Search Results

Search found 7081 results on 284 pages for 'power cycle'.

Page 250/284 | < Previous Page | 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257  | Next Page >

• How to convert my backup.cmd into something I can run in Linux?

  - by blade19899

  Back in the day when i was using windows(and a noob at everything IT) i liked batch scripting so much that i wrote a lot of them and one i am pretty proud of that is my backup.cmd(see below). I am pretty basic with the linux bash sudo/apt-get/sl/ls/locate/updatedb/etc... I don't really know the full power of the terminal. If you see the code below can i get it to work under (Ubuntu)linux :) by rewriting some of the windows code with the linux equivalent (btw:this works under xp/vista/7 | dutch/english) @echo off title back it up :home cls echo ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» echo º º echo º typ A/B for the options º echo º º echo ÌÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͹ echo º º echo º "A"=backup options º echo º º echo º "B"=HARDDISK Options º echo º º echo º º echo ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍŒ set /p selection=Choose: Goto %selection% :A cls echo ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» echo º º echo º typ 1 to start that backup º echo º º echo ÌÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͹ echo º º echo º "A"=backup options º echo º È1=Documents,Pictures,Music,Videos,Downloads º echo º º echo º "B"=HARDDISK Options º echo º º echo ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍŒ set /p selection=Choose: Goto %selection% :B cls echo ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» echo º º echo º typ HD to start the disk check º echo º º echo ÌÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͹ echo º º echo º "A"=backup options º echo º º echo º "B"=HARDDISK Options º echo º ÈHD=find and repair bad sectors º echo º º echo ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍŒ set /p selection=Choose: Goto %selection% :1 cls if exist "%userprofile%\desktop" (set desk=desktop) else (set desk=Bureaublad) if exist "%userprofile%\documents" (set docs=documents) else (set docs=mijn documenten) if exist "%userprofile%\pictures" (set pics=pictures) else (echo cant find %userprofile%\pictures) if exist "%userprofile%\music" (set mus=music) else (echo cant find %userprofile%\music) if exist "%userprofile%\Videos" (set vids=videos) else (echo cant find %userprofile%\videos) if exist "%userprofile%\Downloads" (set down=downloads) else (echo cant find %userprofile%\Downloads) cls echo. examples (D:\) (D:\Backup) (D:\Backup\18-4-2011) echo. echo. if there is no "D:\backup" folder then the folder will be created echo. set drive= set /p drive=storage: echo start>>backup.log echo Name:%username%>>backup.log echo Date:%date%>>backup.log echo Time:%time%>>backup.log echo ========================================%docs%===========================================>>backup.log echo %docs% echo Source:"%userprofile%\%docs%" echo Destination:"%drive%\%username%\%docs%" echo %time%>>backup.log xcopy "%userprofile%\%docs%" "%drive%\%username%\%docs%" /E /I>>Backup.log echo 20%% cls echo ========================================"%pics%"=========================================>>backup.log echo "%pics%" echo Source:"%userprofile%\%pics%" echo Destination:"%drive%\%username%\%pics%" echo %time%>>backup.log xcopy "%userprofile%\%pics%" "%drive%\%username%\%pics%" /E /I>>Backup.log echo 40%% cls echo ========================================"%mus%"=========================================>>backup.log echo "%mus%" echo Source:"%userprofile%\%mus%" echo Destination:"%drive%\%username%\%mus%" echo %time%>>backup.log xcopy "%userprofile%\%mus%" "%drive%\%username%\%mus%" /E /I>>Backup.log echo 60%% cls echo ========================================"%vids%"========================================>>backup.log echo %vids% echo Source:"%userprofile%\%vids%" echo Destination:"%drive%\%username%\%vids%" echo %time%>>backup.log xcopy "%userprofile%\%vids%" "%drive%\%username%\%vids%" /E /I>>Backup.log echo 80%% cls echo ========================================"%down%"========================================>>backup.log echo "%down%" echo Source:"%userprofile%\%down%" echo Destination:"%drive%\%username%\%down%" echo %time%>>backup.log xcopy "%userprofile%\%down%" "%drive%\%username%\%down%" /E /I>>Backup.log echo end>>backup.log echo %username% %date% %time%>>backup.log echo 100%% cls echo backup Compleet copy "backup.log" "%drive%\%username%" del "backup.log" pushd "%drive%\%username%" echo close backup.log to continue with backup script "backup.log" echo press any key to retun to the main menu pause>nul goto :home :HD echo finds and repairs bad sectors echo typ in harddisk letter (C: D: E:) set HD= set /p HD=Hard Disk: chkdsk %HD% /F /R /X pause goto :home

  Read the article

• Oracle and Partners release CAMP specification for PaaS Management

  - by macoracle

  Cloud Application Management for Platforms The public release of the Cloud Application Management for Platforms (CAMP) specification, an initial draft of what is expected to become an industry standard self service interface specification for Platform as a Service (PaaS) management, represents a significant milestone in cloud standards development. Created by several players in the emerging cloud industry, including Oracle, the specification is being submitted to the OASIS standards organization (draft charter) where it will be finalized in an open development process. CAMP is targeted at application developers and deployers for self service management of their application on a Platform-as-a-Service cloud. It is closely aligned with the application development process where applications are typically developed in an Application Development Environment (ADE) and then deployed into a private or public platform cloud. CAMP standardizes the model behind an application’s dependencies on platform components and provides a standardized format for moving applications between the ADE and the cloud, and if and when desirable, between clouds. Once an application is deployed, CAMP provides users with a standardized self service interface to the PaaS offering, allowing the cloud consumer to manage the lifecycle of the application on that platform and the use of the underlying platform services. The CAMP interface includes a RESTful binding of the CAMP model onto the standard HTTP protocol, using JSON as the encoding for the model resources. The model for CAMP includes resources that represent the Application, its Components and any Platform Components that they depend on. It's important PaaS Cloud consumers understand that for a PaaS cloud, these are the abstractions that the user would prefer to work with, not Virtual Machines and the various resources such as compute power, storage and networking. PaaS cloud consumers would also not like to become system administrators for the infrastructure that is hosting their applications and component services. CAMP works on this more abstract level, and yet still accommodates platforms that are built using an underlying infrastructure cloud. With CAMP, it is up to the cloud provider whether or not this underlying infrastructure is exposed to the consumer. One major challenge addressed by the CAMP specification is that of ensuring that application deployment on a new platform is as seamless and error free as possible. This becomes even more difficult when the application may have been developed for a different platform and is now moving to a new one. In CAMP this is accomplished by matching the requirements of the application and its components to the specific capabilities of the underlying platform. This needs to be done regardless of whether there are existing pools of virtualized platform resources (such as a database pool) which are provisioned(on the basis of a schema for example), or whether the platform component is really just a set of virtual machines drawn from an infrastructure pool. The interoperability between platform clouds that CAMP offers means that a CAMP client such as an ADE can target multiple clouds with a single common interface. Applications can even be spread across multiple platform clouds and then managed without needing to create a specialized adapter to manage the components running in each cloud. The development of CAMP has been an effort by a small set of companies, but there are significant advantages to this approach. For example, the way that each of these companies creates their platforms is different enough, to ensure that CAMP can cover a wide range of actual deployments. CAMP is now entering the next phase of development under the guidance of an open standards organization, OASIS, which will likely broaden it’s capabilities. We hope is to keep it concise and minimal, however, to ease implementation and adoption. Over time there will be many different types of platform components that applications can use and which need management. CAMP at this point only includes one example of this (in an appendix) – DataBase as a Service. I am looking forward to the start of the CAMP Technical Committee in OASIS and will do my best to ensure a successful development process. Hope to see you there.

  Read the article

• Speeding up procedural texture generation

  - by FalconNL

  Recently I've begun working on a game that takes place in a procedurally generated solar system. After a bit of a learning curve (having neither worked with Scala, OpenGL 2 ES or Libgdx before), I have a basic tech demo going where you spin around a single procedurally textured planet: The problem I'm running into is the performance of the texture generation. A quick overview of what I'm doing: a planet is a cube that has been deformed to a sphere. To each side, a n x n (e.g. 256 x 256) texture is applied, which are bundled in one 8n x n texture that is sent to the fragment shader. The last two spaces are not used, they're only there to make sure the width is a power of 2. The texture is currently generated on the CPU, using the updated 2012 version of the simplex noise algorithm linked to in the paper 'Simplex noise demystified'. The scene I'm using to test the algorithm contains two spheres: the planet and the background. Both use a greyscale texture consisting of six octaves of 3D simplex noise, so for example if we choose 128x128 as the texture size there are 128 x 128 x 6 x 2 x 6 = about 1.2 million calls to the noise function. The closest you will get to the planet is about what's shown in the screenshot and since the game's target resolution is 1280x720 that means I'd prefer to use 512x512 textures. Combine that with the fact the actual textures will of course be more complicated than basic noise (There will be a day and night texture, blended in the fragment shader based on sunlight, and a specular mask. I need noise for continents, terrain color variation, clouds, city lights, etc.) and we're looking at something like 512 x 512 x 6 x 3 x 15 = 70 million noise calls for the planet alone. In the final game, there will be activities when traveling between planets, so a wait of 5 or 10 seconds, possibly 20, would be acceptable since I can calculate the texture in the background while traveling, though obviously the faster the better. Getting back to our test scene, performance on my PC isn't too terrible, though still too slow considering the final result is going to be about 60 times worse: 128x128 : 0.1s 256x256 : 0.4s 512x512 : 1.7s This is after I moved all performance-critical code to Java, since trying to do so in Scala was a lot worse. Running this on my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S3), however, produces a more problematic result: 128x128 : 2s 256x256 : 7s 512x512 : 29s Already far too long, and that's not even factoring in the fact that it'll be minutes instead of seconds in the final version. Clearly something needs to be done. Personally, I see a few potential avenues, though I'm not particularly keen on any of them yet: Don't precalculate the textures, but let the fragment shader calculate everything. Probably not feasible, because at one point I had the background as a fullscreen quad with a pixel shader and I got about 1 fps on my phone. Use the GPU to render the texture once, store it and use the stored texture from then on. Upside: might be faster than doing it on the CPU since the GPU is supposed to be faster at floating point calculations. Downside: effects that cannot (easily) be expressed as functions of simplex noise (e.g. gas planet vortices, moon craters, etc.) are a lot more difficult to code in GLSL than in Scala/Java. Calculate a large amount of noise textures and ship them with the application. I'd like to avoid this if at all possible. Lower the resolution. Buys me a 4x performance gain, which isn't really enough plus I lose a lot of quality. Find a faster noise algorithm. If anyone has one I'm all ears, but simplex is already supposed to be faster than perlin. Adopt a pixel art style, allowing for lower resolution textures and fewer noise octaves. While I originally envisioned the game in this style, I've come to prefer the realistic approach. I'm doing something wrong and the performance should already be one or two orders of magnitude better. If this is the case, please let me know. If anyone has any suggestions, tips, workarounds, or other comments regarding this problem I'd love to hear them.

  Read the article

• MySQL is running VERY slow on CentOS 6x (not 5x)

