="-a :6081 \ # -T localhost:6082 \ # -b localhost:8080 \ # -u varnish -g varnish \ # -S /etc/varnish/secret \ # -s file,/var/lib/varnish/$INSTANCE/varnish_storage.bin,1G" ## Alternative 2, Configuration with VCL # # Listen on port 6081, administration on localhost:6082, and forward to # one content server selected by the vcl file, based on the request. Use a 1GB # fixed-size cache file. # DAEMON_OPTS="-a :80 \ -T 127.0.0.2:6082 \ -f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \ -S /etc/varnish/secret \ -s file,/var/lib/varnish/$INSTANCE/varnish_storage.bin,1G" If you need any other info let me know. I am all out of clue as to whats the problem.

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• Dynamic scoping in Clojure?

  - by j-g-faustus

  Hi, I'm looking for an idiomatic way to get dynamically scoped variables in Clojure (or a similar effect) for use in templates and such. Here is an example problem using a lookup table to translate tag attributes from some non-HTML format to HTML, where the table needs access to a set of variables supplied from elsewhere: (def *attr-table* ; Key: [attr-key tag-name] or [boolean-function] ; Value: [attr-key attr-value] (empty array to ignore) ; Context: Variables "tagname", "akey", "aval" '( ; translate :LINK attribute in <a> to :href [:LINK "a"] [:href aval] ; translate :LINK attribute in <img> to :src [:LINK "img"] [:src aval] ; throw exception if :LINK attribute in any other tag [:LINK] (throw (RuntimeException. (str "No match for " tagname))) ; ... more rules ; ignore string keys, used for internal bookkeeping [(string? akey)] [] )) ; ignore I want to be able to evaluate the rules (left hand side) as well as the result (right hand side), and need some way to put the variables in scope at the location where the table is evaluated. I also want to keep the lookup and evaluation logic independent of any particular table or set of variables. I suppose there are similar issues involved in templates (for example for dynamic HTML), where you don't want to rewrite the template processing logic every time someone puts a new variable in a template. Here is one approach using global variables and bindings. I have included some logic for the table lookup: ;; Generic code, works with any table on the same format. (defn rule-match? [rule-val test-val] "true if a single rule matches a single argument value" (cond (not (coll? rule-val)) (= rule-val test-val) ; plain value (list? rule-val) (eval rule-val) ; function call :else false )) (defn rule-lookup [test-val rule-table] "looks up rule match for test-val. Returns result or nil." (loop [rules (partition 2 rule-table)] (when-not (empty? rules) (let [[select result] (first rules)] (if (every? #(boolean %) (map rule-match? select test-val)) (eval result) ; evaluate and return result (recur (rest rules)) ))))) ;; Code specific to *attr-table* (def tagname) ; need these globals for the binding in html-attr (def akey) (def aval) (defn html-attr [tagname h-attr] "converts to html attributes" (apply hash-map (flatten (map (fn [[k v :as kv]] (binding [tagname tagname akey k aval v] (or (rule-lookup [k tagname] *attr-table*) kv))) h-attr )))) (defn test-attr [] "test conversion" (prn "a" (html-attr "a" {:LINK "www.google.com" "internal" 42 :title "A link" })) (prn "img" (html-attr "img" {:LINK "logo.png" }))) user=> (test-attr) "a" {:href "www.google.com", :title "A link"} "img" {:src "logo.png"} This is nice in that the lookup logic is independent of the table, so it can be reused with other tables and different variables. (Plus of course that the general table approach is about a quarter of the size of the code I had when I did the translations "by hand" in a giant cond.) It is not so nice in that I need to declare every variable as a global for the binding to work. Here is another approach using a "semi-macro", a function with a syntax-quoted return value, that doesn't need globals: (defn attr-table [tagname akey aval] `( [:LINK "a"] [:href ~aval] [:LINK "img"] [:src ~aval] [:LINK] (throw (RuntimeException. (str "No match for " tagname))) ; ... more rules [(string? ~akey)] [] ))) Only a couple of changes are needed to the rest of the code: In rule-match?, when syntax-quoted the function call is no longer a list: - (list? rule-val) (eval rule-val) + (seq? rule-val) (eval rule-val) In html-attr: - (binding [tagname tagname akey k aval v] - (or (rule-lookup [k tagname] *attr-table*) kv))) + (or (rule-lookup [k tagname] (attr-table tagname k v)) kv))) And we get the same result without globals. (And without dynamic scoping.) Are there other alternatives to pass along sets of variable bindings declared elsewhere, without the globals required by Clojure's binding? Is there an idiomatic way of doing it, like Ruby's binding or Javascript's function.apply(context)?

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, August 09, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, August 09, 2014Popular ReleasesSEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.042.019 Release 1: Added RadioAntenna broadcast name to ship name detail. Added two additional columns for Asteroid material generation for Asteroid Fields. Added Mass and Block number columns to main display. Added Ellipsis to some columns on main display to reduce name confusion. Added correct SE version number in file when saving. Re-added in reattaching Motor when drag/dropping or importing ships (KeenSH have added RotorEntityId back in after removing it months ago). Added option to export and r...QuickDAL: Initial Public Build: We recommend simply forking the source into your project. But you can use this DLL and PDB (debug symbols) if you'd rather not add clutter to your solution.N-Tier Entity Framework: N-Tier Entity Framework - 1.5 Beta 2: This is a pre-release version. Contents: N-Tier Entity Framework (VS2010).1.5.0-beta002.vsix N-Tier Entity Framework (VS2012).1.5.0-beta002.vsix N-Tier Entity Framework (VS2013).1.5.0-beta002.vsixThe Freemwork - An open game framework in C# .NET: v0.2 - Vortigaunt: Added space partitionning support Added depth support on CompositeSpriteHolder Added multiple components Added camera strategies Added extensions and math methods Added another constructor to Identity2D Updated Tools.TuplesFromT64 to support multiple layers of tiles Updated Identity2D.GlobalTransform property : now returns the screen position, regardless of Identity2D.DependsOnCamera Fixed Rectangle.Transform method Fixed sprite depth support Fixed wrong mathematic functions Multiple bugfixesLanMngmtXL: LanMngmtXL-1.0.61: This release includes binary files for 64 bit OS, source code and manual. Changes- host arp tables loaded - if more than 1 million rows then data saved to several excel tabs Quick How-To (using binary file)Follow these steps to use the software. Check included documentation for more details: Unpack ZIP file Download aditional tools for retrieving configurations like Plink (save to C:\Putty\plink.exe) or WVT (read documentation) Create a device list to get configurations (ex. devices.txt...Remote Linq: Demo - RemoteQueryableToEntityFramework: Demo application to show dynamic queries (joins, aggregations, groupings, projections, etc.) over WCF using EF on server sideTransMock: TransMock 0.9.1 (Beta): Minor fixes of the assembly name with the BizUnit steps Updated the name of the isntaller to indicate that it is for BizTalk server 2010. Tested and working with BizTalk 2013 as well, though assemblies are compiled for .NET 4.0.SharePoint 2013 Lync Presence using jQuery: jQuery Lync Presence: I have fixed the same user multiple times on page issue in this release (Issue # 1506)Dynamics AX IEIDE Project Explorer: IEIDE.1.1.40803.1: Installing the project: 1. Install the ax model file; do this by running the following commands on the machine having the AX Management Tools: 1.a. cmd (depending if you have UAC enabled, you may want to Run as administrator); 1.b. net stop aos60$01 (wait until you have your AOS stopped); 1.c. cd "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\ManagementUtili ties\" 1.d. axutil import /file:c:\IEIDE.1.1.40806.1.axmodel /verbose 1.e. net start aos60$01 1.f. start the client and select Skip 2. Per...Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 5.1: Updated to 100 Graph Api endpoint mappings with 258 object propertiesJSLint.NET: JSLint.NET 1.6.4: Bugs: #38: MSBuild task support for linked settings file. #40: Explicitly typed imports / exports required in some Visual Studio environments.Instant Beautiful Browsing: IBB 14.3 Alpha: An alpha release of IBB. After 3 years of the last release this version is made from scratch, with tons of new features like: Make your own IBB aps. HTML 5. Better UI. Extreme Windows 8 resemblance. Photos. Store. Movement TONS of times smother compared to previous versions. Remember that this is AN ALPHA release, I hope I will have "IBB 14" finished by December. The documentation on how to create a new application for IBB will come next monthjQuery List DragSort: jQuery List DragSort 0.5.2: Fixed scrollContainer removing deprecated use of $.browser so should now work with latest version of jQuery. Added the ability to return false in dragEnd to revert sort order Project changes Added nuget package for dragsort https://www.nuget.org/packages/dragsort Converted repository from SVN to MercurialLexisnexis directory of corporate affiliates Text Analyzer: Lexisnexis Text Analyzer: This version has functions below.Standards to analyze, columns, keywords editing Import of document Export to CSV and Microsoft Excel fileWix# (WixSharp) - managed interface for WiX: Release 1.0.0.0: Release 1.0.0.0 Custom UI Custom MSI Dialog Custom CLR Dialog External UIRecaptcha for .NET: Recaptcha for .NET v1.6.0: What's New?Bug fixes Optimized codeMath.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v3.2.0: Linear Algebra: Vector.Map2 (map2 in F#), storage-optimized Linear Algebra: fix RemoveColumn/Row early index bound check (was not strict enough) Statistics: Entropy ~Jeff Mastry Interpolation: use Array.BinarySearch instead of local implementation ~Candy Chiu Resources: fix a corrupted exception message string Portable Build: support .Net 4.0 as well by using profile 328 instead of 344. .Net 3.5: F# extensions now support .Net 3.5 as well .Net 3.5: NuGet package now contains pro...Virto Commerce Enterprise Open Source eCommerce Platform (asp.net mvc): Virto Commerce 1.11: Virto Commerce Community Edition version 1.11. To install the SDK package, please refer to SDK getting started documentation To configure source code package, please refer to Source code getting started documentation This release includes many bug fixes and minor improvements. More details about this release can be found on our blog at http://blog.virtocommerce.com.Json.NET: Json.NET 6.0 Release 4: New feature - Added Merge to LINQ to JSON New feature - Added JValue.CreateNull and JValue.CreateUndefined New feature - Added Windows Phone 8.1 support to .NET 4.0 portable assembly New feature - Added OverrideCreator to JsonObjectContract New feature - Added support for overriding the creation of interfaces and abstract types New feature - Added support for reading UUID BSON binary values as a Guid New feature - Added MetadataPropertyHandling.Ignore New feature - Improv...VidCoder: 1.5.24 Beta: Added NL-Means denoiser. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 6254. Added extra error handling to DVD player code to avoid a crash when the player was moved.New Projects2113110030: ten: pham van long mon: oop 2113110282: Mon: OPP Ten: Tran Thanh Danh2113110294: Mon: OOP Ten: Vo Ngoc Thai Lop:CCQ1311LAarena: TESTSTSTBowling Game: Program that makes you the follow-up to a game of bowling scoresCTP API for .NET: Comprehensive Trading Platform Application Programming Interface for the .NET Framework CTP API Version: V6.3.0Dashboard Chart Exporter for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013: Tool to export Dashboard Charts as Image files in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013MergeHosts: A python script to merge hosts file together for those enjoying a clean browsing experienceMFCBDAINF: BDA DTV topology information applicationNetFlux Tunneler Client: This client is a simple Tunneler that creates a TCP connection to the server and sends a custom designed header (originally to bypass firewalls) to the server.NetFlux Tunneler Server: This server is a simple Tunneler that accepts a TCP connection from the client and forwards it to another address, intercepting the custom header. oDesk .NET Library: oDesk .NET Portable Library developed by Andrew SorochakOooPlayer: Lightweight music player that supports mp3, aac, ogg, opus, flac, alac, ape, mpc, tta, wv, wma, ac3OOP-2113110292: class :OOP Name : Nguyen Minh TanOOP-2113110299: Mon: OOP Ten: Nguyen Minh Xuan Lop: CCQ1311LA Truong: Cao dang Cong Thuong - Tp. Ho Chi MinhSFML Tower Defence: SFML Tower defence game that was meant to demonstrate the principals taught in the NWU Potchefstroom EERI 314 course. The game is created using SFML and C++.The Happy Birthday Dad Project: A happy birthday message for my dad???????: ???????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????，?????????????????????，?????????????????????????!???????????????????????????????????????????????、??????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????。???????????????????: ????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,?????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,??????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;??????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????????，????????????，??????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、???????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“??????”???? ?????，?????????????????: ?????????????: ????????????: ????????????: ???????????: ???????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????????????,???????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????? ??????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，?????????????，????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,??????: ??????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,???????: ???????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????，?????????????????????，?????????????????????????!???????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????，?????????????????????，????????????????????????!??????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、????????: ??????????: ??????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????????，????????????，??????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、???????: ?????????????: ????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。　　?????????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，?????????????，????????: ???????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，?????????????????????????????: ????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????，????????????，???????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，???????????，???????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，???????: ????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????。???????????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，????????????，????，??“??????”???????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“??????”???? ?????，???????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“??????”?????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，??????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????。??????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，???????????????????????. ????????????????????，???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、???????: ??????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????，??????????????????????????，????????????!??????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，?????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????????，????????????，??????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，?????????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，???????????????????????. ????????????????????，???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ??????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。????????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。　　??????98???????????，???????????????????，????????????，????，??????????，?????????，?????????,????????????????，???????????，??????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，????????????????????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????。??????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。　　?????????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，?????????????，???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,?????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。???????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，???????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,??????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，???????: ????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，??????: ????????????: ???????????: 5454??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????????: ???????????: ????? QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????? ??????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????????????,???????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;???????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。　　?????????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，?????????????，???????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，???????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“??????”?????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,?????????????????: ??????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,?????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????????，????????????，??????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，????????????????: ????? 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?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“??????”?????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,??????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，????????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，??????????????????????????????: ???????????: ???????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ???????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，?????????????????????????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,????????????????????: ?????????????: ????????????: ??????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，????????????，????，??“??????”???? ?????，?????????????: ???????????: ???????????: ????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，???????????????????????. ????????????????????，????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，?????????????，????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。???????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，?????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????，????????????，???????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，???????????，???????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。　　??????98???????????，???????????????????，????????????，????，??????????，?????????，?????????,????????????????，???????????，???????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,?????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，????????????????????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????。??????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，???????: ????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? 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????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????? ?????，?????: ???????????: ????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????????????,???????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;???????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“??????”?????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。　　?????????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，?????????????，??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，???????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????，?????????????????????，????????????????????????!??????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、?????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,?????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，???????: ???????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，?????????????，????，??“??????”???? ?????，?????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、????????????????: ???????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，?????????????，????，??“??????”???????: ???????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????? ????????????: ?????????????: ??????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????: ?????????????: ????????????: ????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、??????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????? ????????????: ???????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，??????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????? ???????????: ??????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。?????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，???????: ????? QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。????? ????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????? ???????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，???????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，?????????????????????????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????? ???????????: ??????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，???????????????????????. ????????????????????，????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。　　?????????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，?????????????，??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，???????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ????????????: ???????????: ???????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;???????: ????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????????????,???????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;???????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????? ???????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，?????????????????????????????: ???????????: ?????????????: ???????

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• Include weather information in ASP.Net site from weather.com services

  - by sreejukg

  In this article, I am going to demonstrate how you can use the XMLOAP services (referred as XOAP from here onwards) provided by weather.com to display the weather information in your website. The XOAP services are available to be used for free of charge, provided you are comply with requirements from weather.com. I am writing this article from a technical point of view. If you are planning to use weather.com XOAP services in your application, please refer to the terms and conditions from weather.com website. In order to start using the XOAP services, you need to sign up the XOAP datafeed. The signing process is simple, you simply browse the url http://www.weather.com/services/xmloap.html. The URL looks similar to the following. Click on the sign up button, you will reach the registration page. Here you need to specify the site name you need to use this feed for. The form looks similar to the following. Once you fill all the mandatory information, click on save and continue button. That’s it. The registration is over. You will receive an email that contains your partner id, license key and SDK. The SDK available in a zipped format, contains the terms of use and documentation about the services available. Other than this the SDK includes the logos and icons required to display the weather information. As per the SDK, currently there are 2 types of information available through XOAP. These services are Current Conditions for over 30,000 U.S. and over 7,900 international Location IDs Updated at least Hourly Five-Day Forecast (today + 4 additional forecast days in consecutive order beginning with tomorrow) for over 30,000 U.S. and over 7,900 international Location IDs Updated at least Three Times Daily The SDK provides detailed information about the fields included in response of each service. Additionally there is a refresh rate that you need to comply with. As per the SDK, the refresh rate means the following “Refresh Rate” shall mean the maximum frequency with which you may call the XML Feed for a given LocID requesting a data set for that LocID. During the time period in between refresh periods the data must be cached by you either in the memory on your servers or in Your Desktop Application. About the Services Weather.com will provide you with access to the XML Feed over the Internet through the hostname xoap.weather.com. The weather data from the XML feed must be requested for a specific location. So you need a location ID (LOC ID). The XML feed work with 2 types of location IDs. First one is with City Identifiers and second one is using 5 Digit US postal codes. If you do not know your location ID, don’t worry, there is a location id search service available for you to retrieve the location id from city name. Since I am a resident in the Kingdom of Bahrain, I am going to retrieve the weather information for Manama(the capital of Bahrain) . In order to get the location ID for Manama, type the following URL in your address bar. http://xoap.weather.com/search/search?where=manama I got the following XML output. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- This document is intended only for use by authorized licensees of The –> <!-- Weather Channel. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Copyright 1995-2011, –> <!-- The Weather Channel Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. –> <search ver="3.0">       <loc id="BAXX0001" type="1">Al Manama, Bahrain</loc> </search> You can try this with any city name, if the city is available, it will return the location id, and otherwise, it will return nothing. In order to get the weather information, from XOAP,  you need to pass certain parameters to the XOAP service. A brief about the parameters are as follows. Please refer SDK for more details. Parameter name Possible Value cc Optional, if you include this, the current condition will be returned. Value can be anything, as it will be ignored e.g. cc=* dayf If you want the forecast for 5 days, specify dayf=5 This is optional iink Value should be XOAP par Your partner id. You can find this in your registration email from weather.com prod Value should be XOAP key The license key assigned to you. This will be available in the registration email unit s or m (standard or matric or you can think of Celsius/Fahrenheit) this is optional field, if not specified the unit will be standard(s) The URL host for the XOAP service is http://xoap.weather.com. So for my purpose, I need the following request to be made to access the XOAP services. http://xoap.weather.com/weather/local/BAXX0001?cc=*&link=xoap&prod=xoap&par=*********&key=************** (The ***** to be replaced with the corresponding alternatives) The response XML have a root element “weather”. Under the root element, it has the following sections <head> - the meta data information about the weather results returned. <loc> - the location data block that provides, the information about the location for which the wheather data is retrieved. <lnks> - the 4 promotional links you need to place along with the weather display. Additional to these 4 links, there should be another link with weather channel logo to the home page of weather.com. <cc> - the current condition data. This element will be there only if you specify the cc element in the request. <dayf> - the forcast data as you specified. This element will be there only if you specify the dayf in the request. In this walkthrough, I am going to capture the weather information for Manama (Location ID: BAXX0001). You need 2 applications to display weather information in your website. A Console application that retrieves data from the XMLOAP and store in the SQL Server database (or any data store as you prefer).This application will be scheduled to execute in every 25 minutes using windows task scheduler, so that we can comply with the refresh rate. A web application that display data from the SQL Server database Retrieve the Weather from XOAP I have created a console application named, Weather Service. I created a SQL server database, with the following columns. I named the table as tblweather. You are free to choose any name. Column name Description lastUpdated Datetime, this is the last time when the weather data is updated. This is the time of the service running TemparatureDateTime The date and time returned by XML feed Temparature The temperature returned by the XML feed. TemparatureUnit The unit of the temperature returned by the XML feed iconId The id of the icon to be used. Currently 48 icons from 0 to 47 are available. WeatherDescription The Weather Description Phrase returned by the feed. Link1url The url to the first promo link Link1Text The text for the first promo link Link2url The url to the second promo link Link2Text The text for the second promo link Link3url The url to the third promo link Link3Text The text for the third promo link Link4url The url to the fourth promo link Link4Text The text for the fourth promo link Every time when the service runs, the application will update the database columns from the XOAP data feed. When the application starts, It is going to get the data as XML from the url. This demonstration uses LINQ to extract the necessary data from the fetched XML. The following are the code segment for extracting data from the weather XML using LINQ. // first, create an instance of the XDocument class with the XOAP URL. replace **** with the corresponding values. XDocument weather = XDocument.Load("http://xoap.weather.com/weather/local/BAXX0001?cc=*&link=xoap&prod=xoap&par=***********&key=c*********"); // construct a query using LINQ var feedResult = from item in weather.Descendants() select new { unit = item.Element("head").Element("ut").Value, temp = item.Element("cc").Element("tmp").Value, tempDate = item.Element("cc").Element("lsup").Value, iconId = item.Element("cc").Element("icon").Value, description = item.Element("cc").Element("t").Value, links = from link in item.Elements("lnks").Elements("link") select new { url = link.Element("l").Value, text = link.Element("t").Value } }; // Load the root node to a variable, you may use foreach construct instead. var item1 = feedResult.First(); *If you want to learn more about LINQ and XML, read this nice blog from Scott GU. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/08/07/using-linq-to-xml-and-how-to-build-a-custom-rss-feed-reader-with-it.aspx Now you have all the required values in item1. For e.g. if you want to get the temperature, use item1.temp; Now I just need to execute an SQL query against the database. See the connection part. using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=sreeju\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=Sample;Integrated Security=True")) { string strSql = @"update tblweather set lastupdated=getdate(), temparatureDateTime = @temparatureDateTime, temparature=@temparature, temparatureUnit=@temparatureUnit, iconId = @iconId, description=@description, link1url=@link1url, link1text=@link1text, link2url=@link2url, link2text=@link2text,link3url=@link3url, link3text=@link3text,link4url=@link4url, link4text=@link4text"; SqlCommand comm = new SqlCommand(strSql, conn); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparatureDateTime", item1.tempDate); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparature", item1.temp); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparatureUnit", item1.unit); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("description", item1.description); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("iconId", item1.iconId); var lstLinks = item1.links; comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link1url", lstLinks.ElementAt(0).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link1text", lstLinks.ElementAt(0).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link2url", lstLinks.ElementAt(1).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link2text", lstLinks.ElementAt(1).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link3url", lstLinks.ElementAt(2).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link3text", lstLinks.ElementAt(2).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link4url", lstLinks.ElementAt(3).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link4text", lstLinks.ElementAt(3).text); conn.Open(); comm.ExecuteNonQuery(); conn.Close(); Console.WriteLine("database updated"); } Now click ctrl + f5 to run the service. I got the following output Check your database and make sure, the data is updated with the latest information from the service. (Make sure you inserted one row in the database by entering some values before executing the service. Otherwise you need to modify your application code to count the rows and conditionally perform insert/update query) Display the Weather information in ASP.Net page Now you got all the data in the database. You just need to create a web application and display the data from the database. I created a new ASP.Net web application with a default.aspx page. In order to comply with the terms of weather.com, You need to use Weather.com logo along with the weather display. You can find the necessary logos to use under the folder “logos” in the SDK. Additionally copy any of the icon set from the folder “icons” to your web application. I used the 93x93 icon set. You are free to use any other sizes available. The design view of the page in VS2010 looks similar to the following. The page contains a heading, an image control (for displaying the weather icon), 2 label controls (for displaying temperature and weather description), 4 hyperlinks (for displaying the 4 promo links returned by the XOAP service) and weather.com logo with hyperlink to the weather.com home page. I am going to write code that will update the values of these controls from the values stored in the database by the service application as mentioned in the previous step. Go to the code behind file for the webpage, enter the following code under Page_Load event handler. using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=sreeju\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=Sample;Integrated Security=True")) { SqlCommand comm = new SqlCommand("select top 1 * from tblweather", conn); conn.Open(); SqlDataReader reader = comm.ExecuteReader(); if (reader.Read()) { lblTemparature.Text = reader["temparature"].ToString() + "&deg;" + reader["temparatureUnit"].ToString(); lblWeatherDescription.Text = reader["description"].ToString(); imgWeather.ImageUrl = "icons/" + reader["iconId"].ToString() + ".png"; lnk1.Text = reader["link1text"].ToString(); lnk1.NavigateUrl = reader["link1url"].ToString(); lnk2.Text = reader["link2text"].ToString(); lnk2.NavigateUrl = reader["link2url"].ToString(); lnk3.Text = reader["link3text"].ToString(); lnk3.NavigateUrl = reader["link3url"].ToString(); lnk4.Text = reader["link4text"].ToString(); lnk4.NavigateUrl = reader["link4url"].ToString(); } conn.Close(); } Press ctrl + f5 to run the page. You will see the following output. That’s it. You need to configure the console application to run every 25 minutes so that the database is updated. Also you can fetch the forecast information and store those in the database, and then retrieve it later in your web page. Since the data resides in your database, you have the full control over your display. You need to make sure your website comply with weather.com license requirements. If you want to get the source code of this walkthrough through the application, post your email address below. Hope you enjoy the reading.

