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• At the Java DEMOgrounds - JavaFX

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  JavaFX has made rapid progress in the last year, as is evidenced by the wealth of demos on display. A few questions appear to be prominent in the minds of JavaFX enthusiasts. Here are some questions with answers provided by Oracle’s JavaFX team.When will the rest of the JavaFX code be available in open source?Oracle has started to open source JavaFX. The existing platform code will finish being committed to OpenJFX by the end of the year.Why should I use JavaFX instead of HTML5?We see JavaFX as complementary to HTML5, and most companies we talk to react positively once they understand how they can benefit from a hybrid solution. As most HTML5 developers will tell you, the biggest obstacle to deploying HTML5 applications is fragmentation. JavaFX offers a convenient way to render HTML and JavaScript within its WebView component, which provides the same level of quality and features across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Additionally, JavaScript in WebView can make calls into the Java code, and vice versa, allowing developers to tap into the best of both worlds.What is the market penetration of JavaFX? It is currently limited, as we've just made available JavaFX on Mac and Linux in August, but we expect JavaFX to be present on millions of desktop-type systems now that JavaFX is included as part of the JRE. We have also significantly lowered the level of effort required to deploy an application bundling the JRE and JavaFX runtime libraries. Finally, we are seeing a lot of interest by companies operating in the embedded market, who have found it hard to develop compelling UIs with existing technologies.Below are summaries of JavaFX Demos on display at JavaOne 2012:JavaFX EnsembleEnsemble is a collection of over 100 JavaFX samples packaged as a JavaFX application. This demo is especially useful to those new to JavaFX, or those not familiar with its latest features (e.g. canvas, color picker). Ensemble is the reference for getting familiar with JavaFX functionality. Each sample can be run from within Ensemble, and the API for each sample, as well as the source code are available alongside the sample.The samples source code can be saved as a NetBeans project for convenience purposes, or can be copied as is in any other Java IDE. The version of Ensemble shown is packaged as a native Windows application, including the JRE and JavaFX libraries. It was created with the JavaFX packager, which provides multiple packaging options, and frees developers from the cumbersome and error-prone process of packaging a Java application.FX Experience ToolsFX Experience Tools is a JavaFX application that provides different utilities to create new skins for your JavaFX applications. One of the most powerful features of JavaFX is the ability to skin applications via CSS. Since not all Java developers are familiar with CSS, these utilities are a great starting point to create custom skins. JavaFX allows developers to easily customize the look and feel of their applications through CSS. FX Experience Tools makes it easy to create new themes for JavaFX applications, even if you are not familiar with CSS. FX Experience Tools is a JavaFX application packaged as a native application including the JRE and JavaFX runtime libraries. FX Experience tools shows how this type of deployment simplifies the packaging of Java applications without requiring developers to master the intricacies of Java application packaging. The download site for FX Experience Tools is http://fxexperience.com/2012/03/announcing-fx-experience-tools/ JavaFX Scene BuilderJavaFX Scene Builder is a visual layout tool that lets users quickly design the UI of your JavaFX application, without coding. Users can drag and drop UI components, modify their properties, apply style sheets, and the FXML code they create for the layout is automatically generated in the background. The result is an FXML file that can then be combined with a Java project by binding the UI to the application’s logic. Developers can easily create user interfaces for their application, as well as separate the application’s UI from the application logic for easier maintenance. Attendees can get this app by going to javafx.com and checking the link at top of the “Overview” page.Scene Builder allows developers to easily layout JavaFX UI controls, charts, shapes, and containers, so that you can quickly prototype user interfaces. It generates FXML, an XML-based markup language that enables users to define an application’s user interface, separately from the application logic. Scene Builder can be used in combination with any Java IDE, but is more tightly integrated with NetBeans IDE. It is written as a JavaFX application, with native desktop integration on Windows and Mac OS X. It’s a perfect example of a JavaFX application packages as a native application.Scene Builder is available for your preferred development platform. Besides the GA release on Windows and Mac, a Developer Preview of Scene Builder for Linux has just been made available.Scenic ViewScenic View is a tool that can be used to understand the current state of your application UI, and to also easily manipulate properties of the scenegraph without having to keep editing your code. Creating UIs is a complex process, and it can be hard and tedious detecting these issues, editing the code, and then compiling it to test the app again. Scenic View is a great diagnostics tool that helps developers identify these issues and correct them at runtime.Attendees can get Scenic View by going to javafx.com, selecting the “Community” tab, and clicking the link under the “Third Party Tools and Utilities” section.Scenic View allows developers to easily examine the state of a JavaFX application scenegraph while the application is running. Some of the latest features added to Scenic View include event monitoring, javadoc browsing, and contextual menus. The download site for Scenic View is available here: http://fxexperience.com/scenic-view/ Conference TourConference Tour is an application that lets users discover some of the major Java conferences throughout the world. The Conference Tour application shows how simple it is to mix JavaFX and HTML5 into a single, interactive application. Attendees get Conference Tour here.JavaFX includes a Web engine based on Webkit that provides a consistent web interface to render HTML5 across operating systems, within a JavaFX application. JavaFX features a bi-directional bridge that allows Java APIs to call JavaScript within WebView, or allows JavaScript to make calls to Java APIs. This allows developers to leverage the best of both worlds.Java EE developers can take advantage of WebView and the JavaScript-Java bridge to allow their HTML clients to seamlessly bypass Web browser’s sandbox to access native system resources, providing a richer user experience.FXMediaPlayerFXMediaPlayer is an application that lets developers check different media functionality in JavaFX, such as synthesizer or support for HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). This demo shows how developers can embed video content in their Java applications. JavaFX leverages the underlying video (e.g., H.264) and audio (e.g., AAC) codecs on the user’s computer. JavaFX APIs allow developers to interact with the video content (e.g. play/pause, or programmable markers). Some of the latest media features introduced in JavaFX 2.2 include HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). Obviously there is a lot for JavaFX enthusiasts to chew on!