  - by user1032531

  I have two servers: a VPS and a laptop. I recently re-built both of them, and MySQL is running about 20 times slower on the laptop. Both servers used to run CentOS 5.8 and I think MySQL 5.1, and the laptop used to do great so I do not think it is the hardware. For the VPS, my provider installed CentOS 6.4, and then I installed MySQL 5.1.69 using yum with the CentOS repo. For the laptop, I installed CentOS 6.4 basic server and then installed MySQL 5.1.69 using yum with the CentOS repo. my.cnf for both servers are identical, and I have shown below. For both servers, I've also included below the output from SHOW VARIABLES; as well as output from sysbench, file system information, and cpu information. I have tried adding skip-name-resolve, but it didn't help. The matrix below shows the SHOW VARIABLES output from both servers which is different. Again, MySQL was installed the same way, so I do not know why it is different, but it is and I think this might be why the laptop is executing MySQL so slowly. Why is the laptop running MySQL slowly, and how do I fix it? Differences between SHOW VARIABLES on both servers +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ | Variable | Value-VPS | Value-Laptop | +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ | hostname | vps.site1.com | laptop.site2.com | | max_binlog_cache_size | 4294963200 | 18446744073709500000 | | max_seeks_for_key | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | max_write_lock_count | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | myisam_max_sort_file_size | 2146435072 | 9223372036853720000 | | myisam_mmap_size | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | plugin_dir | /usr/lib/mysql/plugin | /usr/lib64/mysql/plugin | | pseudo_thread_id | 7568 | 2 | | system_time_zone | EST | PDT | | thread_stack | 196608 | 262144 | | timestamp | 1372252112 | 1372252046 | | version_compile_machine | i386 | x86_64 | +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ my.cnf for both servers [root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/my.cnf [mysqld] datadir=/var/lib/mysql socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock user=mysql # Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks symbolic-links=0 [mysqld_safe] log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid innodb_strict_mode=on sql_mode=TRADITIONAL # sql_mode=STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_DATE,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE character-set-server=utf8 collation-server=utf8_general_ci log=/var/log/mysqld_all.log [root@server1 ~]# VPS SHOW VARIABLES Info Same as Laptop shown below but changes per above matrix (removed to allow me to be under the 30000 characters as required by ServerFault) Laptop SHOW VARIABLES Info auto_increment_increment 1 auto_increment_offset 1 autocommit ON automatic_sp_privileges ON back_log 50 basedir /usr/ big_tables OFF binlog_cache_size 32768 binlog_direct_non_transactional_updates OFF binlog_format STATEMENT bulk_insert_buffer_size 8388608 character_set_client utf8 character_set_connection utf8 character_set_database latin1 character_set_filesystem binary character_set_results utf8 character_set_server latin1 character_set_system utf8 character_sets_dir /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ collation_connection utf8_general_ci collation_database latin1_swedish_ci collation_server latin1_swedish_ci completion_type 0 concurrent_insert 1 connect_timeout 10 datadir /var/lib/mysql/ date_format %Y-%m-%d datetime_format %Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s default_week_format 0 delay_key_write ON delayed_insert_limit 100 delayed_insert_timeout 300 delayed_queue_size 1000 div_precision_increment 4 engine_condition_pushdown ON error_count 0 event_scheduler OFF expire_logs_days 0 flush OFF flush_time 0 foreign_key_checks ON ft_boolean_syntax + -><()~*:""&| ft_max_word_len 84 ft_min_word_len 4 ft_query_expansion_limit 20 ft_stopword_file (built-in) general_log OFF general_log_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.log group_concat_max_len 1024 have_community_features YES have_compress YES have_crypt YES have_csv YES have_dynamic_loading YES have_geometry YES have_innodb YES have_ndbcluster NO have_openssl DISABLED have_partitioning YES have_query_cache YES have_rtree_keys YES have_ssl DISABLED have_symlink DISABLED hostname server1.site2.com identity 0 ignore_builtin_innodb OFF init_connect init_file init_slave innodb_adaptive_hash_index ON innodb_additional_mem_pool_size 1048576 innodb_autoextend_increment 8 innodb_autoinc_lock_mode 1 innodb_buffer_pool_size 8388608 innodb_checksums ON innodb_commit_concurrency 0 innodb_concurrency_tickets 500 innodb_data_file_path ibdata1:10M:autoextend innodb_data_home_dir innodb_doublewrite ON innodb_fast_shutdown 1 innodb_file_io_threads 4 innodb_file_per_table OFF innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit 1 innodb_flush_method innodb_force_recovery 0 innodb_lock_wait_timeout 50 innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog OFF innodb_log_buffer_size 1048576 innodb_log_file_size 5242880 innodb_log_files_in_group 2 innodb_log_group_home_dir ./ innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct 90 innodb_max_purge_lag 0 innodb_mirrored_log_groups 1 innodb_open_files 300 innodb_rollback_on_timeout OFF innodb_stats_method nulls_equal innodb_stats_on_metadata ON innodb_support_xa ON innodb_sync_spin_loops 20 innodb_table_locks ON innodb_thread_concurrency 8 innodb_thread_sleep_delay 10000 innodb_use_legacy_cardinality_algorithm ON insert_id 0 interactive_timeout 28800 join_buffer_size 131072 keep_files_on_create OFF key_buffer_size 8384512 key_cache_age_threshold 300 key_cache_block_size 1024 key_cache_division_limit 100 language /usr/share/mysql/english/ large_files_support ON large_page_size 0 large_pages OFF last_insert_id 0 lc_time_names en_US license GPL local_infile ON locked_in_memory OFF log OFF log_bin OFF log_bin_trust_function_creators OFF log_bin_trust_routine_creators OFF log_error /var/log/mysqld.log log_output FILE log_queries_not_using_indexes OFF log_slave_updates OFF log_slow_queries OFF log_warnings 1 long_query_time 10.000000 low_priority_updates OFF lower_case_file_system OFF lower_case_table_names 0 max_allowed_packet 1048576 max_binlog_cache_size 18446744073709547520 max_binlog_size 1073741824 max_connect_errors 10 max_connections 151 max_delayed_threads 20 max_error_count 64 max_heap_table_size 16777216 max_insert_delayed_threads 20 max_join_size 18446744073709551615 max_length_for_sort_data 1024 max_long_data_size 1048576 max_prepared_stmt_count 16382 max_relay_log_size 0 max_seeks_for_key 18446744073709551615 max_sort_length 1024 max_sp_recursion_depth 0 max_tmp_tables 32 max_user_connections 0 max_write_lock_count 18446744073709551615 min_examined_row_limit 0 multi_range_count 256 myisam_data_pointer_size 6 myisam_max_sort_file_size 9223372036853727232 myisam_mmap_size 18446744073709551615 myisam_recover_options OFF myisam_repair_threads 1 myisam_sort_buffer_size 8388608 myisam_stats_method nulls_unequal myisam_use_mmap OFF net_buffer_length 16384 net_read_timeout 30 net_retry_count 10 net_write_timeout 60 new OFF old OFF old_alter_table OFF old_passwords OFF open_files_limit 1024 optimizer_prune_level 1 optimizer_search_depth 62 optimizer_switch index_merge=on,index_merge_union=on,index_merge_sort_union=on,index_merge_intersection=on pid_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid plugin_dir /usr/lib64/mysql/plugin port 3306 preload_buffer_size 32768 profiling OFF profiling_history_size 15 protocol_version 10 pseudo_thread_id 3 query_alloc_block_size 8192 query_cache_limit 1048576 query_cache_min_res_unit 4096 query_cache_size 0 query_cache_type ON query_cache_wlock_invalidate OFF query_prealloc_size 8192 rand_seed1 rand_seed2 range_alloc_block_size 4096 read_buffer_size 131072 read_only OFF read_rnd_buffer_size 262144 relay_log relay_log_index relay_log_info_file relay-log.info relay_log_purge ON relay_log_space_limit 0 report_host report_password report_port 3306 report_user rpl_recovery_rank 0 secure_auth OFF secure_file_priv server_id 0 skip_external_locking ON skip_name_resolve OFF skip_networking OFF skip_show_database OFF slave_compressed_protocol OFF slave_exec_mode STRICT slave_load_tmpdir /tmp slave_max_allowed_packet 1073741824 slave_net_timeout 3600 slave_skip_errors OFF slave_transaction_retries 10 slow_launch_time 2 slow_query_log OFF slow_query_log_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld-slow.log socket /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock sort_buffer_size 2097144 sql_auto_is_null ON sql_big_selects ON sql_big_tables OFF sql_buffer_result OFF sql_log_bin ON sql_log_off OFF sql_log_update ON sql_low_priority_updates OFF sql_max_join_size 18446744073709551615 sql_mode sql_notes ON sql_quote_show_create ON sql_safe_updates OFF sql_select_limit 18446744073709551615 sql_slave_skip_counter sql_warnings OFF ssl_ca ssl_capath ssl_cert ssl_cipher ssl_key storage_engine MyISAM sync_binlog 0 sync_frm ON system_time_zone PDT table_definition_cache 256 table_lock_wait_timeout 50 table_open_cache 64 table_type MyISAM thread_cache_size 0 thread_handling one-thread-per-connection thread_stack 262144 time_format %H:%i:%s time_zone SYSTEM timed_mutexes OFF timestamp 1372254399 tmp_table_size 16777216 tmpdir /tmp transaction_alloc_block_size 8192 transaction_prealloc_size 4096 tx_isolation REPEATABLE-READ unique_checks ON updatable_views_with_limit YES version 5.1.69 version_comment Source distribution version_compile_machine x86_64 version_compile_os redhat-linux-gnu wait_timeout 28800 warning_count 0 VPS Sysbench Info Deleted to stay under 30000 characters. Laptop Sysbench Info [root@server1 ~]# cat sysbench.txt sysbench 0.4.12: multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark Running the test with following options: Number of threads: 8 Doing OLTP test. Running mixed OLTP test Doing read-only test Using Special distribution (12 iterations, 1 pct of values are returned in 75 pct cases) Using "BEGIN" for starting transactions Using auto_inc on the id column Threads started! Time limit exceeded, exiting... (last message repeated 7 times) Done. OLTP test statistics: queries performed: read: 634718 write: 0 other: 90674 total: 725392 transactions: 45337 (755.56 per sec.) deadlocks: 0 (0.00 per sec.) read/write requests: 634718 (10577.78 per sec.) other operations: 90674 (1511.11 per sec.) Test execution summary: total time: 60.0048s total number of events: 45337 total time taken by event execution: 479.4912 per-request statistics: min: 2.04ms avg: 10.58ms max: 85.56ms approx. 95 percentile: 19.70ms Threads fairness: events (avg/stddev): 5667.1250/42.18 execution time (avg/stddev): 59.9364/0.00 [root@server1 ~]# VPS File Info [root@vps ~]# df -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/simfs simfs 20971520 16187440 4784080 78% / none tmpfs 6224432 4 6224428 1% /dev none tmpfs 6224432 0 6224432 0% /dev/shm [root@vps ~]# Laptop File Info [root@server1 ~]# df -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/vg_server1-lv_root ext4 72383800 4243964 64462860 7% / tmpfs tmpfs 956352 0 956352 0% /dev/shm /dev/sdb1 ext4 495844 60948 409296 13% /boot [root@server1 ~]# VPS CPU Info Removed to stay under the 30000 character limit required by ServerFault Laptop CPU Info [root@server1 ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 15 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz stepping : 13 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority bogomips : 3591.39 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 15 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz stepping : 13 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 1 initial apicid : 1 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority bogomips : 3591.39 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: [root@server1 ~]# EDIT New Info requested by shakalandy [root@localhost ~]# cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 2044804 kB MemFree: 761464 kB Buffers: 68868 kB Cached: 369708 kB SwapCached: 0 kB Active: 881080 kB Inactive: 246016 kB Active(anon): 688312 kB Inactive(anon): 4416 kB Active(file): 192768 kB Inactive(file): 241600 kB Unevictable: 0 kB Mlocked: 0 kB SwapTotal: 4095992 kB SwapFree: 4095992 kB Dirty: 0 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 688428 kB Mapped: 65156 kB Shmem: 4216 kB Slab: 92428 kB SReclaimable: 31260 kB SUnreclaim: 61168 kB KernelStack: 2392 kB PageTables: 28356 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 5118392 kB Committed_AS: 1530212 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 343604 kB VmallocChunk: 34359372920 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 520192 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 HugePages_Surp: 0 Hugepagesize: 2048 kB DirectMap4k: 8556 kB DirectMap2M: 2078720 kB [root@localhost ~]# ps aux | grep mysql root 2227 0.0 0.0 108332 1504 ? S 07:36 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid mysql 2319 0.1 24.5 1470068 501360 ? Sl 07:36 0:57 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.err --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid root 3579 0.0 0.1 201840 3028 pts/0 S+ 07:40 0:00 mysql -u root -p root 13887 0.0 0.1 201840 3036 pts/3 S+ 18:08 0:00 mysql -uroot -px xxxxxxxxxx root 14449 0.0 0.0 103248 840 pts/2 S+ 18:16 0:00 grep mysql [root@localhost ~]# ps aux | grep mysql root 2227 0.0 0.0 108332 1504 ? S 07:36 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid mysql 2319 0.1 24.5 1470068 501356 ? Sl 07:36 0:57 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.err --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid root 3579 0.0 0.1 201840 3028 pts/0 S+ 07:40 0:00 mysql -u root -p root 13887 0.0 0.1 201840 3048 pts/3 S+ 18:08 0:00 mysql -uroot -px xxxxxxxxxx root 14470 0.0 0.0 103248 840 pts/2 S+ 18:16 0:00 grep mysql [root@localhost ~]# vmstat 1 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu----- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st 0 0 0 742172 76376 371064 0 0 6 6 78 202 2 1 97 1 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371060 0 0 0 16 191 467 2 1 93 5 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 148 388 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 159 418 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 145 380 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 166 429 2 1 97 0 0 1 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 148 373 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 149 382 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 168 408 2 0 97 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 165 394 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 159 354 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76388 371060 0 0 0 16 180 447 2 0 91 6 0 0 0 0 742164 76388 371064 0 0 0 0 143 344 2 1 98 0 0 0 1 0 742784 76416 370044 0 0 28 580 360 678 3 1 74 23 0 1 0 0 744768 76496 367772 0 0 40 1036 437 865 3 1 53 43 0 0 1 0 747248 76596 365412 0 0 48 1224 561 923 3 2 53 43 0 0 1 0 749232 76696 363092 0 0 32 1132 512 883 3 2 52 44 0 0 1 0 751340 76772 361020 0 0 32 1008 472 872 2 1 52 45 0 0 1 0 753448 76840 358540 0 0 36 1088 512 860 2 1 51 46 0 0 1 0 755060 76936 357636 0 0 28 1012 481 922 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 755060 77064 357988 0 0 12 896 444 902 2 1 53 45 0 0 1 0 754688 77148 358448 0 0 16 1096 506 1007 1 1 56 42 0 0 2 0 754192 77268 358932 0 0 12 1060 481 957 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 753696 77380 359392 0 0 12 1052 512 1025 2 1 55 42 0 0 1 0 751028 77480 359828 0 0 8 984 423 909 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 750524 77620 360200 0 0 8 788 367 869 1 2 54 44 0 0 1 0 749904 77700 360664 0 0 8 928 439 924 2 2 55 43 0 0 1 0 749408 77796 361084 0 0 12 976 468 967 1 1 56 43 0 0 1 0 748788 77896 361464 0 0 12 992 453 944 1 2 54 43 0 1 1 0 748416 77992 361996 0 0 12 784 392 868 2 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 747920 78092 362336 0 0 4 896 382 874 1 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 745252 78172 362780 0 0 12 1040 444 923 1 1 56 42 0 0 1 0 744764 78288 363220 0 0 8 1024 448 934 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 744144 78408 363668 0 0 8 1000 461 982 2 1 53 44 0 0 1 0 743648 78488 364148 0 0 8 872 443 888 2 1 54 43 0 0 1 0 743152 78548 364468 0 0 16 1020 511 995 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 742656 78632 365024 0 0 12 928 431 913 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 742160 78728 365468 0 0 12 996 470 955 2 2 54 44 0 1 1 0 739492 78840 365896 0 0 8 988 447 939 1 2 52 46 0 0 1 0 738872 78996 366352 0 0 12 972 442 928 1 1 55 44 0 1 1 0 738244 79148 366812 0 0 8 948 549 1126 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 737624 79312 367188 0 0 12 996 456 953 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 736880 79456 367660 0 0 12 960 444 918 1 1 53 46 0 0 1 0 736260 79584 368124 0 0 8 884 414 921 1 1 54 44 0 0 1 0 735648 79716 368488 0 0 12 976 450 955 2 1 56 41 0 0 1 0 733104 79840 368988 0 0 12 932 453 918 1 2 55 43 0 0 1 0 732608 79996 369356 0 0 16 916 444 889 1 2 54 43 0 1 1 0 731476 80128 369800 0 0 16 852 514 978 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 731244 80252 370200 0 0 8 904 398 870 2 1 55 43 0 1 1 0 730624 80384 370612 0 0 12 1032 447 977 1 2 57 41 0 0 1 0 730004 80524 371096 0 0 12 984 469 941 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 729508 80636 371544 0 0 12 928 438 922 2 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 728888 80756 371948 0 0 16 972 439 943 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 726468 80900 372272 0 0 8 960 545 1024 2 1 54 43 0 1 1 0 726344 81024 372272 0 0 8 464 490 1057 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 726096 81148 372276 0 0 4 328 441 1063 2 1 53 45 0 1 1 0 726096 81256 372292 0 0 0 296 387 975 1 1 53 45 0 0 1 0 725848 81380 372284 0 0 4 332 425 1034 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 725848 81496 372300 0 0 4 308 386 992 2 1 54 43 0 0 1 0 725600 81616 372296 0 0 4 328 404 1060 1 1 54 44 0 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu----- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st 0 1 0 725600 81732 372296 0 0 4 328 439 1011 1 1 53 44 0 0 1 0 725476 81848 372308 0 0 0 316 441 1023 2 2 52 46 0 1 1 0 725352 81972 372300 0 0 4 344 451 1021 1 1 55 43 0 2 1 0 725228 82088 372320 0 0 0 328 427 1058 1 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724980 82220 372300 0 0 4 336 419 999 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724980 82328 372320 0 0 4 320 430 1019 1 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724732 82436 372328 0 0 0 388 363 942 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724608 82560 372312 0 0 4 308 419 993 1 2 54 44 0 1 0 0 724360 82684 372320 0 0 0 304 421 1028 2 1 55 42 0 1 0 0 724360 82684 372388 0 0 0 0 158 416 2 1 98 0 0 1 1 0 724236 82720 372360 0 0 0 6464 243 855 3 2 84 12 0 1 0 0 724112 82748 372360 0 0 0 5356 266 895 3 1 84 12 0 2 1 0 724112 82764 372380 0 0 0 3052 221 511 2 2 93 4 0 1 0 0 724112 82796 372372 0 0 0 4548 325 1067 2 2 81 16 0 1 0 0 724112 82816 372368 0 0 0 3240 259 829 3 1 90 6 0 1 0 0 724112 82836 372380 0 0 0 3260 309 822 3 2 88 8 0 1 1 0 724112 82876 372364 0 0 0 4680 326 978 3 1 77 19 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372380 0 0 0 512 207 508 2 1 95 2 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 138 361 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 158 397 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 146 395 2 1 98 0 0 2 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 160 395 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 163 382 1 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 176 422 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 134 351 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 190 429 2 1 97 0 0 0 0 0 724104 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 139 358 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724848 82884 372392 0 0 0 4 211 432 2 1 97 0 0 1 0 0 724980 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 166 370 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724980 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 164 397 2 1 98 0 0 ^C [root@localhost ~]# Database size mysql> SELECT table_schema "Data Base Name", sum( data_length + index_length ) / 1024 / 1024 "Data Base Size in MB", sum( data_free )/ 1024 / 1024 "Free Space in MB" FROM information_schema.TABLES GROUP BY table_schema; +--------------------+----------------------+------------------+ | Data Base Name | Data Base Size in MB | Free Space in MB | +--------------------+----------------------+------------------+ | bidjunction | 4.68750000 | 0.00000000 | | information_schema | 0.00976563 | 0.00000000 | | mysql | 0.63899899 | 0.00105286 | +--------------------+----------------------+------------------+ 3 rows in set (0.01 sec) mysql> Before Query mysql> SHOW SESSION STATUS like '%Tmp%'; +-------------------------+-------+ | Variable_name | Value | +-------------------------+-------+ | Created_tmp_disk_tables | 0 | | Created_tmp_files | 6 | | Created_tmp_tables | 0 | +-------------------------+-------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> After Query mysql> SHOW SESSION STATUS like '%Tmp%'; +-------------------------+-------+ | Variable_name | Value | +-------------------------+-------+ | Created_tmp_disk_tables | 0 | | Created_tmp_files | 6 | | Created_tmp_tables | 2 | +-------------------------+-------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql>