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• The Benefits of Smart Grid Business Software

  - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP

  Smart Grid Background What Are Smart Grids?Smart Grids use computer hardware and software, sensors, controls, and telecommunications equipment and services to: Link customers to information that helps them manage consumption and use electricity wisely. Enable customers to respond to utility notices in ways that help minimize the duration of overloads, bottlenecks, and outages. Provide utilities with information that helps them improve performance and control costs. What Is Driving Smart Grid Development? Environmental ImpactSmart Grid development is picking up speed because of the widespread interest in reducing the negative impact that energy use has on the environment. Smart Grids use technology to drive efficiencies in transmission, distribution, and consumption. As a result, utilities can serve customers’ power needs with fewer generating plants, fewer transmission and distribution assets,and lower overall generation. With the possible exception of wind farm sprawl, landscape preservation is one obvious benefit. And because most generation today results in greenhouse gas emissions, Smart Grids reduce air pollution and the potential for global climate change.Smart Grids also more easily accommodate the technical difficulties of integrating intermittent renewable resources like wind and solar into the grid, providing further greenhouse gas reductions. CostsThe ability to defer the cost of plant and grid expansion is a major benefit to both utilities and customers. Utilities do not need to use as many internal resources for traditional infrastructure project planning and management. Large T&D infrastructure expansion costs are not passed on to customers.Smart Grids will not eliminate capital expansion, of course. Transmission corridors to connect renewable generation with customers will require major near-term expenditures. Additionally, in the future, electricity to satisfy the needs of population growth and additional applications will exceed the capacity reductions available through the Smart Grid. At that point, expansion will resume—but with greater overall T&D efficiency based on demand response, load control, and many other Smart Grid technologies and business processes. Energy efficiency is a second area of Smart Grid cost saving of particular relevance to customers. The timely and detailed information Smart Grids provide encourages customers to limit waste, adopt energy-efficient building codes and standards, and invest in energy efficient appliances. Efficiency may or may not lower customer bills because customer efficiency savings may be offset by higher costs in generation fuels or carbon taxes. It is clear, however, that bills will be lower with efficiency than without it. Utility Operations Smart Grids can serve as the central focus of utility initiatives to improve business processes. Many utilities have long “wish lists” of projects and applications they would like to fund in order to improve customer service or ease staff’s burden of repetitious work, but they have difficulty cost-justifying the changes, especially in the short term. Adding Smart Grid benefits to the cost/benefit analysis frequently tips the scales in favor of the change and can also significantly reduce payback periods.Mobile workforce applications and asset management applications work together to deploy assets and then to maintain, repair, and replace them. Many additional benefits result—for instance, increased productivity and fuel savings from better routing. Similarly, customer portals that provide customers with near-real-time information can also encourage online payments, thus lowering billing costs. Utilities can and should include these cost and service improvements in the list of Smart Grid benefits. What Is Smart Grid Business Software? Smart Grid business software gathers data from a Smart Grid and uses it improve a utility’s business processes. Smart Grid business software also helps utilities provide relevant information to customers who can then use it to reduce their own consumption and improve their environmental profiles. Smart Grid Business Software Minimizes the Impact of Peak Demand Utilities must size their assets to accommodate their highest peak demand. The higher the peak rises above base demand: The more assets a utility must build that are used only for brief periods—an inefficient use of capital. The higher the utility’s risk profile rises given the uncertainties surrounding the time needed for permitting, building, and recouping costs. The higher the costs for utilities to purchase supply, because generators can charge more for contracts and spot supply during high-demand periods. Smart Grids enable a variety of programs that reduce peak demand, including: Time-of-use pricing and critical peak pricing—programs that charge customers more when they consume electricity during peak periods. Pilot projects indicate that these programs are successful in flattening peaks, thus ensuring better use of existing T&D and generation assets. Direct load control, which lets utilities reduce or eliminate electricity flow to customer equipment (such as air conditioners). Contracts govern the terms and conditions of these turn-offs. Indirect load control, which signals customers to reduce the use of on-premises equipment for contractually agreed-on time periods. Smart Grid business software enables utilities to impose penalties on customers who do not comply with their contracts. Smart Grids also help utilities manage peaks with existing assets by enabling: Real-time asset monitoring and control. In this application, advanced sensors safely enable dynamic capacity load limits, ensuring that all grid assets can be used to their maximum capacity during peak demand periods. Real-time asset monitoring and control applications also detect the location of excessive losses and pinpoint need for mitigation and asset replacements. As a result, utilities reduce outage risk and guard against excess capacity or “over-build”. Better peak demand analysis. As a result: Distribution planners can better size equipment (e.g. transformers) to avoid over-building. Operations engineers can identify and resolve bottlenecks and other inefficiencies that may cause or exacerbate peaks. As above, the result is a reduction in the tendency to over-build. Supply managers can more closely match procurement with delivery. As a result, they can fine-tune supply portfolios, reducing the tendency to over-contract for peak supply and reducing the need to resort to spot market purchases during high peaks. Smart Grids can help lower the cost of remaining peaks by: Standardizing interconnections for new distributed resources (such as electricity storage devices). Placing the interconnections where needed to support anticipated grid congestion. Smart Grid Business Software Lowers the Cost of Field Services By processing Smart Grid data through their business software, utilities can reduce such field costs as: Vegetation management. Smart Grids can pinpoint momentary interruptions and tree-caused outages. Spatial mash-up tools leverage GIS models of tree growth for targeted vegetation management. This reduces the cost of unnecessary tree trimming. Service vehicle fuel. Many utility service calls are “false alarms.” Checking meter status before dispatching crews prevents many unnecessary “truck rolls.” Similarly, crews use far less fuel when Smart Grid sensors can pinpoint a problem and mobile workforce applications can then route them directly to it. Smart Grid Business Software Ensures Regulatory Compliance Smart Grids can ensure compliance with private contracts and with regional, national, or international requirements by: Monitoring fulfillment of contract terms. Utilities can use one-hour interval meters to ensure that interruptible (“non-core”) customers actually reduce or eliminate deliveries as required. They can use the information to levy fines against contract violators. Monitoring regulations imposed on customers, such as maximum use during specific time periods. Using accurate time-stamped event history derived from intelligent devices distributed throughout the smart grid to monitor and report reliability statistics and risk compliance. Automating business processes and activities that ensure compliance with security and reliability measures (e.g. NERC-CIP 2-9). Grid Business Software Strengthens Utilities’ Connection to Customers While Reducing Customer Service Costs During outages, Smart Grid business software can: Identify outages more quickly. Software uses sensors to pinpoint outages and nested outage locations. They also permit utilities to ensure outage resolution at every meter location. Size outages more accurately, permitting utilities to dispatch crews that have the skills needed, in appropriate numbers. Provide updates on outage location and expected duration. This information helps call centers inform customers about the timing of service restoration. Smart Grids also facilitates display of outage maps for customer and public-service use. Smart Grids can significantly reduce the cost to: Connect and disconnect customers. Meters capable of remote disconnect can virtually eliminate the costs of field crews and vehicles previously required to change service from the old to the new residents of a metered property or disconnect customers for nonpayment. Resolve reports of voltage fluctuation. Smart Grids gather and report voltage and power quality data from meters and grid sensors, enabling utilities to pinpoint reported problems or resolve them before customers complain. Detect and resolve non-technical losses (e.g. theft). Smart Grids can identify illegal attempts to reconnect meters or to use electricity in supposedly vacant premises. They can also detect theft by comparing flows through delivery assets with billed consumption. Smart Grids also facilitate outreach to customers. By monitoring and analyzing consumption over time, utilities can: Identify customers with unusually high usage and contact them before they receive a bill. They can also suggest conservation techniques that might help to limit consumption. This can head off “high bill” complaints to the contact center. Note that such “high usage” or “additional charges apply because you are out of range” notices—frequently via text messaging—are already common among mobile phone providers. Help customers identify appropriate bill payment alternatives (budget billing, prepayment, etc.). Help customers find and reduce causes of over-consumption. There’s no waiting for bills in the mail before they even understand there is a problem. Utilities benefit not just through improved customer relations but also through limiting the size of bills from customers who might struggle to pay them. Where permitted, Smart Grids can open the doors to such new utility service offerings as: Monitoring properties. Landlords reduce costs of vacant properties when utilities notify them of unexpected energy or water consumption. Utilities can perform similar services for owners of vacation properties or the adult children of aging parents. Monitoring equipment. Power-use patterns can reveal a need for equipment maintenance. Smart Grids permit utilities to alert owners or managers to a need for maintenance or replacement. Facilitating home and small-business networks. Smart Grids can provide a gateway to equipment networks that automate control or let owners access equipment remotely. They also facilitate net metering, offering some utilities a path toward involvement in small-scale solar or wind generation. Prepayment plans that do not need special meters. Smart Grid Business Software Helps Customers Control Energy Costs There is no end to the ways Smart Grids help both small and large customers control energy costs. For instance: Multi-premises customers appreciate having all meters read on the same day so that they can more easily compare consumption at various sites. Customers in competitive regions can match their consumption profile (detailed via Smart Grid data) with specific offerings from competitive suppliers. Customers seeing inexplicable consumption patterns and power quality problems may investigate further. The result can be discovery of electrical problems that can be resolved through rewiring or maintenance—before more serious fires or accidents happen. Smart Grid Business Software Facilitates Use of Renewables Generation from wind and solar resources is a popular alternative to fossil fuel generation, which emits greenhouse gases. Wind and solar generation may also increase energy security in regions that currently import fossil fuel for use in generation. Utilities face many technical issues as they attempt to integrate intermittent resource generation into traditional grids, which traditionally handle only fully dispatchable generation. Smart Grid business software helps solves many of these issues by: Detecting sudden drops in production from renewables-generated electricity (wind and solar) and automatically triggering electricity storage and smart appliance response to compensate as needed. Supporting industry-standard distributed generation interconnection processes to reduce interconnection costs and avoid adding renewable supplies to locations already subject to grid congestion. Facilitating modeling and monitoring of locally generated supply from renewables and thus helping to maximize their use. Increasing the efficiency of “net metering” (through which utilities can use electricity generated by customers) by: Providing data for analysis. Integrating the production and consumption aspects of customer accounts. During non-peak periods, such techniques enable utilities to increase the percent of renewable generation in their supply mix. During peak periods, Smart Grid business software controls circuit reconfiguration to maximize available capacity. Conclusion Utility missions are changing. Yesterday, they focused on delivery of reasonably priced energy and water. Tomorrow, their missions will expand to encompass sustainable use and environmental improvement.Smart Grids are key to helping utilities achieve this expanded mission. But they come at a relatively high price. Utilities will need to invest heavily in new hardware, software, business process development, and staff training. Customer investments in home area networks and smart appliances will be large. Learning to change the energy and water consumption habits of a lifetime could ultimately prove even more formidable tasks.Smart Grid business software can ease the cost and difficulties inherent in a needed transition to a more flexible, reliable, responsive electricity grid. Justifying its implementation, however, requires a full understanding of the benefits it brings—benefits that can ultimately help customers, utilities, communities, and the world address global issues like energy security and climate change while minimizing costs and maximizing customer convenience. This white paper is available for download here. For further information about Oracle's Primavera Solutions for Utilities, please read our Utilities e-book.

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• Suspend not working after kernel update on an HP Envy14 1050

  - by leoxweb

  I just update ubuntu 12.04 to the kernel 3.2.0-30 and together with it a lot of packeges in the system. I am running it on an HP Envy14 1050. When I first made a fresh install of the clean ubuntu 12.04 I had the problem that when restoring from suspend the screen was black, although some backlight was there. I could fix it following this https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/989674/comments/20. Now, after the update the black screen after suspend has reappeared but with no backlight at all and the led in the caps lock key blinking. The laptop is using a ATI radeon 5600 with the privative drivers. During the update process there was an error with depmod . You can see the /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt-term.log file at the end. UPDATE: suspend is not working at all. The problem is not when restoring from suspend, but when I try to suspend the system it gets blocked and the fan running. Only option is to press power button. Log started: 2012-09-12 00:46:46 (Reading database ... 198909 files and directories currently installed.) Removing icedtea-7-jre-cacao ... Selecting previously unselected package linux-image-3.2.0-30-generic. (Reading database ... 198901 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking linux-image-3.2.0-30-generic (from .../linux-image-3.2.0-30-generic_3.2.0-30.48_amd64.deb) ... Done. Preparing to replace icedtea-7-jre-jamvm 7~u3-2.1.1~pre1-1ubuntu3 (using .../icedtea-7-jre-jamvm_7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement icedtea-7-jre-jamvm ... Preparing to replace openjdk-7-jre-lib 7~u3-2.1.1~pre1-1ubuntu3 (using .../openjdk-7-jre-lib_7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement openjdk-7-jre-lib ... Preparing to replace openjdk-7-jre-headless 7~u3-2.1.1~pre1-1ubuntu3 (using .../openjdk-7-jre-headless_7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement openjdk-7-jre-headless ... Preparing to replace python-problem-report 2.0.1-0ubuntu12 (using .../python-problem-report_2.0.1-0ubuntu13_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement python-problem-report ... Preparing to replace python-apport 2.0.1-0ubuntu12 (using .../python-apport_2.0.1-0ubuntu13_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement python-apport ... Preparing to replace apport 2.0.1-0ubuntu12 (using .../apport_2.0.1-0ubuntu13_all.deb) ... apport stop/waiting Unpacking replacement apport ... Preparing to replace apport-gtk 2.0.1-0ubuntu12 (using .../apport-gtk_2.0.1-0ubuntu13_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement apport-gtk ... Preparing to replace firefox-globalmenu 15.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 (using .../firefox-globalmenu_15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement firefox-globalmenu ... Preparing to replace firefox 15.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 (using .../firefox_15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement firefox ... Preparing to replace firefox-gnome-support 15.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 (using .../firefox-gnome-support_15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement firefox-gnome-support ... Preparing to replace firefox-locale-en 15.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 (using .../firefox-locale-en_15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement firefox-locale-en ... Preparing to replace firefox-locale-es 15.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 (using .../firefox-locale-es_15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement firefox-locale-es ... Preparing to replace firefox-locale-zh-hans 15.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 (using .../firefox-locale-zh-hans_15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement firefox-locale-zh-hans ... Preparing to replace totem-mozilla 3.0.1-0ubuntu21 (using .../totem-mozilla_3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement totem-mozilla ... Preparing to replace libtotem0 3.0.1-0ubuntu21 (using .../libtotem0_3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement libtotem0 ... Preparing to replace totem-plugins 3.0.1-0ubuntu21 (using .../totem-plugins_3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement totem-plugins ... Preparing to replace totem 3.0.1-0ubuntu21 (using .../totem_3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement totem ... Preparing to replace totem-common 3.0.1-0ubuntu21 (using .../totem-common_3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement totem-common ... Preparing to replace gir1.2-totem-1.0 3.0.1-0ubuntu21 (using .../gir1.2-totem-1.0_3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement gir1.2-totem-1.0 ... Preparing to replace glib-networking-common 2.32.1-1ubuntu1 (using .../glib-networking-common_2.32.1-1ubuntu2_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement glib-networking-common ... Preparing to replace glib-networking 2.32.1-1ubuntu1 (using .../glib-networking_2.32.1-1ubuntu2_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement glib-networking ... Preparing to replace glib-networking-services 2.32.1-1ubuntu1 (using .../glib-networking-services_2.32.1-1ubuntu2_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement glib-networking-services ... Preparing to replace linux-firmware 1.79 (using .../linux-firmware_1.79.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement linux-firmware ... Preparing to replace linux-generic 3.2.0.29.31 (using .../linux-generic_3.2.0.30.32_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement linux-generic ... Preparing to replace linux-image-generic 3.2.0.29.31 (using .../linux-image-generic_3.2.0.30.32_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement linux-image-generic ... Selecting previously unselected package linux-headers-3.2.0-30. Unpacking linux-headers-3.2.0-30 (from .../linux-headers-3.2.0-30_3.2.0-30.48_all.deb) ... Selecting previously unselected package linux-headers-3.2.0-30-generic. Unpacking linux-headers-3.2.0-30-generic (from .../linux-headers-3.2.0-30-generic_3.2.0-30.48_amd64.deb) ... Preparing to replace linux-headers-generic 3.2.0.29.31 (using .../linux-headers-generic_3.2.0.30.32_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement linux-headers-generic ... Preparing to replace linux-libc-dev 3.2.0-29.46 (using .../linux-libc-dev_3.2.0-30.48_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement linux-libc-dev ... Preparing to replace openjdk-7-jre 7~u3-2.1.1~pre1-1ubuntu3 (using .../openjdk-7-jre_7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement openjdk-7-jre ... Preparing to replace openjdk-7-jdk 7~u3-2.1.1~pre1-1ubuntu3 (using .../openjdk-7-jdk_7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement openjdk-7-jdk ... Preparing to replace policykit-1-gnome 0.105-1ubuntu3 (using .../policykit-1-gnome_0.105-1ubuntu3.1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement policykit-1-gnome ... Preparing to replace xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 1.6.2-1ubuntu1~precise1 (using .../xserver-xorg-input-synaptics_1.6.2-1ubuntu1~precise2_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement xserver-xorg-input-synaptics ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ... Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ... Unknown media type in type 'all/all' Unknown media type in type 'all/allfiles' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mms' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmst' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmsu' Unknown media type in type 'uri/pnm' Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspt' Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspu' Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ... Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Processing triggers for gconf2 ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:i386 ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0 ... Setting up linux-image-3.2.0-30-generic (3.2.0-30.48) ... Running depmod. update-initramfs: deferring update (hook will be called later) Examining /etc/kernel/postinst.d. run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms 3.2.0-30-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-30-generic Error! Problems with depmod detected. Automatically uninstalling this module. DKMS: Install Failed (depmod problems). Module rolled back to built state. run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-30-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-30-generic update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-30-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/pm-utils 3.2.0-30-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-30-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/update-notifier 3.2.0-30-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-30-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-30-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-30-generic Generating grub.cfg ... Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-30-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-30-generic Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-29-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-29-generic Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda1 Found Windows Recovery Environment (loader) on /dev/sda2 Found Windows Recovery Environment (loader) on /dev/sda3 done Setting up python-problem-report (2.0.1-0ubuntu13) ... Setting up python-apport (2.0.1-0ubuntu13) ... Setting up apport (2.0.1-0ubuntu13) ... apport start/running Setting up apport-gtk (2.0.1-0ubuntu13) ... Setting up firefox (15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Please restart all running instances of firefox, or you will experience problems. Setting up firefox-globalmenu (15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Setting up firefox-gnome-support (15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Setting up firefox-locale-en (15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Setting up firefox-locale-es (15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Setting up firefox-locale-zh-hans (15.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Setting up libtotem0 (3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1) ... Setting up totem-common (3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1) ... Setting up totem (3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1) ... Setting up totem-mozilla (3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1) ... Setting up gir1.2-totem-1.0 (3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1) ... Setting up totem-plugins (3.0.1-0ubuntu21.1) ... Setting up glib-networking-common (2.32.1-1ubuntu2) ... Setting up glib-networking-services (2.32.1-1ubuntu2) ... Setting up glib-networking (2.32.1-1ubuntu2) ... Setting up linux-firmware (1.79.1) ... Setting up linux-image-generic (3.2.0.30.32) ... Setting up linux-generic (3.2.0.30.32) ... Setting up linux-headers-3.2.0-30 (3.2.0-30.48) ... Setting up linux-headers-3.2.0-30-generic (3.2.0-30.48) ... Examining /etc/kernel/header_postinst.d. run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/header_postinst.d/dkms 3.2.0-30-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-30-generic Setting up linux-headers-generic (3.2.0.30.32) ... Setting up linux-libc-dev (3.2.0-30.48) ... Setting up policykit-1-gnome (0.105-1ubuntu3.1) ... Setting up xserver-xorg-input-synaptics (1.6.2-1ubuntu1~precise2) ... Setting up openjdk-7-jre-headless (7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Installing new version of config file /etc/java-7-openjdk/security/java.security ... Installing new version of config file /etc/java-7-openjdk/jvm-amd64.cfg ... Setting up openjdk-7-jre-lib (7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Setting up icedtea-7-jre-jamvm (7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Setting up openjdk-7-jre (7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... Setting up openjdk-7-jdk (7u7-2.3.2-1ubuntu0.12.04.1) ... update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jcmd to provide /usr/bin/jcmd (jcmd) in auto mode. Processing triggers for libc-bin ... ldconfig deferred processing now taking place Log ended: 2012-09-12 00:49:16

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Interlocked CompareExchange()

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. Two posts ago, I discussed the Interlocked Add(), Increment(), and Decrement() methods (here) for adding and subtracting values in a thread-safe, lightweight manner.  Then, last post I talked about the Interlocked Read() and Exchange() methods (here) for safely and efficiently reading and setting 32 or 64 bit values (or references).  This week, we’ll round out the discussion by talking about the Interlocked CompareExchange() method and how it can be put to use to exchange a value if the current value is what you expected it to be. Dirty reads can lead to bad results Many of the uses of Interlocked that we’ve explored so far have centered around either reading, setting, or adding values.  But what happens if you want to do something more complex such as setting a value based on the previous value in some manner? Perhaps you were creating an application that reads a current balance, applies a deposit, and then saves the new modified balance, where of course you’d want that to happen atomically.  If you read the balance, then go to save the new balance and between that time the previous balance has already changed, you’ll have an issue!  Think about it, if we read the current balance as $400, and we are applying a new deposit of $50.75, but meanwhile someone else deposits $200 and sets the total to $600, but then we write a total of $450.75 we’ve lost $200! Now, certainly for int and long values we can use Interlocked.Add() to handles these cases, and it works well for that.  But what if we want to work with doubles, for example?  Let’s say we wanted to add the numbers from 0 to 99,999 in parallel.  We could do this by spawning several parallel tasks to continuously add to a total: 1: double total = 0; 2:  3: Parallel.For(0, 10000, next => 4: { 5: total += next; 6: }); Were this run on one thread using a standard for loop, we’d expect an answer of 4,999,950,000 (the sum of all numbers from 0 to 99,999).  But when we run this in parallel as written above, we’ll likely get something far off.  The result of one of my runs, for example, was 1,281,880,740.  That is way off!  If this were banking software we’d be in big trouble with our clients.  So what happened?  The += operator is not atomic, it will read in the current value, add the result, then store it back into the total.  At any point in all of this another thread could read a “dirty” current total and accidentally “skip” our add.   So, to clean this up, we could use a lock to guarantee concurrency: 1: double total = 0.0; 2: object locker = new object(); 3:  4: Parallel.For(0, count, next => 5: { 6: lock (locker) 7: { 8: total += next; 9: } 10: }); Which will give us the correct result of 4,999,950,000.  One thing to note is that locking can be heavy, especially if the operation being locked over is trivial, or the life of the lock is a high percentage of the work being performed concurrently.  In the case above, the lock consumes pretty much all of the time of each parallel task – and the task being locked on is relatively trivial. Now, let me put in a disclaimer here before we go further: For most uses, lock is more than sufficient for your needs, and is often the simplest solution!    So, if lock is sufficient for most needs, why would we ever consider another solution?  The problem with locking is that it can suspend execution of your thread while it waits for the signal that the lock is free.  Moreover, if the operation being locked over is trivial, the lock can add a very high level of overhead.  This is why things like Interlocked.Increment() perform so well, instead of locking just to perform an increment, we perform the increment with an atomic, lockless method. As with all things performance related, it’s important to profile before jumping to the conclusion that you should optimize everything in your path.  If your profiling shows that locking is causing a high level of waiting in your application, then it’s time to consider lighter alternatives such as Interlocked. CompareExchange() – Exchange existing value if equal some value So let’s look at how we could use CompareExchange() to solve our problem above.  The general syntax of CompareExchange() is: T CompareExchange<T>(ref T location, T newValue, T expectedValue) If the value in location == expectedValue, then newValue is exchanged.  Either way, the value in location (before exchange) is returned. Actually, CompareExchange() is not one method, but a family of overloaded methods that can take int, long, float, double, pointers, or references.  It cannot take other value types (that is, can’t CompareExchange() two DateTime instances directly).  Also keep in mind that the version that takes any reference type (the generic overload) only checks for reference equality, it does not call any overridden Equals(). So how does this help us?  Well, we can grab the current total, and exchange the new value if total hasn’t changed.  This would look like this: 1: // grab the snapshot 2: double current = total; 3:  4: // if the total hasn’t changed since I grabbed the snapshot, then 5: // set it to the new total 6: Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref total, current + next, current); So what the code above says is: if the amount in total (1st arg) is the same as the amount in current (3rd arg), then set total to current + next (2nd arg).  This check and exchange pair is atomic (and thus thread-safe). This works if total is the same as our snapshot in current, but the problem, is what happens if they aren’t the same?  Well, we know that in either case we will get the previous value of total (before the exchange), back as a result.  Thus, we can test this against our snapshot to see if it was the value we expected: 1: // if the value returned is != current, then our snapshot must be out of date 2: // which means we didn't (and shouldn't) apply current + next 3: if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref total, current + next, current) != current) 4: { 5: // ooops, total was not equal to our snapshot in current, what should we do??? 6: } So what do we do if we fail?  That’s up to you and the problem you are trying to solve.  It’s possible you would decide to abort the whole transaction, or perhaps do a lightweight spin and try again.  Let’s try that: 1: double current = total; 2:  3: // make first attempt... 4: if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref total, current + i, current) != current) 5: { 6: // if we fail, go into a spin wait, spin, and try again until succeed 7: var spinner = new SpinWait(); 8:  9: do 10: { 11: spinner.SpinOnce(); 12: current = total; 13: } 14: while (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref total, current + i, current) != current); 15: } 16:  This is not trivial code, but it illustrates a possible use of CompareExchange().  What we are doing is first checking to see if we succeed on the first try, and if so great!  If not, we create a SpinWait and then repeat the process of SpinOnce(), grab a fresh snapshot, and repeat until CompareExchnage() succeeds.  You may wonder why not a simple do-while here, and the reason it’s more efficient to only create the SpinWait until we absolutely know we need one, for optimal efficiency. Though not as simple (or maintainable) as a simple lock, this will perform better in many situations.  Comparing an unlocked (and wrong) version, a version using lock, and the Interlocked of the code, we get the following average times for multiple iterations of adding the sum of 100,000 numbers: 1: Unlocked money average time: 2.1 ms 2: Locked money average time: 5.1 ms 3: Interlocked money average time: 3 ms So the Interlocked.CompareExchange(), while heavier to code, came in lighter than the lock, offering a good compromise of safety and performance when we need to reduce contention. CompareExchange() - it’s not just for adding stuff… So that was one simple use of CompareExchange() in the context of adding double values -- which meant we couldn’t have used the simpler Interlocked.Add() -- but it has other uses as well. If you think about it, this really works anytime you want to create something new based on a current value without using a full lock.  For example, you could use it to create a simple lazy instantiation implementation.  In this case, we want to set the lazy instance only if the previous value was null: 1: public static class Lazy<T> where T : class, new() 2: { 3: private static T _instance; 4:  5: public static T Instance 6: { 7: get 8: { 9: // if current is null, we need to create new instance 10: if (_instance == null) 11: { 12: // attempt create, it will only set if previous was null 13: Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _instance, new T(), (T)null); 14: } 15:  16: return _instance; 17: } 18: } 19: } So, if _instance == null, this will create a new T() and attempt to exchange it with _instance.  If _instance is not null, then it does nothing and we discard the new T() we created. This is a way to create lazy instances of a type where we are more concerned about locking overhead than creating an accidental duplicate which is not used.  In fact, the BCL implementation of Lazy<T> offers a similar thread-safety choice for Publication thread safety, where it will not guarantee only one instance was created, but it will guarantee that all readers get the same instance.  Another possible use would be in concurrent collections.  Let’s say, for example, that you are creating your own brand new super stack that uses a linked list paradigm and is “lock free”.  We could use Interlocked.CompareExchange() to be able to do a lockless Push() which could be more efficient in multi-threaded applications where several threads are pushing and popping on the stack concurrently. Yes, there are already concurrent collections in the BCL (in .NET 4.0 as part of the TPL), but it’s a fun exercise!  So let’s assume we have a node like this: 1: public sealed class Node<T> 2: { 3: // the data for this node 4: public T Data { get; set; } 5:  6: // the link to the next instance 7: internal Node<T> Next { get; set; } 8: } Then, perhaps, our stack’s Push() operation might look something like: 1: public sealed class SuperStack<T> 2: { 3: private volatile T _head; 4:  5: public void Push(T value) 6: { 7: var newNode = new Node<int> { Data = value, Next = _head }; 8:  9: if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _head, newNode, newNode.Next) != newNode.Next) 10: { 11: var spinner = new SpinWait(); 12:  13: do 14: { 15: spinner.SpinOnce(); 16: newNode.Next = _head; 17: } 18: while (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _head, newNode, newNode.Next) != newNode.Next); 19: } 20: } 21:  22: // ... 23: } Notice a similar paradigm here as with adding our doubles before.  What we are doing is creating the new Node with the data to push, and with a Next value being the original node referenced by _head.  This will create our stack behavior (LIFO – Last In, First Out).  Now, we have to set _head to now refer to the newNode, but we must first make sure it hasn’t changed! So we check to see if _head has the same value we saved in our snapshot as newNode.Next, and if so, we set _head to newNode.  This is all done atomically, and the result is _head’s original value, as long as the original value was what we assumed it was with newNode.Next, then we are good and we set it without a lock!  If not, we SpinWait and try again. Once again, this is much lighter than locking in highly parallelized code with lots of contention.  If I compare the method above with a similar class using lock, I get the following results for pushing 100,000 items: 1: Locked SuperStack average time: 6 ms 2: Interlocked SuperStack average time: 4.5 ms So, once again, we can get more efficient than a lock, though there is the cost of added code complexity.  Fortunately for you, most of the concurrent collection you’d ever need are already created for you in the System.Collections.Concurrent (here) namespace – for more information, see my Little Wonders – The Concurent Collections Part 1 (here), Part 2 (here), and Part 3 (here). Summary We’ve seen before how the Interlocked class can be used to safely and efficiently add, increment, decrement, read, and exchange values in a multi-threaded environment.  In addition to these, Interlocked CompareExchange() can be used to perform more complex logic without the need of a lock when lock contention is a concern. The added efficiency, though, comes at the cost of more complex code.  As such, the standard lock is often sufficient for most thread-safety needs.  But if profiling indicates you spend a lot of time waiting for locks, or if you just need a lock for something simple such as an increment, decrement, read, exchange, etc., then consider using the Interlocked class’s methods to reduce wait. Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,Interlocked,CompareExchange,threading,concurrency

