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• Podcast Show Notes: William Ulrich and Neal McWhorter on Business Architecture

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The latest ArchBeat podcast program features a four-part conversation with William Ulrich and Neal McWhorter, the authors of Business Architecture: The Art and Practice of Business Transformation, available from Meghan-Kiffer Press. Listen to Part 1 Bill and Neal cover the basics and discuss the effects of the lack of business architecture on organizations. Listen to Part 2 (Jan 19) What really happens to the billions of dollars annually invested in IT. Listen to Part 3 (Jan 26) Why the IT and business sides of many organizations can’t play nice. Listen to Part 4 (Feb 2) How IT architects and business architects can work together to get the ship back on course and keep it there. Connect William Ulrich Website | LinkedIn | Business Architecture Guild Neal McWhorter Website | LinkedIn | Business Architecture Group on OMG Coming Soon Bob Hensle, Director, Oracle Enterprise Architecture Group, discusses the recently launched IT Solutions from Oracle (ITSO) library of documents. Excerpts from a recent OTN Architect Community Virtual Meet-up. Stay tuned: RSS del.icio.us Tags: business architecture,enterprise architecture,arch2arch,archbeat,podcast,business transformation,oracle,oracle technology network Technorati Tags: business architecture,enterprise architecture,arch2arch,archbeat,podcast,business transformation,oracle,oracle technology network

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• Using unordered_multimap as entity and component storage

  - by natebot13

  The Setup I've made a few games (more like animations) using the Object Oriented method with base classes for objects that extend them, and objects that extend those, and found I couldn't wrap my head around expanding that system to larger game ideas. So I did some research and discovered the Entity-Component system of designing games. I really like the idea, and thoroughly understood the usefulness of it after reading Byte54's perfect answer here: Role of systems in entity systems architecture. With that said, I have decided to create my current game idea using the described Entity-Component system. Having basic knowledge of C++, and SFML, I would like to implement the backbone of this entity component system using an unordered_multimap without classes for the entities themselves. Here's the idea: An unordered_mulitmap stores entity IDs as the lookup term, while the value is an inherited Component object. Examlpe: ____________________________ |ID |Component | ---------------------------- |0 |Movable | |0 |Accelable | |0 |Renderable | |1 |Movable | |1 |Renderable | |2 |Renderable | ---------------------------- So, according to this map of objects, the entity with ID 0 has three components: Movable, Accelable, and Renderable. These component objects store the entity specific data, such as the location, the acceleration, and render flags. The entity is simply and ID, with the components attached to that ID describing its attributes. Problem I want to store the component objects within the map, allowing the map have full ownership of the components. The problem I'm having, is I don't quite understand enough about pointers, shared pointers, and references in order to get that set up. How can I go about initializing these components, with their various member variables, within the unordered_multimap? Can the base component class take on the member variables of its child classes, when defining the map as unordered_multimap<int, component>? Requirements I need a system to be able to grab an entity, with all of its' attached components, and access members from the components in order to do the necessary calculations and reassignments for position, velocity, etc. Need a clarification? Post a comment with your concerns and I will gladly edit or comment back! Thanks in advance! natebot13

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• How can I use multiple meshes per entity without breaking one component of a single type per entity?

  - by Mathias Hölzl

  We are just switching from a hierarchy based game engine to a component based game engine. My problem is that when I load a model which has has a hierarchy of meshes and the way I understand is that a entity in a component based system can not have multiple components of the same type, but I need a "meshComponent" for each mesh in a model. So how could I solve this problem. On this side they implemented a Component based game engine: http://cowboyprogramming.com/2007/01/05/evolve-your-heirachy/

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• How to implement a component based system for items in a web game.

  - by Landstander

  Reading several other questions and answers on using a component based system to define items I want to use one for the items and spells in a web game written in PHP. I'm just stuck on the implementation. I'm going to use a DB schema suggested in this series (part 5 describes the schema); http://t-machine.org/index.php/2007/09/03/entity-systems-are-the-future-of-mmog-development-part-1/ This means I'll have an items table with generic item properties, a table listing all of the components for an item and finally records in each component table used to make up the item. Assuming I can select the first two together in a single query, I'm still going to do N queries for each component type. I'm kind of fine with this because I can cache the data into memcache and check there first before doing any queries. I'll need to build up the items on every request they are used in so the implementation needs to be on the lean side even if they're pulled from memcache. But right there is where I feel confident about implementing a component system for my items ends. I figure I'd need to bring attributes and behaviors into the container from each component it uses. I'm just not sure how to do that effectively and not end up writing a lot of specialized code to deal with each component. For example an AttackComponent might need to know how to filter targets inside of a battle context and also maybe provide an attack behavior. That same item might also have a UsableComponent which allows the item to be used and apply some effect onto a different set of targets filtered differently from the same battle context. Then not every part of an item is an active part, an AttributeBonusComponent might need to only kick in when the item is in an equipped state or when displaying the item details page. Ultimately, how should I bring all of the components together into the container so when I use an item as a weapon I get the correct list of targets? Know when a weapon can also be used as an item? Or to apply the bonuses the item provides to a character object? I feel like I've gone too far down the rabbit hole and I can't grasp onto the simple solution in front of me. (If that makes any sense at all.) Likewise if I were to implement the best answer from here I feel like I'd have a lot of the same questions. How to model multiple "uses" (e.g. weapon) for usable-inventory/object/items (e.g. katana) within a relational database.

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• In an Entity/Component system, can component data be implemented as a simple array of key-value pairs? [on hold]

  - by 010110110101

  I'm trying to wrap my head around how to organize components in an Entity Component Systems once everything in the current scene/level is loaded in memory. (I'm a hobbyist BTW) Some people seem to implement the Entity as an object that contains a list of of "Component" objects. Components contain data organized as an array of key-value pairs. Where the value is serialized "somehow". (pseudocode is loosely in C# for brevity) class Entity { Guid _id; List<Component> _components; } class Component { List<ComponentAttributeValue> _attributes; } class ComponentAttributeValue { string AttributeName; object AttributeValue; } Others describe Components as an in-memory "table". An entity acquires the component by having its key placed in a table. The attributes of the component-entity instance are like the columns in a table class Renderable_Component { List<RenderableComponentAttributeValue> _entities; } class RenderableComponentAttributeValue { Guid entityId; matrix4 transformation; // other stuff for rendering // everything is strongly typed } Others describe this actually as a table. (and such tables sound like an EAV database schema BTW) (and the value is serialized "somehow") Render_Component_Table ---------------- Entity Id Attribute Name Attribute Value and when brought into running code: class Entity { Guid _id; Dictionary<string, object> _attributes; } My specific question is: Given various components, (Renderable, Positionable, Explodeable, Hideable, etc) and given that each component has an attribute with a particular name, (TRANSLATION_MATRIX, PARTICLE_EMISSION_VELOCITY, CAN_HIDE, FAVORITE_COLOR, etc) should: an entity contain a list of components where each component, in turn, has their own array of named attributes with values serialized somehow or should components exist as in-memory tables of entity references and associated with each "row" there are "columns" representing the attribute with values that are specific to each entity instance and are strongly typed or all attributes be stored in an entity as a singular array of named attributes with values serialized somehow (could have name collisions) or something else???