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• Preserving Permalinks

  - by Daniel Moth

  One of the things that gets me on a rant is websites that break permalinks. If you have posted something somewhere and there is a public URL pointing to it, that URL should never ever return a 404. You are breaking all websites that ever linked to you and you are breaking all search engine links to your content (that others will try and follow). It is a pet peeve of mine. So when I had to move my blog, obviously I would preserve the root URL (www.danielmoth.com/Blog/), but I also wanted to preserve every URL my blog has generated over the years. To be clear, our focus here is on the URL formatting, not the content migration which I'll talk about in my next post. In this post, I'll describe my solution first and then what it solves. 1. The IIS7 Rewrite Module and web.config There are a few ways you can map an old URL to a new one (so when requests to the old URL come in, they get redirected to the new one). The new blog engine I use (dasBlog) has built-in functionality to do that (Scott refers to it here). Instead, the way I chose to address the issue was to use the IIS7 rewrite module. The IIS7 rewrite module allows redirecting URLs based on pattern matching, regular expressions and, of course, hardcoded full URLs for things that don't fall into any pattern. You can configure it visually from IIS Manager using a handy dialog that allows testing patterns against input URLs. Here is what mine looked like after configuring a few rules: To learn more about this technology check out this video, the reference page and this overview blog post; all 3 pages have a collection of related resources at the bottom worth checking out too. All the visual configuration ends up in a web.config file at the root folder of your website. If you are on a shared hosting service, probably the only way you can use the Rewrite Module is by directly editing the web.config file. Next, I'll describe the URLs I had to map and how that manifested itself in the web.config file. What I did was create the rules locally using the GUI, and then took the generated web.config file and uploaded it to my live site. You can view my web.config here. 2. Monthly Archives Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/2004_07_01_mothblog_archive.html dasBlog: /Blog/default,month,2004-07.aspx In my web.config file, the rule that deals with this is the one named "monthlyarchive_redirect". 3. Categories Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/labels/Personal.html dasBlog: /Blog/CategoryView,category,Personal.aspx In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "category_redirect". 4. Posts Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/2004/07/hello-world.html dasBlog: /Blog/Hello-World.aspx In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "post_redirect". Note: The decision is taken to use dasBlog URLs that do not include the date info (see the description of my Appearance settings). If we included the date info then it would have to include the day part, which blogger did not generate. This makes it impossible to redirect correctly and to have a single permalink for blog posts moving forward. An implication of this decision, is that no two blog posts can have the same title. The tool I will describe in my next post (inelegantly) deals with duplicates, but not with triplicates or higher. 5. Unhandled by a generic rule Unfortunately, the two blog engines use different rules for generating URLs for blog posts. Most of the time the conversion is as simple as the example of the previous section where a post titled "Hello World" generates a URL with the words separated by a hyphen. Some times that is not the case, for example: /Blog/2006/05/medc-wrap-up.html /Blog/MEDC-Wrapup.aspx or /Blog/2005/01/best-of-moth-2004.html /Blog/Best-Of-The-Moth-2004.aspx or /Blog/2004/11/more-windows-mobile-2005-details.html /Blog/More-Windows-Mobile-2005-Details-Emerge.aspx In short, blogger does not add words to the title beyond ~39 characters, it drops some words from the title generation (e.g. a, an, on, the), and it preserve hyphens that appear in the title. For this reason, we need to detect these and explicitly list them for redirects (no regular expression can help here because the full set of rules is not listed anywhere). In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "Redirect rule1 for FullRedirects" combined with the rewriteMap named "StaticRedirects". Note: The tool I describe in my next post will detect all the URLs that need to be explicitly redirected and will list them in a file ready for you to copy them to your web.config rewriteMap. 6. C# code doing the same as the web.config I wrote some naive code that does the same thing as the web.config: given a string it will return a new string converted according to the 3 rules above. It does not take into account the 4th case where an explicit hard-coded conversion is needed (the tool I present in the next post does take that into account). static string REGEX_post_redirect = "[0-9]{4}/[0-9]{2}/([0-9a-z-]+).html"; static string REGEX_category_redirect = "labels/([_0-9a-z-% ]+).html"; static string REGEX_monthlyarchive_redirect = "([0-9]{4})_([0-9]{2})_[0-9]{2}_mothblog_archive.html"; static string Redirect(string oldUrl) { GroupCollection g; if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_post_redirect, 2, out g)) return string.Concat(g[1].Value, ".aspx"); if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_category_redirect, 2, out g)) return string.Concat("CategoryView,category,", g[1].Value, ".aspx"); if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_monthlyarchive_redirect, 3, out g)) return string.Concat("default,month,", g[1].Value, "-", g[2], ".aspx"); return string.Empty; } static bool RunRegExOnIt(string toRegEx, string pattern, int groupCount, out GroupCollection g) { if (pattern.Length == 0) { g = null; return false; } g = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Compiled).Match(toRegEx).Groups; return (g.Count == groupCount); } Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Psychonauts crashes right after entering load save door