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• Why is Java EE 6 better than Spring ?

  - by arungupta

  Java EE 6 was released over 2 years ago and now there are 14 compliant application servers. In all my talks around the world, a question that is frequently asked is Why should I use Java EE 6 instead of Spring ? There are already several blogs covering that topic: Java EE wins over Spring by Bill Burke Why will I use Java EE instead of Spring in new Enterprise Java projects in 2012 ? by Kai Waehner (more discussion on TSS) Spring to Java EE migration (Part 1 and 2, 3 and 4 coming as well) by David Heffelfinger Spring to Java EE - A Migration Experience by Lincoln Baxter Migrating Spring to Java EE 6 by Bert Ertman and Paul Bakker at NLJUG Moving from Spring to Java EE 6 - The Age of Frameworks is Over at TSS Java EE vs Spring Shootout by Rohit Kelapure and Reza Rehman at JavaOne 2011 Java EE 6 and the Ewoks by Murat Yener Definite excuse to avoid Spring forever - Bert Ertman and Arun Gupta I will try to share my perspective in this blog. First of all, I'd like to start with a note: Thank you Spring framework for filling the interim gap and providing functionality that is now included in the mainstream Java EE 6 application servers. The Java EE platform has evolved over the years learning from frameworks like Spring and provides all the functionality to build an enterprise application. Thank you very much Spring framework! While Spring was revolutionary in its time and is still very popular and quite main stream in the same way Struts was circa 2003, it really is last generation's framework - some people are even calling it legacy. However my theory is "code is king". So my approach is to build/take a simple Hello World CRUD application in Java EE 6 and Spring and compare the deployable artifacts. I started looking at the official tutorial Developing a Spring Framework MVC Application Step-by-Step but it is using the older version 2.5. I wasn't able to find any updated version in the current 3.1 release. Next, I downloaded Spring Tool Suite and thought that would provide some template samples to get started. A least a quick search did not show any handy tutorials - either video or text-based. So I searched and found a link to their SVN repository at src.springframework.org/svn/spring-samples/. I tried the "mvc-basic" sample and the generated WAR file was 4.43 MB. While it was named a "basic" sample it seemed to come with 19 different libraries bundled but it was what I could find: ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-jsptags-1.0.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar And it is not even using any database! The app deployed fine on GlassFish 3.1.2 but the "@Controller Example" link did not work as it was missing the context root. With a bit of tweaking I could deploy the application and assume that the account got created because no error was displayed in the browser or server log. Next I generated the WAR for "mvc-ajax" and the 5.1 MB WAR had 20 JARs (1 removed, 2 added): ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.6.4.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.6.4.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar 2 more JARs for just doing Ajax. Anyway, deploying this application gave the following error: Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig.<init>(Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/ClassIntrospector;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/AnnotationIntrospector;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/introspect/VisibilityChecker;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/jsontype/SubtypeResolver;)V    at org.springframework.samples.mvc.ajax.json.ConversionServiceAwareObjectMapper.<init>(ConversionServiceAwareObjectMapper.java:20)    at org.springframework.samples.mvc.ajax.json.JacksonConversionServiceConfigurer.postProcessAfterInitialization(JacksonConversionServiceConfigurer.java:40)    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsAfterInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:407) Seems like some incorrect repos in the "pom.xml". Next one is "mvc-showcase" and the 6.49 MB WAR now has 28 JARs as shown below: ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/aspectjrt-1.6.10.jar./WEB-INF/lib/commons-fileupload-1.2.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/commons-io-2.0.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/el-api-2.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.8.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.8.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/javax.inject-1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jdom-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-api-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-impl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/rome-1.0.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar The app at least deployed and showed results this time. But still no database! Next I tried building "jpetstore" and got the error: [ERROR] Failed to execute goal on project org.springframework.samples.jpetstore:Could not resolve dependencies for project org.springframework.samples:org.springframework.samples.jpetstore:war:1.0.0-SNAPSHOT: Failed to collect dependencies for [commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload:jar:1.2.1 (compile), org.apache.struts:com.springsource.org.apache.struts:jar:1.2.9 (compile), javax.xml.rpc:com.springsource.javax.xml.rpc:jar:1.1.0 (compile), org.apache.commons:com.springsource.org.apache.commons.dbcp:jar:1.2.2.osgi (compile), commons-io:commons-io:jar:1.3.2 (compile), hsqldb:hsqldb:jar:1.8.0.7 (compile), org.apache.tiles:tiles-core:jar:2.2.0 (compile), org.apache.tiles:tiles-jsp:jar:2.2.0 (compile), org.tuckey:urlrewritefilter:jar:3.1.0 (compile), org.springframework:spring-webmvc:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework:spring-orm:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework:spring-context-support:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework.webflow:spring-js:jar:2.0.7.RELEASE (compile), org.apache.ibatis:com.springsource.com.ibatis:jar:2.3.4.726 (runtime), com.caucho:com.springsource.com.caucho:jar:3.2.1 (compile), org.apache.axis:com.springsource.org.apache.axis:jar:1.4.0 (compile), javax.wsdl:com.springsource.javax.wsdl:jar:1.6.1 (compile), javax.servlet:jstl:jar:1.2 (runtime), org.aspectj:aspectjweaver:jar:1.6.5 (compile), javax.servlet:servlet-api:jar:2.5 (provided), javax.servlet.jsp:jsp-api:jar:2.1 (provided), junit:junit:jar:4.6 (test)]: Failed to read artifact descriptor for org.springframework:spring-webmvc:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT: Could not transfer artifact org.springframework:spring-webmvc:pom:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT from/to JBoss repository (http://repository.jboss.com/maven2): Access denied to: http://repository.jboss.com/maven2/org/springframework/spring-webmvc/3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT/spring-webmvc-3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.pom It appears the sample is broken - maybe I was pulling from the wrong repository - would be great if someone were to point me at a good target to use here. With a 50% hit on samples in this repository, I started searching through numerous blogs, most of which have either outdated information (using XML-heavy Spring 2.5), some piece of configuration (which is a typical "feature" of Spring) is missing, or too much complexity in the sample. I finally found this blog that worked like a charm. This blog creates a trivial Spring MVC 3 application using Hibernate and MySQL. This application performs CRUD operations on a single table in a database using typical Spring technologies.  I downloaded the sample code from the blog, deployed it on GlassFish 3.1.2 and could CRUD the "person" entity. The source code for this application can be downloaded here. More details on the application statistics below. And then I built a similar CRUD application in Java EE 6 using NetBeans wizards in a couple of minutes. The source code for the application can be downloaded here and the WAR here. The Spring Source Tool Suite may also offer similar wizard-driven capabilities but this blog focus primarily on comparing the runtimes. The lack of STS tutorials was slightly disappointing as well. NetBeans however has tons of text-based and video tutorials and tons of material even by the community. One more bit on the download size of tools bundle ... NetBeans 7.1.1 "All" is 211 MB (which includes GlassFish and Tomcat) Spring Tool Suite  2.9.0 is 347 MB (~ 65% bigger) This blog is not about the tooling comparison so back to the Java EE 6 version of the application .... In order to run the Java EE version on GlassFish, copy the MySQL Connector/J to glassfish3/glassfish/domains/domain1/lib/ext directory and create a JDBC connection pool and JDBC resource as: ./bin/asadmin create-jdbc-connection-pool --datasourceclassname \\ com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional.MysqlDataSource --restype \\ javax.sql.DataSource --property \\ portNumber=3306:user=mysql:password=mysql:databaseName=mydatabase \\ myConnectionPool ./bin/asadmin create-jdbc-resource --connectionpoolid myConnectionPool jdbc/myDataSource I generated WARs for the two projects and the table below highlights some differences between them: Java EE 6 Spring WAR File Size 0.021030 MB 10.87 MB (~516x) Number of files 20 53 (> 2.5x) Bundled libraries 0 36 Total size of libraries 0 12.1 MB XML files 3 5 LoC in XML files 50 (11 + 15 + 24) 129 (27 + 46 + 16 + 11 + 19) (~ 2.5x) Total .properties files 1 Bundle.properties 2 spring.properties, log4j.properties Cold Deploy 5,339 ms 11,724 ms Second Deploy 481 ms 6,261 ms Third Deploy 528 ms 5,484 ms Fourth Deploy 484 ms 5,576 ms Runtime memory ~73 MB ~101 MB Some points worth highlighting from the table ... 516x WAR file, 10x deployment time - With 12.1 MB of libraries (for a very basic application) bundled in your application, the WAR file size and the deployment time will naturally go higher. The WAR file for Spring-based application is 516x bigger and the deployment time is double during the first deployment and ~ 10x during subsequent deployments. The Java EE 6 application is fully portable and will run on any Java EE 6 compliant application server. 36 libraries in the WAR - There are 14 Java EE 6 compliant application servers today. Each of those servers provide all the functionality like transactions, dependency injection, security, persistence, etc typically required of an enterprise or web application. There is no need to bundle 36 libraries worth 12.1 MB for a trivial CRUD application. These 14 compliant application servers provide all the functionality baked in. Now you can also deploy these libraries in the container but then you don't get the "portability" offered by Spring in that case. Does your typical Spring deployment actually do that ? 3x LoC in XML - The number of XML files is about 1.6x and the LoC is ~ 2.5x. So much XML seems circa 2003 when the Java language had no annotations. The XML files can be further reduced, e.g. faces-config.xml can be replaced without providing i18n, but I just want to compare stock applications. Memory usage - Both the applications were deployed on default GlassFish 3.1.2 installation and any additional memory consumed as part of deployment/access was attributed to the application. This is by no means scientific but at least provides an initial ballpark. This area definitely needs more investigation. Another table that compares typical Java EE 6 compliant application servers and the custom-stack created for a Spring application ... Java EE 6 Spring Web Container ? 53 MB (tcServer 2.6.3 Developer Edition) Security ? 12 MB (Spring Security 3.1.0) Persistence ? 6.3 MB (Hibernate 4.1.0, required) Dependency Injection ? 5.3 MB (Framework) Web Services ? 796 KB (Spring WS 2.0.4) Messaging ? 3.4 MB (RabbitMQ Server 2.7.1) 936 KB (Java client 936) OSGi ? 1.3 MB (Spring OSGi 1.2.1) GlassFish and WebLogic (starting at 33 MB) 83.3 MB There are differentiating factors on both the stacks. But most of the functionality like security, persistence, and dependency injection is baked in a Java EE 6 compliant application server but needs to be individually managed and patched for a Spring application. This very quickly leads to a "stack explosion". The Java EE 6 servers are tested extensively on a variety of platforms in different combinations whereas a Spring application developer is responsible for testing with different JDKs, Operating Systems, Versions, Patches, etc. Oracle has both the leading OSS lightweight server with GlassFish and the leading enterprise Java server with WebLogic Server, both Java EE 6 and both with lightweight deployment options. The Web Container offered as part of a Java EE 6 application server not only deploys your enterprise Java applications but also provide operational management, diagnostics, and mission-critical capabilities required by your applications. The Java EE 6 platform also introduced the Web Profile which is a subset of the specifications from the entire platform. It is targeted at developers of modern web applications offering a reasonably complete stack, composed of standard APIs, and is capable out-of-the-box of addressing the needs of a large class of Web applications. As your applications grow, the stack can grow to the full Java EE 6 platform. The GlassFish Server Web Profile starting at 33MB (smaller than just the non-standard tcServer) provides most of the functionality typically required by a web application. WebLogic provides battle-tested functionality for a high throughput, low latency, and enterprise grade web application. No individual managing or patching, all tested and commercially supported for you! Note that VMWare does have a server, tcServer, but it is non-standard and not even certified to the level of the standard Web Profile most customers expect these days. Customers who choose this risk proprietary lock-in since VMWare does not seem to want to formally certify with either Java EE 6 Enterprise Platform or with Java EE 6 Web Profile but of course it would be great if they were to join the community and help their customers reduce the risk of deploying on VMWare software. Some more points to help you decide choose between Java EE 6 and Spring ... Freedom to choose container - There are 14 Java EE 6 compliant application servers today, with a variety of open source and commercial offerings. A Java EE 6 application can be deployed on any of those containers. So if you deployed your application on GlassFish today and would like to scale up with your demands then you can deploy the same application to WebLogic. And because of the portability of a Java EE 6 application, you can even take it a different vendor altogether. Spring requires a runtime which could be any of these app servers as well. But why use Spring when all the required functionality is already baked into the application server itself ? Spring also has a different definition of portability where they claim to bundle all the libraries in the WAR file and move to any application server. But we saw earlier how bloated that archive could be. The equivalent features in Spring runtime offerings (mainly tcServer) are not all open source, not as mature, and often require manual assembly.  Vendor choice - The Java EE 6 platform is created using the Java Community Process where all the big players like Oracle, IBM, RedHat, and Apache are conritbuting to make the platform successful. Each application server provides the basic Java EE 6 platform compliance and has its own competitive offerings. This allows you to choose an application server for deploying your Java EE 6 applications. If you are not happy with the support or feature of one vendor then you can move your application to a different vendor because of the portability promise offered by the platform. Spring is a set of products from a single company, one price book, one support organization, one sustaining organization, one sales organization, etc. If any of those cause a customer headache, where do you go ? Java EE, backed by multiple vendors, is a safer bet for those that are risk averse. Production support - With Spring, typically you need to get support from two vendors - VMWare and the container provider. With Java EE 6, all of this is typically provided by one vendor. For example, Oracle offers commercial support from systems, operating systems, JDK, application server, and applications on top of them. VMWare certainly offers complete production support but do you really want to put all your eggs in one basket ? Do you really use tcServer ? ;-) Maintainability - With Spring, you are likely building your own distribution with multiple JAR files, integrating, patching, versioning, etc of all those components. Spring's claim is that multiple JAR files allow you to go à la carte and pick the latest versions of different components. But who is responsible for testing whether all these versions work together ? Yep, you got it, its YOU! If something does not work, who patches and maintains the JARs ? Of course, you! Commercial support for such a configuration ? On your own! The Java EE application servers manage all of this for you and provide a well-tested and commercially supported bundle. While it is always good to realize that there is something new and improved that updates and replaces older frameworks like Spring, the good news is not only does a Java EE 6 container offer what is described here, most also will let you deploy and run your Spring applications on them while you go through an upgrade to a more modern architecture. End result, you get the best of both worlds - keeping your legacy investment but moving to a more agile, lightweight world of Java EE 6. A message to the Spring lovers ... The complexity in J2EE 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 led to the genesis of Spring but that was in 2004. This is 2012 and the name has changed to "Java EE 6" :-) There are tons of improvements in the Java EE platform to make it easy-to-use and powerful. Some examples: Adding @Stateless on a POJO makes it an EJB EJBs can be packaged in a WAR with no special packaging or deployment descriptors "web.xml" and "faces-config.xml" are optional in most of the common cases Typesafe dependency injection is now part of the Java EE platform Add @Path on a POJO allows you to publish it as a RESTful resource EJBs can be used as backing beans for Facelets-driven JSF pages providing full MVC Java EE 6 WARs are known to be kilobytes in size and deployed in milliseconds Tons of other simplifications in the platform and application servers So if you moved away from J2EE to Spring many years ago and have not looked at Java EE 6 (which has been out since Dec 2009) then you should definitely try it out. Just be at least aware of what other alternatives are available instead of restricting yourself to one stack. Here are some workshops and screencasts worth trying: screencast #37 shows how to build an end-to-end application using NetBeans screencast #36 builds the same application using Eclipse javaee-lab-feb2012.pdf is a 3-4 hours self-paced hands-on workshop that guides you to build a comprehensive Java EE 6 application using NetBeans Each city generally has a "spring cleanup" program every year. It allows you to clean up the mess from your house. For your software projects, you don't need to wait for an annual event, just get started and reduce the technical debt now! Move away from your legacy Spring-based applications to a lighter and more modern approach of building enterprise Java applications using Java EE 6. Watch this beautiful presentation that explains how to migrate from Spring -> Java EE 6: List of files in the Java EE 6 project: ./index.xhtml./META-INF./person./person/Create.xhtml./person/Edit.xhtml./person/List.xhtml./person/View.xhtml./resources./resources/css./resources/css/jsfcrud.css./template.xhtml./WEB-INF./WEB-INF/classes./WEB-INF/classes/Bundle.properties./WEB-INF/classes/META-INF./WEB-INF/classes/META-INF/persistence.xml./WEB-INF/classes/org./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/AbstractFacade.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/Person.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/Person_.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController$1.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController$PersonControllerConverter.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonFacade.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util/JsfUtil.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util/PaginationHelper.class./WEB-INF/faces-config.xml./WEB-INF/web.xml List of files in the Spring 3.x project: ./META-INF ./META-INF/MANIFEST.MF./WEB-INF./WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml./WEB-INF/classes./WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties./WEB-INF/classes/org./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/controller ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/controller/MainController.class ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/domain ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/domain/Person.class ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/service ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/service/PersonService.class ./WEB-INF/hibernate-context.xml ./WEB-INF/hibernate.cfg.xml ./WEB-INF/jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/addedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/addpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/deletedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/editedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/editpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/personspage.jsp ./WEB-INF/lib ./WEB-INF/lib/antlr-2.7.6.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/c3p0-0.9.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/cglib-nodep-2.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-beanutils-1.8.3.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-collections-3.2.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-digester-2.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/dom4j-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/ejb3-persistence-1.0.2.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-annotations-3.4.0.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-commons-annotations-3.1.0.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-core-3.3.2.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/javassist-3.7.ga.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/jta-1.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/junit-4.8.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.14.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/mysql-connector-java-5.1.14.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/persistence-api-1.0.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-jdbc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-orm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-tx-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/standard-1.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/xml-apis-1.0.b2.jar ./WEB-INF/spring-servlet.xml ./WEB-INF/spring.properties ./WEB-INF/web.xml So, are you excited about Java EE 6 ? Want to get started now ? Here are some resources: Java EE 6 SDK (including runtime, samples, tutorials etc) GlassFish Server Open Source Edition 3.1.2 (Community) Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1.2 (Commercial) Java EE 6 using WebLogic 12c and NetBeans (Video) Java EE 6 with NetBeans and GlassFish (Video) Java EE with Eclipse and GlassFish (Video)

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• Improving Partitioned Table Join Performance