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• Register Game Object Components in Game Subsystems? (Component-based Game Object design)

  - by topright

  I'm creating a component-based game object system. Some tips: GameObject is simply a list of Components. There are GameSubsystems. For example, rendering, physics etc. Each GameSubsystem contains pointers to some of Components. GameSubsystem is a very powerful and flexible abstraction: it represents any slice (or aspect) of the game world. There is a need in a mechanism of registering Components in GameSubsystems (when GameObject is created and composed). There are 4 approaches: 1: Chain of responsibility pattern. Every Component is offered to every GameSubsystem. GameSubsystem makes a decision which Components to register (and how to organize them). For example, GameSubsystemRender can register Renderable Components. pro. Components know nothing about how they are used. Low coupling. A. We can add new GameSubsystem. For example, let's add GameSubsystemTitles that registers all ComponentTitle and guarantees that every title is unique and provides interface to quering objects by title. Of course, ComponentTitle should not be rewrited or inherited in this case. B. We can reorganize existing GameSubsystems. For example, GameSubsystemAudio, GameSubsystemRender, GameSubsystemParticleEmmiter can be merged into GameSubsystemSpatial (to place all audio, emmiter, render Components in the same hierarchy and use parent-relative transforms). con. Every-to-every check. Very innefficient. con. Subsystems know about Components. 2: Each Subsystem searches for Components of specific types. pro. Better performance than in Approach 1. con. Subsystems still know about Components. 3: Component registers itself in GameSubsystem(s). We know at compile-time that there is a GameSubsystemRenderer, so let's ComponentImageRender will call something like GameSubsystemRenderer::register(ComponentRenderBase*). pro. Performance. No unnecessary checks as in Approach 1. con. Components are badly coupled with GameSubsystems. 4: Mediator pattern. GameState (that contains GameSubsystems) can implement registerComponent(Component*). pro. Components and GameSubystems know nothing about each other. con. In C++ it would look like ugly and slow typeid-switch. Questions: Which approach is better and mostly used in component-based design? What Practice says? Any suggestions about implementation of Approach 4? Thank you.

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• Should components have sub-components in a component-based system like Artemis?

  - by Daniel Ingraham

  I am designing a game using Artemis, although this is more of philosophical question about component-based design in general. Let's say I have non-primitive data which applies to a given component (a Component "animal" may have qualities such as "teeth" or "diet"). There are three ways to approach this in data-driven design, as I see it: 1) Generate classes for these qualities using "traditional" OOP. I imagine this has negative implications for performance, as systems then must be made aware of these qualities in order to process them. It also seems counter to the overall philosophy of data-driven design. 2) Include these qualities as sub-components. This seems off, in that we are now confusing the role of components with that of entities. Moreover out of the box Artemis isn't capable of mapping these subcomponents onto their parent components. 3) Add "teeth", "diet", etc. as components to the overall entity alongside "animal". While this feels odd hierarchically, it may simply be a peculiarity of component-based systems. I suspect 3 is the correct way to think about things, but I was curious about other ideas.

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• Overriding component behavior

  - by deft_code

  I was thinking of how to implement overriding of behaviors in a component based entity system. A concrete example, an entity has a heath component that can be damaged, healed, killed etc. The entity also has an armor component that limits the amount of damage a character receives. Has anyone implemented behaviors like this in a component based system before? How did you do it? If no one has ever done this before why do you think that is. Is there anything particularly wrong headed about overriding component behaviors? Below is rough sketch up of how I imagine it would work. Components in an entity are ordered. Those at the front get a chance to service an interface first. I don't detail how that is done, just assume it uses evil dynamic_casts (it doesn't but the end effect is the same without the need for RTTI). class IHealth { public: float get_health( void ) const = 0; void do_damage( float amount ) = 0; }; class Health : public Component, public IHealth { public: void do_damage( float amount ) { m_damage -= amount; } private: float m_health; }; class Armor : public Component, public IHealth { public: float get_health( void ) const { return next<IHealth>().get_health(); } void do_damage( float amount ) { next<IHealth>().do_damage( amount / 2 ); } }; entity.add( new Health( 100 ) ); entity.add( new Armor() ); assert( entity.get<IHealth>().get_health() == 100 ); entity.get<IHealth>().do_damage( 10 ); assert( entity.get<IHealth>().get_health() == 95 ); Is there anything particularly naive about the way I'm proposing to do this?

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• No architecture vs architecture-specific binaries

  - by Aaron

  From what I understand, the noarch suffix means that it's architecture independent and should work universally. If this is the case, why should I install architecture-specific packages at all? Why not just go straight for the noarch? Are there optimizations in the x86 or x64 binaries that aren't found in the noarch binaries? What's best for high performance applications? Folding@Home does this with their controller:

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• Physics/Graphics Components

  - by Brett Powell

  I have spent the last 48 hours reading up on Object Component systems, and feel I am ready enough to start implementing it. I got the base Object and Component classes created, but now that I need to start creating the actual components I am a bit confused. When I think of them in terms of HealthComponent or something that would basically just be a property, it makes perfect sense. When it is something more general as a Physics/Graphics component, I get a bit confused. My Object class looks like this so far (If you notice any changes I should make please let me know, still new to this)... typedef unsigned int ID; class GameObject { public: GameObject(ID id, Ogre::String name = ""); ~GameObject(); ID &getID(); Ogre::String &getName(); virtual void update() = 0; // Component Functions void addComponent(Component *component); void removeComponent(Ogre::String familyName); template<typename T> T* getComponent(Ogre::String familyName) { return dynamic_cast<T*>(m_components[familyName]); } protected: // Properties ID m_ID; Ogre::String m_Name; float m_flVelocity; Ogre::Vector3 m_vecPosition; // Components std::map<std::string,Component*> m_components; std::map<std::string,Component*>::iterator m_componentItr; }; Now the problem I am running into is what would the general population put into Components such as Physics/Graphics? For Ogre (my rendering engine) the visible Objects will consist of multiple Ogre::SceneNode (possibly multiple) to attach it to the scene, Ogre::Entity (possibly multiple) to show the visible meshes, and so on. Would it be best to just add multiple GraphicComponent's to the Object and let each GraphicComponent handle one SceneNode/Entity or is the idea to have one of each Component needed? For Physics I am even more confused. I suppose maybe creating a RigidBody and keeping track of mass/interia/etc. would make sense. But I am having trouble thinking of how to actually putting specifics into a Component. Once I get a couple of these "Required" components done, I think it will make a lot more sense. As of right now though I am still a bit stumped.

