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  • Windows 7 disk backup and clone for deployment to multiple systems

    - by gregmac
    I'm in the process of deploying some new PCs (there's only 8), all identical hardware. What I'd like to do is install Windows 7 (64bit), join to domain etc, install a bunch of other software, and then clone that drive to multiple other machines. I'd also like to be able to use it as a backup image, so the machine can be restored back to that image at some future date. I understand this involves at least sysprep, but I am confused after reading some tutorials that talk about using Windows Automated Installation Kit, or hacks with the registry and custom-build batch files. This process seems overly complex to me: I did something similar 10+ years ago, and and don't remember it being this bad. Surely things have improved in a decade? There's also some products that involve having network servers running deployment software, network boot, etc etc.. this is way more than I want to set up. My systems are all identical hardware. Is there a simplified way to clone PCs? Preferably (since I'm a lazy developer, and not an IT admin) I'd like to find some off-the-shelf product that I can run after I get the machine setup, that will spit out a bootable DVD I can run on all the other systems, which will boot up, ask for a computer name, join it to the domain, and that's it. Does such as product exist?

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  • Xeon X5550 vs Six-core Opteron for database server

    - by gregmac
    I'm specing out a database server, and the price works out to be reasonably close between an Intel X5550 Quad-core and an AMD 2425HE (2.1Ghz) Six-core Opteron. I've been looking for some comparisons between the two, but the only thing useful I've found is an AnandTech Review of the 2435 which compares it to Intel Xeons, but concludes they both have their place. My load is MS SQL Server 2008, with an OLTP database that has about an equal amount of reading/writing (and it's a reasonably heavy load). So my question is, what is going to work better in this situation, assuming the drives are the same: Xeon X5550, with 16GB 1333Mhz RAM (Dell R510) or an Opteron 2425HE (2.1Ghz) or 2439SE (2.8Ghz) with 16GB of 800Mhz RAM? (Dell 2970) Note: the 2439 adds $500, but the overall pricing works out that it's not that much more than the R510. Using the 2425HE, the Dell 2970 server is slightly less than the similarly-equipped R510). If it adds a decent amount of performance, it's worthwhile to go faster. (single CPU, in both cases).

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  • Dante (SOCKS server) not working

    - by gregmac
    I'm trying to set up a SOCKS proxy using dante for testing purposes. However, I can't even get it to work with a web browser, after looking at several tutorials on how to do that. I've tried in both IE and Firefox, in both cases, using "Manual proxy configuration", leave everything blank except for SOCKS host, and then put in the IP of my proxy and the port number (1080). I just get "Server not found" / "Problems loading this page" and don't see anything in danted, even running in debug mode. If I do a "telnet 10.0.0.40 1080" I do see the connection open in danted debug output, so I know that much is working. Here's my config: logoutput: stdout /var/log/danted/danted.log internal: eth0 port = 1080 external: eth0 method: username none #rfc931 user.privileged: proxy user.notprivileged: nobody user.libwrap: nobody connecttimeout: 30 # on a lan, this should be enough if method is "none". client pass { from: 10.0.0.0/8 port 1-65535 to: 0.0.0.0/0 } client pass { from: 127.0.0.0/8 port 1-65535 to: 0.0.0.0/0 } client block { from: 0.0.0.0/0 to: 0.0.0.0/0 log: connect error } block { from: 0.0.0.0/0 to: 127.0.0.0/8 log: connect error } pass { from: 10.0.0.0/8 to: 0.0.0.0/0 protocol: tcp udp } pass { from: 127.0.0.0/8 to: 0.0.0.0/0 protocol: tcp udp } block { from: 0.0.0.0/0 to: 0.0.0.0/0 log: connect error } I'm sure I'm probably missing something simple, but I'm lost. I haven't even thought about SOCKS since the late 90's.

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  • Recommendation on remote access setup for accessing customer systems

    - by gregmac
    I'm looking for a product recommendation (open or commercial) that will allow remote access to customer sites for tech support purposes. We need to be able to gain access to help troubleshoot problems on servers. Currently end up using anything from RDP on public IP, to various VPNs that clients happen to have, to webex-type sessions that require lots of interaction from both sides to get things working. This often means a problem that could take 10 minutes to solve takes an extra 30+ minutes messing around trying to get a connection up. There are multiple customer sites, which should NOT have access to each other. At each site, there is anywhere from 1 to 8 servers (Windows 2003 or 2008) that need to be accessed. Support connection to machines even if they're behind a firewall/router with no public IP Be able to selectively allow/deny access from customer site. Customer site should not be able to connect outbound to anywhere else (our systems, or other customer sites) Support multiple users from our end If not a VPN connection (where RDP could be used over top), should support: Remote desktop access, including copy/paste File transfers Preferably would have some way to list all remote systems, showing online/offline. Anyone have any suggestions?