  - by Paul White

  The query optimizer does not always choose an optimal strategy when joining partitioned tables. This post looks at an example, showing how a manual rewrite of the query can almost double performance, while reducing the memory grant to almost nothing. Test Data The two tables in this example use a common partitioning partition scheme. The partition function uses 41 equal-size partitions: CREATE PARTITION FUNCTION PFT (integer) AS RANGE RIGHT FOR VALUES ( 125000, 250000, 375000, 500000, 625000, 750000, 875000, 1000000, 1125000, 1250000, 1375000, 1500000, 1625000, 1750000, 1875000, 2000000, 2125000, 2250000, 2375000, 2500000, 2625000, 2750000, 2875000, 3000000, 3125000, 3250000, 3375000, 3500000, 3625000, 3750000, 3875000, 4000000, 4125000, 4250000, 4375000, 4500000, 4625000, 4750000, 4875000, 5000000 ); GO CREATE PARTITION SCHEME PST AS PARTITION PFT ALL TO ([PRIMARY]); There two tables are: CREATE TABLE dbo.T1 ( TID integer NOT NULL IDENTITY(0,1), Column1 integer NOT NULL, Padding binary(100) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0x,   CONSTRAINT PK_T1 PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (TID) ON PST (TID) );   CREATE TABLE dbo.T2 ( TID integer NOT NULL, Column1 integer NOT NULL, Padding binary(100) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0x,   CONSTRAINT PK_T2 PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (TID, Column1) ON PST (TID) ); The next script loads 5 million rows into T1 with a pseudo-random value between 1 and 5 for Column1. The table is partitioned on the IDENTITY column TID: INSERT dbo.T1 WITH (TABLOCKX) (Column1) SELECT (ABS(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) % 5) + 1 FROM dbo.Numbers AS N WHERE n BETWEEN 1 AND 5000000; In case you don’t already have an auxiliary table of numbers lying around, here’s a script to create one with 10 million rows: CREATE TABLE dbo.Numbers (n bigint PRIMARY KEY);   WITH L0 AS(SELECT 1 AS c UNION ALL SELECT 1), L1 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L0 AS A CROSS JOIN L0 AS B), L2 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L1 AS A CROSS JOIN L1 AS B), L3 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L2 AS A CROSS JOIN L2 AS B), L4 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L3 AS A CROSS JOIN L3 AS B), L5 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L4 AS A CROSS JOIN L4 AS B), Nums AS(SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) AS n FROM L5) INSERT dbo.Numbers WITH (TABLOCKX) SELECT TOP (10000000) n FROM Nums ORDER BY n OPTION (MAXDOP 1); Table T1 contains data like this: Next we load data into table T2. The relationship between the two tables is that table 2 contains ‘n’ rows for each row in table 1, where ‘n’ is determined by the value in Column1 of table T1. There is nothing particularly special about the data or distribution, by the way. INSERT dbo.T2 WITH (TABLOCKX) (TID, Column1) SELECT T.TID, N.n FROM dbo.T1 AS T JOIN dbo.Numbers AS N ON N.n >= 1 AND N.n <= T.Column1; Table T2 ends up containing about 15 million rows: The primary key for table T2 is a combination of TID and Column1. The data is partitioned according to the value in column TID alone. Partition Distribution The following query shows the number of rows in each partition of table T1: SELECT PartitionID = CA1.P, NumRows = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T CROSS APPLY (VALUES ($PARTITION.PFT(TID))) AS CA1 (P) GROUP BY CA1.P ORDER BY CA1.P; There are 40 partitions containing 125,000 rows (40 * 125k = 5m rows). The rightmost partition remains empty. The next query shows the distribution for table 2: SELECT PartitionID = CA1.P, NumRows = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T2 AS T CROSS APPLY (VALUES ($PARTITION.PFT(TID))) AS CA1 (P) GROUP BY CA1.P ORDER BY CA1.P; There are roughly 375,000 rows in each partition (the rightmost partition is also empty): Ok, that’s the test data done. Test Query and Execution Plan The task is to count the rows resulting from joining tables 1 and 2 on the TID column: SET STATISTICS IO ON; DECLARE @s datetime2 = SYSUTCDATETIME();   SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID;   SELECT DATEDIFF(Millisecond, @s, SYSUTCDATETIME()); SET STATISTICS IO OFF; The optimizer chooses a plan using parallel hash join, and partial aggregation: The Plan Explorer plan tree view shows accurate cardinality estimates and an even distribution of rows across threads (click to enlarge the image): With a warm data cache, the STATISTICS IO output shows that no physical I/O was needed, and all 41 partitions were touched: Running the query without actual execution plan or STATISTICS IO information for maximum performance, the query returns in around 2600ms. Execution Plan Analysis The first step toward improving on the execution plan produced by the query optimizer is to understand how it works, at least in outline. The two parallel Clustered Index Scans use multiple threads to read rows from tables T1 and T2. Parallel scan uses a demand-based scheme where threads are given page(s) to scan from the table as needed. This arrangement has certain important advantages, but does result in an unpredictable distribution of rows amongst threads. The point is that multiple threads cooperate to scan the whole table, but it is impossible to predict which rows end up on which threads. For correct results from the parallel hash join, the execution plan has to ensure that rows from T1 and T2 that might join are processed on the same thread. For example, if a row from T1 with join key value ‘1234’ is placed in thread 5’s hash table, the execution plan must guarantee that any rows from T2 that also have join key value ‘1234’ probe thread 5’s hash table for matches. The way this guarantee is enforced in this parallel hash join plan is by repartitioning rows to threads after each parallel scan. The two repartitioning exchanges route rows to threads using a hash function over the hash join keys. The two repartitioning exchanges use the same hash function so rows from T1 and T2 with the same join key must end up on the same hash join thread. Expensive Exchanges This business of repartitioning rows between threads can be very expensive, especially if a large number of rows is involved. The execution plan selected by the optimizer moves 5 million rows through one repartitioning exchange and around 15 million across the other. As a first step toward removing these exchanges, consider the execution plan selected by the optimizer if we join just one partition from each table, disallowing parallelism: SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = 1 AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = 1 OPTION (MAXDOP 1); The optimizer has chosen a (one-to-many) merge join instead of a hash join. The single-partition query completes in around 100ms. If everything scaled linearly, we would expect that extending this strategy to all 40 populated partitions would result in an execution time around 4000ms. Using parallelism could reduce that further, perhaps to be competitive with the parallel hash join chosen by the optimizer. This raises a question. If the most efficient way to join one partition from each of the tables is to use a merge join, why does the optimizer not choose a merge join for the full query? Forcing a Merge Join Let’s force the optimizer to use a merge join on the test query using a hint: SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID OPTION (MERGE JOIN); This is the execution plan selected by the optimizer: This plan results in the same number of logical reads reported previously, but instead of 2600ms the query takes 5000ms. The natural explanation for this drop in performance is that the merge join plan is only using a single thread, whereas the parallel hash join plan could use multiple threads. Parallel Merge Join We can get a parallel merge join plan using the same query hint as before, and adding trace flag 8649: SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID OPTION (MERGE JOIN, QUERYTRACEON 8649); The execution plan is: This looks promising. It uses a similar strategy to distribute work across threads as seen for the parallel hash join. In practice though, performance is disappointing. On a typical run, the parallel merge plan runs for around 8400ms; slower than the single-threaded merge join plan (5000ms) and much worse than the 2600ms for the parallel hash join. We seem to be going backwards! The logical reads for the parallel merge are still exactly the same as before, with no physical IOs. The cardinality estimates and thread distribution are also still very good (click to enlarge): A big clue to the reason for the poor performance is shown in the wait statistics (captured by Plan Explorer Pro): CXPACKET waits require careful interpretation, and are most often benign, but in this case excessive waiting occurs at the repartitioning exchanges. Unlike the parallel hash join, the repartitioning exchanges in this plan are order-preserving ‘merging’ exchanges (because merge join requires ordered inputs): Parallelism works best when threads can just grab any available unit of work and get on with processing it. Preserving order introduces inter-thread dependencies that can easily lead to significant waits occurring. In extreme cases, these dependencies can result in an intra-query deadlock, though the details of that will have to wait for another time to explore in detail. The potential for waits and deadlocks leads the query optimizer to cost parallel merge join relatively highly, especially as the degree of parallelism (DOP) increases. This high costing resulted in the optimizer choosing a serial merge join rather than parallel in this case. The test results certainly confirm its reasoning. Collocated Joins In SQL Server 2008 and later, the optimizer has another available strategy when joining tables that share a common partition scheme. This strategy is a collocated join, also known as as a per-partition join. It can be applied in both serial and parallel execution plans, though it is limited to 2-way joins in the current optimizer. Whether the optimizer chooses a collocated join or not depends on cost estimation. The primary benefits of a collocated join are that it eliminates an exchange and requires less memory, as we will see next. Costing and Plan Selection The query optimizer did consider a collocated join for our original query, but it was rejected on cost grounds. The parallel hash join with repartitioning exchanges appeared to be a cheaper option. There is no query hint to force a collocated join, so we have to mess with the costing framework to produce one for our test query. Pretending that IOs cost 50 times more than usual is enough to convince the optimizer to use collocated join with our test query: -- Pretend IOs are 50x cost temporarily DBCC SETIOWEIGHT(50);   -- Co-located hash join SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID OPTION (RECOMPILE);   -- Reset IO costing DBCC SETIOWEIGHT(1); Collocated Join Plan The estimated execution plan for the collocated join is: The Constant Scan contains one row for each partition of the shared partitioning scheme, from 1 to 41. The hash repartitioning exchanges seen previously are replaced by a single Distribute Streams exchange using Demand partitioning. Demand partitioning means that the next partition id is given to the next parallel thread that asks for one. My test machine has eight logical processors, and all are available for SQL Server to use. As a result, there are eight threads in the single parallel branch in this plan, each processing one partition from each table at a time. Once a thread finishes processing a partition, it grabs a new partition number from the Distribute Streams exchange…and so on until all partitions have been processed. It is important to understand that the parallel scans in this plan are different from the parallel hash join plan. Although the scans have the same parallelism icon, tables T1 and T2 are not being co-operatively scanned by multiple threads in the same way. Each thread reads a single partition of T1 and performs a hash match join with the same partition from table T2. The properties of the two Clustered Index Scans show a Seek Predicate (unusual for a scan!) limiting the rows to a single partition: The crucial point is that the join between T1 and T2 is on TID, and TID is the partitioning column for both tables. A thread that processes partition ‘n’ is guaranteed to see all rows that can possibly join on TID for that partition. In addition, no other thread will see rows from that partition, so this removes the need for repartitioning exchanges. CPU and Memory Efficiency Improvements The collocated join has removed two expensive repartitioning exchanges and added a single exchange processing 41 rows (one for each partition id). Remember, the parallel hash join plan exchanges had to process 5 million and 15 million rows. The amount of processor time spent on exchanges will be much lower in the collocated join plan. In addition, the collocated join plan has a maximum of 8 threads processing single partitions at any one time. The 41 partitions will all be processed eventually, but a new partition is not started until a thread asks for it. Threads can reuse hash table memory for the new partition. The parallel hash join plan also had 8 hash tables, but with all 5,000,000 build rows loaded at the same time. The collocated plan needs memory for only 8 * 125,000 = 1,000,000 rows at any one time. Collocated Hash Join Performance The collated join plan has disappointing performance in this case. The query runs for around 25,300ms despite the same IO statistics as usual. This is much the worst result so far, so what went wrong? It turns out that cardinality estimation for the single partition scans of table T1 is slightly low. The properties of the Clustered Index Scan of T1 (graphic immediately above) show the estimation was for 121,951 rows. This is a small shortfall compared with the 125,000 rows actually encountered, but it was enough to cause the hash join to spill to physical tempdb: A level 1 spill doesn’t sound too bad, until you realize that the spill to tempdb probably occurs for each of the 41 partitions. As a side note, the cardinality estimation error is a little surprising because the system tables accurately show there are 125,000 rows in every partition of T1. Unfortunately, the optimizer uses regular column and index statistics to derive cardinality estimates here rather than system table information (e.g. sys.partitions). Collocated Merge Join We will never know how well the collocated parallel hash join plan might have worked without the cardinality estimation error (and the resulting 41 spills to tempdb) but we do know: Merge join does not require a memory grant; and Merge join was the optimizer’s preferred join option for a single partition join Putting this all together, what we would really like to see is the same collocated join strategy, but using merge join instead of hash join. Unfortunately, the current query optimizer cannot produce a collocated merge join; it only knows how to do collocated hash join. So where does this leave us? CROSS APPLY sys.partitions We can try to write our own collocated join query. We can use sys.partitions to find the partition numbers, and CROSS APPLY to get a count per partition, with a final step to sum the partial counts. The following query implements this idea: SELECT row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt) FROM ( -- Partition numbers SELECT p.partition_number FROM sys.partitions AS p WHERE p.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'T1', N'U') AND p.index_id = 1 ) AS P CROSS APPLY ( -- Count per collocated join SELECT cnt = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number ) AS SubTotals; The estimated plan is: The cardinality estimates aren’t all that good here, especially the estimate for the scan of the system table underlying the sys.partitions view. Nevertheless, the plan shape is heading toward where we would like to be. Each partition number from the system table results in a per-partition scan of T1 and T2, a one-to-many Merge Join, and a Stream Aggregate to compute the partial counts. The final Stream Aggregate just sums the partial counts. Execution time for this query is around 3,500ms, with the same IO statistics as always. This compares favourably with 5,000ms for the serial plan produced by the optimizer with the OPTION (MERGE JOIN) hint. This is another case of the sum of the parts being less than the whole – summing 41 partial counts from 41 single-partition merge joins is faster than a single merge join and count over all partitions. Even so, this single-threaded collocated merge join is not as quick as the original parallel hash join plan, which executed in 2,600ms. On the positive side, our collocated merge join uses only one logical processor and requires no memory grant. The parallel hash join plan used 16 threads and reserved 569 MB of memory:   Using a Temporary Table Our collocated merge join plan should benefit from parallelism. The reason parallelism is not being used is that the query references a system table. We can work around that by writing the partition numbers to a temporary table (or table variable): SET STATISTICS IO ON; DECLARE @s datetime2 = SYSUTCDATETIME();   CREATE TABLE #P ( partition_number integer PRIMARY KEY);   INSERT #P (partition_number) SELECT p.partition_number FROM sys.partitions AS p WHERE p.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'T1', N'U') AND p.index_id = 1;   SELECT row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt) FROM #P AS p CROSS APPLY ( SELECT cnt = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number ) AS SubTotals;   DROP TABLE #P;   SELECT DATEDIFF(Millisecond, @s, SYSUTCDATETIME()); SET STATISTICS IO OFF; Using the temporary table adds a few logical reads, but the overall execution time is still around 3500ms, indistinguishable from the same query without the temporary table. The problem is that the query optimizer still doesn’t choose a parallel plan for this query, though the removal of the system table reference means that it could if it chose to: In fact the optimizer did enter the parallel plan phase of query optimization (running search 1 for a second time): Unfortunately, the parallel plan found seemed to be more expensive than the serial plan. This is a crazy result, caused by the optimizer’s cost model not reducing operator CPU costs on the inner side of a nested loops join. Don’t get me started on that, we’ll be here all night. In this plan, everything expensive happens on the inner side of a nested loops join. Without a CPU cost reduction to compensate for the added cost of exchange operators, candidate parallel plans always look more expensive to the optimizer than the equivalent serial plan. Parallel Collocated Merge Join We can produce the desired parallel plan using trace flag 8649 again: SELECT row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt) FROM #P AS p CROSS APPLY ( SELECT cnt = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number ) AS SubTotals OPTION (QUERYTRACEON 8649); The actual execution plan is: One difference between this plan and the collocated hash join plan is that a Repartition Streams exchange operator is used instead of Distribute Streams. The effect is similar, though not quite identical. The Repartition uses round-robin partitioning, meaning the next partition id is pushed to the next thread in sequence. The Distribute Streams exchange seen earlier used Demand partitioning, meaning the next partition id is pulled across the exchange by the next thread that is ready for more work. There are subtle performance implications for each partitioning option, but going into that would again take us too far off the main point of this post. Performance The important thing is the performance of this parallel collocated merge join – just 1350ms on a typical run. The list below shows all the alternatives from this post (all timings include creation, population, and deletion of the temporary table where appropriate) from quickest to slowest: Collocated parallel merge join: 1350ms Parallel hash join: 2600ms Collocated serial merge join: 3500ms Serial merge join: 5000ms Parallel merge join: 8400ms Collated parallel hash join: 25,300ms (hash spill per partition) The parallel collocated merge join requires no memory grant (aside from a paltry 1.2MB used for exchange buffers). This plan uses 16 threads at DOP 8; but 8 of those are (rather pointlessly) allocated to the parallel scan of the temporary table. These are minor concerns, but it turns out there is a way to address them if it bothers you. Parallel Collocated Merge Join with Demand Partitioning This final tweak replaces the temporary table with a hard-coded list of partition ids (dynamic SQL could be used to generate this query from sys.partitions): SELECT row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt) FROM ( VALUES (1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9),(10), (11),(12),(13),(14),(15),(16),(17),(18),(19),(20), (21),(22),(23),(24),(25),(26),(27),(28),(29),(30), (31),(32),(33),(34),(35),(36),(37),(38),(39),(40),(41) ) AS P (partition_number) CROSS APPLY ( SELECT cnt = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number ) AS SubTotals OPTION (QUERYTRACEON 8649); The actual execution plan is: The parallel collocated hash join plan is reproduced below for comparison: The manual rewrite has another advantage that has not been mentioned so far: the partial counts (per partition) can be computed earlier than the partial counts (per thread) in the optimizer’s collocated join plan. The earlier aggregation is performed by the extra Stream Aggregate under the nested loops join. The performance of the parallel collocated merge join is unchanged at around 1350ms. Final Words It is a shame that the current query optimizer does not consider a collocated merge join (Connect item closed as Won’t Fix). The example used in this post showed an improvement in execution time from 2600ms to 1350ms using a modestly-sized data set and limited parallelism. In addition, the memory requirement for the query was almost completely eliminated  – down from 569MB to 1.2MB. The problem with the parallel hash join selected by the optimizer is that it attempts to process the full data set all at once (albeit using eight threads). It requires a large memory grant to hold all 5 million rows from table T1 across the eight hash tables, and does not take advantage of the divide-and-conquer opportunity offered by the common partitioning. The great thing about the collocated join strategies is that each parallel thread works on a single partition from both tables, reading rows, performing the join, and computing a per-partition subtotal, before moving on to a new partition. From a thread’s point of view… If you have trouble visualizing what is happening from just looking at the parallel collocated merge join execution plan, let’s look at it again, but from the point of view of just one thread operating between the two Parallelism (exchange) operators. Our thread picks up a single partition id from the Distribute Streams exchange, and starts a merge join using ordered rows from partition 1 of table T1 and partition 1 of table T2. By definition, this is all happening on a single thread. As rows join, they are added to a (per-partition) count in the Stream Aggregate immediately above the Merge Join. Eventually, either T1 (partition 1) or T2 (partition 1) runs out of rows and the merge join stops. The per-partition count from the aggregate passes on through the Nested Loops join to another Stream Aggregate, which is maintaining a per-thread subtotal. Our same thread now picks up a new partition id from the exchange (say it gets id 9 this time). The count in the per-partition aggregate is reset to zero, and the processing of partition 9 of both tables proceeds just as it did for partition 1, and on the same thread. Each thread picks up a single partition id and processes all the data for that partition, completely independently from other threads working on other partitions. One thread might eventually process partitions (1, 9, 17, 25, 33, 41) while another is concurrently processing partitions (2, 10, 18, 26, 34) and so on for the other six threads at DOP 8. The point is that all 8 threads can execute independently and concurrently, continuing to process new partitions until the wider job (of which the thread has no knowledge!) is done. This divide-and-conquer technique can be much more efficient than simply splitting the entire workload across eight threads all at once. Related Reading Understanding and Using Parallelism in SQL Server Parallel Execution Plans Suck © 2013 Paul White – All Rights Reserved Twitter: @SQL_Kiwi

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• Toorcon 15 (2013)