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• Who should ‘own’ the Enterprise Architecture?

  - by Michael Glas

  I recently had a discussion around who should own an organization’s Enterprise Architecture. It was spawned by an article titled “Busting CIO Myths” in CIO magazine1 where the author interviewed Jeanne Ross, director of MIT's Center for Information Systems Research and co-author of books on enterprise architecture, governance and IT value.In the article Jeanne states that companies need to acknowledge that "architecture says everything about how the company is going to function, operate, and grow; the only person who can own that is the CEO". "If the CEO doesn't accept that role, there really can be no architecture."The first question that came up when talking about ownership was whether you are talking about a person, role, or organization (there are pros and cons to each, but in general, I like to assign accountability to as few people as possible). After much thought and discussion, I came to the conclusion that we were answering the wrong question. Instead of talking about ownership we were talking about responsibility and accountability, and the answer varies depending on the particular role of the organization’s Enterprise Architecture and the activities of the enterprise architect(s).Instead of looking at just who owns the architecture, think about what the person/role/organization should do. This is one possible scenario (thanks to Bob Covington): The CEO should own the Enterprise Strategy which guides the business architecture. The Business units should own the business processes and information which guide the business, application and information architectures. The CIO should own the technology, IT Governance and the management of the application and information architectures/implementations. The EA Governance Team owns the EA process.  If EA is done well, the governance team consists of both IT and the business. While there are many more roles and responsibilities than listed here, it starts to provide a clearer understanding of ‘ownership’. Now back to Jeanne’s statement that the CEO should own the architecture. If you agree with the statement about what the architecture is (and I do agree), then ultimately the CEO does need to own it. However, what we ended up with was not really ownership, but more statements around roles and responsibilities tied to aspects of the enterprise architecture. You can debate the semantics of ownership vs. responsibility and accountability, but in the end the important thing is to come to a clearer understanding that is easily communicated (and hopefully measured) around the question “Who owns the Enterprise Architecture”.The next logical step . . . create a RACI matrix that details the findings . . . but that is a step that each organization needs to do on their own as it will vary based on current EA maturity, company culture, and a variety of other factors. Who ‘owns’ the Enterprise Architecture in your organization? 1 CIO Magazine Article (Busting CIO Myths): http://www.cio.com/article/704943/Busting_CIO_Myths Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Organizing an entity system with external component managers?

  - by Gustav

  I'm designing a game engine for a top-down multiplayer 2D shooter game, which I want to be reasonably reuseable for other top-down shooter games. At the moment I'm thinking about how something like an entity system in it should be designed. First I thought about this: I have a class called EntityManager. It should implement a method called Update and another one called Draw. The reason for me separating Logic and Rendering is because then I can omit the Draw method if running a standalone server. EntityManager owns a list of objects of type BaseEntity. Each entity owns a list of components such as EntityModel (the drawable representation of an entity), EntityNetworkInterface, and EntityPhysicalBody. EntityManager also owns a list of component managers like EntityRenderManager, EntityNetworkManager and EntityPhysicsManager. Each component manager keeps references to the entity components. There are various reasons for moving this code out of the entity's own class and do it collectively instead. For example, I'm using an external physics library, Box2D, for the game. In Box2D, you first add the bodies and shapes to a world (owned by the EntityPhysicsManager in this case) and add collision callbacks (which would be dispatched to the entity object itself in my system). Then you run a function which simulates everything in the system. I find it hard to find a better solution to do this than doing it in an external component manager like this. Entity creation is done like this: EntityManager implements the method RegisterEntity(entityClass, factory) which registers how to create an entity if that class. It also implements the method CreateEntity(entityClass) which would return an object of type BaseEntity. Well now comes my problem: How would the reference to a component be registered to the component managers? I have no idea how I would reference the component managers from a factory/closure.

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• Can I remove the systems from a component entity system?

  - by nathan

  After reading a lot about entity/component based engines. I feel like there is no real definition for this kind of engine. Reading this thread: Implementing features in an Entity System and the linked article made me think a lot. I did not feel that comfortable using System concept so I'll write something else, inspired by this pattern. I'd like to know if you think it's a good way to organize game code and what improvements can be made. Regarding a more strict implementation of entity/component based engine, is my solution viable? Do I risk getting stuck at any point due to the lack of flexibility of this implementation (or anything else)? My engine, as for entity/component patterns has entities and components, no systems since the game logic is handled by components. Also, I think the main difference is the fact that my engine will use inherence and OOP concepts in general, I mean, I don't try to minimize them. Entity: an entity is an abstract class. It holds his position, width and height, scale and a list of linked components. The current implementation can be found here (java). Every frame, the entity will be updated (i.e all the components linked to this entity will be updated), and rendered, if a render component is specified. Component: like for entity, a component is an abstract class that must be extended to create new components. The behavior of an entity is created through his components collection. The component implementation can be found here. Components are updated when the owning entity is updated or for only one specific component (render component), rendered. Here is an example of a logic component (i.e not a renderable component, a component that's updated each frame) in charge of listening for keyboard events and a render component in charge of display a plain sprite (i.e not animated).

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• What Every Developer Should Know About MSI Components