  - by user67974

  Psychonauts crashes right after entering the 'Load Save' door. Here is the terminal output: Shader assembly time: 0.88 seconds Found OpenAL device: 'Simple Directmedia Layer' Found OpenAL device: 'ALSA Software' Found OpenAL device: 'OSS Software' Found OpenAL device: 'PulseAudio Software' Opened OpenAL Device: '(null)' ERROR: CAudioDrv::CAudioDrv->alGenSources reports AL_INVALID_VALUE error. PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/sounds/commonfx.isb' to 'WorkResource/Sounds/commonfx.isb' PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/sounds/commonvoice.isb' to 'WorkResource/Sounds/commonvoice.isb' PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/sounds/commonmusic.isb' to 'WorkResource/Sounds/commonmusic.isb' PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/sounds/commonmentalfx.isb' to 'WorkResource/Sounds/commonmentalfx.isb' PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/sounds/commonmenfxmem.isb' to 'WorkResource/Sounds/commonmenfxmem.isb' PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/sounds/commonfxmem.isb' to 'WorkResource/Sounds/commonfxmem.isb' GameApp::StartUp InitSoundFiles() completed in 0.15 seconds GameApp::StartUp Load some common textures completed in 0.00 seconds WARN: ENGINE: Lua garbage collection starting FreeUnusedBlocksInBuckets released 0 Kb GameApp::StartUp InitEntities() completed in 0.02 seconds PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'WorkResource/SavedGames/savegameprefs.ini' to 'WorkResource/SAVEDGAMES/savegameprefs.ini' PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'WorkResource/SavedGames/savegameprefs.ini' to 'WorkResource/SAVEDGAMES/savegameprefs.ini' GameApp::StartUp m_pSaveLoadInterface->Startup() completed in 0.00 seconds GameApp::StartUp m_UserInterface.Setup() completed in 0.00 seconds STUBBED: multisample at EDisplayOptionsWidget (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/game/luatest/Game/UIPCDisplayOptions.cpp:97) STUBBED: VK_* at CheckVirtualKey (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DirectX/SDLInput.cpp:1443) Game: Engine Running hook startup Game: Engine -> SetupGlobalObjects Game: Engine -> SetupLevelMenu Game: Engine -> InitMath GameApp::StartUp InitLua2() completed in 0.00 seconds GameApp::StartUp SetupLevelMenu() completed in 0.00 seconds STUBBED: do we even use this? at InitSocket (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/game/luatest/Game/Gameplaylogger.cpp:210) GameApp::StartUp Post-Install total completed in 0.20 seconds Start Up completed in 1.57 seconds UnixMain: StartUp successful.. Working directory: /opt/psychonauts STUBBED: dispatch SDL events at PCMainHandleAnyWindowsMessages (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/game/luatest/UnixMain.cpp:56) STUBBED: write me at GetJoystickInput (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DirectX/SDLInput.cpp:428) STUBBED: write me at GetJoystickActionValue (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DirectX/SDLInput.cpp:613) PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/cutScenes/prerendered/dflogo.bik' to 'WorkResource/cutscenes/prerendered/DFLogo.bik' Prerender subtitle file: workresource\cutScenes\prerendered\dflogo.dfs not found PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/cutScenes/prerendered/dflogo.bik' to 'WorkResource/cutscenes/prerendered/DFLogo.bik' STUBBED: fixed function pipeline? at setColorOp (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFGraphics/Texture.cpp:2097) STUBBED: fixed function pipeline? at setColorArg1 (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFGraphics/Texture.cpp:2106) STUBBED: fixed function pipeline? at setColorArg2 (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFGraphics/Texture.cpp:2115) STUBBED: fixed function pipeline? at setAlphaOp (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFGraphics/Texture.cpp:2124) STUBBED: fixed function pipeline? at setAlphaArg1 (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFGraphics/Texture.cpp:2133) STUBBED: fixed function pipeline? at setAlphaArg2 (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFGraphics/Texture.cpp:2142) STUBBED: fixed function pipeline? at setProjected (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFGraphics/Texture.cpp:2223) LOC WARN: Could not open Localization file 'Localization/English/_StringTable.lub' STUBBED: memory status at UpdateMemoryTracking (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/game/luatest/Game/GameApp.cpp:4884) WARN: Couldn't resize array to 128; out-of-bounds elements are still in use: Vertex Pool, 188 Loading new level 'STMU' STUBBED: Need multithreaded GL at DisplayLoadingScreen (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/game/luatest/Game/LoadingScreen.cpp:83) ========================= Memory post unload level ========================= ========================= LOC WARN: Could not open Localization file 'Localization/English/ST_StringTable.lub' DaveD: Info: Texture pack file contains 137 textures Doing a texture readback for locking! Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: InstaHintFord_HostileRecord = [table] Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: InstaHintFord_HostileOrder = [table] WARN: Redundant packfile read: anims\thought_bubble\bubblefirestarting.jan WARN: Redundant packfile read: anims\thought_bubble\bubbleintothemind.jan WARN: Redundant packfile read: anims\thought_bubble\bubbleinvisibility.jan WARN: Redundant packfile read: anims\thought_bubble\bubblepopperfill.jan WARN: Redundant packfile read: anims\thought_bubble\bubbletelekinesis.jan Initializing level script (if there is one) PSYCHONAUTS UNIX FILENAME: corrected 'workresource/sounds/stfx.isb' to 'WorkResource/Sounds/stfx.isb' Game: Engine Reloading goals: Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: NextEncouragement = '/GLZF014TO/ 10' Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: bUsedSalts = 0 Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: bSTEntered = 1 Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: memoriesST = 1 Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: PsiBallColor = 'red' Game: Engine Saved[ST]: lastSubLevel = 'STMU' Game: Engine LOADING LEVEL st.STMU Game: Engine Saved[CA]: CALevelState = 1 Game: Engine Cutscene progression: CS Script moving from state nil to state nil, resultant state nil. Time: 0.124746672809124. * Stack Trace 1: (null) (line -1, file '(none)) () 2: SpawnScript (line -1, file 'C) (global) 3: onBeginLevel (line -1, file '(none)) (field) 4: (null) (line -1, file '(none)) () WARN: Cannot call GetDirectoryListing when running from the DVD Game: Engine Raz spawning at DartStart startpoint VM : LevelScript could not find script 'doorrimlight1' * Stack Trace 1: (null) (line -1, file '(none)) () WARN: (none(-1) SetEntityAlpha LevelScript: NULL script object passed Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: bLoadedFromMainMenu = 1 Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: NextEncouragement = '/GLZF014TO/ 10' Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: NeedRankIncrement = 0 STUBBED: Need multithreaded GL at HideLoadingScreen (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/game/luatest/Game/LoadingScreen.cpp:110) WARN: ENGINE: Lua garbage collection starting FreeUnusedBlocksInBuckets released 0 Kb Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: SplineFigmentTVSizex = 4.51434326171875 Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: SplineFigmentTVSizey = 46.38104248046875 Game: Engine Saved[GLOBAL]: SplineFigmentTVSizez = 47.08810424804688 WARN: (none(-1) SetNewAction LevelScript: no string passed ====================== Asset load progression ====================== Initial: 2.518 MB Vertex, 8.688 MB Texture Level : 3.719 MB Vertex, 22.535 MB Texture Scripts: 3.747 MB Vertex, 22.848 MB Texture ====================== ====================== Memory post level load ====================== ====================== WARN: ENGINE: Lua garbage collection starting FreeUnusedBlocksInBuckets released 0 Kb DaveD: Level loaded in 0.14 seconds Anim: anims\objects\tk_arrow_idle.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\helmet\darthelmetdn.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\thought_bubble\shieldloop.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\standready.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\walkmove.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\janitor\hint_end.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\thought_bubble\ballstatic.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\actionfall.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\standstill.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\pack\packbounce_lf_rt.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\pack\packbounce_up_dn.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\helmet\darthelmetdefpose.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) 1: 1 (number) 1: 1 (number) STUBBED: This is probably wrong at GetDt (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFUtil/Profiler.cpp:181) STUBBED: set specular highlights at setSpecularEnable (/home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/CommonLibs/DFGraphics/Renderer.cpp:2035) Anim: anims\dartnew\trnrtcycle.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\run.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\walk.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\thought_bubble\bubbledoublejump.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\longjump.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\menubrain\door1crack.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\menubrain\door1crackedidle.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\menubrain\door1closedidle.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\180.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\menubrain\door3crack.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\menubrain\door3crackedidle.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\menubrain\door3closedidle.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\railslide45angle.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\railslideflat.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\dartnew\trnlfcycle.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) WARN: (none(-1) SetNewAction LevelScript: no string passed Anim: anims\dartnew\mainmenu_jump.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) Anim: anims\menubrain\door1open.jan: loaded (1 frames latency) ERROR: Assert in /home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/game/luatest/../../CommonLibs/Include/../DFGraphics/Color.h, line 96 v.x >= 0.0f && v.x <= 1.0f && v.y >= 0.0f && v.y <= 1.0f && v.z >= 0.0f && v.z <= 1.0f && v.w >= 0.0f && v.w <= 1.0f Encountered Error: Psychonauts has encountered an error /home/icculus/projects/psychonauts/Source/game/luatest/../../CommonLibs/Include/../DFGraphics/Color.h, line 96 v.x >= 0.0f && v.x <= 1.0f && v.y >= 0.0f && v.y <= 1.0f && v.z >= 0.0f && v.z <= 1.0f && v.w >= 0.0f && v.w <= 1.0f Please contact technical support at http://www.doublefine.com. I am currently using Bumblebee for hybrid graphics, if that helps in any way.