  - by danx

  The Toorcon gang (senior staff): h1kari (founder), nfiltr8, and Geo Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Making Attacks Go Backwards Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) Toorcon 15 is the 15th annual security conference held in San Diego. I've attended about a third of them and blogged about previous conferences I attended here starting in 2003. As always, I've only summarized the talks I attended and interested me enough to write about them. Be aware that I may have misrepresented the speaker's remarks and that they are not my remarks or opinion, or those of my employer, so don't quote me or them. Those seeking further details may contact the speakers directly or use The Google. For some talks, I have a URL for further information. A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Andrew Furtak and Oleksandr Bazhaniuk Yuri Bulygin, Oleksandr ("Alex") Bazhaniuk, and (not present) Andrew Furtak Yuri and Alex talked about UEFI and Bootkits and bypassing MS Windows 8 Secure Boot, with vendor recommendations. They previously gave this talk at the BlackHat 2013 conference. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Overview UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is interface between hardware and OS. UEFI is processor and architecture independent. Malware can replace bootloader (bootx64.efi, bootmgfw.efi). Once replaced can modify kernel. Trivial to replace bootloader. Today many legacy bootkits—UEFI replaces them most of them. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot verifies everything you load, either through signatures or hashes. UEFI firmware relies on secure update (with signed update). You would think Secure Boot would rely on ROM (such as used for phones0, but you can't do that for PCs—PCs use writable memory with signatures DXE core verifies the UEFI boat loader(s) OS Loader (winload.efi, winresume.efi) verifies the OS kernel A chain of trust is established with a root key (Platform Key, PK), which is a cert belonging to the platform vendor. Key Exchange Keys (KEKs) verify an "authorized" database (db), and "forbidden" database (dbx). X.509 certs with SHA-1/SHA-256 hashes. Keys are stored in non-volatile (NV) flash-based NVRAM. Boot Services (BS) allow adding/deleting keys (can't be accessed once OS starts—which uses Run-Time (RT)). Root cert uses RSA-2048 public keys and PKCS#7 format signatures. SecureBoot — enable disable image signature checks SetupMode — update keys, self-signed keys, and secure boot variables CustomMode — allows updating keys Secure Boot policy settings are: always execute, never execute, allow execute on security violation, defer execute on security violation, deny execute on security violation, query user on security violation Attacking MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Secure Boot does NOT protect from physical access. Can disable from console. Each BIOS vendor implements Secure Boot differently. There are several platform and BIOS vendors. It becomes a "zoo" of implementations—which can be taken advantage of. Secure Boot is secure only when all vendors implement it correctly. Allow only UEFI firmware signed updates protect UEFI firmware from direct modification in flash memory protect FW update components program SPI controller securely protect secure boot policy settings in nvram protect runtime api disable compatibility support module which allows unsigned legacy Can corrupt the Platform Key (PK) EFI root certificate variable in SPI flash. If PK is not found, FW enters setup mode wich secure boot turned off. Can also exploit TPM in a similar manner. One is not supposed to be able to directly modify the PK in SPI flash from the OS though. But they found a bug that they can exploit from User Mode (undisclosed) and demoed the exploit. It loaded and ran their own bootkit. The exploit requires a reboot. Multiple vendors are vulnerable. They will disclose this exploit to vendors in the future. Recommendations: allow only signed updates protect UEFI fw in ROM protect EFI variable store in ROM Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Yoel Gluck and Angelo Prado Angelo Prado and Yoel Gluck, Salesforce.com CRIME is software that performs a "compression oracle attack." This is possible because the SSL protocol doesn't hide length, and because SSL compresses the header. CRIME requests with every possible character and measures the ciphertext length. Look for the plaintext which compresses the most and looks for the cookie one byte-at-a-time. SSL Compression uses LZ77 to reduce redundancy. Huffman coding replaces common byte sequences with shorter codes. US CERT thinks the SSL compression problem is fixed, but it isn't. They convinced CERT that it wasn't fixed and they issued a CVE. BREACH, breachattrack.com BREACH exploits the SSL response body (Accept-Encoding response, Content-Encoding). It takes advantage of the fact that the response is not compressed. BREACH uses gzip and needs fairly "stable" pages that are static for ~30 seconds. It needs attacker-supplied content (say from a web form or added to a URL parameter). BREACH listens to a session's requests and responses, then inserts extra requests and responses. Eventually, BREACH guesses a session's secret key. Can use compression to guess contents one byte at-a-time. For example, "Supersecret SupersecreX" (a wrong guess) compresses 10 bytes, and "Supersecret Supersecret" (a correct guess) compresses 11 bytes, so it can find each character by guessing every character. To start the guess, BREACH needs at least three known initial characters in the response sequence. Compression length then "leaks" information. Some roadblocks include no winners (all guesses wrong) or too many winners (multiple possibilities that compress the same). The solutions include: lookahead (guess 2 or 3 characters at-a-time instead of 1 character). Expensive rollback to last known conflict check compression ratio can brute-force first 3 "bootstrap" characters, if needed (expensive) block ciphers hide exact plain text length. Solution is to align response in advance to block size Mitigations length: use variable padding secrets: dynamic CSRF tokens per request secret: change over time separate secret to input-less servlets Future work eiter understand DEFLATE/GZIP HTTPS extensions Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Ryan Huber Ryan Huber, Risk I/O Ryan first discussed various ways to do a denial of service (DoS) attack against web services. One usual method is to find a slow web page and do several wgets. Or download large files. Apache is not well suited at handling a large number of connections, but one can put something in front of it Can use Apache alternatives, such as nginx How to identify malicious hosts short, sudden web requests user-agent is obvious (curl, python) same url requested repeatedly no web page referer (not normal) hidden links. hide a link and see if a bot gets it restricted access if not your geo IP (unless the website is global) missing common headers in request regular timing first seen IP at beginning of attack count requests per hosts (usually a very large number) Use of captcha can mitigate attacks, but you'll lose a lot of genuine users. Bouncer, goo.gl/c2vyEc and www.github.com/rawdigits/Bouncer Bouncer is software written by Ryan in netflow. Bouncer has a small, unobtrusive footprint and detects DoS attempts. It closes blacklisted sockets immediately (not nice about it, no proper close connection). Aggregator collects requests and controls your web proxies. Need NTP on the front end web servers for clean data for use by bouncer. Bouncer is also useful for a popularity storm ("Slashdotting") and scraper storms. Future features: gzip collection data, documentation, consumer library, multitask, logging destroyed connections. Takeaways: DoS mitigation is easier with a complete picture Bouncer designed to make it easier to detect and defend DoS—not a complete cure Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman, Adobe ASSET, blogs.adobe.com/asset/ Peleus and Karthik talked about response to mass-customized exploits. Attackers behave much like a business. "Mass customization" refers to concept discussed in the book Future Perfect by Stan Davis of Harvard Business School. Mass customization is differentiating a product for an individual customer, but at a mass production price. For example, the same individual with a debit card receives basically the same customized ATM experience around the world. Or designing your own PC from commodity parts. Exploit kits are another example of mass customization. The kits support multiple browsers and plugins, allows new modules. Exploit kits are cheap and customizable. Organized gangs use exploit kits. A group at Berkeley looked at 77,000 malicious websites (Grier et al., "Manufacturing Compromise: The Emergence of Exploit-as-a-Service", 2012). They found 10,000 distinct binaries among them, but derived from only a dozen or so exploit kits. Characteristics of Mass Malware: potent, resilient, relatively low cost Technical characteristics: multiple OS, multipe payloads, multiple scenarios, multiple languages, obfuscation Response time for 0-day exploits has gone down from ~40 days 5 years ago to about ~10 days now. So the drive with malware is towards mass customized exploits, to avoid detection There's plenty of evicence that exploit development has Project Manager bureaucracy. They infer from the malware edicts to: support all versions of reader support all versions of windows support all versions of flash support all browsers write large complex, difficult to main code (8750 lines of JavaScript for example Exploits have "loose coupling" of multipe versions of software (adobe), OS, and browser. This allows specific attacks against specific versions of multiple pieces of software. Also allows exploits of more obscure software/OS/browsers and obscure versions. Gave examples of exploits that exploited 2, 3, 6, or 14 separate bugs. However, these complete exploits are more likely to be buggy or fragile in themselves and easier to defeat. Future research includes normalizing malware and Javascript. Conclusion: The coming trend is that mass-malware with mass zero-day attacks will result in mass customization of attacks. x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Richard Wartell Richard Wartell The attack vector we are addressing here is: First some malware causes a buffer overflow. The malware has no program access, but input access and buffer overflow code onto stack Later the stack became non-executable. The workaround malware used was to write a bogus return address to the stack jumping to malware Later came ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) to randomize memory layout and make addresses non-deterministic. The workaround malware used was to jump t existing code segments in the program that can be used in bad ways "RoP" is Return-oriented Programming attacks. RoP attacks use your own code and write return address on stack to (existing) expoitable code found in program ("gadgets"). Pinkie Pie was paid $60K last year for a RoP attack. One solution is using anti-RoP compilers that compile source code with NO return instructions. ASLR does not randomize address space, just "gadgets". IPR/ILR ("Instruction Location Randomization") randomizes each instruction with a virtual machine. Richard's goal was to randomize a binary with no source code access. He created "STIR" (Self-Transofrming Instruction Relocation). STIR disassembles binary and operates on "basic blocks" of code. The STIR disassembler is conservative in what to disassemble. Each basic block is moved to a random location in memory. Next, STIR writes new code sections with copies of "basic blocks" of code in randomized locations. The old code is copied and rewritten with jumps to new code. the original code sections in the file is marked non-executible. STIR has better entropy than ASLR in location of code. Makes brute force attacks much harder. STIR runs on MS Windows (PEM) and Linux (ELF). It eliminated 99.96% or more "gadgets" (i.e., moved the address). Overhead usually 5-10% on MS Windows, about 1.5-4% on Linux (but some code actually runs faster!). The unique thing about STIR is it requires no source access and the modified binary fully works! Current work is to rewrite code to enforce security policies. For example, don't create a *.{exe,msi,bat} file. Or don't connect to the network after reading from the disk. Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Collin Greene Collin Greene, Facebook Collin talked about Facebook's bug bounty program. Background at FB: FB has good security frameworks, such as security teams, external audits, and cc'ing on diffs. But there's lots of "deep, dark, forgotten" parts of legacy FB code. Collin gave several examples of bountied bugs. Some bounty submissions were on software purchased from a third-party (but bounty claimers don't know and don't care). We use security questions, as does everyone else, but they are basically insecure (often easily discoverable). Collin didn't expect many bugs from the bounty program, but they ended getting 20+ good bugs in first 24 hours and good submissions continue to come in. Bug bounties bring people in with different perspectives, and are paid only for success. Bug bounty is a better use of a fixed amount of time and money versus just code review or static code analysis. The Bounty program started July 2011 and paid out $1.5 million to date. 14% of the submissions have been high priority problems that needed to be fixed immediately. The best bugs come from a small % of submitters (as with everything else)—the top paid submitters are paid 6 figures a year. Spammers like to backstab competitors. The youngest sumitter was 13. Some submitters have been hired. Bug bounties also allows to see bugs that were missed by tools or reviews, allowing improvement in the process. Bug bounties might not work for traditional software companies where the product has release cycle or is not on Internet. Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Anna Shubina Anna Shubina, Dartmouth Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (I missed the start of her talk because another track went overtime. But I have the DVD of the talk, so I'll expand later) IPsec leaves fingerprints. Using netcat, one can easily visually distinguish various crypto chaining modes just from packet timing on a chart (example, DES-CBC versus AES-CBC) One can tell a lot about VPNs just from ping roundtrips (such as what router is used) Delayed packets are not informative about a network, especially if far away from the network More needed to explore about how TCP works in real life with respect to timing Making Attacks Go Backwards Fuzzynop FuzzyNop, Mandiant This talk is not about threat attribution (finding who), product solutions, politics, or sales pitches. But who are making these malware threats? It's not a single person or group—they have diverse skill levels. There's a lot of fat-fingered fumblers out there. Always look for low-hanging fruit first: "hiding" malware in the temp, recycle, or root directories creation of unnamed scheduled tasks obvious names of files and syscalls ("ClearEventLog") uncleared event logs. Clearing event log in itself, and time of clearing, is a red flag and good first clue to look for on a suspect system Reverse engineering is hard. Disassembler use takes practice and skill. A popular tool is IDA Pro, but it takes multiple interactive iterations to get a clean disassembly. Key loggers are used a lot in targeted attacks. They are typically custom code or built in a backdoor. A big tip-off is that non-printable characters need to be printed out (such as "[Ctrl]" "[RightShift]") or time stamp printf strings. Look for these in files. Presence is not proof they are used. Absence is not proof they are not used. Java exploits. Can parse jar file with idxparser.py and decomile Java file. Java typially used to target tech companies. Backdoors are the main persistence mechanism (provided externally) for malware. Also malware typically needs command and control. Application of Artificial Intelligence in Ad-Hoc Static Code Analysis John Ashaman John Ashaman, Security Innovation Initially John tried to analyze open source files with open source static analysis tools, but these showed thousands of false positives. Also tried using grep, but tis fails to find anything even mildly complex. So next John decided to write his own tool. His approach was to first generate a call graph then analyze the graph. However, the problem is that making a call graph is really hard. For example, one problem is "evil" coding techniques, such as passing function pointer. First the tool generated an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) with the nodes created from method declarations and edges created from method use. Then the tool generated a control flow graph with the goal to find a path through the AST (a maze) from source to sink. The algorithm is to look at adjacent nodes to see if any are "scary" (a vulnerability), using heuristics for search order. The tool, called "Scat" (Static Code Analysis Tool), currently looks for C# vulnerabilities and some simple PHP. Later, he plans to add more PHP, then JSP and Java. For more information see his posts in Security Innovation blog and NRefactory on GitHub. Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Sometimes in emailing or posting TCP/IP packets to analyze problems, you may want to mask the IP address. But to do this correctly, you need to mask the checksum too, or you'll leak information about the IP. Problem reports found in stackoverflow.com, sans.org, and pastebin.org are usually not masked, but a few companies do care. If only the IP is masked, the IP may be guessed from checksum (that is, it leaks data). Other parts of packet may leak more data about the IP. TCP and IP checksums both refer to the same data, so can get more bits of information out of using both checksums than just using one checksum. Also, one can usually determine the OS from the TTL field and ports in a packet header. If we get hundreds of possible results (16x each masked nibble that is unknown), one can do other things to narrow the results, such as look at packet contents for domain or geo information. With hundreds of results, can import as CSV format into a spreadsheet. Can corelate with geo data and see where each possibility is located. Eric then demoed a real email report with a masked IP packet attached. Was able to find the exact IP address, given the geo and university of the sender. Point is if you're going to mask a packet, do it right. Eric wouldn't usually bother, but do it correctly if at all, to not create a false impression of security. Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Sergey Bratus Sergey Bratus, Dartmouth College (and Julian Bangert and Rebecca Shapiro, not present) "Reflections on Trusting Trust" refers to Ken Thompson's classic 1984 paper. "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself." There's invisible links in the chain-of-trust, such as "well-installed microcode bugs" or in the compiler, and other planted bugs. Thompson showed how a compiler can introduce and propagate bugs in unmodified source. But suppose if there's no bugs and you trust the author, can you trust the code? Hell No! There's too many factors—it's Babylonian in nature. Why not? Well, Input is not well-defined/recognized (code's assumptions about "checked" input will be violated (bug/vunerabiliy). For example, HTML is recursive, but Regex checking is not recursive. Input well-formed but so complex there's no telling what it does For example, ELF file parsing is complex and has multiple ways of parsing. Input is seen differently by different pieces of program or toolchain Any Input is a program input executes on input handlers (drives state changes & transitions) only a well-defined execution model can be trusted (regex/DFA, PDA, CFG) Input handler either is a "recognizer" for the inputs as a well-defined language (see langsec.org) or it's a "virtual machine" for inputs to drive into pwn-age ELF ABI (UNIX/Linux executible file format) case study. Problems can arise from these steps (without planting bugs): compiler linker loader ld.so/rtld relocator DWARF (debugger info) exceptions The problem is you can't really automatically analyze code (it's the "halting problem" and undecidable). Only solution is to freeze code and sign it. But you can't freeze everything! Can't freeze ASLR or loading—must have tables and metadata. Any sufficiently complex input data is the same as VM byte code Example, ELF relocation entries + dynamic symbols == a Turing Complete Machine (TM). @bxsays created a Turing machine in Linux from relocation data (not code) in an ELF file. For more information, see Rebecca "bx" Shapiro's presentation from last year's Toorcon, "Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata" @bxsays did same thing with Mach-O bytecode Or a DWARF exception handling data .eh_frame + glibc == Turning Machine X86 MMU (IDT, GDT, TSS): used address translation to create a Turning Machine. Page handler reads and writes (on page fault) memory. Uses a page table, which can be used as Turning Machine byte code. Example on Github using this TM that will fly a glider across the screen Next Sergey talked about "Parser Differentials". That having one input format, but two parsers, will create confusion and opportunity for exploitation. For example, CSRs are parsed during creation by cert requestor and again by another parser at the CA. Another example is ELF—several parsers in OS tool chain, which are all different. Can have two different Program Headers (PHDRs) because ld.so parses multiple PHDRs. The second PHDR can completely transform the executable. This is described in paper in the first issue of International Journal of PoC. Conclusions trusting computers not only about bugs! Bugs are part of a problem, but no by far all of it complex data formats means bugs no "chain of trust" in Babylon! (that is, with parser differentials) we need to squeeze complexity out of data until data stops being "code equivalent" Further information See and langsec.org. USENIX WOOT 2013 (Workshop on Offensive Technologies) for "weird machines" papers and videos.

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• Basic Spatial Data with SQL Server and Entity Framework 5.0

  - by Rick Strahl

  In my most recent project we needed to do a bit of geo-spatial referencing. While spatial features have been in SQL Server for a while using those features inside of .NET applications hasn't been as straight forward as could be, because .NET natively doesn't support spatial types. There are workarounds for this with a few custom project like SharpMap or a hack using the Sql Server specific Geo types found in the Microsoft.SqlTypes assembly that ships with SQL server. While these approaches work for manipulating spatial data from .NET code, they didn't work with database access if you're using Entity Framework. Other ORM vendors have been rolling their own versions of spatial integration. In Entity Framework 5.0 running on .NET 4.5 the Microsoft ORM finally adds support for spatial types as well. In this post I'll describe basic geography features that deal with single location and distance calculations which is probably the most common usage scenario. SQL Server Transact-SQL Syntax for Spatial Data Before we look at how things work with Entity framework, lets take a look at how SQL Server allows you to use spatial data to get an understanding of the underlying semantics. The following SQL examples should work with SQL 2008 and forward. Let's start by creating a test table that includes a Geography field and also a pair of Long/Lat fields that demonstrate how you can work with the geography functions even if you don't have geography/geometry fields in the database. Here's the CREATE command:CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Geo]( [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [Location] [geography] NULL, [Long] [float] NOT NULL, [Lat] [float] NOT NULL ) Now using plain SQL you can insert data into the table using geography::STGeoFromText SQL CLR function:insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.527200 45.712113)', 4326), -121.527200, 45.712113 ) insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.517265 45.714240)', 4326), -121.517265, 45.714240 ) insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.511536 45.714825)', 4326), -121.511536, 45.714825) The STGeomFromText function accepts a string that points to a geometric item (a point here but can also be a line or path or polygon and many others). You also need to provide an SRID (Spatial Reference System Identifier) which is an integer value that determines the rules for how geography/geometry values are calculated and returned. For mapping/distance functionality you typically want to use 4326 as this is the format used by most mapping software and geo-location libraries like Google and Bing. The spatial data in the Location field is stored in binary format which looks something like this: Once the location data is in the database you can query the data and do simple distance computations very easily. For example to calculate the distance of each of the values in the database to another spatial point is very easy to calculate. Distance calculations compare two points in space using a direct line calculation. For our example I'll compare a new point to all the points in the database. Using the Location field the SQL looks like this:-- create a source point DECLARE @s geography SET @s = geography:: STGeomFromText('POINT(-121.527200 45.712113)' , 4326); --- return the ids select ID, Location as Geo , Location .ToString() as Point , @s.STDistance( Location) as distance from Geo order by distance The code defines a new point which is the base point to compare each of the values to. You can also compare values from the database directly, but typically you'll want to match a location to another location and determine the difference for which you can use the geography::STDistance function. This query produces the following output: The STDistance function returns the straight line distance between the passed in point and the point in the database field. The result for SRID 4326 is always in meters. Notice that the first value passed was the same point so the difference is 0. The other two points are two points here in town in Hood River a little ways away - 808 and 1256 meters respectively. Notice also that you can order the result by the resulting distance, which effectively gives you results that are ordered radially out from closer to further away. This is great for searches of points of interest near a central location (YOU typically!). These geolocation functions are also available to you if you don't use the Geography/Geometry types, but plain float values. It's a little more work, as each point has to be created in the query using the string syntax, but the following code doesn't use a geography field but produces the same result as the previous query.--- using float fields select ID, geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR (long, 15,7 ) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326), geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR (long, 15,7 ) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326). ToString(), @s.STDistance( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR(long ,15, 7) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326)) as distance from geo order by distance Spatial Data in the Entity Framework Prior to Entity Framework 5.0 on .NET 4.5 consuming of the data above required using stored procedures or raw SQL commands to access the spatial data. In Entity Framework 5 however, Microsoft introduced the new DbGeometry and DbGeography types. These immutable location types provide a bunch of functionality for manipulating spatial points using geometry functions which in turn can be used to do common spatial queries like I described in the SQL syntax above. The DbGeography/DbGeometry types are immutable, meaning that you can't write to them once they've been created. They are a bit odd in that you need to use factory methods in order to instantiate them - they have no constructor() and you can't assign to properties like Latitude and Longitude. Creating a Model with Spatial Data Let's start by creating a simple Entity Framework model that includes a Location property of type DbGeography: public class GeoLocationContext : DbContext { public DbSet<GeoLocation> Locations { get; set; } } public class GeoLocation { public int Id { get; set; } public DbGeography Location { get; set; } public string Address { get; set; } } That's all there's to it. When you run this now against SQL Server, you get a Geography field for the Location property, which looks the same as the Location field in the SQL examples earlier. Adding Spatial Data to the Database Next let's add some data to the table that includes some latitude and longitude data. An easy way to find lat/long locations is to use Google Maps to pinpoint your location, then right click and click on What's Here. Click on the green marker to get the GPS coordinates. To add the actual geolocation data create an instance of the GeoLocation type and use the DbGeography.PointFromText() factory method to create a new point to assign to the Location property:[TestMethod] public void AddLocationsToDataBase() { var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // remove all context.Locations.ToList().ForEach( loc => context.Locations.Remove(loc)); context.SaveChanges(); var location = new GeoLocation() { // Create a point using native DbGeography Factory method Location = DbGeography.PointFromText( string.Format("POINT({0} {1})", -121.527200,45.712113) ,4326), Address = "301 15th Street, Hood River" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { Location = CreatePoint(45.714240, -121.517265), Address = "The Hatchery, Bingen" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { // Create a point using a helper function (lat/long) Location = CreatePoint(45.708457, -121.514432), Address = "Kaze Sushi, Hood River" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { Location = CreatePoint(45.722780, -120.209227), Address = "Arlington, OR" }; context.Locations.Add(location); context.SaveChanges(); } As promised, a DbGeography object has to be created with one of the static factory methods provided on the type as the Location.Longitude and Location.Latitude properties are read only. Here I'm using PointFromText() which uses a "Well Known Text" format to specify spatial data. In the first example I'm specifying to create a Point from a longitude and latitude value, using an SRID of 4326 (just like earlier in the SQL examples). You'll probably want to create a helper method to make the creation of Points easier to avoid that string format and instead just pass in a couple of double values. Here's my helper called CreatePoint that's used for all but the first point creation in the sample above:public static DbGeography CreatePoint(double latitude, double longitude) { var text = string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.NumberFormat, "POINT({0} {1})", longitude, latitude); // 4326 is most common coordinate system used by GPS/Maps return DbGeography.PointFromText(text, 4326); } Using the helper the syntax becomes a bit cleaner, requiring only a latitude and longitude respectively. Note that my method intentionally swaps the parameters around because Latitude and Longitude is the common format I've seen with mapping libraries (especially Google Mapping/Geolocation APIs with their LatLng type). When the context is changed the data is written into the database using the SQL Geography type which looks the same as in the earlier SQL examples shown. Querying Once you have some location data in the database it's now super easy to query the data and find out the distance between locations. A common query is to ask for a number of locations that are near a fixed point - typically your current location and order it by distance. Using LINQ to Entities a query like this is easy to construct:[TestMethod] public void QueryLocationsTest() { var sourcePoint = CreatePoint(45.712113, -121.527200); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // find any locations within 5 kilometers ordered by distance var matches = context.Locations .Where(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) < 5000) .OrderBy( loc=> loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) ) .Select( loc=> new { Address = loc.Address, Distance = loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) }); Assert.IsTrue(matches.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in matches) { Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1:n0} meters)", location.Address, location.Distance); } } This example produces: 301 15th Street, Hood River (0 meters)The Hatchery, Bingen (809 meters)Kaze Sushi, Hood River (1,074 meters)   The first point in the database is the same as my source point I'm comparing against so the distance is 0. The other two are within the 5 mile radius, while the Arlington location which is 65 miles or so out is not returned. The result is ordered by distance from closest to furthest away. In the code, I first create a source point that is the basis for comparison. The LINQ query then selects all locations that are within 5km of the source point using the Location.Distance() function, which takes a source point as a parameter. You can either use a pre-defined value as I'm doing here, or compare against another database DbGeography property (say when you have to points in the same database for things like routes). What's nice about this query syntax is that it's very clean and easy to read and understand. You can calculate the distance and also easily order by the distance to provide a result that shows locations from closest to furthest away which is a common scenario for any application that places a user in the context of several locations. It's now super easy to accomplish this. Meters vs. Miles As with the SQL Server functions, the Distance() method returns data in meters, so if you need to work with miles or feet you need to do some conversion. Here are a couple of helpers that might be useful (can be found in GeoUtils.cs of the sample project):/// <summary> /// Convert meters to miles /// </summary> /// <param name="meters"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static double MetersToMiles(double? meters) { if (meters == null) return 0F; return meters.Value * 0.000621371192; } /// <summary> /// Convert miles to meters /// </summary> /// <param name="miles"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static double MilesToMeters(double? miles) { if (miles == null) return 0; return miles.Value * 1609.344; } Using these two helpers you can query on miles like this:[TestMethod] public void QueryLocationsMilesTest() { var sourcePoint = CreatePoint(45.712113, -121.527200); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // find any locations within 5 miles ordered by distance var fiveMiles = GeoUtils.MilesToMeters(5); var matches = context.Locations .Where(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) <= fiveMiles) .OrderBy(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint)) .Select(loc => new { Address = loc.Address, Distance = loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) }); Assert.IsTrue(matches.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in matches) { Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1:n1} miles)", location.Address, GeoUtils.MetersToMiles(location.Distance)); } } which produces: 301 15th Street, Hood River (0.0 miles)The Hatchery, Bingen (0.5 miles)Kaze Sushi, Hood River (0.7 miles) Nice 'n simple. .NET 4.5 Only Note that DbGeography and DbGeometry are exclusive to Entity Framework 5.0 (not 4.4 which ships in the same NuGet package or installer) and requires .NET 4.5. That's because the new DbGeometry and DbGeography (and related) types are defined in the 4.5 version of System.Data.Entity which is a CLR assembly and is only updated by major versions of .NET. Why this decision was made to add these types to System.Data.Entity rather than to the frequently updated EntityFramework assembly that would have possibly made this work in .NET 4.0 is beyond me, especially given that there are no native .NET framework spatial types to begin with. I find it also odd that there is no native CLR spatial type. The DbGeography and DbGeometry types are specific to Entity Framework and live on those assemblies. They will also work for general purpose, non-database spatial data manipulation, but then you are forced into having a dependency on System.Data.Entity, which seems a bit silly. There's also a System.Spatial assembly that's apparently part of WCF Data Services which in turn don't work with Entity framework. Another example of multiple teams at Microsoft not communicating and implementing the same functionality (differently) in several different places. Perplexed as a I may be, for EF specific code the Entity framework specific types are easy to use and work well. Working with pre-.NET 4.5 Entity Framework and Spatial Data If you can't go to .NET 4.5 just yet you can also still use spatial features in Entity Framework, but it's a lot more work as you can't use the DbContext directly to manipulate the location data. You can still run raw SQL statements to write data into the database and retrieve results using the same TSQL syntax I showed earlier using Context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(). Here's code that you can use to add location data into the database:[TestMethod] public void RawSqlEfAddTest() { string sqlFormat = @"insert into GeoLocations( Location, Address) values ( geography::STGeomFromText('POINT({0} {1})', 4326),@p0 )"; var sql = string.Format(sqlFormat,-121.527200, 45.712113); Console.WriteLine(sql); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); Assert.IsTrue(context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sql,"301 N. 15th Street") > 0); } Here I'm using the STGeomFromText() function to add the location data. Note that I'm using string.Format here, which usually would be a bad practice but is required here. I was unable to use ExecuteSqlCommand() and its named parameter syntax as the longitude and latitude parameters are embedded into a string. Rest assured it's required as the following does not work:string sqlFormat = @"insert into GeoLocations( Location, Address) values ( geography::STGeomFromText('POINT(@p0 @p1)', 4326),@p2 )";context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sql, -121.527200, 45.712113, "301 N. 15th Street") Explicitly assigning the point value with string.format works however. There are a number of ways to query location data. You can't get the location data directly, but you can retrieve the point string (which can then be parsed to get Latitude and Longitude) and you can return calculated values like distance. Here's an example of how to retrieve some geo data into a resultset using EF's and SqlQuery method:[TestMethod] public void RawSqlEfQueryTest() { var sqlFormat = @" DECLARE @s geography SET @s = geography:: STGeomFromText('POINT({0} {1})' , 4326); SELECT Address, Location.ToString() as GeoString, @s.STDistance( Location) as Distance FROM GeoLocations ORDER BY Distance"; var sql = string.Format(sqlFormat, -121.527200, 45.712113); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); var locations = context.Database.SqlQuery<ResultData>(sql); Assert.IsTrue(locations.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in locations) { Console.WriteLine(location.Address + " " + location.GeoString + " " + location.Distance); } } public class ResultData { public string GeoString { get; set; } public double Distance { get; set; } public string Address { get; set; } } Hopefully you don't have to resort to this approach as it's fairly limited. Using the new DbGeography/DbGeometry types makes this sort of thing so much easier. When I had to use code like this before I typically ended up retrieving data pks only and then running another query with just the PKs to retrieve the actual underlying DbContext entities. This was very inefficient and tedious but it did work. Summary For the current project I'm working on we actually made the switch to .NET 4.5 purely for the spatial features in EF 5.0. This app heavily relies on spatial queries and it was worth taking a chance with pre-release code to get this ease of integration as opposed to manually falling back to stored procedures or raw SQL string queries to return spatial specific queries. Using native Entity Framework code makes life a lot easier than the alternatives. It might be a late addition to Entity Framework, but it sure makes location calculations and storage easy. Where do you want to go today? ;-) Resources Download Sample Project© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ADO.NET  Sql Server  .NET   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• How to find and fix performance problems in ORM powered applications