  - by Alois Kraus

  Hopefully nothing. But if you have to do more than simple XCopy deployment and you need to support updates, upgrades and perhaps side by side scenarios there is no way around MSI. You can create Msi files with a Visual Studio Setup project which is severely limited or you can use the Windows Installer Toolset. I cannot talk about WIX with my German colleagues because WIX has a very special meaning. It is funny to always use the long name when I talk about deployment possibilities. Alternatively you can buy commercial tools which help you to author Msi files but I am not sure how good they are. Given enough pain with existing solutions you can also learn the MSI Apis and create your own packaging solution. If I were you I would use either a commercial visual tool when you do easy deployments or use the free Windows Installer Toolset. Once you know the WIX schema you can create well formed wix xml files easily with any editor. Then you can “compile” from the wxs files your Msi package. Recently I had the “pleasure” to get my hands dirty with C++ (again) and the MSI technology. Installation is a complex topic but after several month of digging into arcane MSI issues I can safely say that there should exist an easier way to install and update files as today. I am not alone with this statement as John Robbins (creator of the cool tool Paraffin) states: “.. It's a brittle and scary API in Windows …”. To help other people struggling with installation issues I present you the advice I (and others) found useful and what will happen if you ignore this advice. What is a MSI file? A MSI file is basically a database with tables which reference each other to control how your un/installation should work. The basic idea is that you declare via these tables what you want to install and MSI controls the how to get your stuff onto or off your machine. Your “stuff” consists usually of files, registry keys, shortcuts and environment variables. Therefore the most important tables are File, Registry, Environment and Shortcut table which define what will be un/installed. The key to master MSI is that every resource (file, registry key ,…) is associated with a MSI component. The actual payload consists of compressed files in the CAB format which can either be embedded into the MSI file or reside beside the MSI file or in a subdirectory below it. To examine MSI files you need Orca a free MSI editor provided by MS. There is also another free editor called Super Orca which does support diffs between MSI and it does not lock the MSI files. But since Orca comes with a shell extension I tend to use only Orca because it is so easy to right click on a MSI file and open it with this tool. How Do I Install It? Double click it. This does work for fresh installations as well as major upgrades. Updates need to be installed via the command line via msiexec /i <msi> REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus   This tells the installer to reinstall all already installed features (new features will NOT be installed). The reinstallmode letters do force an overwrite of the old cached package in the %WINDIR%\Installer folder. All files, shortcuts and registry keys are redeployed if they are missing or need to be replaced with a newer version. When things did go really wrong and you want to overwrite everything unconditionally use REINSTALLMODE=vamus. How To Enable MSI Logs? You can download a MSI from Microsoft which installs some registry keys to enable full MSI logging. The log files can be found in your %TEMP% folder and are called MSIxxxx.log. Alternatively you can add to your msiexec command line the option msiexec …. /l*vx <LogFileName> Personally I find it rather strange that * does not mean full logging. To really get all logs I need to add v and x which is documented in the msiexec help but I still find this behavior unintuitive. What are MSI components? The whole MSI logic is bound to the concept of MSI components. Nearly every msi table has a Component column which binds an installable resource to a component. Below are the screenshots of the FeatureComponents and Component table of an example MSI. The Feature table defines basically the feature hierarchy.  To find out what belongs to a feature you need to look at the FeatureComponents table where for each feature the components are listed which will be installed when a feature is installed. The MSI components are defined in the  Component table. This table has as first column the component name and as second column the component id which is a GUID. All resources you want to install belong to a MSI component. Therefore nearly all MSI tables have a Component_ column which contains the component name. If you look e.g. a the File table you see that every file belongs to a component which is true for all other tables which install resources. The component table is the glue between all other tables which contain the resources you want to install. So far so easy. Why is MSI then so complex? Most MSI problems arise from the fact that you did violate a MSI component rule in one or the other way. When you install a feature the reference count for all components belonging to this feature will increase by one. If your component is installed by more than one feature it will get a higher refcount. When you uninstall a feature its refcount will drop by one. Interesting things happen if the component reference count reaches zero: Then all associated resources will be deleted. That looks like a reasonable thing and it is. What it makes complex are the strange component rules you have to follow. Below are some important component rules from the Tao of the Windows Installer … Rule 16: Follow Component Rules Components are a very important part of the Installer technology. They are the means whereby the Installer manages the resources that make up your application. The SDK provides the following guidelines for creating components in your package: Never create two components that install a resource under the same name and target location. If a resource must be duplicated in multiple components, change its name or target location in each component. This rule should be applied across applications, products, product versions, and companies. Two components must not have the same key path file. This is a consequence of the previous rule. The key path value points to a particular file or folder belonging to the component that the installer uses to detect the component. If two components had the same key path file, the installer would be unable to distinguish which component is installed. Two components however may share a key path folder. Do not create a version of a component that is incompatible with all previous versions of the component. This rule should be applied across applications, products, product versions, and companies. Do not create components containing resources that will need to be installed into more than one directory on the user’s system. The installer installs all of the resources in a component into the same directory. It is not possible to install some resources into subdirectories. Do not include more than one COM server per component. If a component contains a COM server, this must be the key path for the component. Do not specify more than one file per component as a target for the Start menu or a Desktop shortcut. … And these rules do not even talk about component ids, update packages and upgrades which you need to understand as well. Lets suppose you install two MSIs (MSI1 and MSI2) which have the same ComponentId but different component names. Both do install the same file. What will happen when you uninstall MSI2?   Hm the file should stay there. But the component names are different. Yes and yes. But MSI uses not use the component name as key for the refcount. Instead the ComponentId column of the Component table which contains a GUID is used as identifier under which the refcount is stored. The components Comp1 and Comp2 are identical from the MSI perspective. After the installation of both MSIs the Component with the Id {100000….} has a refcount of two. After uninstallation of one MSI there is still a refcount of one which drops to zero just as expected when we uninstall the last msi. Then the file which was the same for both MSIs is deleted. You should remember that MSI keeps a refcount across MSIs for components with the same component id. MSI does manage components not the resources you did install. The resources associated with a component are then and only then deleted when the refcount of the component reaches zero.   The dependencies between features, components and resources can be described as relations. m,k are numbers >= 1, n can be 0. Inside a MSI the following relations are valid Feature    1  –> n Components Component    1 –> m Features Component      1  –>  k Resources These relations express that one feature can install several components and features can share components between them. Every (meaningful) component will install at least one resource which means that its name (primary key to stay in database speak) does occur in some other table in the Component column as value which installs some resource. Lets make it clear with an example. We want to install with the feature MainFeature some files a registry key and a shortcut. We can then create components Comp1..3 which are referenced by the resources defined in the corresponding tables.   Feature Component Registry File Shortcuts MainFeature Comp1 RegistryKey1     MainFeature Comp2   File.txt   MainFeature Comp3   File2.txt Shortcut to File2.txt   It is illegal that the same resource is part of more than one component since this would break the refcount mechanism. Lets illustrate this:            Feature ComponentId Resource Reference Count Feature1 {1000-…} File1.txt 1 Feature2 {2000-….} File1.txt 1 The installation part works well but what happens when you uninstall Feature2? Component {20000…} gets a refcount of zero where MSI deletes all resources belonging to this component. In this case File1.txt will be deleted. But Feature1 still has another component {10000…} with a refcount of one which means that the file was deleted too early. You just have ruined your installation. To fix it you then need to click on the Repair button under Add/Remove Programs to let MSI reinstall any missing registry keys, files or shortcuts. The vigilant reader might has noticed that there is more in the Component table. Beside its name and GUID it has also an installation directory, attributes and a KeyPath. The KeyPath is a reference to a file or registry key which is used to detect if the component is already installed. This becomes important when you repair or uninstall a component. To find out if the component is already installed MSI checks if the registry key or file referenced by the KeyPath property does exist. When it does not exist it assumes that it was either already uninstalled (can lead to problems during uninstall) or that it is already installed and all is fine. Why is this detail so important? Lets put all files into one component. The KeyPath should be then one of the files of your component to check if it was installed or not. When your installation becomes corrupt because a file was deleted you cannot repair it with the Repair button under Add/Remove Programs because MSI checks the component integrity via the Resource referenced by its KeyPath. As long as you did not delete the KeyPath file MSI thinks all resources with your component are installed and never executes any repair action. You get even more trouble when you try to remove files during an upgrade (you cannot remove files during an update) from your super component which contains all files. The only way out and therefore best practice is to assign for every resource you want to install an extra component. This ensures painless updatability and repairs and you have much less effort to remove specific files during an upgrade. In effect you get this best practice relation Feature 1  –> n Components Component   1  –>  1 Resources MSI Component Rules Rule 1 – One component per resource Every resource you want to install (file, registry key, value, environment value, shortcut, directory, …) must get its own component which does never change between versions as long as the install location is the same. Penalty If you add more than one resources to a component you will break the repair capability of MSI because the KeyPath is used to check if the component needs repair. MSI ComponentId Files MSI 1.0 {1000} File1-5 MSI 2.0 {2000} File2-5 You want to remove File1 in version 2.0 of your MSI. Since you want to keep the other files you create a new component and add them there. MSI will delete all files if the component refcount of {1000} drops to zero. The files you want to keep are added to the new component {2000}. Ok that does work if your upgrade does uninstall the old MSI first. This will cause the refcount of all previously installed components to reach zero which means that all files present in version 1.0 are deleted. But there is a faster way to perform your upgrade by first installing your new MSI and then remove the old one.  If you choose this upgrade path then you will loose File1-5 after your upgrade and not only File1 as intended by your new component design.   Rule 2 – Only add, never remove resources from a component If you did follow rule 1 you will not need Rule 2. You can add in a patch more resources to one component. That is ok. But you can never remove anything from it. There are tricky ways around that but I do not want to encourage bad component design. Penalty Lets assume you have 2 MSI files which install under the same component one file   MSI1 MSI2 {1000} - ComponentId {1000} – ComponentId File1.txt File2.txt   When you install and uninstall both MSIs you will end up with an installation where either File1 or File2 will be left. Why? It seems that MSI does not store the resources associated with each component in its internal database. Instead Windows will simply query the MSI that is currently uninstalled for all resources belonging to this component. Since it will find only one file and not two it will only uninstall one file. That is the main reason why you never can remove resources from a component!   Rule 3 Never Remove A Component From an Update MSI. This is the same as if you change the GUID of a component by accident for your new update package. The resulting update package will not contain all components from the previously installed package. Penalty When you remove a component from a feature MSI will set the feature state during update to Advertised and log a warning message into its log file when you did enable MSI logging. SELMGR: ComponentId '{2DCEA1BA-3E27-E222-484C-D0D66AEA4F62}' is registered to feature 'xxxxxxx, but is not present in the Component table.  Removal of components from a feature is not supported! MSI (c) (24:44) [07:53:13:436]: SELMGR: Removal of a component from a feature is not supported Advertised means that MSI treats all components of this feature as not installed. As a consequence during uninstall nothing will be removed since it is not installed! This is not only bad because uninstall does no longer work but this feature will also not get the required patches. All other features which have followed component versioning rules for update packages will be updated but the one faulty feature will not. This results in very hard to find bugs why an update was only partially successful. Things got better with Windows Installer 4.5 but you cannot rely on that nobody will use an older installer. It is a good idea to add to your update msiexec call MSIENFORCEUPGRADECOMPONENTRULES=1 which will abort the installation if you did violate this rule.