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• Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 13: Get control over the Build Output

  In the series the following parts have been published Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Add arguments and variables Part 3: Use more complex arguments Part 4: Create your own activity Part 5: Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6: Use custom type for an argument Part 7: How is the custom assembly found Part 8: Send information to the build log Part 9: Impersonate activities (run under other credentials) Part 10: Include Version Number in the Build Number Part 11: Speed up opening my build process template Part 12: How to debug my custom activities Part 13: Get control over the Build Output Part 14: Execute a PowerShell script Part 15: Fail a build based on the exit code of a console application     In the part 8, I have explained how you can add informational messages, warnings or errors to the build output. If you want to integrate with other lines of text to the build output, you need to do more. This post will show you how you can add extra steps, additional information and hyperlinks to the build output. Add an hyperlink to the end of the build output Lets start with a simple example of how you can adjust the build output. In this case we are going to add at the end of the build output an hyperlink where a user can click on to for example start the deployment to the test environment. In part 4 you can find information how you can create a custom activity To add information to the build output, you need the BuildDetail. This value is a variable in your xaml and is thus easily transferable to you custom activity. Besides the BuildDetail the user has also to specify the text and the url that has to be added to the end of the build output. The following code segment shows you how you can achieve this.     [BuildActivity(HostEnvironmentOption.All)]    public sealed class AddHyperlinkToBuildOutput : CodeActivity    {        [RequiredArgument]        public InArgument<IBuildDetail> BuildDetail { get; set; }         [RequiredArgument]        public InArgument<string> DisplayText { get; set; }         [RequiredArgument]        public InArgument<string> Url { get; set; }         protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context)        {            // Obtain the runtime value of the input arguments                        IBuildDetail buildDetail = context.GetValue(this.BuildDetail);            string displayText = context.GetValue(this.DisplayText);            string url = context.GetValue(this.Url);             // Add the hyperlink            buildDetail.Information.AddExternalLink(displayText, new Uri(url));            buildDetail.Information.Save();        }    } If you add this activity to somewhere in your build process template (within the scope Run on Agent), you will get the following build output Add an line of text to the build output The next challenge is to add this kind of output not only to the end of the build output but at the step that is currently executing. To be able to do this, you need the current node in the build output. The following code shows you how you can achieve this. First you need to get the current activity tracking, which you can get with the following line of code             IActivityTracking currentTracking = context.GetExtension<IBuildLoggingExtension>().GetActivityTracking(context); Then you can create a new node and set its type to Activity Tracking Node (so copy it from the current node) and do nice things with the node.             IBuildInformationNode childNode = currentTracking.Node.Children.CreateNode();            childNode.Type = currentTracking.Node.Type;            childNode.Fields.Add("DisplayText", "This text is displayed."); You can also add a build step to display progress             IBuildStep buildStep = childNode.Children.AddBuildStep("Custom Build Step", "This is my custom build step");            buildStep.FinishTime = DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(10);            buildStep.Status = BuildStepStatus.Succeeded; Or you can add an hyperlink to the node             childNode.Children.AddExternalLink("My link", new Uri(http://www.ewaldhofman.nl)); When you combine this together you get the following result in the build output     You can download the full solution at BuildProcess.zip. It will include the sources of every part and will continue to evolve.

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• Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 13: Get control over the Build Output

  In the series the following parts have been published Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Add arguments and variables Part 3: Use more complex arguments Part 4: Create your own activity Part 5: Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6: Use custom type for an argument Part 7: How is the custom assembly found Part 8: Send information to the build log Part 9: Impersonate activities (run under other credentials) Part 10: Include Version Number in the Build Number Part 11: Speed up opening my build process template Part 12: How to debug my custom activities Part 13: Get control over the Build Output Part 14: Execute a PowerShell script Part 15: Fail a build based on the exit code of a console application In the part 8, I have explained how you can add informational messages, warnings or errors to the build output. If you want to integrate with other lines of text to the build output, you need to do more. This post will show you how you can add extra steps, additional information and hyperlinks to the build output. UPDATE 13-12-2010: Thanks to Jason Pricket, it is now also possible to not show every activity in the build log. This is really useful when you are doing for-loops in your template. To see how you can do that, check out Jason's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jpricket/archive/2010/12/09/tfs-2010-making-your-build-log-less-noisy.aspx Add an hyperlink to the end of the build output Lets start with a simple example of how you can adjust the build output. In this case we are going to add at the end of the build output an hyperlink where a user can click on to for example start the deployment to the test environment. In part 4 you can find information how you can create a custom activity To add information to the build output, you need the BuildDetail. This value is a variable in your xaml and is thus easily transferable to you custom activity. Besides the BuildDetail the user has also to specify the text and the url that has to be added to the end of the build output. The following code segment shows you how you can achieve this.     [BuildActivity(HostEnvironmentOption.All)]    public sealed class AddHyperlinkToBuildOutput : CodeActivity    {        [RequiredArgument]        public InArgument<IBuildDetail> BuildDetail { get; set; }         [RequiredArgument]        public InArgument<string> DisplayText { get; set; }         [RequiredArgument]        public InArgument<string> Url { get; set; }         protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context)        {            // Obtain the runtime value of the input arguments                        IBuildDetail buildDetail = context.GetValue(this.BuildDetail);            string displayText = context.GetValue(this.DisplayText);            string url = context.GetValue(this.Url);             // Add the hyperlink            buildDetail.Information.AddExternalLink(displayText, new Uri(url));            buildDetail.Information.Save();        }    } If you add this activity to somewhere in your build process template (within the scope Run on Agent), you will get the following build output Add an line of text to the build output The next challenge is to add this kind of output not only to the end of the build output but at the step that is currently executing. To be able to do this, you need the current node in the build output. The following code shows you how you can achieve this. First you need to get the current activity tracking, which you can get with the following line of code             IActivityTracking currentTracking = context.GetExtension<IBuildLoggingExtension>().GetActivityTracking(context); Then you can create a new node and set its type to Activity Tracking Node (so copy it from the current node) and do nice things with the node.             IBuildInformationNode childNode = currentTracking.Node.Children.CreateNode();            childNode.Type = currentTracking.Node.Type;            childNode.Fields.Add("DisplayText", "This text is displayed."); You can also add a build step to display progress             IBuildStep buildStep = childNode.Children.AddBuildStep("Custom Build Step", "This is my custom build step");            buildStep.FinishTime = DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(10);            buildStep.Status = BuildStepStatus.Succeeded; Or you can add an hyperlink to the node             childNode.Children.AddExternalLink("My link", new Uri(http://www.ewaldhofman.nl)); When you combine this together you get the following result in the build output   You can download the full solution at BuildProcess.zip. It will include the sources of every part and will continue to evolve.