  - by FransBouma

  Once in a while we get requests about how to fix performance problems with our framework. As it comes down to following the same steps and looking into the same things every single time, I decided to write a blogpost about it instead, so more people can learn from this and solve performance problems in their O/R mapper powered applications. In some parts it's focused on LLBLGen Pro but it's also usable for other O/R mapping frameworks, as the vast majority of performance problems in O/R mapper powered applications are not specific for a certain O/R mapper framework. Too often, the developer looks at the wrong part of the application, trying to fix what isn't a problem in that part, and getting frustrated that 'things are so slow with <insert your favorite framework X here>'. I'm in the O/R mapper business for a long time now (almost 10 years, full time) and as it's a small world, we O/R mapper developers know almost all tricks to pull off by now: we all know what to do to make task ABC faster and what compromises (because there are almost always compromises) to deal with if we decide to make ABC faster that way. Some O/R mapper frameworks are faster in X, others in Y, but you can be sure the difference is mainly a result of a compromise some developers are willing to deal with and others aren't. That's why the O/R mapper frameworks on the market today are different in many ways, even though they all fetch and save entities from and to a database. I'm not suggesting there's no room for improvement in today's O/R mapper frameworks, there always is, but it's not a matter of 'the slowness of the application is caused by the O/R mapper' anymore. Perhaps query generation can be optimized a bit here, row materialization can be optimized a bit there, but it's mainly coming down to milliseconds. Still worth it if you're a framework developer, but it's not much compared to the time spend inside databases and in user code: if a complete fetch takes 40ms or 50ms (from call to entity object collection), it won't make a difference for your application as that 10ms difference won't be noticed. That's why it's very important to find the real locations of the problems so developers can fix them properly and don't get frustrated because their quest to get a fast, performing application failed. Performance tuning basics and rules Finding and fixing performance problems in any application is a strict procedure with four prescribed steps: isolate, analyze, interpret and fix, in that order. It's key that you don't skip a step nor make assumptions: these steps help you find the reason of a problem which seems to be there, and how to fix it or leave it as-is. Skipping a step, or when you assume things will be bad/slow without doing analysis will lead to the path of premature optimization and won't actually solve your problems, only create new ones. The most important rule of finding and fixing performance problems in software is that you have to understand what 'performance problem' actually means. Most developers will say "when a piece of software / code is slow, you have a performance problem". But is that actually the case? If I write a Linq query which will aggregate, group and sort 5 million rows from several tables to produce a resultset of 10 rows, it might take more than a couple of milliseconds before that resultset is ready to be consumed by other logic. If I solely look at the Linq query, the code consuming the resultset of the 10 rows and then look at the time it takes to complete the whole procedure, it will appear to me to be slow: all that time taken to produce and consume 10 rows? But if you look closer, if you analyze and interpret the situation, you'll see it does a tremendous amount of work, and in that light it might even be extremely fast. With every performance problem you encounter, always do realize that what you're trying to solve is perhaps not a technical problem at all, but a perception problem. The second most important rule you have to understand is based on the old saying "Penny wise, Pound Foolish": the part which takes e.g. 5% of the total time T for a given task isn't worth optimizing if you have another part which takes a much larger part of the total time T for that same given task. Optimizing parts which are relatively insignificant for the total time taken is not going to bring you better results overall, even if you totally optimize that part away. This is the core reason why analysis of the complete set of application parts which participate in a given task is key to being successful in solving performance problems: No analysis -> no problem -> no solution. One warning up front: hunting for performance will always include making compromises. Fast software can be made maintainable, but if you want to squeeze as much performance out of your software, you will inevitably be faced with the dilemma of compromising one or more from the group {readability, maintainability, features} for the extra performance you think you'll gain. It's then up to you to decide whether it's worth it. In almost all cases it's not. The reason for this is simple: the vast majority of performance problems can be solved by implementing the proper algorithms, the ones with proven Big O-characteristics so you know the performance you'll get plus you know the algorithm will work. The time taken by the algorithm implementing code is inevitable: you already implemented the best algorithm. You might find some optimizations on the technical level but in general these are minor. Let's look at the four steps to see how they guide us through the quest to find and fix performance problems. Isolate The first thing you need to do is to isolate the areas in your application which are assumed to be slow. For example, if your application is a web application and a given page is taking several seconds or even minutes to load, it's a good candidate to check out. It's important to start with the isolate step because it allows you to focus on a single code path per area with a clear begin and end and ignore the rest. The rest of the steps are taken per identified problematic area. Keep in mind that isolation focuses on tasks in an application, not code snippets. A task is something that's started in your application by either another task or the user, or another program, and has a beginning and an end. You can see a task as a piece of functionality offered by your application.  Analyze Once you've determined the problem areas, you have to perform analysis on the code paths of each area, to see where the performance problems occur and which areas are not the problem. This is a multi-layered effort: an application which uses an O/R mapper typically consists of multiple parts: there's likely some kind of interface (web, webservice, windows etc.), a part which controls the interface and business logic, the O/R mapper part and the RDBMS, all connected with either a network or inter-process connections provided by the OS or other means. Each of these parts, including the connectivity plumbing, eat up a part of the total time it takes to complete a task, e.g. load a webpage with all orders of a given customer X. To understand which parts participate in the task / area we're investigating and how much they contribute to the total time taken to complete the task, analysis of each participating task is essential. Start with the code you wrote which starts the task, analyze the code and track the path it follows through your application. What does the code do along the way, verify whether it's correct or not. Analyze whether you have implemented the right algorithms in your code for this particular area. Remember we're looking at one area at a time, which means we're ignoring all other code paths, just the code path of the current problematic area, from begin to end and back. Don't dig in and start optimizing at the code level just yet. We're just analyzing. If your analysis reveals big architectural stupidity, it's perhaps a good idea to rethink the architecture at this point. For the rest, we're analyzing which means we collect data about what could be wrong, for each participating part of the complete application. Reviewing the code you wrote is a good tool to get deeper understanding of what is going on for a given task but ultimately it lacks precision and overview what really happens: humans aren't good code interpreters, computers are. We therefore need to utilize tools to get deeper understanding about which parts contribute how much time to the total task, triggered by which other parts and for example how many times are they called. There are two different kind of tools which are necessary: .NET profilers and O/R mapper / RDBMS profilers. .NET profiling .NET profilers (e.g. dotTrace by JetBrains or Ants by Red Gate software) show exactly which pieces of code are called, how many times they're called, and the time it took to run that piece of code, at the method level and sometimes even at the line level. The .NET profilers are essential tools for understanding whether the time taken to complete a given task / area in your application is consumed by .NET code, where exactly in your code, the path to that code, how many times that code was called by other code and thus reveals where hotspots are located: the areas where a solution can be found. Importantly, they also reveal which areas can be left alone: remember our penny wise pound foolish saying: if a profiler reveals that a group of methods are fast, or don't contribute much to the total time taken for a given task, ignore them. Even if the code in them is perhaps complex and looks like a candidate for optimization: you can work all day on that, it won't matter.  As we're focusing on a single area of the application, it's best to start profiling right before you actually activate the task/area. Most .NET profilers support this by starting the application without starting the profiling procedure just yet. You navigate to the particular part which is slow, start profiling in the profiler, in your application you perform the actions which are considered slow, and afterwards you get a snapshot in the profiler. The snapshot contains the data collected by the profiler during the slow action, so most data is produced by code in the area to investigate. This is important, because it allows you to stay focused on a single area. O/R mapper and RDBMS profiling .NET profilers give you a good insight in the .NET side of things, but not in the RDBMS side of the application. As this article is about O/R mapper powered applications, we're also looking at databases, and the software making it possible to consume the database in your application: the O/R mapper. To understand which parts of the O/R mapper and database participate how much to the total time taken for task T, we need different tools. There are two kind of tools focusing on O/R mappers and database performance profiling: O/R mapper profilers and RDBMS profilers. For O/R mapper profilers, you can look at LLBLGen Prof by hibernating rhinos or the Linq to Sql/LLBLGen Pro profiler by Huagati. Hibernating rhinos also have profilers for other O/R mappers like NHibernate (NHProf) and Entity Framework (EFProf) and work the same as LLBLGen Prof. For RDBMS profilers, you have to look whether the RDBMS vendor has a profiler. For example for SQL Server, the profiler is shipped with SQL Server, for Oracle it's build into the RDBMS, however there are also 3rd party tools. Which tool you're using isn't really important, what's important is that you get insight in which queries are executed during the task / area we're currently focused on and how long they took. Here, the O/R mapper profilers have an advantage as they collect the time it took to execute the query from the application's perspective so they also collect the time it took to transport data across the network. This is important because a query which returns a massive resultset or a resultset with large blob/clob/ntext/image fields takes more time to get transported across the network than a small resultset and a database profiler doesn't take this into account most of the time. Another tool to use in this case, which is more low level and not all O/R mappers support it (though LLBLGen Pro and NHibernate as well do) is tracing: most O/R mappers offer some form of tracing or logging system which you can use to collect the SQL generated and executed and often also other activity behind the scenes. While tracing can produce a tremendous amount of data in some cases, it also gives insight in what's going on. Interpret After we've completed the analysis step it's time to look at the data we've collected. We've done code reviews to see whether we've done anything stupid and which parts actually take place and if the proper algorithms have been implemented. We've done .NET profiling to see which parts are choke points and how much time they contribute to the total time taken to complete the task we're investigating. We've performed O/R mapper profiling and RDBMS profiling to see which queries were executed during the task, how many queries were generated and executed and how long they took to complete, including network transportation. All this data reveals two things: which parts are big contributors to the total time taken and which parts are irrelevant. Both aspects are very important. The parts which are irrelevant (i.e. don't contribute significantly to the total time taken) can be ignored from now on, we won't look at them. The parts which contribute a lot to the total time taken are important to look at. We now have to first look at the .NET profiler results, to see whether the time taken is consumed in our own code, in .NET framework code, in the O/R mapper itself or somewhere else. For example if most of the time is consumed by DbCommand.ExecuteReader, the time it took to complete the task is depending on the time the data is fetched from the database. If there was just 1 query executed, according to tracing or O/R mapper profilers / RDBMS profilers, check whether that query is optimal, uses indexes or has to deal with a lot of data. Interpret means that you follow the path from begin to end through the data collected and determine where, along the path, the most time is contributed. It also means that you have to check whether this was expected or is totally unexpected. My previous example of the 10 row resultset of a query which groups millions of rows will likely reveal that a long time is spend inside the database and almost no time is spend in the .NET code, meaning the RDBMS part contributes the most to the total time taken, the rest is compared to that time, irrelevant. Considering the vastness of the source data set, it's expected this will take some time. However, does it need tweaking? Perhaps all possible tweaks are already in place. In the interpret step you then have to decide that further action in this area is necessary or not, based on what the analysis results show: if the analysis results were unexpected and in the area where the most time is contributed to the total time taken is room for improvement, action should be taken. If not, you can only accept the situation and move on. In all cases, document your decision together with the analysis you've done. If you decide that the perceived performance problem is actually expected due to the nature of the task performed, it's essential that in the future when someone else looks at the application and starts asking questions you can answer them properly and new analysis is only necessary if situations changed. Fix After interpreting the analysis results you've concluded that some areas need adjustment. This is the fix step: you're actively correcting the performance problem with proper action targeted at the real cause. In many cases related to O/R mapper powered applications it means you'll use different features of the O/R mapper to achieve the same goal, or apply optimizations at the RDBMS level. It could also mean you apply caching inside your application (compromise memory consumption over performance) to avoid unnecessary re-querying data and re-consuming the results. After applying a change, it's key you re-do the analysis and interpretation steps: compare the results and expectations with what you had before, to see whether your actions had any effect or whether it moved the problem to a different part of the application. Don't fall into the trap to do partly analysis: do the full analysis again: .NET profiling and O/R mapper / RDBMS profiling. It might very well be that the changes you've made make one part faster but another part significantly slower, in such a way that the overall problem hasn't changed at all. Performance tuning is dealing with compromises and making choices: to use one feature over the other, to accept a higher memory footprint, to go away from the strict-OO path and execute queries directly onto the RDBMS, these are choices and compromises which will cross your path if you want to fix performance problems with respect to O/R mappers or data-access and databases in general. In most cases it's not a big issue: alternatives are often good choices too and the compromises aren't that hard to deal with. What is important is that you document why you made a choice, a compromise: which analysis data, which interpretation led you to the choice made. This is key for good maintainability in the years to come. Most common performance problems with O/R mappers Below is an incomplete list of common performance problems related to data-access / O/R mappers / RDBMS code. It will help you with fixing the hotspots you found in the interpretation step. SELECT N+1: (Lazy-loading specific). Lazy loading triggered performance bottlenecks. Consider a list of Orders bound to a grid. You have a Field mapped onto a related field in Order, Customer.CompanyName. Showing this column in the grid will make the grid fetch (indirectly) for each row the Customer row. This means you'll get for the single list not 1 query (for the orders) but 1+(the number of orders shown) queries. To solve this: use eager loading using a prefetch path to fetch the customers with the orders. SELECT N+1 is easy to spot with an O/R mapper profiler or RDBMS profiler: if you see a lot of identical queries executed at once, you have this problem. Prefetch paths using many path nodes or sorting, or limiting. Eager loading problem. Prefetch paths can help with performance, but as 1 query is fetched per node, it can be the number of data fetched in a child node is bigger than you think. Also consider that data in every node is merged on the client within the parent. This is fast, but it also can take some time if you fetch massive amounts of entities. If you keep fetches small, you can use tuning parameters like the ParameterizedPrefetchPathThreshold setting to get more optimal queries. Deep inheritance hierarchies of type Target Per Entity/Type. If you use inheritance of type Target per Entity / Type (each type in the inheritance hierarchy is mapped onto its own table/view), fetches will join subtype- and supertype tables in many cases, which can lead to a lot of performance problems if the hierarchy has many types. With this problem, keep inheritance to a minimum if possible, or switch to a hierarchy of type Target Per Hierarchy, which means all entities in the inheritance hierarchy are mapped onto the same table/view. Of course this has its own set of drawbacks, but it's a compromise you might want to take. Fetching massive amounts of data by fetching large lists of entities. LLBLGen Pro supports paging (and limiting the # of rows returned), which is often key to process through large sets of data. Use paging on the RDBMS if possible (so a query is executed which returns only the rows in the page requested). When using paging in a web application, be sure that you switch server-side paging on on the datasourcecontrol used. In this case, paging on the grid alone is not enough: this can lead to fetching a lot of data which is then loaded into the grid and paged there. Keep note that analyzing queries for paging could lead to the false assumption that paging doesn't occur, e.g. when the query contains a field of type ntext/image/clob/blob and DISTINCT can't be applied while it should have (e.g. due to a join): the datareader will do DISTINCT filtering on the client. this is a little slower but it does perform paging functionality on the data-reader so it won't fetch all rows even if the query suggests it does. Fetch massive amounts of data because blob/clob/ntext/image fields aren't excluded. LLBLGen Pro supports field exclusion for queries. You can exclude fields (also in prefetch paths) per query to avoid fetching all fields of an entity, e.g. when you don't need them for the logic consuming the resultset. Excluding fields can greatly reduce the amount of time spend on data-transport across the network. Use this optimization if you see that there's a big difference between query execution time on the RDBMS and the time reported by the .NET profiler for the ExecuteReader method call. Doing client-side aggregates/scalar calculations by consuming a lot of data. If possible, try to formulate a scalar query or group by query using the projection system or GetScalar functionality of LLBLGen Pro to do data consumption on the RDBMS server. It's far more efficient to process data on the RDBMS server than to first load it all in memory, then traverse the data in-memory to calculate a value. Using .ToList() constructs inside linq queries. It might be you use .ToList() somewhere in a Linq query which makes the query be run partially in-memory. Example: var q = from c in metaData.Customers.ToList() where c.Country=="Norway" select c; This will actually fetch all customers in-memory and do an in-memory filtering, as the linq query is defined on an IEnumerable<T>, and not on the IQueryable<T>. Linq is nice, but it can often be a bit unclear where some parts of a Linq query might run. Fetching all entities to delete into memory first. To delete a set of entities it's rather inefficient to first fetch them all into memory and then delete them one by one. It's more efficient to execute a DELETE FROM ... WHERE query on the database directly to delete the entities in one go. LLBLGen Pro supports this feature, and so do some other O/R mappers. It's not always possible to do this operation in the context of an O/R mapper however: if an O/R mapper relies on a cache, these kind of operations are likely not supported because they make it impossible to track whether an entity is actually removed from the DB and thus can be removed from the cache. Fetching all entities to update with an expression into memory first. Similar to the previous point: it is more efficient to update a set of entities directly with a single UPDATE query using an expression instead of fetching the entities into memory first and then updating the entities in a loop, and afterwards saving them. It might however be a compromise you don't want to take as it is working around the idea of having an object graph in memory which is manipulated and instead makes the code fully aware there's a RDBMS somewhere. Conclusion Performance tuning is almost always about compromises and making choices. It's also about knowing where to look and how the systems in play behave and should behave. The four steps I provided should help you stay focused on the real problem and lead you towards the solution. Knowing how to optimally use the systems participating in your own code (.NET framework, O/R mapper, RDBMS, network/services) is key for success as well as knowing what's going on inside the application you built. I hope you'll find this guide useful in tracking down performance problems and dealing with them in a useful way.  

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• Informed TDD &ndash; Kata &ldquo;To Roman Numerals&rdquo;

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/05/28/informed-tdd-ndash-kata-ldquoto-roman-numeralsrdquo.aspxIn a comment on my article on what I call Informed TDD (ITDD) reader gustav asked how this approach would apply to the kata “To Roman Numerals”. And whether ITDD wasn´t a violation of TDD´s principle of leaving out “advanced topics like mocks”. I like to respond with this article to his questions. There´s more to say than fits into a commentary. Mocks and TDD I don´t see in how far TDD is avoiding or opposed to mocks. TDD and mocks are orthogonal. TDD is about pocess, mocks are about structure and costs. Maybe by moving forward in tiny red+green+refactor steps less need arises for mocks. But then… if the functionality you need to implement requires “expensive” resource access you can´t avoid using mocks. Because you don´t want to constantly run all your tests against the real resource. True, in ITDD mocks seem to be in almost inflationary use. That´s not what you usually see in TDD demonstrations. However, there´s a reason for that as I tried to explain. I don´t use mocks as proxies for “expensive” resource. Rather they are stand-ins for functionality not yet implemented. They allow me to get a test green on a high level of abstraction. That way I can move forward in a top-down fashion. But if you think of mocks as “advanced” or if you don´t want to use a tool like JustMock, then you don´t need to use mocks. You just need to stand the sight of red tests for a little longer ;-) Let me show you what I mean by that by doing a kata. ITDD for “To Roman Numerals” gustav asked for the kata “To Roman Numerals”. I won´t explain the requirements again. You can find descriptions and TDD demonstrations all over the internet, like this one from Corey Haines. Now here is, how I would do this kata differently. 1. Analyse A demonstration of TDD should never skip the analysis phase. It should be made explicit. The requirements should be formalized and acceptance test cases should be compiled. “Formalization” in this case to me means describing the API of the required functionality. “[D]esign a program to work with Roman numerals” like written in this “requirement document” is not enough to start software development. Coding should only begin, if the interface between the “system under development” and its context is clear. If this interface is not readily recognizable from the requirements, it has to be developed first. Exploration of interface alternatives might be in order. It might be necessary to show several interface mock-ups to the customer – even if that´s you fellow developer. Designing the interface is a task of it´s own. It should not be mixed with implementing the required functionality behind the interface. Unfortunately, though, this happens quite often in TDD demonstrations. TDD is used to explore the API and implement it at the same time. To me that´s a violation of the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) which not only should hold for software functional units but also for tasks or activities. In the case of this kata the API fortunately is obvious. Just one function is needed: string ToRoman(int arabic). And it lives in a class ArabicRomanConversions. Now what about acceptance test cases? There are hardly any stated in the kata descriptions. Roman numerals are explained, but no specific test cases from the point of view of a customer. So I just “invent” some acceptance test cases by picking roman numerals from a wikipedia article. They are supposed to be just “typical examples” without special meaning. Given the acceptance test cases I then try to develop an understanding of the problem domain. I´ll spare you that. The domain is trivial and is explain in almost all kata descriptions. How roman numerals are built is not difficult to understand. What´s more difficult, though, might be to find an efficient solution to convert into them automatically. 2. Solve The usual TDD demonstration skips a solution finding phase. Like the interface exploration it´s mixed in with the implementation. But I don´t think this is how it should be done. I even think this is not how it really works for the people demonstrating TDD. They´re simplifying their true software development process because they want to show a streamlined TDD process. I doubt this is helping anybody. Before you code you better have a plan what to code. This does not mean you have to do “Big Design Up-Front”. It just means: Have a clear picture of the logical solution in your head before you start to build a physical solution (code). Evidently such a solution can only be as good as your understanding of the problem. If that´s limited your solution will be limited, too. Fortunately, in the case of this kata your understanding does not need to be limited. Thus the logical solution does not need to be limited or preliminary or tentative. That does not mean you need to know every line of code in advance. It just means you know the rough structure of your implementation beforehand. Because it should mirror the process described by the logical or conceptual solution. Here´s my solution approach: The arabic “encoding” of numbers represents them as an ordered set of powers of 10. Each digit is a factor to multiply a power of ten with. The “encoding” 123 is the short form for a set like this: {1*10^2, 2*10^1, 3*10^0}. And the number is the sum of the set members. The roman “encoding” is different. There is no base (like 10 for arabic numbers), there are just digits of different value, and they have to be written in descending order. The “encoding” XVI is short for [10, 5, 1]. And the number is still the sum of the members of this list. The roman “encoding” thus is simpler than the arabic. Each “digit” can be taken at face value. No multiplication with a base required. But what about IV which looks like a contradiction to the above rule? It is not – if you accept roman “digits” not to be limited to be single characters only. Usually I, V, X, L, C, D, M are viewed as “digits”, and IV, IX etc. are viewed as nuisances preventing a simple solution. All looks different, though, once IV, IX etc. are taken as “digits”. Then MCMLIV is just a sum: M+CM+L+IV which is 1000+900+50+4. Whereas before it would have been understood as M-C+M+L-I+V – which is more difficult because here some “digits” get subtracted. Here´s the list of roman “digits” with their values: {1, I}, {4, IV}, {5, V}, {9, IX}, {10, X}, {40, XL}, {50, L}, {90, XC}, {100, C}, {400, CD}, {500, D}, {900, CM}, {1000, M} Since I take IV, IX etc. as “digits” translating an arabic number becomes trivial. I just need to find the values of the roman “digits” making up the number, e.g. 1954 is made up of 1000, 900, 50, and 4. I call those “digits” factors. If I move from the highest factor (M=1000) to the lowest (I=1) then translation is a two phase process: Find all the factors Translate the factors found Compile the roman representation Translation is just a look-up. Finding, though, needs some calculation: Find the highest remaining factor fitting in the value Remember and subtract it from the value Repeat with remaining value and remaining factors Please note: This is just an algorithm. It´s not code, even though it might be close. Being so close to code in my solution approach is due to the triviality of the problem. In more realistic examples the conceptual solution would be on a higher level of abstraction. With this solution in hand I finally can do what TDD advocates: find and prioritize test cases. As I can see from the small process description above, there are two aspects to test: Test the translation Test the compilation Test finding the factors Testing the translation primarily means to check if the map of factors and digits is comprehensive. That´s simple, even though it might be tedious. Testing the compilation is trivial. Testing factor finding, though, is a tad more complicated. I can think of several steps: First check, if an arabic number equal to a factor is processed correctly (e.g. 1000=M). Then check if an arabic number consisting of two consecutive factors (e.g. 1900=[M,CM]) is processed correctly. Then check, if a number consisting of the same factor twice is processed correctly (e.g. 2000=[M,M]). Finally check, if an arabic number consisting of non-consecutive factors (e.g. 1400=[M,CD]) is processed correctly. I feel I can start an implementation now. If something becomes more complicated than expected I can slow down and repeat this process. 3. Implement First I write a test for the acceptance test cases. It´s red because there´s no implementation even of the API. That´s in conformance with “TDD lore”, I´d say: Next I implement the API: The acceptance test now is formally correct, but still red of course. This will not change even now that I zoom in. Because my goal is not to most quickly satisfy these tests, but to implement my solution in a stepwise manner. That I do by “faking” it: I just “assume” three functions to represent the transformation process of my solution: My hypothesis is that those three functions in conjunction produce correct results on the API-level. I just have to implement them correctly. That´s what I´m trying now – one by one. I start with a simple “detail function”: Translate(). And I start with all the test cases in the obvious equivalence partition: As you can see I dare to test a private method. Yes. That´s a white box test. But as you´ll see it won´t make my tests brittle. It serves a purpose right here and now: it lets me focus on getting one aspect of my solution right. Here´s the implementation to satisfy the test: It´s as simple as possible. Right how TDD wants me to do it: KISS. Now for the second equivalence partition: translating multiple factors. (It´a pattern: if you need to do something repeatedly separate the tests for doing it once and doing it multiple times.) In this partition I just need a single test case, I guess. Stepping up from a single translation to multiple translations is no rocket science: Usually I would have implemented the final code right away. Splitting it in two steps is just for “educational purposes” here. How small your implementation steps are is a matter of your programming competency. Some “see” the final code right away before their mental eye – others need to work their way towards it. Having two tests I find more important. Now for the next low hanging fruit: compilation. It´s even simpler than translation. A single test is enough, I guess. And normally I would not even have bothered to write that one, because the implementation is so simple. I don´t need to test .NET framework functionality. But again: if it serves the educational purpose… Finally the most complicated part of the solution: finding the factors. There are several equivalence partitions. But still I decide to write just a single test, since the structure of the test data is the same for all partitions: Again, I´m faking the implementation first: I focus on just the first test case. No looping yet. Faking lets me stay on a high level of abstraction. I can write down the implementation of the solution without bothering myself with details of how to actually accomplish the feat. That´s left for a drill down with a test of the fake function: There are two main equivalence partitions, I guess: either the first factor is appropriate or some next. The implementation seems easy. Both test cases are green. (Of course this only works on the premise that there´s always a matching factor. Which is the case since the smallest factor is 1.) And the first of the equivalence partitions on the higher level also is satisfied: Great, I can move on. Now for more than a single factor: Interestingly not just one test becomes green now, but all of them. Great! You might say, then I must have done not the simplest thing possible. And I would reply: I don´t care. I did the most obvious thing. But I also find this loop very simple. Even simpler than a recursion of which I had thought briefly during the problem solving phase. And by the way: Also the acceptance tests went green: Mission accomplished. At least functionality wise. Now I´ve to tidy up things a bit. TDD calls for refactoring. Not uch refactoring is needed, because I wrote the code in top-down fashion. I faked it until I made it. I endured red tests on higher levels while lower levels weren´t perfected yet. But this way I saved myself from refactoring tediousness. At the end, though, some refactoring is required. But maybe in a different way than you would expect. That´s why I rather call it “cleanup”. First I remove duplication. There are two places where factors are defined: in Translate() and in Find_factors(). So I factor the map out into a class constant. Which leads to a small conversion in Find_factors(): And now for the big cleanup: I remove all tests of private methods. They are scaffolding tests to me. They only have temporary value. They are brittle. Only acceptance tests need to remain. However, I carry over the single “digit” tests from Translate() to the acceptance test. I find them valuable to keep, since the other acceptance tests only exercise a subset of all roman “digits”. This then is my final test class: And this is the final production code: Test coverage as reported by NCrunch is 100%: Reflexion Is this the smallest possible code base for this kata? Sure not. You´ll find more concise solutions on the internet. But LOC are of relatively little concern – as long as I can understand the code quickly. So called “elegant” code, however, often is not easy to understand. The same goes for KISS code – especially if left unrefactored, as it is often the case. That´s why I progressed from requirements to final code the way I did. I first understood and solved the problem on a conceptual level. Then I implemented it top down according to my design. I also could have implemented it bottom-up, since I knew some bottom of the solution. That´s the leaves of the functional decomposition tree. Where things became fuzzy, since the design did not cover any more details as with Find_factors(), I repeated the process in the small, so to speak: fake some top level, endure red high level tests, while first solving a simpler problem. Using scaffolding tests (to be thrown away at the end) brought two advantages: Encapsulation of the implementation details was not compromised. Naturally private methods could stay private. I did not need to make them internal or public just to be able to test them. I was able to write focused tests for small aspects of the solution. No need to test everything through the solution root, the API. The bottom line thus for me is: Informed TDD produces cleaner code in a systematic way. It conforms to core principles of programming: Single Responsibility Principle and/or Separation of Concerns. Distinct roles in development – being a researcher, being an engineer, being a craftsman – are represented as different phases. First find what, what there is. Then devise a solution. Then code the solution, manifest the solution in code. Writing tests first is a good practice. But it should not be taken dogmatic. And above all it should not be overloaded with purposes. And finally: moving from top to bottom through a design produces refactored code right away. Clean code thus almost is inevitable – and not left to a refactoring step at the end which is skipped often for different reasons.   PS: Yes, I have done this kata several times. But that has only an impact on the time needed for phases 1 and 2. I won´t skip them because of that. And there are no shortcuts during implementation because of that.