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  • Combined SOAP/JSON/XML in WCF, using UriTemplate

    - by gregmac
    I'm trying to build a generic web service interface using WCF, to allow 3rd party developers to hook into our software. After much struggling and reading (this question helped a lot), I finally got SOAP, JSON and XML (POX) working together. To simplify, here's my code (to make this example simple, I'm not using interfaces -- I did try this both ways): <ServiceContract()> _ Public Class TestService Public Sub New() End Sub <OperationContract()> _ <WebGet()> _ Public Function GetDate() As DateTime Return Now End Function '<WebGet(UriTemplate:="getdateoffset/{numDays}")> _ <OperationContract()> _ Public Function GetDateOffset(ByVal numDays As Integer) As DateTime Return Now.AddDays(numDays) End Function End Class and the web.config code: <services> <service name="TestService" behaviorConfiguration="TestServiceBehavior"> <endpoint address="soap" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="TestService"/> <endpoint address="json" binding="webHttpBinding" behaviorConfiguration="jsonBehavior" contract="TestService"/> <endpoint address="xml" binding="webHttpBinding" behaviorConfiguration="poxBehavior" contract="TestService"/> <endpoint address="mex" contract="IMetadataExchange" binding="mexHttpBinding" /> </service> </services> <behaviors> <endpointBehaviors> <behavior name="jsonBehavior"> <enableWebScript/> </behavior> <behavior name="poxBehavior"> <webHttp /> </behavior> </endpointBehaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="TestServiceBehavior"> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> This actually works -- I'm able to go to TestService.svc/xml/GetDate for xml, TestService.svc/json/GetDate for json, and point a SOAP client at TestService.svc?wsdl and have the SOAP queries work. The part I'd like to fix is the queries. I have to use TestService.svc/xml/GetDateOffset?numDays=4 instead of TestService.svc/xml/GetDateOffset/4. If I specify the UriTemplate, I get the error: Endpoints using 'UriTemplate' cannot be used with 'System.ServiceModel.Description.WebScriptEnablingBehavior'. But of course without using <enableWebScript/>, JSON doesn't work. The only other thing I've seen that I think will work is making 3 different services (.svc files), that all implement an interface that specifies the contract, but in the classes specify different WebGet/WebInvoke attributes on each class. This seems like a lot of extra work, that frankly, I don't see why the framework doesn't handle for me. The implementation of the classes would all be the same, except for the attributes, which means over time it would be easy for bugs/changes to get fixed/done in one implementation but not the others, leading to inconsistent behaviour when using the JSON vs SOAP implementation for example. Am I doing something wrong here? Am I taking a totally wrong approach and misusing WCF? Is there a better way to do this? With my experience doing web stuff, I think it should be possible for some kind of framework to handle this ... I even have an idea in my head of how to build it. It just seems like WCF is supposed to be doing this, and I don't really want to reinvent the wheel.

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  • Architecture for a business objects / database access layer

    - by gregmac
    For various reasons, we are writing a new business objects/data storage library. One of the requirements of this layer is to separate the logic of the business rules, and the actual data storage layer. It is possible to have multiple data storage layers that implement access to the same object - for example, a main "database" data storage source that implements most objects, and another "ldap" source that implements a User object. In this scenario, User can optionally come from an LDAP source, perhaps with slightly different functionality (eg, not possible to save/update the User object), but otherwise it is used by the application the same way. Another data storage type might be a web service, or an external database. There are two main ways we are looking at implementing this, and me and a co-worker disagree on a fundamental level which is correct. I'd like some advice on which one is the best to use. I'll try to keep my descriptions of each as neutral as possible, as I'm looking for some objective view points here. Business objects are base classes, and data storage objects inherit business objects. Client code deals with data storage objects. In this case, common business rules are inherited by each data storage object, and it is the data storage objects that are directly used by the client code. This has the implication that client code determines which data storage method to use for a given object, because it has to explicitly declare an instance to that type of object. Client code needs to explicitly know connection information for each data storage type it is using. If a data storage layer implements different functionality for a given object, client code explicitly knows about it at compile time because the object looks different. If the data storage method is changed, client code has to be updated. Business objects encapsulate data storage objects. In this case, business objects are directly used by client application. Client application passes along base connection information to business layer. Decision about which data storage method a given object uses is made by business object code. Connection information would be a chunk of data taken from a config file (client app does not really know/care about details of it), which may be a single connection string for a database, or several pieces connection strings for various data storage types. Additional data storage connection types could also be read from another spot - eg, a configuration table in a database that specifies URLs to various web services. The benefit here is that if a new data storage method is added to an existing object, a configuration setting can be set at runtime to determine which method to use, and it is completely transparent to the client applications. Client apps do not need to be modified if data storage method for a given object changes. Business objects are base classes, data source objects inherit from business objects. Client code deals primarily with base classes. This is similar to the first method, but client code declares variables of the base business object types, and Load()/Create()/etc static methods on the business objects return the appropriate data source-typed objects. The architecture of this solution is similar to the first method, but the main difference is the decision about which data storage object to use for a given business object is made by the business layer, not the client code. I know there are already existing ORM libraries that provide some of this functionality, but please discount those for now (there is the possibility that a data storage layer is implemented with one of these ORM libraries) - also note I'm deliberately not telling you what language is being used here, other than that it is strongly typed. I'm looking for some general advice here on which method is better to use (or feel free to suggest something else), and why.