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• Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 16: Specify the relative reference path

  In the series the following parts have been published Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Add arguments and variables Part 3: Use more complex arguments Part 4: Create your own activity Part 5: Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6: Use custom type for an argument Part 7: How is the custom assembly found Part 8: Send information to the build log Part 9: Impersonate activities (run under other credentials) Part 10: Include Version Number in the Build Number Part 11: Speed up opening my build process template Part 12: How to debug my custom activities Part 13: Get control over the Build Output Part 14: Execute a PowerShell script Part 15: Fail a build based on the exit code of a console application Part 16: Specify the relative reference path As I have already blogged about, it is not intuitive how to specify the paths where the build server has to look for references that are stored in Source Control. It is a common practice to store 3rd party libraries in Source Control, so they are available to everyone, everyone uses the same version of the libraries and updating a library can be done centrally. In Team Build 2010 these paths are specified as a parameter for MSBuild. What we will do in this post is building the values for this parameter based on the values in an argument. You are now pretty aware how to customize the build template, so let’s do the modifications in another way. Instead of opening the xaml file in the workflow designer, we open it in the XML editor. You can open it in the XML Editor by either selecting the Open with menu (see the context menu), or by choosing the View code option. To add this functionality we need to: Specify a new argument Add the argument to the metadata Build the absolute paths for the references and add these paths to the MSBuild arguments 1. Specify a new argument Locate at the top of the document the Members (which are the arguments) of the XAML and add the following line <x:Property Name="ReferencePaths" Type="InArgument(s:String[])" /> 2. Add the argument to the metadata Then locate the line <mtbw:ProcessParameterMetadataCollection> and paste the following line <mtbw:ProcessParameterMetadata Category="Misc" Description="The list of reference paths, relative to the root path in the Workspace mapping." DisplayName="Reference paths" ParameterName="ReferencePaths" /> 3. Build the absolute paths for the references and add these paths to the MSBuild arguments Now locate the place where the assignments are done to the variables used in the agent. And add the following lines after the last Assign activity         <Sequence DisplayName="Initialize ReferencePath" sap:VirtualizedContainerService.HintSize="464,428">           <Sequence.Variables>             <Variable x:TypeArguments="x:String" Name="ReferencePathsArgument">               <Variable.Default>                 <Literal x:TypeArguments="x:String" Value="" />               </Variable.Default>             </Variable>           </Sequence.Variables>           <sap:WorkflowViewStateService.ViewState>             <scg:Dictionary x:TypeArguments="x:String, x:Object">               <x:Boolean x:Key="IsExpanded">True</x:Boolean>             </scg:Dictionary>           </sap:WorkflowViewStateService.ViewState>           <ForEach x:TypeArguments="x:String" DisplayName="Iterate through the paths" sap:VirtualizedContainerService.HintSize="287,206" mtbwt:BuildTrackingParticipant.Importance="Low" Values="[ReferencePaths]">             <ActivityAction x:TypeArguments="x:String">               <ActivityAction.Argument>                 <DelegateInArgument x:TypeArguments="x:String" Name="path" />               </ActivityAction.Argument>               <Assign x:TypeArguments="x:String" DisplayName="Build ReferencePath argument" sap:VirtualizedContainerService.HintSize="257,100" mtbwt:BuildTrackingParticipant.Importance="Low"  To="[ReferencePathsArgument]" Value="[If(String.IsNullOrEmpty(ReferencePathsArgument), &quot;&quot;, ReferencePathsArgument + &quot;;&quot;) + IO.Path.Combine(SourcesDirectory, path)]" />             </ActivityAction>           </ForEach>           <Assign DisplayName="Append the reference paths to the MSBuild Arguments" sap:VirtualizedContainerService.HintSize="287,58">             <Assign.To>               <OutArgument x:TypeArguments="x:String">[MSBuildArguments]</OutArgument>             </Assign.To>             <Assign.Value>               <InArgument x:TypeArguments="x:String">[String.Format("{0} /p:ReferencePath=""{1}""", MSBuildArguments, ReferencePathsArgument)]</InArgument>             </Assign.Value>           </Assign>         </Sequence> Now you can use the template to specify the paths relative to SourcesDirectory. You can download the full solution at BuildProcess.zip. It will include the sources of every part and will continue to evolve.

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• Mocking the Unmockable: Using Microsoft Moles with Gallio