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• Software Architecture verses Software Design

  Recently, I was asked what the differences between software architecture and software design are. At a very superficial level both architecture and design seem to mean relatively the same thing. However, if we examine both of these terms further we will find that they are in fact very different due to the level of details they encompass. Software Architecture can be defined as the essence of an application because it deals with high level concepts that do not include any details as to how they will be implemented. To me this gives stakeholders a view of a system or application as if someone was viewing the earth from outer space. At this distance only very basic elements of the earth can be detected like land, weather and water. As the viewer comes closer to earth the details in this view start to become more defined. Details about the earth’s surface will start to actually take form as well as mane made structures will be detected. The process of transitioning a view from outer space to inside our earth’s atmosphere is similar to how an architectural concept is transformed to an architectural design. From this vantage point stakeholders can start to see buildings and other structures as if they were looking out of a small plane window. This distance is still high enough to see a large area of the earth’s surface while still being able to see some details about the surface. This viewing point is very similar to the actual design process of an application in that it takes the very high level architectural concept or concepts and applies concrete design details to form a software design that encompasses the actual implementation details in the form of responsibilities and functions. Examples of these details include: interfaces, components, data, and connections. In review, software architecture deals with high level concepts without regard to any implementation details. Software design on the other hand takes high level concepts and applies concrete details so that software can be implemented. As part of the transition between software architecture to the creation of software design an evaluation on the architecture is recommended. There are several benefits to including this step as part of the transition process. It allows for projects to ensure that they are on the correct path as to meeting the stakeholder’s requirement goals, identifies possible cost savings and can be used to find missing or nonspecific requirements that cause ambiguity in a design. In the book “Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies”, they define key benefits to adding an architectural review process to ensure that an architecture is ready to move on to the design phase. Benefits to evaluating software architecture: Gathers all stakeholders to communicate about the project Goals are clearly defined in regards to the creation or validation of specific requirements Goals are prioritized so that when conflicts occur decisions will be made based on goal priority Defines a clear expectation of the architecture so that all stakeholders have a keen understanding of the project Ensures high quality documentation of the architecture Enables discoveries of architectural reuse  Increases the quality of architecture practices. I can remember a few projects that I worked on that could have really used an architectural review prior to being passed on to developers. This project was to create some new advertising space on the company’s website in order to sell space based on the location and some other criteria. I was one of the developer selected to lead this project and I was given a high level design concept and a long list of ever changing requirements due to the fact that sales department had no clear direction as to what exactly the project was going to do or how they were going to bill the clients once they actually agreed to purchase the Ad space. In my personal opinion IT should have pushed back to have the requirements further articulated instead of forcing programmers to code blindly attempting to build such an ambiguous project.  Unfortunately, we had to suffer with this project for about 4 months when it should have only taken 1.5 to complete due to the constantly changing and unclear requirements. References  Clements, P., Kazman, R., & Klein, M. (2002). Evaluating Software Architectures. Westford, Massachusetts: Courier Westford. 

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• Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

  - by raul.goycoolea

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

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• Role of an entity state in a component based system?