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  • Parallel WCF calls to multiple servers

    - by gregmac
    I have a WCF service (the same one) running on multiple servers, and I'd like to call all instances in parallel from a single client. I'm using ChannelFactory and the interface (contract) to call the service. Each service has a local <endpoint> client defined in the .config file. What I'm trying to do is build some kind of generic framework to avoid code duplication. For example a synchronous call in a single thread looks something like this: Dim remoteName As String = "endpointName1" Dim svcProxy As ChannelFactory(Of IMyService) = New ChannelFactory(Of IMyService)(remoteName) Try svcProxy.Open() Dim svc As IMyService = svcProxy.CreateChannel() nodeResult = svc.TestRemote("foo") Finally svcProxy.Close() End Try The part I'm having difficulty with is how to specify and actually invoke the actual remote method (eg "TestRemote") without having to duplicate the above code, and all the thread-related stuff that invokes that, for each method. In the end, I'd like to be able to write code along the lines of (consider this psuedo code): Dim results as Dictionary(Of Node, ExpectedReturnType) results = ParallelInvoke(IMyService.SomeMethod, parameter1, parameter2) where ParallelInvoke() will take the method as an argument, as well as the parameters (paramArray or object() .. whatever) and then go run the request on each remote node, block until they all return an answer or timeout, and then return the results into a Dictionary with the key as the node, and the value as whatever value it returned. I can then (depending on the method) pick out the single value I need, or aggregate all the values from each server together, etc. I'm pretty sure I can do this using reflection and InvokeMember(), but that requires passing the method as a string (which can lead to errors like calling a non-existing method that can't be caught at compile time), so I'd like to see if there is a cleaner way to do this. Thanks

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  • LINQ group by and getting latest value

    - by gregmac
    Say I have a structure like: class SomeObject Public Name as String Public Created as Date ... end class I have a List(of SomeObject), which has multiple entries for each name with different times. I'd like to select the newest (largest Created value) object for each Name. Given: Name Created A 2010-04-16 * A 2010-04-15 B 2010-04-12 B 2010-04-13 * C 2010-04-16 * I'd like to pick the objects with the * beside them. Is this possible using LINQ?

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  • Google analytics-style custom report builder UI

    - by gregmac
    I'm looking for a reporting engine/UI that can be integrated into a product, which has a UI along the lines of Google Analytics' Custom Reports builder. Is anyone aware of such a thing? The data is in our case is not page views/visitors/etc, but is similar in nature, in that there are limited entities or types of data, but each entity has many attributes/columns and many different ways of aggregating data (or in GA-style speak, metrics and dimensions). The analytics-style UI is very intuitive and allows many reports to be created in powerful ways, without having to know SQL. I have preference for a web-based tool (seeing that it is 2010 and this is a web app -- I mention only because it seems the vast majority of reporting tools still have only a non-web-based creation tool).

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  • Finding final/effective web.config values (from inherited configurations)

    - by gregmac
    Are there any apps that can show the final configuration as applied to a particular application directory? What I'm picturing is something along the lines of FireBug's CSS viewer. Basically, it should show the equivalent single web.config file (as if you only had one), with all the values that apply to the directory in question, with each element (or even attribute) annotated with its source (the real .config file it came from). This would greatly help deploying applications into foreign environments (eg, customer sites) where they sometimes have strange configs, that add in global includes (eg, they put the include in machine.config, instead of the web.config for that app) or have allowOverride=false, etc.

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