  - by Thomas Weller

  Usual opensource mocking frameworks (like e.g. Moq or Rhino.Mocks) can mock only interfaces and virtual methods. In contrary to that, Microsoft’s Moles framework can ‘mock’ virtually anything, in that it uses runtime instrumentation to inject callbacks in the method MSIL bodies of the moled methods. Therefore, it is possible to detour any .NET method, including non-virtual/static methods in sealed types. This can be extremely helpful when dealing e.g. with code that calls into the .NET framework, some third-party or legacy stuff etc… Some useful collected resources (links to website, documentation material and some videos) can be found in my toolbox on Delicious under this link: http://delicious.com/thomasweller/toolbox+moles A Gallio extension for Moles Originally, Moles is a part of Microsoft’s Pex framework and thus integrates best with Visual Studio Unit Tests (MSTest). However, the Moles sample download contains some additional assemblies to also support other unit test frameworks. They provide a Moled attribute to ease the usage of mole types with the respective framework (there are extensions for NUnit, xUnit.net and MbUnit v2 included with the samples). As there is no such extension for the Gallio platform, I did the few required lines myself – the resulting Gallio.Moles.dll is included with the sample download. With this little assembly in place, it is possible to use Moles with Gallio like that: [Test, Moled] public void SomeTest() {     ... What you can do with it Moles can be very helpful, if you need to ‘mock’ something other than a virtual or interface-implementing method. This might be the case when dealing with some third-party component, legacy code, or if you want to ‘mock’ the .NET framework itself. Generally, you need to announce each moled type that you want to use in a test with the MoledType attribute on assembly level. For example: [assembly: MoledType(typeof(System.IO.File))] Below are some typical use cases for Moles. For a more detailed overview (incl. naming conventions and an instruction on how to create the required moles assemblies), please refer to the reference material above.  Detouring the .NET framework Imagine that you want to test a method similar to the one below, which internally calls some framework method:   public void ReadFileContent(string fileName) {     this.FileContent = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(fileName); } Using a mole, you would replace the call to the File.ReadAllText(string) method with a runtime delegate like so: [Test, Moled] [Description("This 'mocks' the System.IO.File class with a custom delegate.")] public void ReadFileContentWithMoles() {     // arrange ('mock' the FileSystem with a delegate)     System.IO.Moles.MFile.ReadAllTextString = (fname => fname == FileName ? FileContent : "WrongFileName");       // act     var testTarget = new TestTarget.TestTarget();     testTarget.ReadFileContent(FileName);       // assert     Assert.AreEqual(FileContent, testTarget.FileContent); } Detouring static methods and/or classes A static method like the below… public static string StaticMethod(int x, int y) {     return string.Format("{0}{1}", x, y); } … can be ‘mocked’ with the following: [Test, Moled] public void StaticMethodWithMoles() {     MStaticClass.StaticMethodInt32Int32 = ((x, y) => "uups");       var result = StaticClass.StaticMethod(1, 2);       Assert.AreEqual("uups", result); } Detouring constructors You can do this delegate thing even with a class’ constructor. The syntax for this is not all  too intuitive, because you have to setup the internal state of the mole, but generally it works like a charm. For example, to replace this c’tor… public class ClassWithCtor {     public int Value { get; private set; }       public ClassWithCtor(int someValue)     {         this.Value = someValue;     } } … you would do the following: [Test, Moled] public void ConstructorTestWithMoles() {     MClassWithCtor.ConstructorInt32 =            ((@class, @value) => new MClassWithCtor(@class) {ValueGet = () => 99});       var classWithCtor = new ClassWithCtor(3);       Assert.AreEqual(99, classWithCtor.Value); } Detouring abstract base classes You can also use this approach to ‘mock’ abstract base classes of a class that you call in your test. Assumed that you have something like that: public abstract class AbstractBaseClass {     public virtual string SaySomething()     {         return "Hello from base.";     } }      public class ChildClass : AbstractBaseClass {     public override string SaySomething()     {         return string.Format(             "Hello from child. Base says: '{0}'",             base.SaySomething());     } } Then you would set up the child’s underlying base class like this: [Test, Moled] public void AbstractBaseClassTestWithMoles() {     ChildClass child = new ChildClass();     new MAbstractBaseClass(child)         {                 SaySomething = () => "Leave me alone!"         }         .InstanceBehavior = MoleBehaviors.Fallthrough;       var hello = child.SaySomething();       Assert.AreEqual("Hello from child. Base says: 'Leave me alone!'", hello); } Setting the moles behavior to a value of  MoleBehaviors.Fallthrough causes the ‘original’ method to be called if a respective delegate is not provided explicitly – here it causes the ChildClass’ override of the SaySomething() method to be called. There are some more possible scenarios, where the Moles framework could be of much help (e.g. it’s also possible to detour interface implementations like IEnumerable<T> and such…). One other possibility that comes to my mind (because I’m currently dealing with that), is to replace calls from repository classes to the ADO.NET Entity Framework O/R mapper with delegates to isolate the repository classes from the underlying database, which otherwise would not be possible… Usage Since Moles relies on runtime instrumentation, mole types must be run under the Pex profiler. This only works from inside Visual Studio if you write your tests with MSTest (Visual Studio Unit Test). While other unit test frameworks generally can be used with Moles, they require the respective tests to be run via command line, executed through the moles.runner.exe tool. A typical test execution would be similar to this: moles.runner.exe <mytests.dll> /runner:<myframework.console.exe> /args:/<myargs> So, the moled test can be run through tools like NCover or a scripting tool like MSBuild (which makes them easy to run in a Continuous Integration environment), but they are somewhat unhandy to run in the usual TDD workflow (which I described in some detail here). To make this a bit more fluent, I wrote a ReSharper live template to generate the respective command line for the test (it is also included in the sample download – moled_cmd.xml). - This is just a quick-and-dirty ‘solution’. Maybe it makes sense to write an extra Gallio adapter plugin (similar to the many others that are already provided) and include it with the Gallio download package, if  there’s sufficient demand for it. As of now, the only way to run tests with the Moles framework from within Visual Studio is by using them with MSTest. From the command line, anything with a managed console runner can be used (provided that the appropriate extension is in place)… A typical Gallio/Moles command line (as generated by the mentioned R#-template) looks like that: "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Moles\bin\moles.runner.exe" /runner:"%ProgramFiles%\Gallio\bin\Gallio.Echo.exe" "Gallio.Moles.Demo.dll" /args:/r:IsolatedAppDomain /args:/filter:"ExactType:TestFixture and Member:ReadFileContentWithMoles" -- Note: When using the command line with Echo (Gallio’s console runner), be sure to always include the IsolatedAppDomain option, otherwise the tests won’t use the instrumentation callbacks! -- License issues As I already said, the free mocking frameworks can mock only interfaces and virtual methods. if you want to mock other things, you need the Typemock Isolator tool for that, which comes with license costs (Although these ‘costs’ are ridiculously low compared to the value that such a tool can bring to a software project, spending money often is a considerable gateway hurdle in real life...).  The Moles framework also is not totally free, but comes with the same license conditions as the (closely related) Pex framework: It is free for academic/non-commercial use only, to use it in a ‘real’ software project requires an MSDN Subscription (from VS2010pro on). The demo solution The sample solution (VS 2008) can be downloaded from here. It contains the Gallio.Moles.dll which provides the here described Moled attribute, the above mentioned R#-template (moled_cmd.xml) and a test fixture containing the above described use case scenarios. To run it, you need the Gallio framework (download) and Microsoft Moles (download) being installed in the default locations. Happy testing…

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• Wrapping ASP.NET Client Callbacks