  - by Paul

  Component-based entity systems are all the rage these days; everyone seems to agree they are the way to go, but no one really has a definitive implementation of such a system. I was wondering, what role do entity states (walking-left, standing, jumping, etc) have in a CBS? Do they act like controllers (i.e. they handle events and change the entity's attributes based on those events)? What about cases where a state would, for example, require that the entity enters no-clip mode? Should, that state, when it enters, maybe set the CollisionComponent of the entity to a null pointer or something? (Then, on exit, the state should restore the entity's CollisionComponent to its previous state.) Also, I guess it's the current state's job to change the entity's state to something else, right?

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• Adding sub-entities to existing entities. Should it be done in the Entity and Component classes?

  - by Coyote

  I'm in a situation where a player can be given the control of small parts of an entity (i.e. Left missile battery). Therefore I started implementing sub entities as follow. Entities are Objects with 3 arrays: pointers to components pointers to sub entities communication subscribers (temporary implementation) Now when an entity is built it has a few components as you might expect and also I can attach sub entities which are handled with some dedicated code in the Entity and Component classes. I noticed sub entities are sharing data in 3 parts: position: the sub entities are using the parent's position and their own as an offset. scrips: sub entities are draining ammo and energy from the parent. physics: sub entities add weight to the parent I made this to quickly go forward, but as I'm slowly fixing current implementations I wonder if this wasn't a mistake. Is my current implementation something commonly done? Will this implementation put me in a corner? I thought it might be a better thing to create some sort of SubEntityComponent where sub entities are attached and handled. But before changing anything I wanted to seek the community's wisdom.

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• Seems doctrine listener is not fired