  Read the article

• Technology vs. Antiquated Methods

  - by AreYouSerious

  So Here I am talking with my Program lead, about technology, and how while my father is the VP of a major company, he still doesn't have a blackberry, or a smart phone. and I think it's funny. Most people would say it's a generational thing. That because he's older, he dosen't accept technology, and that's why. I have trouble swallowing that because this is the same man, who bought a satellite radio for his car, and made sure that the printer for the house was networked so that his and my mom's laptop could print wirelessly from the living room through their wireless network. I think it has to do with more with necessity, and partially with finical responsibility. My father is very financially conciencious. Think about it yourself. you pay for internet at your home. You have internet access at your office. But if you get a smart phone you're going to pay almost the same amount just for that access. A lot of people take it as just another fixed cost... I'm one of those. I don't even think about it, as I check my facebook from the bus, train, or even while sitting in traffic... The convience of having connection everywhere outweigh the financial responsible person screaming at in the back of my mind. However This conversation lead us to another venue of discussion.... what happens when the power dies. if you left your charger at home, or you phone or navi just stops working... are you going to be able to continue on as you did when it was working... let take the navi as an example... if your navi stops working, how many of you know how to use a map, and navigate? can you even find where you are on a map using the cross streets that your stopped at? This is a skill that unfortunatelly is overlooked these days in the child rearing process. Most people don't see the value, while some others can't do it themselves, so how can they teach their offspring? Take another example.... what if your phone gets lost... or stolen, or you drive over it? do you have the numbers in their memorized? are they recorded somewhere? I know that if it weren't for google sync I wouldn't have them backed up... not sufficiently. And what good does that do if you're in timbuckto and your phone dies, think you can get on the internet to look up those numbers? Don't get me wrong. I'm the first to see the value in technology, and am willing to pay the price to not have to wait for prices to come down. I will pay extra to have that newest thing right now. but let me tell you what.... I know that should I ever procreate it will be a requirement for my offspring (children) to learn how to do something manually before I'll let them use technology. Food for thought?? Let everyone else know what you think.... just sayin'

  Read the article

• Does Test Driven Development (TDD) improve Quality and Correctness? (Part 1)

  - by David V. Corbin

  Since the dawn of the computer age, various methodologies have been introduced to improve quality and reduce cost. In this posting, I will by sharing my experiences with Test Driven Development; both its benefits and limitations. To start this topic, we need to agree on what TDD is. The first is to define each of the three words as used in this context. Test - An item or action which measures something in some quantifiable form. Driven - The primary motivation or focus of a series of activities (process) Development - All phases of a software project/product from concept through delivery. The above are very simple definitions that result in the following: "TDD is a process where the primary focus is on measuring and quantifying all aspects of the creation of a (software) product." There are many places where TDD is used outside of software development, even though it is not known by this name. Consider the (conventional) education process that most of us grew up on. The focus was to get the best grades as measured by different tests. Many of these tests measured rote memorization and not understanding of the subject matter. The result of this that many people graduated with high scores but without "quality and correctness" in their ability to utilize the subject matter (of course, the flip side is true where certain people DID understand the material but were not very good at taking this type of test). Returning to software development, let us look at some common scenarios. While these items are generally applicable regardless of platform, language and tools; the remainder of this post will utilize Microsoft Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server (TFS) for examples. It should be realized that everyone does at least some aspect of TDD. At the most rudimentary level, getting a program to compile involves a "pass/fail" measurement (is the syntax valid) that drives their ability to proceed further (run the program). Other developers may create "Unit Tests" in the belief that having a test for every method/property of a class and good code coverage is the goal of TDD. These items may be helpful and even important, but really only address a small aspect of the overall effort. To see TDD in a bigger view, lets identify the various activities that are part of the Software Development LifeCycle. These are going to be presented in a Waterfall style for simplicity, but each item also occurs within Iterative methodologies such as Agile/Scrum. the key ones here are: Requirements Gathering Architecture Design Implementation Quality Assurance Can each of these items be subjected to a process which establishes metrics (quantified metrics) that reflect both the quality and correctness of each item? It should be clear that conventional Unit Tests do not apply to all of these items; at best they can verify that a local aspect (e.g. a Class/Method) of implementation matches the (test writers perspective of) the appropriate design document. So what can we do? For each of area, the goal is to create tests that are quantifiable and durable. The ability to quantify the measurements (beyond a simple pass/fail) is critical to tracking progress(eventually measuring the level of success that has been achieved) and for providing clear information on what items need to be addressed (along with the appropriate time to address them - in varying levels of detail) . Durability is important so that the test can be reapplied (ideally in an automated fashion) over the entire cycle. Returning for a moment back to our "education example", one must also be careful of how the tests are organized and how the measurements are taken. If a test is in a multiple choice format, there is a significant statistical probability that a correct answer might be the result of a random guess. Also, in many situations, having the student simply provide a final answer can obscure many important elements. For example, on a math test, having the student simply provide a numeric answer (rather than showing the methodology) may result in a complete mismatch between the process and the result. It is hard to determine which is worse: The student who makes a simple arithmetric error at one step of a long process (resulting in a wrong answer) or The student who (without providing the "workflow") uses a completely invalid approach, yet still comes up with the right number. The "Wrong Process"/"Right Answer" is probably the single biggest problem in software development. Even very simple items can suffer from this. As an example consider the following code for a "straight line" calculation....Is it correct? (for Integral Points)         int Solve(int m, int b, int x) { return m * x + b; }   Most people would respond "Yes". But let's take the question one step further... Is it correct for all possible values of m,b,x??? (no fair if you cheated by being focused on the bolded text!)  Without additional information regarding constrains on "the possible values of m,b,x" the answer must be NO, there is the risk of overflow/wraparound that will produce an incorrect result! To properly answer this question (i.e. Test the Code), one MUST be able to backtrack from the implementation through the design, and architecture all the way back to the requirements. And the requirement itself must be tested against the stakeholder(s). It is only when the bounding conditions are defined that it is possible to determine if the code is "Correct" and has "Quality". Yet, how many of us (myself included) have written such code without even thinking about it. In many canses we (think we) "know" what the bounds are, and that the code will be correct. As we all know, requirements change, "code reuse" causes implementations to be applied to different scenarios, etc. This leads directly to the types of system failures that plague so many projects. This approach to TDD is much more holistic than ones which start by focusing on the details. The fundamental concepts still apply: Each item should be tested. The test should be defined/implemented before (or concurrent with) the definition/implementation of the actual item. We also add concepts that expand the scope and alter the style by recognizing: There are many things beside "lines of code" that benefit from testing (measuring/evaluating in a formal way) Correctness and Quality can not be solely measured by "correct results" In the future parts, we will examine in greater detail some of the techniques that can be applied to each of these areas....

  Read the article

• Can Microsoft Build Appliances?