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• Ideas for multiplatform encrypted java mobile storage system

  - by Fernando Miguélez

  Objective I am currently designing the API for a multiplatform storage system that would offer same interface and capabilities accross following supported mobile Java Platforms: J2ME. Minimum configuration/profile CLDC 1.1/MIDP 2.0 with support for some necessary JSRs (JSR-75 for file storage). Android. No minimum platform version decided yet, but rather likely could be API level 7. Blackberry. It would use the same base source of J2ME but taking advantage of some advaced capabilities of the platform. No minimum configuration decided yet (maybe 4.6 because of 64 KB limitation for RMS on 4.5). Basically the API would sport three kind of stores: Files. These would allow standard directory/file manipulation (read/write through streams, create, mkdir, etc.). Preferences. It is a special store that handles properties accessed through keys (Similar to plain old java properties file but supporting some improvements such as different value data types such as SharedPreferences on Android platform) Local Message Queues. This store would offer basic message queue functionality. Considerations Inspired on JSR-75, all types of stores would be accessed in an uniform way by means of an URL following RFC 1738 conventions, but with custom defined prefixes (i.e. "file://" for files, "prefs://" for preferences or "queue://" for message queues). The address would refer to a virtual location that would be mapped to a physical storage object by each mobile platform implementation. Only files would allow hierarchical storage (folders) and access to external extorage memory cards (by means of a unit name, the same way as in JSR-75, but that would not change regardless of underlying platform). The other types would only support flat storage. The system should also support a secure version of all basic types. The user would indicate it by prefixing "s" to the URL (i.e. "sfile://" instead of "file://"). The API would only require one PIN (introduced only once) to access any kind of secure object types. Implementation issues For the implementation of both plaintext and encrypted stores, I would use the functionality available on the underlying platforms: Files. These are available on all platforms (J2ME only with JSR-75, but it is mandatory for our needs). The abstract File to actual File mapping is straight except for addressing issues. RMS. This type of store available on J2ME (and Blackberry) platforms is convenient for Preferences and maybe Message Queues (though depending on performance or size requirements these could be implemented by means of normal files). SharedPreferences. This type of storage, only available on Android, would match Preferences needs. SQLite databases. This could be used for message queues on Android (and maybe Blackberry). When it comes to encryption some requirements should be met: To ease the implementation it will be carried out on read/write operations basis on streams (for files), RMS Records, SharedPreferences key-value pairs, SQLite database columns. Every underlying storage object should use the same encryption key. Handling of encrypted stores should be the same as the unencrypted counterpart. The only difference (from the user point of view) accessing an encrypted store would be the addressing. The user PIN provides access to any secure storage object, but the change of it would not require to decrypt/re-encrypt all the encrypted data. Cryptographic capabilities of underlying platform should be used whenever it is possible, so we would use: J2ME: SATSA-CRYPTO if it is available (not mandatory) or lightweight BoncyCastle cryptographic framework for J2ME. Blackberry: RIM Cryptographic API or BouncyCastle Android: JCE with integraced cryptographic provider (BouncyCastle?) Doubts Having reached this point I was struck by some doubts about what solution would be more convenient, taking into account the limitation of the plataforms. These are some of my doubts: Encryption Algorithm for data. Would AES-128 be strong and fast enough? What alternatives for such scenario would you suggest? Encryption Mode. I have read about the weakness of ECB encryption versus CBC, but in this case the first would have the advantage of random access to blocks, which is interesting for seek functionality on files. What type of encryption mode would you choose instead? Is stream encryption suitable for this case? Key generation. There could be one key generated for each storage object (file, RMS RecordStore, etc.) or just use one for all the objects of the same type. The first seems "safer", though it would require some extra space on device. In your opinion what would the trade-offs of each? Key storage. For this case using a standard JKS (or PKCS#12) KeyStore file could be suited to store encryption keys, but I could also define a smaller structure (encryption-transformation / key data / checksum) that could be attached to each storage store (i.e. using addition files with the same name and special extension for plain files or embedded inside other types of objects such as RMS Record Stores). What approach would you prefer? And when it comes to using a standard KeyStore with multiple-key generation (given this is your preference), would it be better to use a record-store per storage object or just a global KeyStore keeping all keys (i.e. using the URL identifier of abstract storage object as alias)? Master key. The use of a master key seems obvious. This key should be protected by user PIN (introduced only once) and would allow access to the rest of encryption keys (they would be encrypted by means of this master key). Changing the PIN would only require to reencrypt this key and not all the encrypted data. Where would you keep it taking into account that if this got lost all data would be no further accesible? What further considerations should I take into account? Platform cryptography support. Do SATSA-CRYPTO-enabled J2ME phones really take advantage of some dedicated hardware acceleration (or other advantage I have not foreseen) and would this approach be prefered (whenever possible) over just BouncyCastle implementation? For the same reason is RIM Cryptographic API worth the license cost over BouncyCastle? Any comments, critics, further considerations or different approaches are welcome.

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• Problem using a public key when connecting to a SSH server running on Cygwin

  - by binary255

  We have installed Cygwin on a Windows Server 2008 Standard server and it working pretty well. Unfortunately we still have a big problem. We want to connect using a public key through SSH which doesn't work. It always falls back to using password login. We have appended our public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the server and we have our private and public key in ~/.ssh/id_dsa respective ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub on the client. When debugging the SSH login session we see that the key is offered by the server apparently rejects it by some unknown reason. The SSH output when connecting from an Ubuntu 9.10 desktop with debug information enabled: $ ssh -v 192.168.10.11 OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2, OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007 debug1: Reading configuration data /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/config debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Applying options for debug1: Connecting to 192.168.10.11 [192.168.10.11] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/identity type -1 debug1: identity file /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/id_dsa type 2 debug1: Checking blacklist file /usr/share/ssh/blacklist.DSA-1024 debug1: Checking blacklist file /etc/ssh/blacklist.DSA-1024 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.3 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.3 pat OpenSSH debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Host '192.168.10.11' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/known_hosts:12 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password,keyboard-interactive debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Offering public key: /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password,keyboard-interactive debug1: Trying private key: /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/identity debug1: Trying private key: /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Next authentication method: keyboard-interactive debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password,keyboard-interactive debug1: Next authentication method: password [email protected]'s password: The version of Cygwin: $ uname -a CYGWIN_NT-6.0 servername 1.7.1(0.218/5/3) 2009-12-07 11:48 i686 Cygwin The installed packages: $ cygcheck -c Cygwin Package Information Package Version Status _update-info-dir 00871-1 OK alternatives 1.3.30c-10 OK arj 3.10.22-1 OK aspell 0.60.5-1 OK aspell-en 6.0.0-1 OK aspell-sv 0.50.2-2 OK autossh 1.4b-1 OK base-cygwin 2.1-1 OK base-files 3.9-3 OK base-passwd 3.1-1 OK bash 3.2.49-23 OK bash-completion 1.1-2 OK bc 1.06-2 OK bzip2 1.0.5-10 OK cabextract 1.1-1 OK compface 1.5.2-1 OK coreutils 7.0-2 OK cron 4.1-59 OK crypt 1.1-1 OK csih 0.9.1-1 OK curl 7.19.6-1 OK cvs 1.12.13-10 OK cvsutils 0.2.5-1 OK cygrunsrv 1.34-1 OK cygutils 1.4.2-1 OK cygwin 1.7.1-1 OK cygwin-doc 1.5-1 OK cygwin-x-doc 1.1.0-1 OK dash 0.5.5.1-2 OK diffutils 2.8.7-2 OK doxygen 1.6.1-2 OK e2fsprogs 1.35-3 OK editrights 1.01-2 OK emacs 23.1-10 OK emacs-X11 23.1-10 OK file 5.04-1 OK findutils 4.5.5-1 OK flip 1.19-1 OK font-adobe-dpi75 1.0.1-1 OK font-alias 1.0.2-1 OK font-encodings 1.0.3-1 OK font-misc-misc 1.1.0-1 OK fontconfig 2.8.0-1 OK gamin 0.1.10-10 OK gawk 3.1.7-1 OK gettext 0.17-11 OK gnome-icon-theme 2.28.0-1 OK grep 2.5.4-2 OK groff 1.19.2-2 OK gvim 7.2.264-1 OK gzip 1.3.12-2 OK hicolor-icon-theme 0.11-1 OK inetutils 1.5-6 OK ipc-utils 1.0-1 OK keychain 2.6.8-1 OK less 429-1 OK libaspell15 0.60.5-1 OK libatk1.0_0 1.28.0-1 OK libaudio2 1.9.2-1 OK libbz2_1 1.0.5-10 OK libcairo2 1.8.8-1 OK libcurl4 7.19.6-1 OK libdb4.2 4.2.52.5-2 OK libdb4.5 4.5.20.2-2 OK libexpat1 2.0.1-1 OK libfam0 0.1.10-10 OK libfontconfig1 2.8.0-1 OK libfontenc1 1.0.5-1 OK libfreetype6 2.3.12-1 OK libgcc1 4.3.4-3 OK libgdbm4 1.8.3-20 OK libgdk_pixbuf2.0_0 2.18.6-1 OK libgif4 4.1.6-10 OK libGL1 7.6.1-1 OK libglib2.0_0 2.22.4-2 OK libglitz1 0.5.6-10 OK libgmp3 4.3.1-3 OK libgtk2.0_0 2.18.6-1 OK libICE6 1.0.6-1 OK libiconv2 1.13.1-1 OK libidn11 1.16-1 OK libintl3 0.14.5-1 OK libintl8 0.17-11 OK libjasper1 1.900.1-1 OK libjbig2 2.0-11 OK libjpeg62 6b-21 OK libjpeg7 7-10 OK liblzma1 4.999.9beta-10 OK libncurses10 5.7-18 OK libncurses8 5.5-10 OK libncurses9 5.7-16 OK libopenldap2_3_0 2.3.43-1 OK libpango1.0_0 1.26.2-1 OK libpcre0 8.00-1 OK libpixman1_0 0.16.6-1 OK libpng12 1.2.35-10 OK libpopt0 1.6.4-4 OK libpq5 8.2.11-1 OK libreadline6 5.2.14-12 OK libreadline7 6.0.3-2 OK libsasl2 2.1.19-3 OK libSM6 1.1.1-1 OK libssh2_1 1.2.2-1 OK libssp0 4.3.4-3 OK libstdc++6 4.3.4-3 OK libtiff5 3.9.2-1 OK libwrap0 7.6-20 OK libX11_6 1.3.3-1 OK libXau6 1.0.5-1 OK libXaw3d7 1.5D-8 OK libXaw7 1.0.7-1 OK libxcb-render-util0 0.3.6-1 OK libxcb-render0 1.5-1 OK libxcb1 1.5-1 OK libXcomposite1 0.4.1-1 OK libXcursor1 1.1.10-1 OK libXdamage1 1.1.2-1 OK libXdmcp6 1.0.3-1 OK libXext6 1.1.1-1 OK libXfixes3 4.0.4-1 OK libXft2 2.1.14-1 OK libXi6 1.3-1 OK libXinerama1 1.1-1 OK libxkbfile1 1.0.6-1 OK libxml2 2.7.6-1 OK libXmu6 1.0.5-1 OK libXmuu1 1.0.5-1 OK libXpm4 3.5.8-1 OK libXrandr2 1.3.0-10 OK libXrender1 0.9.5-1 OK libXt6 1.0.7-1 OK links 1.00pre20-1 OK login 1.10-10 OK luit 1.0.5-1 OK lynx 2.8.5-4 OK man 1.6e-1 OK minires 1.02-1 OK mkfontdir 1.0.5-1 OK mkfontscale 1.0.7-1 OK openssh 5.4p1-1 OK openssl 0.9.8m-1 OK patch 2.5.8-9 OK patchutils 0.3.1-1 OK perl 5.10.1-3 OK rebase 3.0.1-1 OK run 1.1.12-11 OK screen 4.0.3-5 OK sed 4.1.5-2 OK shared-mime-info 0.70-1 OK tar 1.22.90-1 OK terminfo 5.7_20091114-13 OK terminfo0 5.5_20061104-11 OK texinfo 4.13-3 OK tidy 041206-1 OK time 1.7-2 OK tzcode 2009k-1 OK unzip 6.0-10 OK util-linux 2.14.1-1 OK vim 7.2.264-2 OK wget 1.11.4-4 OK which 2.20-2 OK wput 0.6.1-2 OK xauth 1.0.4-1 OK xclipboard 1.1.0-1 OK xcursor-themes 1.0.2-1 OK xemacs 21.4.22-1 OK xemacs-emacs-common 21.4.22-1 OK xemacs-sumo 2007-04-27-1 OK xemacs-tags 21.4.22-1 OK xeyes 1.1.0-1 OK xinit 1.2.1-1 OK xinput 1.5.0-1 OK xkbcomp 1.1.1-1 OK xkeyboard-config 1.8-1 OK xkill 1.0.2-1 OK xmodmap 1.0.4-1 OK xorg-docs 1.5-1 OK xorg-server 1.7.6-2 OK xrdb 1.0.6-1 OK xset 1.1.0-1 OK xterm 255-1 OK xz 4.999.9beta-10 OK zip 3.0-11 OK zlib 1.2.3-10 OK zlib-devel 1.2.3-10 OK zlib0 1.2.3-10 OK The ssh deamon configuration file: $ cat /etc/sshd_config # $OpenBSD: sshd_config,v 1.80 2008/07/02 02:24:18 djm Exp $ # This is the sshd server system-wide configuration file. See # sshd_config(5) for more information. # This sshd was compiled with PATH=/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/bin # The strategy used for options in the default sshd_config shipped with # OpenSSH is to specify options with their default value where # possible, but leave them commented. Uncommented options change a # default value. Port 22 #AddressFamily any #ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 #ListenAddress :: # Disable legacy (protocol version 1) support in the server for new # installations. In future the default will change to require explicit # activation of protocol 1 Protocol 2 # HostKey for protocol version 1 #HostKey /etc/ssh_host_key # HostKeys for protocol version 2 #HostKey /etc/ssh_host_rsa_key #HostKey /etc/ssh_host_dsa_key # Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key #KeyRegenerationInterval 1h #ServerKeyBits 1024 # Logging # obsoletes QuietMode and FascistLogging #SyslogFacility AUTH #LogLevel INFO # Authentication: #LoginGraceTime 2m #PermitRootLogin yes StrictModes no #MaxAuthTries 6 #MaxSessions 10 RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys # For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts #RhostsRSAAuthentication no # similar for protocol version 2 #HostbasedAuthentication no # Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for # RhostsRSAAuthentication and HostbasedAuthentication #IgnoreUserKnownHosts no # Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files #IgnoreRhosts yes # To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here! #PasswordAuthentication yes #PermitEmptyPasswords no # Change to no to disable s/key passwords #ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes # Kerberos options #KerberosAuthentication no #KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes #KerberosTicketCleanup yes #KerberosGetAFSToken no # GSSAPI options #GSSAPIAuthentication no #GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes # Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing, # and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will # be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and # PasswordAuthentication. Depending on your PAM configuration, # PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass # the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password". # If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without # PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication # and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'. #UsePAM no AllowAgentForwarding yes AllowTcpForwarding yes GatewayPorts yes X11Forwarding yes X11DisplayOffset 10 X11UseLocalhost no #PrintMotd yes #PrintLastLog yes TCPKeepAlive yes #UseLogin no UsePrivilegeSeparation yes #PermitUserEnvironment no #Compression delayed #ClientAliveInterval 0 #ClientAliveCountMax 3 #UseDNS yes #PidFile /var/run/sshd.pid #MaxStartups 10 #PermitTunnel no #ChrootDirectory none # no default banner path #Banner none # override default of no subsystems Subsystem sftp /usr/sbin/sftp-server # Example of overriding settings on a per-user basis #Match User anoncvs #X11Forwarding yes #AllowTcpForwarding yes #ForceCommand cvs server I hope this information is enough to solve the problem. In case any more is needed please comment and I'll add it. Thank you for reading!

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• Problem using a public key when connecting to a SSH server running on Cygwin

  - by Deleted

  We have installed Cygwin on a Windows Server 2008 Standard server and it working pretty well. Unfortunately we still have a big problem. We want to connect using a public key through SSH which doesn't work. It always falls back to using password login. We have appended our public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the server and we have our private and public key in ~/.ssh/id_dsa respective ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub on the client. When debugging the SSH login session we see that the key is offered by the server apparently rejects it by some unknown reason. The SSH output when connecting from an Ubuntu 9.10 desktop with debug information enabled: $ ssh -v 192.168.10.11 OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2, OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007 debug1: Reading configuration data /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/config debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Applying options for debug1: Connecting to 192.168.10.11 [192.168.10.11] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/identity type -1 debug1: identity file /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/id_dsa type 2 debug1: Checking blacklist file /usr/share/ssh/blacklist.DSA-1024 debug1: Checking blacklist file /etc/ssh/blacklist.DSA-1024 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.3 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.3 pat OpenSSH debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Host '192.168.10.11' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/known_hosts:12 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password,keyboard-interactive debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Offering public key: /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password,keyboard-interactive debug1: Trying private key: /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/identity debug1: Trying private key: /home/myuseraccount/.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Next authentication method: keyboard-interactive debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password,keyboard-interactive debug1: Next authentication method: password [email protected]'s password: The version of Cygwin: $ uname -a CYGWIN_NT-6.0 servername 1.7.1(0.218/5/3) 2009-12-07 11:48 i686 Cygwin The installed packages: $ cygcheck -c Cygwin Package Information Package Version Status _update-info-dir 00871-1 OK alternatives 1.3.30c-10 OK arj 3.10.22-1 OK aspell 0.60.5-1 OK aspell-en 6.0.0-1 OK aspell-sv 0.50.2-2 OK autossh 1.4b-1 OK base-cygwin 2.1-1 OK base-files 3.9-3 OK base-passwd 3.1-1 OK bash 3.2.49-23 OK bash-completion 1.1-2 OK bc 1.06-2 OK bzip2 1.0.5-10 OK cabextract 1.1-1 OK compface 1.5.2-1 OK coreutils 7.0-2 OK cron 4.1-59 OK crypt 1.1-1 OK csih 0.9.1-1 OK curl 7.19.6-1 OK cvs 1.12.13-10 OK cvsutils 0.2.5-1 OK cygrunsrv 1.34-1 OK cygutils 1.4.2-1 OK cygwin 1.7.1-1 OK cygwin-doc 1.5-1 OK cygwin-x-doc 1.1.0-1 OK dash 0.5.5.1-2 OK diffutils 2.8.7-2 OK doxygen 1.6.1-2 OK e2fsprogs 1.35-3 OK editrights 1.01-2 OK emacs 23.1-10 OK emacs-X11 23.1-10 OK file 5.04-1 OK findutils 4.5.5-1 OK flip 1.19-1 OK font-adobe-dpi75 1.0.1-1 OK font-alias 1.0.2-1 OK font-encodings 1.0.3-1 OK font-misc-misc 1.1.0-1 OK fontconfig 2.8.0-1 OK gamin 0.1.10-10 OK gawk 3.1.7-1 OK gettext 0.17-11 OK gnome-icon-theme 2.28.0-1 OK grep 2.5.4-2 OK groff 1.19.2-2 OK gvim 7.2.264-1 OK gzip 1.3.12-2 OK hicolor-icon-theme 0.11-1 OK inetutils 1.5-6 OK ipc-utils 1.0-1 OK keychain 2.6.8-1 OK less 429-1 OK libaspell15 0.60.5-1 OK libatk1.0_0 1.28.0-1 OK libaudio2 1.9.2-1 OK libbz2_1 1.0.5-10 OK libcairo2 1.8.8-1 OK libcurl4 7.19.6-1 OK libdb4.2 4.2.52.5-2 OK libdb4.5 4.5.20.2-2 OK libexpat1 2.0.1-1 OK libfam0 0.1.10-10 OK libfontconfig1 2.8.0-1 OK libfontenc1 1.0.5-1 OK libfreetype6 2.3.12-1 OK libgcc1 4.3.4-3 OK libgdbm4 1.8.3-20 OK libgdk_pixbuf2.0_0 2.18.6-1 OK libgif4 4.1.6-10 OK libGL1 7.6.1-1 OK libglib2.0_0 2.22.4-2 OK libglitz1 0.5.6-10 OK libgmp3 4.3.1-3 OK libgtk2.0_0 2.18.6-1 OK libICE6 1.0.6-1 OK libiconv2 1.13.1-1 OK libidn11 1.16-1 OK libintl3 0.14.5-1 OK libintl8 0.17-11 OK libjasper1 1.900.1-1 OK libjbig2 2.0-11 OK libjpeg62 6b-21 OK libjpeg7 7-10 OK liblzma1 4.999.9beta-10 OK libncurses10 5.7-18 OK libncurses8 5.5-10 OK libncurses9 5.7-16 OK libopenldap2_3_0 2.3.43-1 OK libpango1.0_0 1.26.2-1 OK libpcre0 8.00-1 OK libpixman1_0 0.16.6-1 OK libpng12 1.2.35-10 OK libpopt0 1.6.4-4 OK libpq5 8.2.11-1 OK libreadline6 5.2.14-12 OK libreadline7 6.0.3-2 OK libsasl2 2.1.19-3 OK libSM6 1.1.1-1 OK libssh2_1 1.2.2-1 OK libssp0 4.3.4-3 OK libstdc++6 4.3.4-3 OK libtiff5 3.9.2-1 OK libwrap0 7.6-20 OK libX11_6 1.3.3-1 OK libXau6 1.0.5-1 OK libXaw3d7 1.5D-8 OK libXaw7 1.0.7-1 OK libxcb-render-util0 0.3.6-1 OK libxcb-render0 1.5-1 OK libxcb1 1.5-1 OK libXcomposite1 0.4.1-1 OK libXcursor1 1.1.10-1 OK libXdamage1 1.1.2-1 OK libXdmcp6 1.0.3-1 OK libXext6 1.1.1-1 OK libXfixes3 4.0.4-1 OK libXft2 2.1.14-1 OK libXi6 1.3-1 OK libXinerama1 1.1-1 OK libxkbfile1 1.0.6-1 OK libxml2 2.7.6-1 OK libXmu6 1.0.5-1 OK libXmuu1 1.0.5-1 OK libXpm4 3.5.8-1 OK libXrandr2 1.3.0-10 OK libXrender1 0.9.5-1 OK libXt6 1.0.7-1 OK links 1.00pre20-1 OK login 1.10-10 OK luit 1.0.5-1 OK lynx 2.8.5-4 OK man 1.6e-1 OK minires 1.02-1 OK mkfontdir 1.0.5-1 OK mkfontscale 1.0.7-1 OK openssh 5.4p1-1 OK openssl 0.9.8m-1 OK patch 2.5.8-9 OK patchutils 0.3.1-1 OK perl 5.10.1-3 OK rebase 3.0.1-1 OK run 1.1.12-11 OK screen 4.0.3-5 OK sed 4.1.5-2 OK shared-mime-info 0.70-1 OK tar 1.22.90-1 OK terminfo 5.7_20091114-13 OK terminfo0 5.5_20061104-11 OK texinfo 4.13-3 OK tidy 041206-1 OK time 1.7-2 OK tzcode 2009k-1 OK unzip 6.0-10 OK util-linux 2.14.1-1 OK vim 7.2.264-2 OK wget 1.11.4-4 OK which 2.20-2 OK wput 0.6.1-2 OK xauth 1.0.4-1 OK xclipboard 1.1.0-1 OK xcursor-themes 1.0.2-1 OK xemacs 21.4.22-1 OK xemacs-emacs-common 21.4.22-1 OK xemacs-sumo 2007-04-27-1 OK xemacs-tags 21.4.22-1 OK xeyes 1.1.0-1 OK xinit 1.2.1-1 OK xinput 1.5.0-1 OK xkbcomp 1.1.1-1 OK xkeyboard-config 1.8-1 OK xkill 1.0.2-1 OK xmodmap 1.0.4-1 OK xorg-docs 1.5-1 OK xorg-server 1.7.6-2 OK xrdb 1.0.6-1 OK xset 1.1.0-1 OK xterm 255-1 OK xz 4.999.9beta-10 OK zip 3.0-11 OK zlib 1.2.3-10 OK zlib-devel 1.2.3-10 OK zlib0 1.2.3-10 OK The ssh deamon configuration file: $ cat /etc/sshd_config # $OpenBSD: sshd_config,v 1.80 2008/07/02 02:24:18 djm Exp $ # This is the sshd server system-wide configuration file. See # sshd_config(5) for more information. # This sshd was compiled with PATH=/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/bin # The strategy used for options in the default sshd_config shipped with # OpenSSH is to specify options with their default value where # possible, but leave them commented. Uncommented options change a # default value. Port 22 #AddressFamily any #ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 #ListenAddress :: # Disable legacy (protocol version 1) support in the server for new # installations. In future the default will change to require explicit # activation of protocol 1 Protocol 2 # HostKey for protocol version 1 #HostKey /etc/ssh_host_key # HostKeys for protocol version 2 #HostKey /etc/ssh_host_rsa_key #HostKey /etc/ssh_host_dsa_key # Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key #KeyRegenerationInterval 1h #ServerKeyBits 1024 # Logging # obsoletes QuietMode and FascistLogging #SyslogFacility AUTH #LogLevel INFO # Authentication: #LoginGraceTime 2m #PermitRootLogin yes StrictModes no #MaxAuthTries 6 #MaxSessions 10 RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys # For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts #RhostsRSAAuthentication no # similar for protocol version 2 #HostbasedAuthentication no # Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for # RhostsRSAAuthentication and HostbasedAuthentication #IgnoreUserKnownHosts no # Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files #IgnoreRhosts yes # To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here! #PasswordAuthentication yes #PermitEmptyPasswords no # Change to no to disable s/key passwords #ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes # Kerberos options #KerberosAuthentication no #KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes #KerberosTicketCleanup yes #KerberosGetAFSToken no # GSSAPI options #GSSAPIAuthentication no #GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes # Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing, # and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will # be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and # PasswordAuthentication. Depending on your PAM configuration, # PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass # the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password". # If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without # PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication # and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'. #UsePAM no AllowAgentForwarding yes AllowTcpForwarding yes GatewayPorts yes X11Forwarding yes X11DisplayOffset 10 X11UseLocalhost no #PrintMotd yes #PrintLastLog yes TCPKeepAlive yes #UseLogin no UsePrivilegeSeparation yes #PermitUserEnvironment no #Compression delayed #ClientAliveInterval 0 #ClientAliveCountMax 3 #UseDNS yes #PidFile /var/run/sshd.pid #MaxStartups 10 #PermitTunnel no #ChrootDirectory none # no default banner path #Banner none # override default of no subsystems Subsystem sftp /usr/sbin/sftp-server # Example of overriding settings on a per-user basis #Match User anoncvs #X11Forwarding yes #AllowTcpForwarding yes #ForceCommand cvs server I hope this information is enough to solve the problem. In case any more is needed please comment and I'll add it. Thank you for reading!