  - by Roel Veldhuizen

  Got a service which should be executed the moment an object is persisted. Though, I think the code looks like it should work, it doesn't. I configured the service like the following yml. services: bla_orm.listener: class: Bla\OrmBundle\EventListener\UserManager arguments: [@security.encoder_factory] tags: - { name: doctrine.event_listener, event: prePersist } The class: namespace Bla\OrmBundle\EventListener; use Doctrine\ORM\Event\LifecycleEventArgs; use Bla\OrmBundle\Entity\User; class UserManager { protected $encoderFactory; public function __construct(\Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Encoder\EncoderFactoryInterface $encoderFactory) { $this->encoderFactory = $encoderFactory; } public function prePersist(LifecycleEventArgs $args) { $entity = $args->getEntity(); if ($entity instanceof User) { $encoder = $this->encoderFactory ->getEncoder($entity); $entity->setSalt(rand(10000, 99999)); $password = $encoder->encodePassword($entity->getPassword(), $entity->getSalt()); $entity->setPassword($password); } } } Symfony version: Symfony version 2.3.3 - app/dev/debug Output of container:debug [container] Public services Service Id Scope Class Name annotation_reader container Doctrine\Common\Annotations\FileCacheReader assetic.asset_manager container Assetic\Factory\LazyAssetManager assetic.controller prototype Symfony\Bundle\AsseticBundle\Controller\AsseticController assetic.filter.cssrewrite container Assetic\Filter\CssRewriteFilter assetic.filter_manager container Symfony\Bundle\AsseticBundle\FilterManager assetic.request_listener container Symfony\Bundle\AsseticBundle\EventListener\RequestListener cache_clearer container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\CacheClearer\ChainCacheClearer cache_warmer container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\CacheWarmer\CacheWarmerAggregate data_collector.request container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\DataCollector\RequestDataCollector data_collector.router container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\DataCollector\RouterDataCollector database_connection n/a alias for doctrine.dbal.default_connection debug.controller_resolver container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Controller\TraceableControllerResolver debug.deprecation_logger_listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\ErrorsLoggerListener debug.emergency_logger_listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\ErrorsLoggerListener debug.event_dispatcher container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Debug\TraceableEventDispatcher debug.stopwatch container Symfony\Component\Stopwatch\Stopwatch debug.templating.engine.php container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\TimedPhpEngine debug.templating.engine.twig n/a alias for templating doctrine container Doctrine\Bundle\DoctrineBundle\Registry doctrine.dbal.connection_factory container Doctrine\Bundle\DoctrineBundle\ConnectionFactory doctrine.dbal.default_connection container stdClass doctrine.orm.default_entity_manager container Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager doctrine.orm.default_manager_configurator container Doctrine\Bundle\DoctrineBundle\ManagerConfigurator doctrine.orm.entity_manager n/a alias for doctrine.orm.default_entity_manager doctrine.orm.validator.unique container Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntityValidator doctrine.orm.validator_initializer container Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\DoctrineInitializer event_dispatcher container Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\ContainerAwareEventDispatcher file_locator container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Config\FileLocator filesystem container Symfony\Component\Filesystem\Filesystem form.csrf_provider container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Csrf\CsrfProvider\SessionCsrfProvider form.factory container Symfony\Component\Form\FormFactory form.registry container Symfony\Component\Form\FormRegistry form.resolved_type_factory container Symfony\Component\Form\ResolvedFormTypeFactory form.type.birthday container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\BirthdayType form.type.button container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\ButtonType form.type.checkbox container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\CheckboxType form.type.choice container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\ChoiceType form.type.collection container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\CollectionType form.type.country container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\CountryType form.type.currency container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\CurrencyType form.type.date container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateType form.type.datetime container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateTimeType form.type.email container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\EmailType form.type.entity container Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Form\Type\EntityType form.type.file container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\FileType form.type.form container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\FormType form.type.hidden container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\HiddenType form.type.integer container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\IntegerType form.type.language container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\LanguageType form.type.locale container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\LocaleType form.type.money container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\MoneyType form.type.number container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\NumberType form.type.password container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\PasswordType form.type.percent container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\PercentType form.type.radio container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\RadioType form.type.repeated container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\RepeatedType form.type.reset container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\ResetType form.type.search container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\SearchType form.type.submit container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\SubmitType form.type.text container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType form.type.textarea container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextareaType form.type.time container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TimeType form.type.timezone container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TimezoneType form.type.url container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\UrlType form.type_extension.csrf container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Csrf\Type\FormTypeCsrfExtension form.type_extension.form.http_foundation container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\HttpFoundation\Type\FormTypeHttpFoundationExtension form.type_extension.form.validator container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Validator\Type\FormTypeValidatorExtension form.type_extension.repeated.validator container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Validator\Type\RepeatedTypeValidatorExtension form.type_extension.submit.validator container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Validator\Type\SubmitTypeValidatorExtension form.type_guesser.doctrine container Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Form\DoctrineOrmTypeGuesser form.type_guesser.validator container Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Validator\ValidatorTypeGuesser fragment.handler container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Fragment\FragmentHandler fragment.listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\FragmentListener fragment.renderer.hinclude container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Fragment\ContainerAwareHIncludeFragmentRenderer fragment.renderer.inline container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Fragment\InlineFragmentRenderer http_kernel container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\DependencyInjection\ContainerAwareHttpKernel kernel container locale_listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\LocaleListener logger container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger mailer n/a alias for swiftmailer.mailer.default monolog.handler.chromephp container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Handler\ChromePhpHandler monolog.handler.debug container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Handler\DebugHandler monolog.handler.firephp container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Handler\FirePHPHandler monolog.handler.main container Monolog\Handler\StreamHandler monolog.logger.deprecation container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger monolog.logger.doctrine container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger monolog.logger.emergency container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger monolog.logger.event container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger monolog.logger.profiler container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger monolog.logger.request container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger monolog.logger.router container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger monolog.logger.security container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger monolog.logger.templating container Symfony\Bridge\Monolog\Logger profiler container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Profiler\Profiler profiler_listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\ProfilerListener property_accessor container Symfony\Component\PropertyAccess\PropertyAccessor request request response_listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\ResponseListener router container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Routing\Router router_listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\RouterListener routing.loader container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Routing\DelegatingLoader security.context container Symfony\Component\Security\Core\SecurityContext security.encoder_factory container Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Encoder\EncoderFactory security.firewall container Symfony\Component\Security\Http\Firewall security.firewall.map.context.dev container Symfony\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Security\FirewallContext security.firewall.map.context.login container Symfony\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Security\FirewallContext security.firewall.map.context.rest container Symfony\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Security\FirewallContext security.firewall.map.context.secured_area container Symfony\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Security\FirewallContext security.rememberme.response_listener container Symfony\Component\Security\Http\RememberMe\ResponseListener security.secure_random container Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Util\SecureRandom security.validator.user_password container Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Validator\Constraints\UserPasswordValidator sensio.distribution.webconfigurator n/a alias for sensio_distribution.webconfigurator sensio_distribution.webconfigurator container Sensio\Bundle\DistributionBundle\Configurator\Configurator sensio_framework_extra.cache.listener container Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\EventListener\CacheListener sensio_framework_extra.controller.listener container Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\EventListener\ControllerListener sensio_framework_extra.converter.datetime container Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Request\ParamConverter\DateTimeParamConverter sensio_framework_extra.converter.doctrine.orm container Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Request\ParamConverter\DoctrineParamConverter sensio_framework_extra.converter.listener container Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\EventListener\ParamConverterListener sensio_framework_extra.converter.manager container Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Request\ParamConverter\ParamConverterManager sensio_framework_extra.view.guesser container Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Templating\TemplateGuesser sensio_framework_extra.view.listener container Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\EventListener\TemplateListener service_container container session container Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Session session.handler container Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Storage\Handler\NativeFileSessionHandler session.storage n/a alias for session.storage.native session.storage.filesystem container Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Storage\MockFileSessionStorage session.storage.native container Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Storage\NativeSessionStorage session.storage.php_bridge container Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Storage\PhpBridgeSessionStorage session_listener container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\EventListener\SessionListener streamed_response_listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\StreamedResponseListener swiftmailer.email_sender.listener container Symfony\Bundle\SwiftmailerBundle\EventListener\EmailSenderListener swiftmailer.mailer n/a alias for swiftmailer.mailer.default swiftmailer.mailer.default container Swift_Mailer swiftmailer.mailer.default.plugin.messagelogger container Swift_Plugins_MessageLogger swiftmailer.mailer.default.spool container Swift_FileSpool swiftmailer.mailer.default.transport container Swift_Transport_SpoolTransport swiftmailer.mailer.default.transport.real container Swift_Transport_EsmtpTransport swiftmailer.plugin.messagelogger n/a alias for swiftmailer.mailer.default.plugin.messagelogger swiftmailer.spool n/a alias for swiftmailer.mailer.default.spool swiftmailer.transport n/a alias for swiftmailer.mailer.default.transport swiftmailer.transport.real n/a alias for swiftmailer.mailer.default.transport.real templating container Symfony\Bundle\TwigBundle\Debug\TimedTwigEngine templating.asset.package_factory container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Asset\PackageFactory templating.filename_parser container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\TemplateFilenameParser templating.globals container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\GlobalVariables templating.helper.actions container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Helper\ActionsHelper templating.helper.assets request Symfony\Component\Templating\Helper\CoreAssetsHelper templating.helper.code container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Helper\CodeHelper templating.helper.form container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Helper\FormHelper templating.helper.logout_url container Symfony\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Templating\Helper\LogoutUrlHelper templating.helper.request container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Helper\RequestHelper templating.helper.router container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Helper\RouterHelper templating.helper.security container Symfony\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Templating\Helper\SecurityHelper templating.helper.session container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Helper\SessionHelper templating.helper.slots container Symfony\Component\Templating\Helper\SlotsHelper templating.helper.translator container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Helper\TranslatorHelper templating.loader container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\Loader\FilesystemLoader templating.name_parser container Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Templating\TemplateNameParser translation.dumper.csv container Symfony\Component\Translation\Dumper\CsvFileDumper translation.dumper.ini container 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Twig_Environment twig.controller.exception container Symfony\Bundle\TwigBundle\Controller\ExceptionController twig.exception_listener container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\EventListener\ExceptionListener twig.loader container Symfony\Bundle\TwigBundle\Loader\FilesystemLoader twig.translation.extractor container Symfony\Bridge\Twig\Translation\TwigExtractor uri_signer container Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\UriSigner bla_orm.listener container Bla\OrmBundle\EventListener\UserManager validator container Symfony\Component\Validator\Validator web_profiler.controller.exception container Symfony\Bundle\WebProfilerBundle\Controller\ExceptionController web_profiler.controller.profiler container Symfony\Bundle\WebProfilerBundle\Controller\ProfilerController web_profiler.controller.router container Symfony\Bundle\WebProfilerBundle\Controller\RouterController web_profiler.debug_toolbar container Symfony\Bundle\WebProfilerBundle\EventListener\WebDebugToolbarListener Update It seems that the listener is not invoked when an updateAction, generated by generate:doctrine:crud has taken place though. At another part of the code the lister seems to be invoked. Though, there are both Controller types and both us $em->persist($something); $em->flush(); to save the changes. I would expect that in both cases the listener is invoked.

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• References about Game Engine Architecture in AAA Games

  - by sharethis

  Last weeks I focused on game engine architecture and learned a lot about different approaches like component based, data driven, and so on. I used them in test applications and understand their intention but none of them looks like the holy grail. So I wonder how major games in the industry ("AAA Games") solve different architecture problems. But I noticed that there are barely references about game engine architecture out there. Do you know any resources of game engine architecture of major game titles like Battlefield, Call of Duty, Crysis, Skyrim, and so on? Doesn't matter if it is an article of a game developer or a wiki page or an entire book. I read this related popular question: Good resources for learning about game architecture? But it is focused on learning books rather than approaches in the industry. Hopefully the breadth of our community can carry together certain useful informations! Thanks a lot! Edit: This question is focused but not restricted to first person games.