  - by andrewbrust

  Billy Hollis, my Visual Studio Live! colleague and fellow Microsoft Regional Director said recently, and I am paraphrasing, that the computing world, especially on the consumer side, has shifted from one of building hardware and software that makes things possible to do, to building products and technologies that make things easy to do.  Billy crystalized things perfectly, as he often does. In this new world of “easy to do,” Apple has done very well and Microsoft has struggled.  In the old world, customers wanted a Swiss Army Knife, with the most gimmicks and gadgets possible.  In the new world, people want elegantly cutlery.  They may want cake cutters and utility knives too, but they don’t want one device that works for all three tasks.  People don’t want tools, they want utensils.  People don’t want machines.  They want appliances. Microsoft Appliances: They Do Exist Microsoft has built a few appliance-like devices.  I would say XBox 360 is an appliance,  It’s versatile, mind you, but it’s the kind of thing you plug in, turn on and use, as opposed to set-up, tune, and open up to upgrade the internals.  Windows Phone 7 is an appliance too.  It’s a true smartphone, unlike Windows Mobile which was a handheld computer with a radio stack.  Zune is an appliance too, and a nice one.  It hasn’t attained much traction in the market, but that’s probably because the seminal consumer computing appliance -- the iPod – got there so much more quickly. In the embedded world, Mediaroom, Microsoft’s set-top product for the cable industry (used by AT&T U-Verse and others) is an appliance.  So is Microsoft’s Sync technology, used in Ford automobiles.  Even on the enterprise side, Microsoft has an appliance: SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse Edition (PDW) combines Microsoft software with select OEMs’ server, networking and storage hardware.  You buy the appliance units from the OEMs, plug them in, connect them and go. I would even say that Bing is an appliance.  Not in the hardware sense, mind you.  But from the software perspective, it’s a single-purpose product that you visit or run, use and then move on.  You don’t have to install it (except the iOS and Android native apps where it’s pretty straightforward), you don’t have to customize it, you don’t have to program it.  Basically, you just use it. Microsoft Appliances that Should Exist But Microsoft builds a bunch of things that are not appliances.  Media Center is not an appliance, and it most certainly should be.  Instead, it’s an app that runs on Windows 7.  It runs full-screen and you can use this configuration to conceal the fact that Windows is under it, but eventually something will cause you to abandon that masquerade (like Patch Tuesday). The next version of Windows Home Server won’t, in my opinion, be an appliance either.  Now that the Drive Extender technology is gone, and users can’t just add and remove drives into and from a single storage pool, the product is much more like a IT server and less like an appliance-premised one.  Much has been written about this decision by Microsoft.  I’ll just sum it up in one word: pity. Microsoft doesn’t have anything remotely appliance-like in the tablet category, either.  Until it does, it likely won’t have much market share in that space either.  And of course, the bulk of Microsoft’s product catalog on the business side is geared to enterprise machines and not personal appliances. Appliance DNA: They Gotta Have It. The consumerization of IT is real, because businesspeople are consumers too.  They appreciate the fit and finish of appliances at home, and they increasingly feel entitled to have it at work too.  Secure and reliable push email in a smartphone is necessary, but it isn’t enough.  People want great apps and a pleasurable user experience too.  The full Microsoft Office product is needed at work, but a PC with a keyboard and mouse, or maybe a touch screen that uses a stylus (or requires really small fingers), to run Office isn’t enough either.  People want a flawless touch experience available for the times they want to read and take quick notes.  Until Microsoft realizes this fully and internalizes it, it will suffer defeats in the consumer market and even setbacks in the business market.  Think about how slow the Office upgrade cycle is…now imagine if the next version of Office had a first-class alternate touch UI and consider the possible acceleration in adoption rates. Can Microsoft make the appliance switch?  Can the appliance mentality become pervasive at the company?  Can Microsoft hasten its release cycles dramatically and shed the “some assembly required” paradigm upon which many of its products are based?  Let’s face it, the chances that Microsoft won’t make this transition are significant. But there are also encouraging signs, and they should not be ignored.  The appliances we have already discussed, especially Xbox, Zune and Windows Phone 7, are the most obvious in this regard.  The fact that SQL Server has an appliance SKU now is a more subtle but perhaps also more significant outcome, because that product sits so smack in the middle of Microsoft’s enterprise stack.  Bing is encouraging too, especially given its integrated travel, maps and augmented reality capabilities.  As Bing gains market share, Microsoft has tangible proof that it can transform and win, even when everyone outside the company, and many within it, would bet otherwise. That Great Big Appliance in the Sky Perhaps the most promising (and evolving) proof points toward the appliance mentality, though, are Microsoft’s cloud offerings -- Azure and BPOS/Office 365.  While the cloud does not represent a physical appliance (quite the opposite in fact) its ability to make acquisition, deployment and use of technology simple for the user is absolutely an embodiment of the appliance mentality and spirit.  Azure is primarily a platform as a service offering; it doesn’t just provide infrastructure.  SQL Azure does likewise for databases.  And Office 365 does likewise for SharePoint, Exchange and Lync. You don’t administer, tune and manage servers; instead, you create databases or site collections or mailboxes and start using them. Upgrades come automatically, and it seems like releases will come more frequently.  Fault tolerance and content distribution is just there.  No muss.  No fuss.  You use these services; you don’t have to set them up and think about them.  That’s how appliances work.  To me, these signs point out that Microsoft has the full capability of transforming itself.  But there’s a lot of work ahead.  Microsoft may say they’re “all in” on the cloud, but the majority of the company is still oriented around its old products and models.  There needs to be a wholesale cultural transformation in Redmond.  It can happen, but product management, program management, the field and executive ranks must unify in the effort. So must partners, and even customers.  New leaders must rise up and Microsoft must be able to see itself as a winner.  If Microsoft does this, it could lock-in decades of new success, and be a standard business school case study for doing so.  If not, the company will have missed an opportunity, and may see its undoing.

  Read the article

• Java EE 6 Pocket Guide from O'Reilly - Now Available in Paperback and Kindle Edition

  - by arungupta

  Hot off the press ... Java EE 6 Pocket Guide from 'OReilly Media is now available in Paperback and Kindle Edition. Here are the book details: Release Date: Sep 21, 2012 Language: English Pages: 208 Print ISBN: 978-1-4493-3668-4 | ISBN 10:1-4493-3668-X Ebook ISBN:978-1-4493-3667-7 | ISBN 10:1-4493-3667-1 The book provides a comprehensive summary of the Java EE 6 platform. Main features of different technologies from the platform are explained and accompanied by tons of samples. A chapter is dedicated to Managed Beans, Servlets, Java Persistence API, Enterprise JavaBeans, Contexts and Dependency Injection, JavaServer Faces, SOAP-Based Web Services, RESTful Web Services, Java Message Service, and Bean Validation in that format. Many thanks to Markus Eisele, John Yeary, and Bert Ertman for reviewing and providing valuable comments. This book was not possible without their extensive feedback! This book was mostly written by compiling my blogs, material from 2-day workshops, and several hands-on workshops around the world. The interactions with users of different technologies and whiteboard discussions with different specification leads helped me understand the technology better. Many thanks to them for helping me be a better user! The long international flights during my travel around the world proved extremely useful for authoring the content. No phone, no email, no IM, food served on the table, power outlet = a perfect recipe for authoring ;-) Markus wrote a detailed review of the book. He was one of the manuscript reviewers of the book as well and provided valuable guidance. Some excerpts from his blog: It covers the basics you need to know of Java EE 6 and gives good examples of all relevant parts. ... This is a pocket guide which is comprehensively written. I could follow all examples and it was a good read overall. No complicated constructs and clear writing. ... GO GET IT! It is the only book you probably will need about Java EE 6! It is comprehensive, wonderfully written and covers everything you need in your daily work. It is not a complete reference but provides a great shortcut to the things you need to know. To me it is a good beginners guide and also works as a companion for advanced users. Here is the first tweet feedback ... Jeff West was super prompt to place the first pre-order of my book, pretty much the hour it was announced. Thank you Jeff! @mike_neck posted the very first tweet about the book, thanks for that! The book is now available in Paperback and Kindle Edition from the following websites: O'Reilly Media (Ebook, Print & Ebook, Print) Amazon.com (Kindle Edition and Paperback) Barnes and Noble Overstock (1% off Amazon) Buy.com Booktopia.com Tower Books Angus & Robertson Shopping.com Here is how I can use your help: Help spread the word about the book If you bought a Paperback or downloaded Kindle Edition, then post your review here. If you have not bought, then you can buy it at amazon.com and multiple other websites mentioned above. If you are coming to JavaOne, you'll have an opportunity to get a free copy at O'Reilly's booth on Monday (October 1) from 2-3pm. And you can always buy it from the JavaOne Bookstore. I hope you enjoy reading it and learn something new from it or hone your existing skills. As always, looking forward to your feedback!

  Read the article

• Why you need to tag your build servers in TFS

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  At SSW we use gated check-in for all of our projects. The benefits are based on the number of developers you have working on your project. Lets say you have 30 developers and each developer breaks the build once per month. That could mean that you have a broken build every day! Gated check-ins help, but they have a down side that manifests as queued builds and moaning developers. The way to combat this is to have more build servers, but with that comes complexity. Inevitably you will need to install components that you would expect to be installed on target computers, but how do you keep track of which build servers have which bits? What about a geographically diverse team? If you have a centrally controlled infrastructure you might have build servers in multiple regions and you don’t want teams in Sydney copying files from Beijing and vice a versa on a regular basis. So, what is the answer. Its Tags. You can add a set of Tags to your agents and then set which tags to look for in the build definition. Figure: Open up your Build Controller Manager Select “Build | Manage Build Controllers…” to get a list of all of your controllers and he build agents that are associated with them. Figure: the list of build agents and their controllers Each of these Agents might be subtly different. For example only one of these agents has FTP software installed. This software is required for only one of the many builds we have set up. My ethos for build servers is to keep them as clean as possible and not to install anything that is not absolutely necessary. For me that means anything that does not add a *.target file is suspect, and should really be under version control and called via the command line from there. So, some of the things you may install are: Silverlight 4 SDK Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2008 WIX etc You should not install things that will not end up on the target users computer. For a website that means something different to a client than to a server, but I am sure you get the idea. One thing you can do to make things easier is to create a tag for each of the things that you install. that way developers can find the things they need. We may change to using a more generic tagging structure (Like “Web Application” or “WinForms Application”) if this gets too unwieldy, but for now the list of tags is limited. Figure: Tags associated with one of our build agents Once you have your Build Agents all tagged up ALL your builds will start to fail This is because the default setting for a build is to look for an Agent that exactly matches the tags for the build, and we have not added any yet. The quick way to fix this is to change the “Tag Comparison Operator” from “ExactMatch” to “MatchAtLease” to get your build immediately working. Figure: Tag Comparison Operator changes to MatchAtLeast to get builds to run. The next thing to do is look for specific tags. You just select from the list of available tags and the controller will make sure you get to a build agent that uses them. Figure: I want Silverlight, VS2010 and WIX, but do not care about Location. And there you go, you can now have build agents for different purposes and regions within the same environment. You can also use name filtering, so if you have a good Agent naming convention you can filter by that for regions. For example, your Agents might be “SYDVMAPTFSBP01” and “SYDVMAPTFSBP02” so a name filter of “SYD*” would target all of the Sydney build agents. Figure: Agent names can be used for filtering as well This flexibility will allow you to build better software by reducing the likelihood of not having a certain dependency on the target machines. Figure: Setting the name filter based on server location  Used in combination there is a lot of power here to coordinate tens of build servers for multiple projects across multiple regions so your developers get the most out of your environment. Technorati Tags: ALM,TFBS,TFS 2010,TFS Admin