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Client Callbacks are probably the less known (and I dare say, less loved) of all the AJAX options in ASP.NET, which also include the UpdatePanel, Page Methods and Web Services. The reason for that, I believe, is it’s relative complexity: Get a reference to a JavaScript function; Dynamically register function that calls the above reference; Have a JavaScript handler call the registered function. However, it has some the nice advantage of being self-contained, that is, doesn’t need additional files, such as web services, JavaScript libraries, etc, or static methods declared on a page, or any kind of attributes. So, here’s what I want to do: Have a DOM element which exposes a method that is executed server side, passing it a string and returning a string; Have a server-side event that handles the client-side call; Have two client-side user-supplied callback functions for handling the success and error results. I’m going to develop a custom control without user interface that does the registration of the client JavaScript method as well as a server-side event that can be hooked by some handler on a page. My markup will look like this: 1: <script type="text/javascript"> 1:  2:  3: function onCallbackSuccess(result, context) 4: { 5: } 6:  7: function onCallbackError(error, context) 8: { 9: } 10:  </script> 2: <my:CallbackControl runat="server" ID="callback" SendAllData="true" OnCallback="OnCallback"/> The control itself looks like this: 1: public class CallbackControl : Control, ICallbackEventHandler 2: { 3: #region Public constructor 4: public CallbackControl() 5: { 6: this.SendAllData = false; 7: this.Async = true; 8: } 9: #endregion 10:  11: #region Public properties and events 12: public event EventHandler<CallbackEventArgs> Callback; 13:  14: [DefaultValue(true)] 15: public Boolean Async 16: { 17: get; 18: set; 19: } 20:  21: [DefaultValue(false)] 22: public Boolean SendAllData 23: { 24: get; 25: set; 26: } 27:  28: #endregion 29:  30: #region Protected override methods 31:  32: protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) 33: { 34: writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Id, this.ClientID); 35: writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Span); 36:  37: base.Render(writer); 38:  39: writer.RenderEndTag(); 40: } 41:  42: protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) 43: { 44: String reference = this.Page.ClientScript.GetCallbackEventReference(this, "arg", "onCallbackSuccess", "context", "onCallbackError", this.Async); 45: String script = String.Concat("\ndocument.getElementById('", this.ClientID, "').callback = function(arg, context, onCallbackSuccess, onCallbackError){", ((this.SendAllData == true) ? "__theFormPostCollection.length = 0; __theFormPostData = ''; WebForm_InitCallback(); " : String.Empty), reference, ";};\n"); 46:  47: this.Page.ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(this.GetType(), String.Concat("callback", this.ClientID), script, true); 48:  49: base.OnInit(e); 50: } 51:  52: #endregion 53:  54: #region Protected virtual methods 55: protected virtual void OnCallback(CallbackEventArgs args) 56: { 57: EventHandler<CallbackEventArgs> handler = this.Callback; 58:  59: if (handler != null) 60: { 61: handler(this, args); 62: } 63: } 64:  65: #endregion 66:  67: #region ICallbackEventHandler Members 68:  69: String ICallbackEventHandler.GetCallbackResult() 70: { 71: CallbackEventArgs args = new CallbackEventArgs(this.Context.Items["Data"] as String); 72:  73: this.OnCallback(args); 74:  75: return (args.Result); 76: } 77:  78: void ICallbackEventHandler.RaiseCallbackEvent(String eventArgument) 79: { 80: this.Context.Items["Data"] = eventArgument; 81: } 82:  83: #endregion 84: } And the event argument class: 1: [Serializable] 2: public class CallbackEventArgs : EventArgs 3: { 4: public CallbackEventArgs(String argument) 5: { 6: this.Argument = argument; 7: this.Result = String.Empty; 8: } 9:  10: public String Argument 11: { 12: get; 13: private set; 14: } 15:  16: public String Result 17: { 18: get; 19: set; 20: } 21: } You will notice two properties on the CallbackControl: Async: indicates if the call should be made asynchronously or synchronously (the default); SendAllData: indicates if the callback call will include the view and control state of all of the controls on the page, so that, on the server side, they will have their properties set when the Callback event is fired. The CallbackEventArgs class exposes two properties: Argument: the read-only argument passed to the client-side function; Result: the result to return to the client-side callback function, set from the Callback event handler. An example of an handler for the Callback event would be: 1: protected void OnCallback(Object sender, CallbackEventArgs e) 2: { 3: e.Result = String.Join(String.Empty, e.Argument.Reverse()); 4: } Finally, in order to fire the Callback event from the client, you only need this: 1: <input type="text" id="input"/> 2: <input type="button" value="Get Result" onclick="document.getElementById('callback').callback(callback(document.getElementById('input').value, 'context', onCallbackSuccess, onCallbackError))"/> The syntax of the callback function is: arg: some string argument; context: some context that will be passed to the callback functions (success or failure); callbackSuccessFunction: some function that will be called when the callback succeeds; callbackFailureFunction: some function that will be called if the callback fails for some reason. Give it a try and see if it helps!

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• Using SQL Source Control with Fortress or Vault &ndash; Part 2