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• How to update entity states and animations in a component-based game

  - by mivic

  I'm trying to design a component-based entity system for learning purposes (and later use on some games) and I'm having some troubles when it comes to updating entity states. I don't want to have an update() method inside the Component to prevent dependencies between Components. What I currently have in mind is that components hold data and systems update components. So, if I have a simple 2D game with some entities (e.g. player, enemy1, enemy 2) that have Transform, Movement, State, Animation and Rendering components I think I should have: A MovementSystem that moves all the Movement components and updates the State components And a RenderSystem that updates the Animation components (the animation component should have one animation (i.e. a set of frames/textures) for each state and updating it means selecting the animation corresponding to the current state (e.g. jumping, moving_left, etc), and updating the frame index). Then, the RenderSystem updates the Render components with the texture corresponding to the current frame of each entity's Animation and renders everything on screen. I've seen some implementations like Artemis framework, but I don't know how to solve this situation: Let's say that my game has the following entities. Each entity have a set of states and one animation for each state: player: "idle", "moving_right", "jumping" enemy1: "moving_up", "moving_down" enemy2: "moving_left", "moving_right" What are the most accepted approaches in order to update the current state of each entity? The only thing that I can think of is having separate systems for each group of entities and separate State and Animation components so I would have PlayerState, PlayerAnimation, Enemy1State, Enemy1Animation... PlayerMovementSystem, PlayerRenderingSystem... but I think this is a bad solution and breaks the purpose of having a component-based system. As you can see, I'm quite lost here, so I'd very much appreciate any help.

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• Scalable Architecture for modern Web Development [on hold]

  - by Jhilke Dai

  I am doing research about Scalable architecture for Web Development, the research is solely to support Modern Web Development with flexible architecture which can scale up/down according to the needs without losing any core functionality. By Modern Web I mean to support all the Devices used to access websites, but the loading mechanism for all devices would be different. My quest of architecture is: For PC: Accessing web in PC is faster but it also depends on the Geo-location, so, the application would check by default the capacity of Internet/Browser and load the page according to it. For Mobile: Most of the mobile design these days either hide information or use different version of same application. eg: facebook uses m.facebook.com which is completely different than PC version. Hiding the things from Mobile using JavaScript or CSS is not a solution as it'll consume the bandwidth and make the application slow. So, my architecture research is about Serving one Application, which has different stack. When the application receives the request it'd send the Packaged Stack to the received request. This way the load time for end users would be faster and maintenance of application for developers would be easier. I am researching about for 4-tier(layered) architecture like: Presentation Layer Application Logic Layer -- The main Logic layer which stores the Presentation Stack Business Logic Layer Data Layer Main Question: Have you come across of similar architecture? If so, then can you list the links here, I'm very much interested to learn about those implementations specially in real world scenario. Have you thought about similar architectures and tried your own ideas, or if you have any ideas regarding this, then I urge to share. I am open to any discussions regarding this, so, please feel free to comment/answer.

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• Are there existing FOSS component-based frameworks?

  - by Tesserex

  The component based game programming paradigm is becoming much more popular. I was wondering, are there any projects out there that offer a reusable component framework? In any language, I guess I don't care about that. It's not for my own project, I'm just curious. Specifically I mean are there projects that include a base Entity class, a base Component class, and maybe some standard components? It would then be much easier starting a game if you didn't want to reinvent the wheel, or maybe you want a GraphicsComponent that does sprites with Direct3D, but you figure it's already been done a dozen times. A quick Googling turns up Rusher. Has anyone heard of this / does anyone use it? If there are no popular ones, then why not? Is it too difficult to make something like this reusable, and they need heavy customization? In my own implementation I found a lot of boilerplate that could be shoved into a framework.

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• Are there existing FOSS component-based frameworks?

  - by Tesserex

  The component based game programming paradigm is becoming much more popular. I was wondering, are there any projects out there that offer a reusable component framework? In any language, I guess I don't care about that. It's not for my own project, I'm just curious. Specifically I mean are there projects that include a base Entity class, a base Component class, and maybe some standard components? It would then be much easier starting a game if you didn't want to reinvent the wheel, or maybe you want a GraphicsComponent that does sprites with Direct3D, but you figure it's already been done a dozen times. A quick Googling turns up Rusher. Has anyone heard of this / does anyone use it? If there are no popular ones, then why not? Is it too difficult to make something like this reusable, and they need heavy customization? In my own implementation I found a lot of boilerplate that could be shoved into a framework.

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• MVC Architecture

  Model-View-Controller (MVC) is an architectural design pattern first written about and implemented by  in 1978. Trygve developed this pattern during the year he spent working with Xerox PARC on a small talk application. According to Trygve, “The essential purpose of MVC is to bridge the gap between the human user's mental model and the digital model that exists in the computer. The ideal MVC solution supports the user illusion of seeing and manipulating the domain information directly. The structure is useful if the user needs to see the same model element simultaneously in different contexts and/or from different viewpoints.”  Trygve Reenskaug on MVC The MVC pattern is composed of 3 core components. Model View Controller The Model component referenced in the MVC pattern pertains to the encapsulation of core application data and functionality. The primary goal of the model is to maintain its independence from the View and Controller components which together form the user interface of the application. The View component retrieves data from the Model and displays it to the user. The View component represents the output of the application to the user. Traditionally the View has read-only access to the Model component because it should not change the Model’s data. The Controller component receives and translates input to requests on the Model or View components. The Controller is responsible for requesting methods on the model that can change the state of the model. The primary benefit to using MVC as an architectural pattern in a project compared to other patterns is flexibility. The flexibility of MVC is due to the distinct separation of concerns it establishes with three distinct components.  Because of the distinct separation between the components interaction is limited through the use of interfaces instead of classes. This allows each of the components to be hot swappable when the needs of the application change or needs of availability change. MVC can easily be applied to C# and the .Net Framework. In fact, Microsoft created a MVC project template that will allow new project of this type to be created with the standard MVC structure in place before any coding begins. The project also creates folders for the three key components along with default Model, View and Controller classed added to the project. Personally I think that MVC is a great pattern in regards to dealing with web applications because they could be viewed from a myriad of devices. Examples of devices include: standard web browsers, text only web browsers, mobile phones, smart phones, IPads, IPhones just to get started. Due to the potentially increasing accessibility needs and the ability for components to be hot swappable is a perfect fit because the core functionality of the application can be retained and the View component can be altered based on the client’s environment and the View component could be swapped out based on the calling device so that the display is targeted to that specific device.

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