  Read the article

• Fraud Detection with the SQL Server Suite Part 2

  - by Dejan Sarka

  This is the second part of the fraud detection whitepaper. You can find the first part in my previous blog post about this topic. My Approach to Data Mining Projects It is impossible to evaluate the time and money needed for a complete fraud detection infrastructure in advance. Personally, I do not know the customer’s data in advance. I don’t know whether there is already an existing infrastructure, like a data warehouse, in place, or whether we would need to build one from scratch. Therefore, I always suggest to start with a proof-of-concept (POC) project. A POC takes something between 5 and 10 working days, and involves personnel from the customer’s site – either employees or outsourced consultants. The team should include a subject matter expert (SME) and at least one information technology (IT) expert. The SME must be familiar with both the domain in question as well as the meaning of data at hand, while the IT expert should be familiar with the structure of data, how to access it, and have some programming (preferably Transact-SQL) knowledge. With more than one IT expert the most time consuming work, namely data preparation and overview, can be completed sooner. I assume that the relevant data is already extracted and available at the very beginning of the POC project. If a customer wants to have their people involved in the project directly and requests the transfer of knowledge, the project begins with training. I strongly advise this approach as it offers the establishment of a common background for all people involved, the understanding of how the algorithms work and the understanding of how the results should be interpreted, a way of becoming familiar with the SQL Server suite, and more. Once the data has been extracted, the customer’s SME (i.e. the analyst), and the IT expert assigned to the project will learn how to prepare the data in an efficient manner. Together with me, knowledge and expertise allow us to focus immediately on the most interesting attributes and identify any additional, calculated, ones soon after. By employing our programming knowledge, we can, for example, prepare tens of derived variables, detect outliers, identify the relationships between pairs of input variables, and more, in only two or three days, depending on the quantity and the quality of input data. I favor the customer’s decision of assigning additional personnel to the project. For example, I actually prefer to work with two teams simultaneously. I demonstrate and explain the subject matter by applying techniques directly on the data managed by each team, and then both teams continue to work on the data overview and data preparation under our supervision. I explain to the teams what kind of results we expect, the reasons why they are needed, and how to achieve them. Afterwards we review and explain the results, and continue with new instructions, until we resolve all known problems. Simultaneously with the data preparation the data overview is performed. The logic behind this task is the same – again I show to the teams involved the expected results, how to achieve them and what they mean. This is also done in multiple cycles as is the case with data preparation, because, quite frankly, both tasks are completely interleaved. A specific objective of the data overview is of principal importance – it is represented by a simple star schema and a simple OLAP cube that will first of all simplify data discovery and interpretation of the results, and will also prove useful in the following tasks. The presence of the customer’s SME is the key to resolving possible issues with the actual meaning of the data. We can always replace the IT part of the team with another database developer; however, we cannot conduct this kind of a project without the customer’s SME. After the data preparation and when the data overview is available, we begin the scientific part of the project. I assist the team in developing a variety of models, and in interpreting the results. The results are presented graphically, in an intuitive way. While it is possible to interpret the results on the fly, a much more appropriate alternative is possible if the initial training was also performed, because it allows the customer’s personnel to interpret the results by themselves, with only some guidance from me. The models are evaluated immediately by using several different techniques. One of the techniques includes evaluation over time, where we use an OLAP cube. After evaluating the models, we select the most appropriate model to be deployed for a production test; this allows the team to understand the deployment process. There are many possibilities of deploying data mining models into production; at the POC stage, we select the one that can be completed quickly. Typically, this means that we add the mining model as an additional dimension to an existing DW or OLAP cube, or to the OLAP cube developed during the data overview phase. Finally, we spend some time presenting the results of the POC project to the stakeholders and managers. Even from a POC, the customer will receive lots of benefits, all at the sole risk of spending money and time for a single 5 to 10 day project: The customer learns the basic patterns of frauds and fraud detection The customer learns how to do the entire cycle with their own people, only relying on me for the most complex problems The customer’s analysts learn how to perform much more in-depth analyses than they ever thought possible The customer’s IT experts learn how to perform data extraction and preparation much more efficiently than they did before All of the attendees of this training learn how to use their own creativity to implement further improvements of the process and procedures, even after the solution has been deployed to production The POC output for a smaller company or for a subsidiary of a larger company can actually be considered a finished, production-ready solution It is possible to utilize the results of the POC project at subsidiary level, as a finished POC project for the entire enterprise Typically, the project results in several important “side effects” Improved data quality Improved employee job satisfaction, as they are able to proactively contribute to the central knowledge about fraud patterns in the organization Because eventually more minds get to be involved in the enterprise, the company should expect more and better fraud detection patterns After the POC project is completed as described above, the actual project would not need months of engagement from my side. This is possible due to our preference to transfer the knowledge onto the customer’s employees: typically, the customer will use the results of the POC project for some time, and only engage me again to complete the project, or to ask for additional expertise if the complexity of the problem increases significantly. I usually expect to perform the following tasks: Establish the final infrastructure to measure the efficiency of the deployed models Deploy the models in additional scenarios Through reports By including Data Mining Extensions (DMX) queries in OLTP applications to support real-time early warnings Include data mining models as dimensions in OLAP cubes, if this was not done already during the POC project Create smart ETL applications that divert suspicious data for immediate or later inspection I would also offer to investigate how the outcome could be transferred automatically to the central system; for instance, if the POC project was performed in a subsidiary whereas a central system is available as well Of course, for the actual project, I would repeat the data and model preparation as needed It is virtually impossible to tell in advance how much time the deployment would take, before we decide together with customer what exactly the deployment process should cover. Without considering the deployment part, and with the POC project conducted as suggested above (including the transfer of knowledge), the actual project should still only take additional 5 to 10 days. The approximate timeline for the POC project is, as follows: 1-2 days of training 2-3 days for data preparation and data overview 2 days for creating and evaluating the models 1 day for initial preparation of the continuous learning infrastructure 1 day for presentation of the results and discussion of further actions Quite frequently I receive the following question: are we going to find the best possible model during the POC project, or during the actual project? My answer is always quite simple: I do not know. Maybe, if we would spend just one hour more for data preparation, or create just one more model, we could get better patterns and predictions. However, we simply must stop somewhere, and the best possible way to do this, according to my experience, is to restrict the time spent on the project in advance, after an agreement with the customer. You must also never forget that, because we build the complete learning infrastructure and transfer the knowledge, the customer will be capable of doing further investigations independently and improve the models and predictions over time without the need for a constant engagement with me.

  Read the article

• LexisNexis and Oracle Join Forces to Prevent Fraud and Identity Abuse

  - by Tanu Sood

  Author: Mark Karlstrand About the Writer:Mark Karlstrand is a Senior Product Manager at Oracle focused on innovative security for enterprise web and mobile applications. Over the last sixteen years Mark has served as director in a number of tech startups before joining Oracle in 2007. Working with a team of talented architects and engineers Mark developed Oracle Adaptive Access Manager, a best of breed access security solution.The world’s top enterprise software company and the world leader in data driven solutions have teamed up to provide a new integrated security solution to prevent fraud and misuse of identities. LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it has achieved Oracle Validated Integration of its Instant Authenticate product with Oracle Identity Management.Oracle provides the most complete Identity and Access Management platform. The only identity management provider to offer advanced capabilities including device fingerprinting, location intelligence, real-time risk analysis, context-aware authentication and authorization makes the Oracle offering unique in the industry. LexisNexis Risk Solutions provides the industry leading Instant Authenticate dynamic knowledge based authentication (KBA) service which offers customers a secure and cost effective means to authenticate new user or prove authentication for password resets, lockouts and such scenarios. Oracle and LexisNexis now offer an integrated solution that combines the power of the most advanced identity management platform and superior data driven user authentication to stop identity fraud in its tracks and, in turn, offer significant operational cost savings. The solution offers the ability to challenge users with dynamic knowledge based authentication based on the risk of an access request or transaction thereby offering an additional level to other authentication methods such as static challenge questions or one-time password when needed. For example, with Oracle Identity Management self-service, the forgotten password reset workflow utilizes advanced capabilities including device fingerprinting, location intelligence, risk analysis and one-time password (OTP) via short message service (SMS) to secure this sensitive flow. Even when a user has lost or misplaced his/her mobile phone and, therefore, cannot receive the SMS, the new integrated solution eliminates the need to contact the help desk. The Oracle Identity Management platform dynamically switches to use the LexisNexis Instant Authenticate service for authentication if the user is not able to authenticate via OTP. The advanced Oracle and LexisNexis integrated solution, thus, both improves user experience and saves money by avoiding unnecessary help desk calls. Oracle Identity and Access Management secures applications, Juniper SSL VPN and other web resources with a thoroughly modern layered and context-aware platform. Users don't gain access just because they happen to have a valid username and password. An enterprise utilizing the Oracle solution has the ability to predicate access based on the specific context of the current situation. The device, location, temporal data, and any number of other attributes are evaluated in real-time to determine the specific risk at that moment. If the risk is elevated a user can be challenged for additional authentication, refused access or allowed access with limited privileges. The LexisNexis Instant Authenticate dynamic KBA service plugs into the Oracle platform to provide an additional layer of security by validating a user's identity in high risk access or transactions. The large and varied pool of data the LexisNexis solution utilizes to quiz a user makes this challenge mechanism even more robust. This strong combination of Oracle and LexisNexis user authentication capabilities greatly mitigates the risk of exposing sensitive applications and services on the Internet which helps an enterprise grow their business with confidence.Resources:Press release: LexisNexis® Achieves Oracle Validated Integration with Oracle Identity Management Oracle Access Management (HTML)Oracle Adaptive Access Manager (pdf)

  Read the article

• Bitmask data insertions in SSDT Post-Deployment scripts

  - by jamiet

  On my current project we are using SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) to manage our database schema and one of the tasks we need to do often is insert data into that schema once deployed; the typical method employed to do this is to leverage Post-Deployment scripts and that is exactly what we are doing. Our requirement is a little different though, our data is split up into various buckets that we need to selectively deploy on a case-by-case basis. I was going to use a SQLCMD variable for each bucket (defaulted to some value other than “Yes”) to define whether it should be deployed or not so we could use something like this in our Post-Deployment script: IF ($(DeployBucket1Flag) = 'Yes')BEGIN   :r .\Bucket1.data.sqlENDIF ($(DeployBucket2Flag) = 'Yes')BEGIN   :r .\Bucket2.data.sqlENDIF ($(DeployBucket3Flag) = 'Yes')BEGIN   :r .\Bucket3.data.sqlEND That works fine and is, I’m sure, a very common technique for doing this. It is however slightly ugly because we have to litter our deployment with various SQLCMD variables. My colleague James Rowland-Jones (whom I’m sure many of you know) suggested another technique – bitmasks. I won’t go into detail about how this works (James has already done that at Using a Bitmask - a practical example) but I’ll summarise by saying that you can deploy different combinations of the buckets simply by supplying a different numerical value for a single SQLCMD variable. Each bit of that value’s binary representation signifies whether a particular bucket should be deployed or not. This is better demonstrated using the following simple script (which can be easily leveraged inside your Post-Deployment scripts): /* $(DeployData) is a SQLCMD variable that would, if you were using this in SSDT, be declared in the SQLCMD variables section of your project file. It should contain a numerical value, defaulted to 0. In this example I have declared it using a :setvar statement. Test the affect of different values by changing the :setvar statement accordingly. Examples: :setvar DeployData 1 will deploy bucket 1 :setvar DeployData 2 will deploy bucket 2 :setvar DeployData 3   will deploy buckets 1 & 2 :setvar DeployData 6   will deploy buckets 2 & 3 :setvar DeployData 31  will deploy buckets 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 */ :setvar DeployData 0 DECLARE  @bitmask VARBINARY(MAX) = CONVERT(VARBINARY,$(DeployData)); IF (@bitmask & 1 = 1) BEGIN     PRINT 'Bucket 1 insertions'; END IF (@bitmask & 2 = 2) BEGIN     PRINT 'Bucket 2 insertions'; END IF (@bitmask & 4 = 4) BEGIN     PRINT 'Bucket 3 insertions'; END IF (@bitmask & 8 = 8) BEGIN     PRINT 'Bucket 4 insertions'; END IF (@bitmask & 16 = 16) BEGIN     PRINT 'Bucket 5 insertions'; END An example of running this using DeployData=6 The binary representation of 6 is 110. The second and third significant bits of that binary number are set to 1 and hence buckets 2 and 3 are “activated”. Hope that makes sense and is useful to some of you! @Jamiet P.S. I used the awesome HTML Copy feature of Visual Studio’s Productivity Power Tools in order to format the T-SQL code above for this blog post.

  Read the article

• Five geeky things you must do with your Android Smartphone

  - by Gopinath

  Android is the Windows of next generation. Its open, free, widely adopted and smart enough to outsmart Apple’s iOS. It’s a stolen product and cheap imitation of iOS, but Steve Job’s once quoted saying good artists copy and great artists steal. Alright, this post is not about Android vs iOS or is it really stolen or not. Android is a great OS for mobile devices and it lets you do amazing through mobiles.  In this post I want to write about the geeky things we can do with an Android Smartphone. Control your computer using mobile Assume that it is a lazy weekend and you are on a couch watching movies on a laptop which is a meter away. Now you want to adjust volume or skip a scene/song. How to control your laptop without moving out of couch? Just install Universal Remote free app on your smartphone and start control your computer using phone. Universal Remove app controls computers over Wifi or Bluetooth networks with dedicated remote controls for various media players and applications like YouTube, VLC & Spotify.  The application is very easy to use and works amazingly well in controlling computers. Few of the remote controls provided in the app are – Mouse, Keyboard, Media Controls, Power, Start, Windows Media Player, VLC Player,  YouTube. There is also paid version of this app with additional remotes, but for most of the users Free version is good enough. Stream YouTube videos playing on you mobile to computer You can stream YouTube videos playing on your mobile to computer/smart tv. This is something similar to Apple’s most popular AirPlay feature, but works only with YouTube videos. To start streaming videos install Google’s YouTube Remote on your smartphone, open youtube.com/leanback on your computer  and pair up mobile with computer. Once the pairing is done, videos played on YouTube Remote app will be streamed on to your computer. Access your mobile using any web browser – send/receive SMS, view photos/call logs, etc. Want to control your mobile phone using a computer? Install AirDroid app on your phone and start controlling your phone using computer browser – send and receive messages, view call logs, play music, upload/download files, edit contacts and many more. At times it’s lot of fun to access mobile using a big screen devices like laptops. Launch a webpage on your mobile browser using your computer With Google Chrome to Phone installed on your computer and mobile, you can send links and other information from Chrome browser to your Android device. With a click on Chrome browser, the current webpage of Chrome browser will be automatically launched on Android device. This is very handy when you want to send links, send driving direction to mobile using Google Maps and launch phone dialer with number selected on webpage. Install Apps on mobile using computer To install apps on your smartphone you really don’t need to touch it. Open any web browser, sing in to Google Play with your Google id that is associated with smartphone and start installing apps on to your phone right from the browser. As you browse apps on Google Play store, you find Install button and all you need to do is to just click Install. Google will automatically installs app on your mobile within few seconds.

  Read the article

• Exclusive Webcast Series Explains How Project Success Drives Business Success

  - by Melissa Centurio Lopes

  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-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} In the wake of the global financial crisis, organizations throughout the world are redoubling their efforts to enhance financial discipline, achieve operational excellence, and mitigate risk. How can they address all these areas with one comprehensive strategy? With enterprise project portfolio management solutions that provide greater transparency and visibility across all projects and portfolios, says Guy Barlow, Oracle director of industry strategy. In the following interview and in an exclusive, three-part webcast series, Barlow examines today’s new management realities and explains how organizations can succeed in this environment. Q: Financial discipline has always been important, what’s different today? A: A number of organizations are showing that by fiscally aligning projects with the business goals of their organizations, they can shave off hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in inefficiency and waste. For example, one Oracle customer, the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, reduced its unbudgeted costs from US$24.4 million to US$3.5 million, for an 88 percent improvement. Q: How do organizations achieve results like this? A: First, they need to have the vision to see project management as part of a broad and critical element in their overall enterprise strategy. That means using a single solution, such as Oracle‘s Primavera, to manage multiple projects across multiple functions within a company. So someone in corporate mergers and acquisitions as well as a capital projects team can standardize on the same technology. By doing so they all gain greater efficiency in planning and execution—because the technology can be configured for their specific roles and needs—and the IT organization really benefits from lower maintenance. Second, enterprises must give executive leaders—CFOs, COOs, and CEOs—visibility across the entire business to easily see what projects are on track and which ones are falling behind. In fact, once executives see the power of enterprise project portfolio management, uptake is very quick across the organization. Read the full interview here.