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• Building applications with WPF, MVVM and Prism(aka CAG)

  - by skjagini

  In this article I am going to walk through an application using WPF and Prism (aka composite application guidance, CAG) which simulates engaging a taxi (cab).  The rules are simple, the app would have3 screens A login screen to authenticate the user An information screen. A screen to engage the cab and roam around and calculating the total fare Metered Rate of Fare The meter is required to be engaged when a cab is occupied by anyone $3.00 upon entry $0.35 for each additional unit The unit fare is: one-fifth of a mile, when the cab is traveling at 6 miles an hour or more; or 60 seconds when not in motion or traveling at less than 12 miles per hour. Night surcharge of $.50 after 8:00 PM & before 6:00 AM Peak hour Weekday Surcharge of $1.00 Monday - Friday after 4:00 PM & before 8:00 PM New York State Tax Surcharge of $.50 per ride. Example: Friday (2010-10-08) 5:30pm Start at Lexington Ave & E 57th St End at Irving Pl & E 15th St Start = $3.00 Travels 2 miles at less than 6 mph for 15 minutes = $3.50 Travels at more than 12 mph for 5 minutes = $1.75 Peak hour Weekday Surcharge = $1.00 (ride started at 5:30 pm) New York State Tax Surcharge = $0.50 Before we dive into the app, I would like to give brief description about the framework.  If you want to jump on to the source code, scroll all the way to the end of the post. MVVM MVVM pattern is in no way related to the usage of PRISM in your application and should be considered if you are using WPF irrespective of PRISM or not. Lets say you are not familiar with MVVM, your typical UI would involve adding some UI controls like text boxes, a button, double clicking on the button,  generating event handler, calling a method from business layer and updating the user interface, it works most of the time for developing small scale applications. The problem with this approach is that there is some amount of code specific to business logic wrapped in UI specific code which is hard to unit test it, mock it and MVVM helps to solve the exact problem. MVVM stands for Model(M) – View(V) – ViewModel(VM),  based on the interactions with in the three parties it should be called VVMM,  MVVM sounds more like MVC (Model-View-Controller) so the name. Why it should be called VVMM: View – View Model - Model WPF allows to create user interfaces using XAML and MVVM takes it to the next level by allowing complete separation of user interface and business logic. In WPF each view will have a property, DataContext when set to an instance of a class (which happens to be your view model) provides the data the view is interested in, i.e., view interacts with view model and at the same time view model interacts with view through DataContext. Sujith, if view and view model are interacting directly with each other how does MVVM is helping me separation of concerns? Well, the catch is DataContext is of type Object, since it is of type object view doesn’t know exact type of view model allowing views and views models to be loosely coupled. View models aggregate data from models (data access layer, services, etc) and make it available for views through properties, methods etc, i.e., View Models interact with Models. PRISM Prism is provided by Microsoft Patterns and Practices team and it can be downloaded from codeplex for source code,  samples and documentation on msdn.  The name composite implies, to compose user interface from different modules (views) without direct dependencies on each other, again allowing  loosely coupled development. Well Sujith, I can already do that with user controls, why shall I learn another framework?  That’s correct, you can decouple using user controls, but you still have to manage some amount of coupling, like how to do you communicate between the controls, how do you subscribe/unsubscribe, loading/unloading views dynamically. Prism is not a replacement for user controls, provides the following features which greatly help in designing the composite applications. Dependency Injection (DI)/ Inversion of Control (IoC) Modules Regions Event Aggregator  Commands Simply put, MVVM helps building a single view and Prism helps building an application using the views There are other open source alternatives to Prism, like MVVMLight, Cinch, take a look at them as well. Lets dig into the source code.  1. Solution The solution is made of the following projects Framework: Holds the common functionality in building applications using WPF and Prism TaxiClient: Start up project, boot strapping and app styling TaxiCommon: Helps with the business logic TaxiModules: Holds the meat of the application with views and view models TaxiTests: To test the application 2. DI / IoC Dependency Injection (DI) as the name implies refers to injecting dependencies and Inversion of Control (IoC) means the calling code has no direct control on the dependencies, opposite of normal way of programming where dependencies are passed by caller, i.e inversion; aside from some differences in terminology the concept is same in both the cases. The idea behind DI/IoC pattern is to reduce the amount of direct coupling between different components of the application, the higher the dependency the more tightly coupled the application resulting in code which is hard to modify, unit test and mock.  Initializing Dependency Injection through BootStrapper TaxiClient is the starting project of the solution and App (App.xaml)  is the starting class that gets called when you run the application. From the App’s OnStartup method we will invoke BootStrapper.   namespace TaxiClient { /// <summary> /// Interaction logic for App.xaml /// </summary> public partial class App : Application { protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e) { base.OnStartup(e);   (new BootStrapper()).Run(); } } } BootStrapper is your contact point for initializing the application including dependency injection, creating Shell and other frameworks. We are going to use Unity for DI and there are lot of open source DI frameworks like Spring.Net, StructureMap etc with different feature set  and you can choose a framework based on your preferences. Note that Prism comes with in built support for Unity, for example we are deriving from UnityBootStrapper in our case and for any other DI framework you have to extend the Prism appropriately   namespace TaxiClient { public class BootStrapper: UnityBootstrapper { protected override IModuleCatalog CreateModuleCatalog() { return new ConfigurationModuleCatalog(); } protected override DependencyObject CreateShell() { Framework.FrameworkBootStrapper.Run(Container, Application.Current.Dispatcher);   Shell shell = new Shell(); shell.ResizeMode = ResizeMode.NoResize; shell.Show();   return shell; } } } Lets take a look into  FrameworkBootStrapper to check out how to register with unity container. namespace Framework { public class FrameworkBootStrapper { public static void Run(IUnityContainer container, Dispatcher dispatcher) { UIDispatcher uiDispatcher = new UIDispatcher(dispatcher); container.RegisterInstance<IDispatcherService>(uiDispatcher);   container.RegisterType<IInjectSingleViewService, InjectSingleViewService>( new ContainerControlledLifetimeManager());   . . . } } } In the above code we are registering two components with unity container. You shall observe that we are following two different approaches, RegisterInstance and RegisterType.  With RegisterInstance we are registering an existing instance and the same instance will be returned for every request made for IDispatcherService   and with RegisterType we are requesting unity container to create an instance for us when required, i.e., when I request for an instance for IInjectSingleViewService, unity will create/return an instance of InjectSingleViewService class and with RegisterType we can configure the life time of the instance being created. With ContaienrControllerLifetimeManager, the unity container caches the instance and reuses for any subsequent requests, without recreating a new instance. Lets take a look into FareViewModel.cs and it’s constructor. The constructor takes one parameter IEventAggregator and if you try to find all references in your solution for IEventAggregator, you will not find a single location where an instance of EventAggregator is passed directly to the constructor. The compiler still finds an instance and works fine because Prism is already configured when used with Unity container to return an instance of EventAggregator when requested for IEventAggregator and in this particular case it is called constructor injection. public class FareViewModel:ObservableBase, IDataErrorInfo { ... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public FareViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator; InitializePropertyNames(); InitializeModel(); PropertyChanged += OnPropertyChanged; } ... 3. Shell Shells are very similar in operation to Master Pages in asp.net or MDI in Windows Forms. And shells contain regions which display the views, you can have as many regions as you wish in a given view. You can also nest regions. i.e, one region can load a view which in itself may contain other regions. We have to create a shell at the start of the application and are doing it by overriding CreateShell method from BootStrapper From the following Shell.xaml you shall notice that we have two content controls with Region names as ‘MenuRegion’ and ‘MainRegion’.  The idea here is that you can inject any user controls into the regions dynamically, i.e., a Menu User Control for MenuRegion and based on the user action you can load appropriate view into MainRegion.    <Window x:Class="TaxiClient.Shell" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Regions="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Regions;assembly=Microsoft.Practices.Prism" Title="Taxi" Height="370" Width="800"> <Grid Margin="2"> <ContentControl Regions:RegionManager.RegionName="MenuRegion" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" />   <ContentControl Grid.Row="1" Regions:RegionManager.RegionName="MainRegion" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" /> <!--<Border Grid.ColumnSpan="2" BorderThickness="2" CornerRadius="3" BorderBrush="LightBlue" />-->   </Grid> </Window> 4. Modules Prism provides the ability to build composite applications and modules play an important role in it. For example if you are building a Mortgage Loan Processor application with 3 components, i.e. customer’s credit history,  existing mortgages, new home/loan information; and consider that the customer’s credit history component involves gathering data about his/her address, background information, job details etc. The idea here using Prism modules is to separate the implementation of these 3 components into their own visual studio projects allowing to build components with no dependency on each other and independently. If we need to add another component to the application, the component can be developed by in house team or some other team in the organization by starting with a new Visual Studio project and adding to the solution at the run time with very little knowledge about the application. Prism modules are defined by implementing the IModule interface and each visual studio project to be considered as a module should implement the IModule interface.  From the BootStrapper.cs you shall observe that we are overriding the method by returning a ConfiguratingModuleCatalog which returns the modules that are registered for the application using the app.config file  and you can also add module using code. Lets take a look into configuration file.   <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <configSections> <section name="modules" type="Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Modularity.ModulesConfigurationSection, Microsoft.Practices.Prism"/> </configSections> <modules> <module assemblyFile="TaxiModules.dll" moduleType="TaxiModules.ModuleInitializer, TaxiModules" moduleName="TaxiModules"/> </modules> </configuration> Here we are adding TaxiModules project to our solution and TaxiModules.ModuleInitializer implements IModule interface   5. Module Mapper With Prism modules you can dynamically add or remove modules from the regions, apart from that Prism also provides API to control adding/removing the views from a region within the same module. Taxi Information Screen: Engage the Taxi Screen: The sample application has two screens, ‘Taxi Information’ and ‘Engage the Taxi’ and they both reside in same module, TaxiModules. ‘Engage the Taxi’ is again made of two user controls, FareView on the left and TotalView on the right. We have created a Shell with two regions, MenuRegion and MainRegion with menu loaded into MenuRegion. We can create a wrapper user control called EngageTheTaxi made of FareView and TotalView and load either TaxiInfo or EngageTheTaxi into MainRegion based on the user action. Though it will work it tightly binds the user controls and for every combination of user controls, we need to create a dummy wrapper control to contain them. Instead we can apply the principles we learned so far from Shell/regions and introduce another template (LeftAndRightRegionView.xaml) made of two regions Region1 (left) and Region2 (right) and load  FareView and TotalView dynamically.  To help with loading of the views dynamically I have introduce an helper an interface, IInjectSingleViewService,  idea suggested by Mike Taulty, a must read blog for .Net developers. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel;   namespace Framework.PresentationUtility.Navigation {   public interface IInjectSingleViewService : INotifyPropertyChanged { IEnumerable<CommandViewDefinition> Commands { get; } IEnumerable<ModuleViewDefinition> Modules { get; }   void RegisterViewForRegion(string commandName, string viewName, string regionName, Type viewType); void ClearViewFromRegion(string viewName, string regionName); void RegisterModule(string moduleName, IList<ModuleMapper> moduleMappers); } } The Interface declares three methods to work with views: RegisterViewForRegion: Registers a view with a particular region. You can register multiple views and their regions under one command.  When this particular command is invoked all the views registered under it will be loaded into their regions. ClearViewFromRegion: To unload a specific view from a region. RegisterModule: The idea is when a command is invoked you can load the UI with set of controls in their default position and based on the user interaction, you can load different contols in to different regions on the fly.  And it is supported ModuleViewDefinition and ModuleMappers as shown below. namespace Framework.PresentationUtility.Navigation { public class ModuleViewDefinition { public string ModuleName { get; set; } public IList<ModuleMapper> ModuleMappers; public ICommand Command { get; set; } }   public class ModuleMapper { public string ViewName { get; set; } public string RegionName { get; set; } public Type ViewType { get; set; } } } 6. Event Aggregator Prism event aggregator enables messaging between components as in Observable pattern, Notifier notifies the Observer which receives notification it is interested in. When it comes to Observable pattern, Observer has to unsubscribes for notifications when it no longer interested in notifications, which allows the Notifier to remove the Observer’s reference from it’s local cache. Though .Net has managed garbage collection it cannot remove inactive the instances referenced by an active instance resulting in memory leak, keeping the Observers in memory as long as Notifier stays in memory.  Developers have to be very careful to unsubscribe when necessary and it often gets overlooked, to overcome these problems Prism Event Aggregator uses weak references to cache the reference (Observer in this case)  and releases the reference (memory) once the instance goes out of scope. Using event aggregator is very simple, declare a generic type of CompositePresenationEvent by inheriting from it. using Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Events; using TaxiCommon.BAO;   namespace TaxiCommon.CompositeEvents { public class TaxiOnMoveEvent:CompositePresentationEvent<TaxiOnMove> { } }   TaxiOnMove.cs includes the properties which we want to exchange between the parties, FareView and TotalView. using System;   namespace TaxiCommon.BAO { public class TaxiOnMove { public TimeSpan MinutesAtTweleveMPH { get; set; } public double MilesAtSixMPH { get; set; } } }   Lets take a look into FareViewodel (Notifier) and how it raises the event.  Here we are raising the event by getting the event through GetEvent<..>() and publishing it with the payload private void OnAddMinutes(object obj) { TaxiOnMove payload = new TaxiOnMove(); if(MilesAtSixMPH != null) payload.MilesAtSixMPH = MilesAtSixMPH.Value; if(MinutesAtTweleveMPH != null) payload.MinutesAtTweleveMPH = new TimeSpan(0,0,MinutesAtTweleveMPH.Value,0);   _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>().Publish(payload); ResetMinutesAndMiles(); } And TotalViewModel(Observer) subscribes to notifications by getting the event through GetEvent<..>() namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class TotalViewModel:ObservableBase { .... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public TotalViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator; ... }   private void SubscribeToEvents() { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiStarted, ThreadOption.UIThread,false,(filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiMove, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiResetEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiReset, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); }   ... private void OnTaxiMove(TaxiOnMove taxiOnMove) { OnMoveFare fare = new OnMoveFare(taxiOnMove); Fares.Add(fare); SetTotalFare(new []{fare}); }   .... 7. MVVM through example In this section we are going to look into MVVM implementation through example.  I have all the modules declared in a single project, TaxiModules, again it is not necessary to have them into one project. Once the user logs into the application, will be greeted with the ‘Engage the Taxi’ screen which is made of two user controls, FareView.xaml and TotalView.Xaml. As you can see from the solution explorer, each of them have their own code behind files and  ViewModel classes, FareViewMode.cs, TotalViewModel.cs Lets take a look in to the FareView and how it interacts with FareViewModel using MVVM implementation. FareView.xaml acts as a view and FareViewMode.cs is it’s view model. The FareView code behind class   namespace TaxiModules.Views { /// <summary> /// Interaction logic for FareView.xaml /// </summary> public partial class FareView : UserControl { public FareView(FareViewModel viewModel) { InitializeComponent(); this.Loaded += (s, e) => { this.DataContext = viewModel; }; } } } The FareView is bound to FareViewModel through the data context  and you shall observe that DataContext is of type Object, i.e. the FareView doesn’t really know the type of ViewModel (FareViewModel). This helps separation of View and ViewModel as View and ViewModel are independent of each other, you can bind FareView to FareViewModel2 as well and the application compiles just fine. Lets take a look into FareView xaml file  <UserControl x:Class="TaxiModules.Views.FareView" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Windows.Controls;assembly=WPFToolkit" xmlns:Commands="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Commands;assembly=Microsoft.Practices.Prism"> <Grid Margin="10" > ....   <Border Style="{DynamicResource innerBorder}" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Grid.RowSpan="11" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Panel.ZIndex="1"/>   <Label Grid.Row="0" Content="Engage the Taxi" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Label Grid.Row="1" Content="Select the State"/> <ComboBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" ItemsSource="{Binding States}" Height="auto"> <ComboBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}"/> </DataTemplate> </ComboBox.ItemTemplate> <ComboBox.SelectedItem> <Binding Path="SelectedState" Mode="TwoWay"/> </ComboBox.SelectedItem> </ComboBox> <Label Grid.Row="2" Content="Select the Date of Entry"/> <Toolkit:DatePicker Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" SelectedDate="{Binding DateOfEntry, ValidatesOnDataErrors=true}" /> <Label Grid.Row="3" Content="Enter time 24hr format"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding TimeOfEntry, TargetNullValue=''}"/> <Button Grid.Row="4" Grid.Column="1" Content="Start the Meter" Commands:Click.Command="{Binding StartMeterCommand}" />   <Label Grid.Row="5" Content="Run the Taxi" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Label Grid.Row="6" Content="Number of Miles &lt;@6mph"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="6" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MilesAtSixMPH, TargetNullValue='', ValidatesOnDataErrors=true}"/> <Label Grid.Row="7" Content="Number of Minutes @12mph"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="7" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MinutesAtTweleveMPH, TargetNullValue=''}"/> <Button Grid.Row="8" Grid.Column="1" Content="Add Minutes and Miles " Commands:Click.Command="{Binding AddMinutesCommand}"/> <Label Grid.Row="9" Content="Other Operations" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Button Grid.Row="10" Grid.Column="1" Content="Reset the Meter" Commands:Click.Command="{Binding ResetCommand}"/>   </Grid> </UserControl> The highlighted code from the above code shows data binding, for example ComboBox which displays list of states has it’s ItemsSource bound to States property, with DataTemplate bound to Name and SelectedItem  to SelectedState. You might be wondering what are all these properties and how it is able to bind to them.  The answer lies in data context, i.e., when you bound a control, WPF looks for data context on the root object (Grid in this case) and if it can’t find data context it will look into root’s root, i.e. FareView UserControl and it is bound to FareViewModel.  Each of those properties have be declared on the ViewModel for the View to bind correctly. To put simply, View is bound to ViewModel through data context of type object and every control that is bound on the View actually binds to the public property on the ViewModel. Lets look into the ViewModel code (the following code is not an exact copy of FareViewMode.cs, pasted relevant code for this section)   namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class FareViewModel:ObservableBase, IDataErrorInfo { public List<USState> States { get { return USStates.StateList; } }   public USState SelectedState { get { return _selectedState; } set { _selectedState = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_selectedStatePropertyName); } }   public DateTime? DateOfEntry { get { return _dateOfEntry; } set { _dateOfEntry = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_dateOfEntryPropertyName); } }   public TimeSpan? TimeOfEntry { get { return _timeOfEntry; } set { _timeOfEntry = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_timeOfEntryPropertyName); } }   public double? MilesAtSixMPH { get { return _milesAtSixMPH; } set { _milesAtSixMPH = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_distanceAtSixMPHPropertyName); } }   public int? MinutesAtTweleveMPH { get { return _minutesAtTweleveMPH; } set { _minutesAtTweleveMPH = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_minutesAtTweleveMPHPropertyName); } }   public ICommand StartMeterCommand { get { if(_startMeterCommand == null) { _startMeterCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnStartMeter, CanStartMeter); } return _startMeterCommand; } }   public ICommand AddMinutesCommand { get { if(_addMinutesCommand == null) { _addMinutesCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnAddMinutes, CanAddMinutes); } return _addMinutesCommand; } }   public ICommand ResetCommand { get { if(_resetCommand == null) { _resetCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnResetCommand); } return _resetCommand; } }   } private void OnStartMeter(object obj) { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>().Publish( new TaxiStarted() { EngagedOn = DateOfEntry.Value.Date + TimeOfEntry.Value, EngagedState = SelectedState.Value });   _isMeterStarted = true; OnPropertyChanged(this,null); } And views communicate user actions like button clicks, tree view item selections, etc using commands. When user clicks on ‘Start the Meter’ button it invokes the method StartMeterCommand, which calls the method OnStartMeter which publishes the event to TotalViewModel using event aggregator  and TaxiStartedEvent. namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class TotalViewModel:ObservableBase { ... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public TotalViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator;   InitializePropertyNames(); InitializeModel(); SubscribeToEvents(); }   public decimal? TotalFare { get { return _totalFare; } set { _totalFare = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_totalFarePropertyName); } } .... private void SubscribeToEvents() { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiStarted, ThreadOption.UIThread,false,(filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiMove, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiResetEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiReset, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); }   private void OnTaxiStarted(TaxiStarted taxiStarted) { Fares.Add(new EntryFare()); Fares.Add(new StateTaxFare(taxiStarted)); Fares.Add(new NightSurchargeFare(taxiStarted)); Fares.Add(new PeakHourWeekdayFare(taxiStarted));   SetTotalFare(Fares); }   private void SetTotalFare(IEnumerable<IFare> fares) { TotalFare = (_totalFare ?? 0) + TaxiFareHelper.GetTotalFare(fares); } ....   } }   TotalViewModel subscribes to events, TaxiStartedEvent and rest. When TaxiStartedEvent gets invoked it calls the OnTaxiStarted method which sets the total fare which includes entry fee, state tax, nightly surcharge, peak hour weekday fare.   Note that TotalViewModel derives from ObservableBase which implements the method RaisePropertyChanged which we are invoking in Set of TotalFare property, i.e, once we update the TotalFare property it raises an the event that  allows the TotalFare text box to fetch the new value through the data context. ViewModel is communicating with View through data context and it has no knowledge about View, helping in loose coupling of ViewModel and View.   I have attached the source code (.Net 4.0, Prism 4.0, VS 2010) , download and play with it and don’t forget to leave your comments.  

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