  Read the article

• Orchestrating the Virtual Enterprise, Part II

  - by Kathryn Perry

  A guest post by Jon Chorley, Oracle's CSO & Vice President, SCM Product Strategy Almost everyone has ordered from Amazon.com at one time or another. Our orders are as likely to be fulfilled by third parties as they are by Amazon itself. To deliver the order promptly and efficiently, Amazon has to send it to the right fulfillment location and know the availability in that location. It needs to be able to track status of the fulfillment and deal with exceptions. As a virtual enterprise, Amazon's operations, using thousands of trading partners, requires a very different approach to fulfillment than the traditional 'take an order and ship it from your own warehouse' model. Amazon had no choice but to develop a complex, expensive and custom solution to tackle this problem as there used to be no product solution available. Now, other companies who want to follow similar models have a better off-the-shelf choice -- Oracle Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO).  Consider how another of our customers is using our distributed orchestration solution. This major airplane manufacturer has a highly complex business and interacts regularly with the U.S. Government and major airlines. It sits in the middle of an intricate supply chain and needed to improve visibility across its many different entities. Oracle Fusion DOO gives the company an orchestration mechanism so it could improve quality, speed, flexibility, and consistency without requiring an organ transplant of these highly complex legacy systems. Many retailers face the challenge of dealing with brick and mortar, Web, and reseller channels. They all need to be knitted together into a virtual enterprise experience that is consistent for their customers. When a large U.K. grocer with a strong brick and mortar retail operation added an online business, they turned to Oracle Fusion DOO to bring these entities together. Disturbing the Peace with Acquisitions Quite often a company's ERP system is disrupted when it acquires a new company. An acquisition can inject a new set of processes and systems -- or even introduce an entirely new business like Sun's hardware did at Oracle. This challenge has been a driver for some of our DOO customers. A large power management company is using Oracle Fusion DOO to provide the flexibility to rapidly integrate additional products and services into its central fulfillment operation. The Flip Side of Fulfillment Meanwhile, we haven't ignored similar challenges on the supply side of the equation. Specifically, how to manage complex supply in a flexible way when there are multiple trading parties involved? How to manage the supply to suppliers? How to manage critical components that need to merge in a tier two or tier three supply chain? By investing in supply orchestration solutions for the virtual enterprise, we plan to give users better visibility into their network of suppliers to help them drive down costs. We also think this technology and full orchestration process can be applied to the financial side of organizations. An example is transactions that flow through complex internal structures to minimize tax exposure. We can help companies manage those transactions effectively by thinking about the internal organization as a virtual enterprise and bringing the same solution set to this internal challenge.  The Clear Front Runner No other company is investing in solving the virtual enterprise supply chain issues like Oracle is. Oracle is in a unique position to become the gold standard in this market space. We have the infrastructure of Oracle technology. We already have an Oracle Fusion DOO application which embraces the best of what's required in this area. And we're absolutely committed to extending our Fusion solution to other use cases and delivering even more business value. Jon ChorleyChief Sustainability Officer & Vice President, SCM Product StrategyOracle Corporation

  Read the article

• Change The Windows 7 Start Orb the Easy Way

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to make your Windows 7 PC even more unique and personalized?  Then check out this easy guide on how to change your start orb in Windows 7. Getting Started First, download the free Windows 7 Start Button Changer (link below), and extract the contents of the folder.  It contains the app along with a selection of alternate start button orbs you can try out.   Before changing the start button, we advise creating a system restore point in case anything goes wrong.  Enter System Restore in your Start menu search, and select “Create a restore point”. Please note:  We tested this on both the 32 bit and 64 bit editions of Windows 7, and didn’t encounter any problems or stability issues.  That said, it is always prudent to make a restore point just in case a problem did happen. Click the Create button… Then enter a name for the restore point, and click Create. Changing the Start Orb. Once this is finished, run the Windows 7 Start Button Changer as administrator by right-clicking on it and selecting “Run as administrator”.  Accept the UAC prompt that will appear. If you don’t run it as an administrator, you may see the following warning.  Click Quit, and then run again as administrator. You should now see the Windows 7 Start Button Changer.  On the left it shows what your current (default) start orb looks like inactive, when hovered over, and when selected.  Click the orb on the right to select a new start button. Here we browsed to the sample orbs folder, and selected one of them.  Let’s give Windows the Media Center orb for a start orb.  Click the orb you want, and then select open. When you click Open, your screen will momentarily freeze and your taskbar will disappear.  When it reappears, your computer will have gone from having the old, default Start orb style… …to your new, exciting Start orb!  Here it is default, and glowing when hovered over. Now, the Windows 7 Start Orb Changer will change, and show your new Start orb on the left side.  If you would like to revert to the default orb, simply click the folder icon to restore it.  Or, if you would like to change the orb again, restore the original first and then select a new one. The orbs don’t have to be round; here’s a fancy Windows 7 logo as the start button. The start orb change will work in the Aero and Aero basic (which Windows 7 Start uses) themes, but will not show up in the classic, Windows 2000 style themes.  Here’s how the new start button looks with the Aero Classic theme: There are tons of orbs available, including this cute smiley, so choose one that you like to make your computer uniquely yours. Conclusion This is a cute way to make your desktop unique, and can be a great way to make a truly personalized theme.  Let us know your favorite Start orb! Link Download the Windows 7 Start Button Changer Find more Start orbs at deviantART Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change the Windows 7 or Vista Power Buttons to Shut Down/Sleep/HibernateQuick Tip: Change the Registered Owner in WindowsSpeed up Windows Vista Start Menu Search By Limiting ResultsWhy Does My Password Expire in Windows?Change Your Computer Name in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition

  Read the article

• Waterfall Model (SDLC) vs. Prototyping Model

  The characters in the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare can easily be used to demonstrate the similarities and differences between the Waterfall and Prototyping software development models. This children fable is about a race between a consistently slow moving but steadfast turtle and an extremely fast but unreliable rabbit. After closely comparing each character’s attributes in correlation with both software development models, a trend seems to appear in that the Waterfall closely resembles the Tortoise in that Waterfall Model is typically a slow moving process that is broken up in to multiple sequential steps that must be executed in a standard linear pattern. The Tortoise can be quoted several times in the story saying “Slow and steady wins the race.” This is the perfect mantra for the Waterfall Model in that this model is seen as a cumbersome and slow moving. Waterfall Model Phases Requirement Analysis & Definition This phase focuses on defining requirements for a project that is to be developed and determining if the project is even feasible. Requirements are collected by analyzing existing systems and functionality in correlation with the needs of the business and the desires of the end users. The desired output for this phase is a list of specific requirements from the business that are to be designed and implemented in the subsequent steps. In addition this phase is used to determine if any value will be gained by completing the project. System Design This phase focuses primarily on the actual architectural design of a system, and how it will interact within itself and with other existing applications. Projects at this level should be viewed at a high level so that actual implementation details are decided in the implementation phase. However major environmental decision like hardware and platform decision are typically decided in this phase. Furthermore the basic goal of this phase is to design an application at the system level in those classes, interfaces, and interactions are defined. Additionally decisions about scalability, distribution and reliability should also be considered for all decisions. The desired output for this phase is a functional  design document that states all of the architectural decisions that have been made in regards to the project as well as a diagrams like a sequence and class diagrams. Software Design This phase focuses primarily on the refining of the decisions found in the functional design document. Classes and interfaces are further broken down in to logical modules based on the interfaces and interactions previously indicated. The output of this phase is a formal design document. Implementation / Coding This phase focuses primarily on implementing the previously defined modules in to units of code. These units are developed independently are intergraded as the system is put together as part of a whole system. Software Integration & Verification This phase primarily focuses on testing each of the units of code developed as well as testing the system as a whole. There are basic types of testing at this phase and they include: Unit Test and Integration Test. Unit Test are built to test the functionality of a code unit to ensure that it preforms its desired task. Integration testing test the system as a whole because it focuses on results of combining specific units of code and validating it against expected results. The output of this phase is a test plan that includes test with expected results and actual results. System Verification This phase primarily focuses on testing the system as a whole in regards to the list of project requirements and desired operating environment. Operation & Maintenance his phase primarily focuses on handing off the competed project over to the customer so that they can verify that all of their requirements have been met based on their original requirements. This phase will also validate the correctness of their requirements and if any changed need to be made. In addition, any problems not resolved in the previous phase will be handled in this section. The Waterfall Model’s linear and sequential methodology does offer a project certain advantages and disadvantages. Advantages of the Waterfall Model Simplistic to implement and execute for projects and/or company wide Limited demand on resources Large emphasis on documentation Disadvantages of the Waterfall Model Completed phases cannot be revisited regardless if issues arise within a project Accurate requirement are never gather prior to the completion of the requirement phase due to the lack of clarification in regards to client’s desires. Small changes or errors that arise in applications may cause additional problems The client cannot change any requirements once the requirements phase has been completed leaving them no options for changes as they see their requirements changes as the customers desires change. Excess documentation Phases are cumbersome and slow moving Learn more about the Major Process in the Sofware Development Life Cycle and Waterfall Model. Conversely, the Hare shares similar traits with the prototyping software development model in that ideas are rapidly converted to basic working examples and subsequent changes are made to quickly align the project with customers desires as they are formulated and as software strays from the customers vision. The basic concept of prototyping is to eliminate the use of well-defined project requirements. Projects are allowed to grow as the customer needs and request grow. Projects are initially designed according to basic requirements and are refined as requirement become more refined. This process allows customer to feel their way around the application to ensure that they are developing exactly what they want in the application This model also works well for determining the feasibility of certain approaches in regards to an application. Prototypes allow for quickly developing examples of implementing specific functionality based on certain techniques. Advantages of Prototyping Active participation from users and customers Allows customers to change their mind in specifying requirements Customers get a better understanding of the system as it is developed Earlier bug/error detection Promotes communication with customers Prototype could be used as final production Reduced time needed to develop applications compared to the Waterfall method Disadvantages of Prototyping Promotes constantly redefining project requirements that cause major system rewrites Potential for increased complexity of a system as scope of the system expands Customer could believe the prototype as the working version. Implementation compromises could increase the complexity when applying updates and or application fixes When companies trying to decide between the Waterfall model and Prototype model they need to evaluate the benefits and disadvantages for both models. Typically smaller companies or projects that have major time constraints typically head for more of a Prototype model approach because it can reduce the time needed to complete the project because there is more of a focus on building a project and less on defining requirements and scope prior to the start of a project. On the other hand, Companies with well-defined requirements and time allowed to generate proper documentation should steer towards more of a waterfall model because they are in a position to obtain clarified requirements and have to design and optimal solution prior to the start of coding on a project.

  Read the article

• Developer Profile: Marcelo Quinta

  - by Tori Wieldt

  As the Java developer community lead for Oracle, the best part of my job is going to conferences and meeting Java developers. I’ve had the pleasure to meet men and women who are smart, fun and passionate about Java—they make the Java community happen. The current issue of Java Magazine provides profiles of other young Java developers around the world. Subscribe to read them! Marcelo Quinta Age: 24Occupation: Professor, Federal University of GoiasLocation: Goias, Brazil Twitter: @mrquinta Marcelo (white polo shirt, center) and class OTN: When did you realize that you were good at programming? When I was in graduate school, I developed a Java system that displayed worked out the logics of getting the maximum coverage using the fewest resources (for example, the minimum number of soldiers [and positions] needed for a battlefield. It may seems not difficult, but it's a hard problem to solve, mathematically. Here I was, a freshman, who came up with an app  "solving" it. Some Master's students use my software today. It was then I began to believe in what I could do.OTN: What most inspires you about programming?I'm really inspired by the challenges and tension that comes from solving a complicated problems. Lately, I've been doing a new system focused on education and digital inclusion and was very gratifying to see it working and the results. I felt useful for the community. OTN: What are some things you would like to accomplish using Java?Java is a very strong platform and that gives us power to develop applications for different devices and purposes, from home automation with little microcontrollers to systems in big servers. I would like to build more systems that integrate the people life or different business contexts, from PCs to cell phones and tablets, ubiquitously. I think IT has reached a level where the current challenge is to make systems that leverage existing technologies that are present in daily life. Java gives us a very interesting set of options to put it into practice, especially in systems that require more strength.OTN: What technical insights into Java technology have been most important to you?I have really enjoyed the way that Java has evolved with Oracle, with new features added, many of them which were suggested by the community. Java 7 came with substantial improvements in the language syntax and it seems that Java 8 takes it even further. I also made some applications in JavaFX and liked the new version. The Java GUI is on a higher level than is offered out there. I saw some JavaFX prototypes running in modern tablets and I got excited. OTN: What would you like to be doing 10 years from now?I want my work to make a difference for individuals or an institution. It would be interesting to be improving one of the systems that I am making today. Recently I've been mixing my hobbies and work, playing with Arduino and home automation. The JHome project, winner of the Duke's Choice Award in 2011, is very interesting to me.OTN: Do you listen to music when you write code? If so, what kind?Absolutely! I usually listen to electronic music (Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and Paul Oakenfold), rock (Metallica, Strokes, The Black Keys) and a bit of local alternative music. I live in Goiânia, "The Brazilian Seattle" and I profit from it very well. OTN: What do you do when you're not programming?I like to play guitar and to fish. Last year I sold my economy car and bought a old jeep. Some people called me crazy, but since then I've been having a great time and having adventures on the backroads of Brazil. Once I broke my glasses in a funny game involving my car's suspension and the airbags. OTN: Does your girlfriend think you are crazy?Crazy is someone who doesn't have courage to do strange things! My girlfriend likes my style. =D Subscribe to the free Java Magazine to read profiles of other young Java developers. Visit the Java channel on YouTube to see a video of Marcelo in action.

  Read the article

• The All New Hotmail Looks Very Impressive [Video Tour]

  - by Gopinath

  With loads of new new features being introduced into GMail every now and then, Microsoft can’t sit and relax any more. Microsoft realized this and worked hard to introduce really impressive features in upcoming version of Windows Live Hotmail that was previewed couple of days ago. Most of the new features announced in the upcoming version are focusing on the important need of email users – de-clutter the mail box and effectively manage email over load easily. Here is the list highlight of new features New Features Sweep away clutter – This is the most impressive in the set of new features. It allows you to manage email overload. If you’ve subscribed to a newsletter but decided to not to allow it into your inbox, you can activate the sweep feature to move all the messages of the newsletter in to a folder other than your inbox. This may sound similar to filters option in GMail but the workflow is very easy in Hotmail. Quickly find message – Easy to use options are provided to see mails in separate views likes mails from contacts, social networking mail, mails from e-mail subscription services, etc. Now it’s easy to prioritize email checking like how you wish to. I prefer to check mails from my contacts first, then social networking messages and then the newsletter subscriptions. Improved spam detection – The span detection rules are tightened for better spam protection and also hotmail learns from user actions to effectively catch spam No more mail box storage restrictions – With a smart decision of Microsoft, users  no longer need to worry about the storage restrictions of their mail box – large attachments of hotmail can be stored in Windows Live SkyDrive. With Hotmail, we’ve combined the simplicity of sending photos through email with the power of Windows Live SkyDrive so that you can send up to 200 photos, each up to 50 MB in size, all in a single email. You can send all your vacation photos at once without worrying about attachment limits, Excellent Integration With Office Web Apps -  View and editing of office documents attached to the emails are made very easy by integrating Office Web Apps with Hotmail. When you receive a document/presentation/spreadsheet in hotmail, you can view it, edit it, save it or even you can send the modified document to original sender – all these without leaving hotmail. Inline viewing options for Photos, Videos, Social Network Messages – You can view photos embedded in the mail as slideshows(with the help of SilverLight), YouTube  & Hulu videos can be played inline  and track shipping notifications. Threaded conversations – emails in Hotmail are grouped just like it happens in GMail Others - enhanced account protection, full-session SSL, multiple email accounts, subfolders, contact management Video Tour Of New Features Here is an impressive video tour of new Hotmail features. When are these new features coming to Hotmail? Majority of the new features announced today are rolled out in coming weeks gradually to all the users. But advanced features like Office Integration with Hotmail is expected to take couple of months for general availability. Will You Switch back to Hotmail? Will these features lure GMail/Yahoo users to switch back to Hotmail? May be not immediately but these features may hold the existing users from leaving Hotmail. I used Hotmail, in the pre GMail era and now I use  Hotmail id only to sign-in to Microsoft websites that requites Hotmail authentication. It’s been years since I composed a new email in Hotmail. Even though the new features announced by Hotmail are very impressive, I like the way how GMail rapidly brings new features at regular intervals. If Hotmail also keeps innovating with new features at regular intervals, then there are good chances for it’s old users to return home. Join us on Facebook to read all our stories right inside your Facebook news feed.

  Read the article

• T4 Performance Counters explained

  - by user13346607

  Now that T4 is out for a few month some people might have wondered what details of the new pipeline you can monitor. A "cpustat -h" lists a lot of events that can be monitored, and only very few are self-explanatory. I will try to give some insight on all of them, some of these "PIC events" require an in-depth knowledge of T4 pipeline. Over time I will try to explain these, for the time being these events should simply be ignored. (Side note: some counters changed from tape-out 1.1 (*only* used in the T4 beta program) to tape-out 1.2 (used in the systems shipping today) The table only lists the tape-out 1.2 counters) 0 0 1 1058 6033 Oracle Microelectronics 50 14 7077 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} pic name (cpustat) Prose Comment Sel-pipe-drain-cycles, Sel-0-[wait|ready], Sel-[1,2] Sel-0-wait counts cycles a strand waits to be selected. Some reasons can be counted in detail; these are: Sel-0-ready: Cycles a strand was ready but not selected, that can signal pipeline oversubscription Sel-1: Cycles only one instruction or µop was selected Sel-2: Cycles two instructions or µops were selected Sel-pipe-drain-cycles: cf. PRM footnote 8 to table 10.2 Pick-any, Pick-[0|1|2|3] Cycles one, two, three, no or at least one instruction or µop is picked Instr_FGU_crypto Number of FGU or crypto instructions executed on that vcpu Instr_ld dto. for load Instr_st dto. for store SPR_ring_ops dto. for SPR ring ops Instr_other dto. for all other instructions not listed above, PRM footnote 7 to table 10.2 lists the instructions Instr_all total number of instructions executed on that vcpu Sw_count_intr Nr of S/W count instructions on that vcpu (sethi %hi(fc000),%g0 (whatever that is))  Atomics nr of atomic ops, which are LDSTUB/a, CASA/XA, and SWAP/A SW_prefetch Nr of PREFETCH or PREFETCHA instructions Block_ld_st Block loads or store on that vcpu IC_miss_nospec, IC_miss_[L2_or_L3|local|remote]\ _hit_nospec Various I$ misses, distinguished by where they hit. All of these count per thread, but only primary events: T4 counts only the first occurence of an I$ miss on a core for a certain instruction. If one strand misses in I$ this miss is counted, but if a second strand on the same core misses while the first miss is being resolved, that second miss is not counted This flavour of I$ misses counts only misses that are caused by instruction that really commit (note the "_nospec") BTC_miss Branch target cache miss ITLB_miss ITLB misses (synchronously counted) ITLB_miss_asynch dto. but asynchronously [I|D]TLB_fill_\ [8KB|64KB|4MB|256MB|2GB|trap] H/W tablewalk events that fill ITLB or DTLB with translation for the corresponding page size. The “_trap” event occurs if the HWTW was not able to fill the corresponding TLB IC_mtag_miss, IC_mtag_miss_\ [ptag_hit|ptag_miss|\ ptag_hit_way_mismatch] I$ micro tag misses, with some options for drill down Fetch-0, Fetch-0-all fetch-0 counts nr of cycles nothing was fetched for this particular strand, fetch-0-all counts cycles nothing was fetched for all strands on a core Instr_buffer_full Cycles the instruction buffer for a strand was full, thereby preventing any fetch BTC_targ_incorrect Counts all occurences of wrongly predicted branch targets from the BTC [PQ|ROB|LB|ROB_LB|SB|\ ROB_SB|LB_SB|RB_LB_SB|\ DTLB_miss]\ _tag_wait ST_q_tag_wait is listed under sl=20. These counters monitor pipeline behaviour therefore they are not strand specific: PQ_...: cycles Rename stage waits for a Pick Queue tag (might signal memory bound workload for single thread mode, cf. Mail from Richard Smith) ROB_...: cycles Select stage waits for a ROB (ReOrderBuffer) tag LB_...: cycles Select stage waits for a Load Buffer tag SB_...: cycles Select stage waits for Store Buffer tag combinations of the above are allowed, although some of these events can overlap, the counter will only be incremented once per cycle if any of these occur DTLB_...: cycles load or store instructions wait at Pick stage for a DTLB miss tag [ID]TLB_HWTW_\ [L2_hit|L3_hit|L3_miss|all] Counters for HWTW accesses caused by either DTLB or ITLB misses. Canbe further detailed by where they hit IC_miss_L2_L3_hit, IC_miss_local_remote_remL3_hit, IC_miss I$ prefetches that were dropped because they either miss in L2$ or L3$ This variant counts misses regardless if the causing instruction commits or not DC_miss_nospec, DC_miss_[L2_L3|local|remote_L3]\ _hit_nospec D$ misses either in general or detailed by where they hit cf. the explanation for the IC_miss in two flavours for an explanation of _nospec and the reasoning for two DC_miss counters DTLB_miss_asynch counts all DTLB misses asynchronously, there is no way to count them synchronously DC_pref_drop_DC_hit, SW_pref_drop_[DC_hit|buffer_full] L1-D$ h/w prefetches that were dropped because of a D$ hit, counted per core. The others count software prefetches per strand [Full|Partial]_RAW_hit_st_[buf|q] Count events where a load wants to get data that has not yet been stored, i. e. it is still inside the pipeline. The data might be either still in the store buffer or in the store queue. If the load's data matches in the SB and in the store queue the data in buffer takes precedence of course since it is younger [IC|DC]_evict_invalid, [IC|DC|L1]_snoop_invalid, [IC|DC|L1]_invalid_all Counter for invalidated cache evictions per core St_q_tag_wait Number of cycles pipeline waits for a store queue tag, of course counted per core Data_pref_[drop_L2|drop_L3|\ hit_L2|hit_L3|\ hit_local|hit_remote] Data prefetches that can be further detailed by either why they were dropped or where they did hit St_hit_[L2|L3], St_L2_[local|remote]_C2C, St_local, St_remote Store events distinguished by where they hit or where they cause a L2 cache-to-cache transfer, i.e. either a transfer from another L2$ on the same die or from a different die DC_miss, DC_miss_\ [L2_L3|local|remote]_hit D$ misses either in general or detailed by where they hit cf. the explanation for the IC_miss in two flavours for an explanation of _nospec and the reasoning for two DC_miss counters L2_[clean|dirty]_evict Per core clean or dirty L2$ evictions L2_fill_buf_full, L2_wb_buf_full, L2_miss_buf_full Per core L2$ buffer events, all count number of cycles that this state was present L2_pipe_stall Per core cycles pipeline stalled because of L2$ Branches Count branches (Tcc, DONE, RETRY, and SIT are not counted as branches) Br_taken Counts taken branches (Tcc, DONE, RETRY, and SIT are not counted as branches) Br_mispred, Br_dir_mispred, Br_trg_mispred, Br_trg_mispred_\ [far_tbl|indir_tbl|ret_stk] Counter for various branch misprediction events.  Cycles_user counts cycles, attribute setting hpriv, nouser, sys controls addess space to count in Commit-[0|1|2], Commit-0-all, Commit-1-or-2 Number of times either no, one, or two µops commit for a strand. Commit-0-all counts number of times no µop commits for the whole core, cf. footnote 11 to table 10.2 in PRM for a more detailed explanation on how this counters interacts with the privilege levels

  Read the article

• Impressions of my ASUS eee slate EP121 - Dual core 4GB, 64GB SSD

  - by tonyrogerson

  This thing is lovely, very nice bluetooth keyboard that has nice feedback on the keypress, there is no mouse but you can use the stylus or get yourself a bluetooth mouse, me, I've opted for a Microsoft ARC mouse which is a delight to use, the USB doors are a pain to open for the first time if like me you don't have any finger nails. It came as a suprise that the slate shows four processors, Dual Core with multi-threading, I didn't really look at the processor I was more interested in the amount of memory and the SSD; you don't get the full 4GB even with the 64 bit version of Windows 7 installed (which I immediately upgraded to Ultimate through my MSDN subscription). The box is extremely responsive - extremely, it loads Winword in literally a second. I've got office 2010 and onenote 2010 on there now; one problem is that on applying all (43) windows updates since the upgrade the machine is still sat on step 3 of 3 on the start up configuring updates screen after about an hour, you can't turn this machine off without using a paper clip to reset it and as I have just found you need a paper clip :). Installing Windows 7 SP1 was effortless. One of the first things I did on it was to reduce the size of the font, by default its set at 125%, my eye sight is ok :) so I've set that back down. Amazon Kindle for the PC works really well, plenty of text on the screen when viewed portrait, the case it comes with also allows the slate to stand up in various positions - portrait, horizontal - seems stable enough. The wireless works well, seems to have a better signal than my other two laptop machines which is good news. The gadget passed the pose test at work :). I use offline files to keep a copy of all my work stuff locally, I'm not sure what it is, well, its probably my server but whenever I try and sync it runs for a couple of minutes then fails with network name no longer contactable, funnily enough its fine from my big laptop so I can only guess this may be a driver type issue on the EP121 itself - very odd and very annoying. I do a lot of presenting and need to plug into a VGA project because most sites that's all that is offered, the EP121 has a mini-hdmi output which is great except for this scenario, hdmi is digital, vga is analogue, you will struggle to find a cost effective solution, I found HDFury and also a device HP do, however, a better solution appears to be getting a USB graphics adapter for instance the one I've ordered is the ClimaxDigital USB 2.0 to DVI,VGA or HDMI Adaptor which gives everything I need - VGA and DVI output and great resolution as well - ok, so fingers crossed because I'm presenting next Wednesday in Edinburgh and not taking my 300kg lenovo w700 (I'm sure my back just sighed in relief) - it certainly works really well on my LED TV, the install was simple - it just works! One of the several reasons for buying this piece of kit was to use it on my LED TV to remote into my main machine to check stuff whilst sat in my living room, also to watch webcasts and lecture videos in comfort away from my office, because of the wireless speed and limitation I'm opting for a USB network adapter from Belkin - that will also allow me to take advantage of my home gigabit network, there are only 2 usb ports on the slate so I'm going to knock up a hub so connecting it in is straight forward and simple, I'm also going to purchase a second power supply so I don't have to faff about with that either.I now have the developer x64 edition of SQL Server 2008 R2, yes everything :) - about 16GB left to play with on the machine now but that will be fine, I'll put AdventureWorks on there so I can play and demo stuff which is all I'm after from this, my development machine is significantly more powerful and meets my storage needs too.Travel test this weekend and next week, I'm in Dundee for my final exam for the masters degree.

  Read the article

• SQL Sentry Truth-Telling and Disk Configuration

  - by AjarnMark

  Recently, SQL Sentry told me something about my SQL Server disk configurations that I just didn’t want to believe, but alas, it was true. Several days ago I posted my First Impressions of the SQL Sentry Power Suite.  Today’s post could fall into the category of, “Hey, as long as you have that fancy tool…”  Unfortunately, it also falls into the category of an overloaded worker taking someone else’s word for the truth, not verifying it with independent fact-checking, and then making decisions based on that.  Here’s my story… I’m not exactly an Accidental DBA (or Involuntary DBA as Paul Randal calls it).  I came to this company five years ago as a lead application developer with extensive experience in database design and development.  I worked my way into management, and along the way, took over the DBA responsibilities.  Fortunately, our systems run pretty smoothly most of the time, but I’m always looking for ways to make them better and to fit into my understanding of best practices.  When I took over as DBA, I inherited a SQL 2000 server with about 30 databases on it supporting our main systems, and a SQL 2005 server with multiple instances.  Both of these servers were configured with the Operating System and Application files on the C drive, data files on a different drive letter, and log files on a third drive letter.  Even before I took over as DBA, I verified that this was true with a previous server administrator, and that these represented actual separate disks.  He stated that they did, and I thought that all was well. Then one day, I’m poking around inside the SQL Sentry Performance Advisor, checking out features as I am evaluating whether to purchase the product, and I come across a Disk Configuration section.  The first thing I notice is that the drives do not have the proper partition offset, which was not at all surprising to me given the age of the installation and the relative newness of that topic.  But what threw me for a loop was that the graphic display appeared to be telling me that I did not in fact have three separate drives (or arrays) but rather had two, and that the log files were merely on a separate volume on the same physical array as the OS.  I figured that I must be reading it wrong so I scanned the Help file, but that just seemed to confirm my interpretation.  Then I thought, “there must be something wrong with the demo version of the software!  This can’t be right!”  But just to double-check, I went to our current server admin to talk it over with him, and sure enough, SQL Sentry was telling the truth! I was stunned!  I quickly went through the grieving process…denial…anger…reconciliation.  Here was something that I thought was such a basic truth that was turned upside down.  OK, granted, this wasn’t disastrous.  Our databases didn’t suddenly grind to a halt.  I didn’t get calls late at night inquiring about the sudden downturn in performance.  But it was a bit of a shock to the system, in a good way, to jolt me out of taking what I had believed as the truth for granted, and instead to Trust, but Verify! Yes, before someone else points it out, I know that there are”free” disk management tools built-in to Windows that would have told me the same thing if I had only looked at them; I did not have to buy a fancy tool to tell me that, but the fact is, until I was evaluating the tool, I had just gone with what I was told, and never bothered to check what was actually there. So, what things do you believe to be true but you actually never verified?

  Read the article

• Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives Part 2 - Jumpstarting your IAM program with R2

  - by Tanu Sood

  Identity and access management (IAM) isn’t a new concept. Over the past decade, companies have begun to address identity management through a variety of solutions that have primarily focused on provisioning. . The new age workforce is converging at a rapid pace with ever increasing demand to use diverse portfolio of applications and systems to interact and interface with their peers in the industry and customers alike. Oracle has taken a significant leap with their release of Identity and Access Management 11gR2 towards enabling this global workforce to conduct their business in a secure, efficient and effective manner. As companies deal with IAM business drivers, it becomes immediately apparent that holistic, rather than piecemeal, approaches better address their needs. When planning an enterprise-wide IAM solution, the first step is to create a common framework that serves as the foundation on which to build the cost, compliance and business process efficiencies. As a leading industry practice, IAM should be established on a foundation of accurate data for identity management, making this data available in a uniform manner to downstream applications and processes. Mature organizations are looking beyond IAM’s basic benefits to harness more advanced capabilities in user lifecycle management. For any organization looking to embark on an IAM initiative, consider the following use cases in managing and administering user access. Expanding the Enterprise Provisioning Footprint Almost all organizations have some helpdesk resources tied up in handling access requests from users, a distraction from their core job of handling problem tickets. This dependency has mushroomed from the traditional acceptance of provisioning solutions integrating and addressing only a portion of applications in the heterogeneous landscape Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) 11gR2 solves this problem by offering integration with third party ticketing systems as “disconnected applications”. It allows for the existing business processes to be seamlessly integrated into the system and tracked throughout its lifecycle. With minimal effort and analysis, an organization can begin integrating OIM with groups or applications that are involved with manually intensive access provisioning and de-provisioning activities. This aspect of OIM allows organizations to on-board applications and associated business processes quickly using out of box templates and frameworks. This is especially important for organizations looking to fold in users and resources from mergers and acquisitions. Simplifying Access Requests Organizations looking to implement access request solutions often find it challenging to get their users to accept and adopt the new processes.. So, how do we improve the user experience, make it intuitive and personalized and yet simplify the user access process? With R2, OIM helps organizations alleviate the challenge by placing the most used functionality front and centre in the new user request interface. Roles, application accounts, and entitlements can all be found in the same interface as catalog items, giving business users a single location to go to whenever they need to initiate, approve or track a request. Furthermore, if a particular item is not relevant to a user’s job function or area inside the organization, it can be hidden so as to not overwhelm or confuse the user with superfluous options. The ability to customize the user interface to suit your needs helps in exercising the business rules effectively and avoiding access proliferation within the organization. Saving Time with Templates A typical use case that is most beneficial to business users is flexibility to place, edit, and withdraw requests based on changing circumstances and business needs. With OIM R2, multiple catalog items can now be added and removed from the shopping cart, an ecommerce paradigm that many users are already familiar with. This feature can be especially useful when setting up a large number of new employees or granting existing department or group access to a newly integrated application. Additionally, users can create their own shopping cart templates in order to complete subsequent requests more quickly. This feature saves the user from having to search for and select items all over again if a request is similar to a previous one. Advanced Delegated Administration A key feature of any provisioning solution should be to empower each business unit in managing their own access requests. By bringing administration closer to the user, you improve user productivity, enable efficiency and alleviate the administration overhead. To do so requires a federated services model so that the business units capable of shouldering the onus of user life cycle management of their business users can be enabled to do so. OIM 11gR2 offers advanced administrative options for creating, managing and controlling business logic and workflows through easy to use administrative interface and tools that can be exposed to delegated business administrators. For example, these business administrators can establish or modify how certain requests and operations should be handled within their business unit based on a number of attributes ranging from the type of request or the risk level of the individual items requested. Closed-Loop Remediation Security continues to be a major concern for most organizations. Identity management solutions bolster security by ensuring only the right users have the right access to the right resources. To prevent unauthorized access and where it already exists, the ability to detect and remediate it, are key requirements of an enterprise-grade proven solution. But the challenge with most solutions today is that some of this information still exists in silos. And when changes are made to systems directly, not all information is captured. With R2, oracle is offering a comprehensive Identity Governance solution that our customer organizations are leveraging for closed loop remediation that allows for an automated way for administrators to revoke unauthorized access. The change is automatically captured and the action noted for continued management. Conclusion While implementing provisioning solutions, it is important to keep the near term and the long term goals in mind. The provisioning solution should always be a part of a larger security and identity management program but with the ability to seamlessly integrate not only with the company’s infrastructure but also have the ability to leverage the information, business models compiled and used by the other identity management solutions. This allows organizations to reduce the cost of ownership, close security gaps and leverage the existing infrastructure. And having done so a multiple clients’ sites, this is the approach we recommend. In our next post, we will take a journey through our experiences of advising clients looking to upgrade to R2 from a previous version or migrating from a different solution. Meet the Writers:   Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving. Dharma Padala is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has been implementing medium to large scale Identity Management solutions across multiple industries including utility, health care, entertainment, retail and financial sectors.   Dharma has 14 years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which he has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past 8 years. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL). Jenny (Xiao) Zhang is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  She has consulted across multiple industries including financial services, entertainment and retail. Jenny has three years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which she has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past one and a half years.

  Read the article

• From DBA to Data Analyst

  - by Denise McInerney

  Cross posted from the PASS Blog There is a lot changing in the data professional’s world these days. More data is being produced and stored. More enterprises are trying to use that data to improve their products and services and understand their customers better. More data platforms and tools seem to be crowding the market. For a traditional DBA this can be a confusing and perhaps unsettling time. It’s also a time that offers great opportunity for career growth. I speak from personal experience. We sometimes refer to the “accidental DBA”, the person who finds herself suddenly responsible for managing the database because she has some other technical skills. While it was not accidental, six months ago I was unexpectedly offered a chance to transition out of my DBA role and become a data analyst. I have since come to view this offer as a gift, though at the time I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Throughout my DBA career I’ve gotten support from my PASS friends and colleagues and they were the first ones I turned to for counsel about this new situation. Everyone was encouraging and I received two pieces of valuable advice: first, leverage what I already know about data and second, work to understand the business’ needs. Bringing the power of data to bear to solve business problems is really the heart of the job. The challenge is figuring out how to do that. PASS had been the source of much of my technical training as a DBA, so I naturally started there to begin my Business Intelligence education. Once again the Virtual Chapter webinars, local chapter meetings and SQL Saturdays have been invaluable. I work in a large company where we are fortunate to have some very talented data scientists and analysts. These colleagues have been generous with their time and advice. I also took a statistics class through Coursera where I got a refresher in statistics and an introduction to the R programming language. And that’s not the end of the free resources available to someone wanting to acquire new skills. There are many knowledgeable Business Intelligence and Analytics professionals who teach through their blogs. Every day I can learn something new from one of these experts. Sometimes we plan our next career move and sometimes it just happens. Either way a database professional who follows industry developments and acquires new skills will be better prepared when change comes. Take the opportunity to learn something about the changing data landscape and attend a Business Intelligence, Business Analytics or Big Data Virtual Chapter meeting. And if you are moving into this new world of data consider attending the PASS Business Analytics Conference in April where you can meet and learn from those who are already on that road. It’s been said that “the only thing constant is change.” That’s never been more true for the data professional than it is today. But if you are someone who loves data and grasps its potential you are in the right place at the right time.

  Read the article

• SQL analytical mash-ups deliver real-time WOW! for big data

  - by KLaker

  One of the overlooked capabilities of SQL as an analysis engine, because we all just take it for granted, is that you can mix and match analytical features to create some amazing mash-ups. As we move into the exciting world of big data these mash-ups can really deliver those "wow, I never knew that" moments. While Java is an incredibly flexible and powerful framework for managing big data there are some significant challenges in using Java and MapReduce to drive your analysis to create these "wow" discoveries. One of these "wow" moments was demonstrated at this year's OpenWorld during Andy Mendelsohn's general keynote session.  Here is the scenario - we are looking for fraudulent activities in our big data stream and in this case we identifying potentially fraudulent activities by looking for specific patterns. We using geospatial tagging of each transaction so we can create a real-time fraud-map for our business users. Where we start to move towards a "wow" moment is to extend this basic use of spatial and pattern matching, as shown in the above dashboard screen, to incorporate spatial analytics within the SQL pattern matching clause. This will allow us to compute the distance between transactions. Apologies for the quality of this screenshot….hopefully below you see where we have extended our SQL pattern matching clause to use location of each transaction and to calculate the distance between each transaction: This allows us to compare the time of the last transaction with the time of the current transaction and see if the distance between the two points is possible given the time frame. Obviously if I buy something in Florida from my favourite bike store (may be a new carbon saddle for my Trek) and then 5 minutes later the system sees my credit card details being used in Arizona there is high probability that this transaction in Arizona is actually fraudulent (I am fast on my Trek but not that fast!) and we can flag this up in real-time on our dashboard: In this post I have used the term "real-time" a couple of times and this is an important point and one of the key reasons why SQL really is the only language to use if you want to analyse  big data. One of the most important questions that comes up in every big data project is: how do we do analysis? Many enlightened customers are now realising that using Java-MapReduce to deliver analysis does not result in "wow" moments. These "wow" moments only come with SQL because it is offers a much richer environment, it is simpler to use and it is faster - which makes it possible to deliver real-time "Wow!". Below is a slide from Andy's session showing the results of a comparison of Java-MapReduce vs. SQL pattern matching to deliver our "wow" moment during our live demo.  You can watch our analytical mash-up "Wow" demo that compares the power of 12c SQL pattern matching + spatial analytics vs. Java-MapReduce  here: You can get more information about SQL Pattern Matching on our SQL Analytics home page on OTN, see here http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/bi-datawarehousing/sql-analytics-index-1984365.html.  You can get more information about our spatial analytics here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database-options/spatialandgraph/overview/index.html If you would like to watch the full Database 12c OOW presentation see here: http://medianetwork.oracle.com/video/player/2686974264001

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257  | Next Page >