  - by AjarnMark

  In Part 1, I started talking about using Red-Gate’s newest version of SQL Source Control and how I really like it as a viable method to source control your database development.  It looks like this is going to turn into a little series where I will explain how we have done things in the past, and how life is different with SQL Source Control.  I will also explain some of my philosophy and methodology around deployment with these tools.  But for now, let’s talk about some of the good and the bad of the tool itself. More Kudos and Features I mentioned previously how impressed I was with the responsiveness of Red-Gate’s team.  I have been having an ongoing email conversation with Gyorgy Pocsi, and as I have run into problems or requested things behave a little differently, it has not been more than a day or two before a new Build is ready for me to download and test.  Quite impressive! I’m sure much of the requests I put in were already in the plans, so I can’t really take credit for them, but throughout this conversation, Red-Gate has implemented several features that were not in the first Early Access version.  Those include: Honoring the Fortress configuration option to require Work Item (Bug) IDs on check-ins. Adding the check-in comment text as a comment to the Work Item. Adding the list of checked-in files, along with the Fortress links for automatic History and DIFF view Updating the status of a Work Item on check-in (e.g. setting the item to Complete or, in our case “Dev-Complete”) Support for the Fortress 2.0 API, and not just the Vault Pro 5.1 API.  (See later notes regarding support for Fortress 2.0). These were all features that I felt we really needed to have in-place before I could honestly consider converting my team to using SQL Source Control on a regular basis.  Now that I have those, my only excuse is not wanting to switch boats on the team mid-stream.  So when we wrap up our current release in a few weeks, we will make the jump.  In the meantime, I will continue to bang on it to make sure it is stable.  It passed one test for stability when I did a test load of one of our larger database schemas into Fortress with SQL Source Control.  That database has about 150 tables, 200 User-Defined Functions and nearly 900 Stored Procedures.  The initial load to source control went smoothly and took just a brief amount of time. Warnings Remember that this IS still in pre-release stage and while I have not had any problems after that first hiccup I wrote about last time, you still need to treat it with a healthy respect.  As I understand it, the RTM is targeted for February.  There are a couple more features that I hope make it into the final release version, but if not, they’ll probably be coming soon thereafter.  Those are: A Browse feature to let me lookup the Work Item ID instead of having to remember it or look back in my Item details.  This is just a matter of convenience. I normally have my Work Item list open anyway, so I can easily look it up, but hey, why not make it even easier. A multi-line comment area.  The current space for writing check-in comments is a single-line text box.  I would like to have a multi-line space as I sometimes write lengthy commentary.  But I recognize that it is a struggle to get most developers to put in more than the word “fixed” as their comment, so this meets the need of the majority as-is, and it’s not a show-stopper for us. Merge.  SQL Source Control currently does not have a Merge feature.  If two or more people make changes to the same database object, you will get a warning of the conflict and have to choose which one wins (and then manually edit to include the others’ changes).  I think it unlikely you will run into actual conflicts in Stored Procedures and Functions, but you might with Views or Tables.  This will be nice to have, but I’m not losing any sleep over it.  And I have multiple tools at my disposal to do merges manually, so really not a show-stopper for us. Automation has its limits.  As cool as this automation is, it has its limits and there are some changes that you will be better off scripting yourself.  For example, if you are refactoring table definitions, and want to change a column name, you can write that as a quick sp_rename command and preserve the data within that column.  But because this tool is looking just at a before and after picture, it cannot tell that you just renamed a column.  To the tool, it looks like you dropped one column and added another.  This is not a knock against Red-Gate.  All automated scripting tools have this issue, unless the are actively monitoring your every step to know exactly what you are doing.  This means that when you go to Deploy your changes, SQL Compare will script the change as a column drop and add, or will attempt to rebuild the entire table.  Unfortunately, neither of these approaches will preserve the existing data in that column the way an sp_rename will, and so you are better off scripting that change yourself.  Thankfully, SQL Compare will produce warnings about the potential loss of data before it does the actual synchronization and give you a chance to intercept the script and do it yourself. Also, please note that the current official word is that SQL Source Control supports Vault Professional 5.1 and later.  Vault Professional is the new name for what was previously known as Fortress.  (You can read about the name change on SourceGear’s site.)  The last version of Fortress was 2.x, and the API for Fortress 2.x is different from the API for Vault Pro.  At my company, we are currently running Fortress 2.0, with plans to upgrade to Vault Pro early next year.  Gyorgy was able to come up with a work-around for me to be able to use SQL Source Control with Fortress 2.0, even though it is not officially supported.  If you are using Fortress 2.0 and want to use SQL Source Control, be aware that this is not officially supported, but it is working for us, and you can probably get the work-around instructions from Red-Gate if you’re really, really nice to them. Upcoming Topics Some of the other topics I will likely cover in this series over the next few weeks are: How we used to do source control back in the old days (a few weeks ago) before SQL Source Control was available to Vault users What happens when you restore a database that is linked to source control Handling multiple development branches of source code Concurrent Development practices and handling Conflicts Deployment Tips and Best Practices A recap after using the tool for a while

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• Product Development Investment: A Measure of Vendor Performance

  - by Jim Mcglothlin

  The relationship between a large, complex organization and its key suppliers of information technology is normally more than just "strategic". Expectations about the duration of the relationship typically exceed 20 years. Enterprise applications and technology infrastructure are not expected to be changed out like petunias. So how would you rate the due diligence processes as performed in Higher Education when selecting critical, transformational information technology? My observation: I see a lot of effort put into elaborate demonstration of basic software functionality. I see a lot of attention paid to the cost element of technology acquisition, including the contracted cost of implementation consulting services. But the factor that receives only cursory analysis and due diligence is long-term performance--the ability of a vendor to grow, expand, and develop, and bring its customers along with it. So what should you look for in a long-term IT supplier? Oracle has a public track record for product development. The annual investment has been on a run rate of almost $3 Billion organic product development. Oracle's well-publicized acquisitions and mergers have been supplemental to its R&D. This is important for Higher Education. Another meaningful way to evaluate a company is to look at the tangible track record of enhancement. Consider the Oracle-PeopleSoft enterprise business platform since acquired by Oracle 6 years ago: Product or Technology Enhancement Customer or User Impact Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) 300+ new web services delivered in versions 9.0 & 9.1 provide flexibility, so that customers can integrate PeopleSoft with other applications. Campus Solutions has added Admissions and Constituent Web Services. Constituent Relationship Management PeopleSoft CRM 9.1 for Higher Education introduced new process flows for student recruiting and retention to support "Student Success" initiatives. A 360 view of the constituent is now delivered, and the concept of a single-stop Student Services Center is now in CRM 9.1 with tight integration to PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. Human Capital Management Contract Pay for Education, with flexibility for configuration and calculation, has been extended in HCM 9.1. New chartfield integration among Project Costing - Time & Labor - Payroll to serve the labor distribution requirements for Grants / Sponsored Research. Talent Management PeopleSoft 9.0 and 9.1 feature an integrated talent management approach centered on definitions in "Profile Manager", with all new usability improvements. Internal and external candidate pools, and the entire recruitment process, are driven by delivered configurable selection and on-boarding processes. Interview scheduling, and online job offers are newly delivered processes. Performance Management PeopleSoft HCM ePerformance 9.1 will include significant new functionality designed to help organizations more effectively align business objectives with employee goals. Using an Organization Chart view, your business goals can flow down to become tangible objectives per employee. Succession Planning / Workforce Development New in HCM 9.0, enhanced in 9.1, is a planning capability for regular or unusual (major organizational change) succession of internal or external candidates. PeopleSoft supports employee-based career planning, which ultimately increases the integrity of the succession planning process (identify their career needs, plans, preferences, and interests). Dashboards / Oracle Business Intelligence Application Suite Oracle Human Resources Analytics provides the workforce information foundation that integrates data from HR functional areas and Finance. Oracle Human Resources Analytics delivers 9 dashboards and over 200 reports. Provide your HR professionals and front-line managers the tools to analyze workforce staffing, retention, productivity, to better source high-quality applicants, and to reduce absence costs. Multi-year Planning and Commitment Control External funding sources, especially Grants, require a multi-year encumbrance business process. PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 adds multi-year funding and commitment control, including budget checking. The newly designed Real Time Budget Checking will provide the customer with an updated snapshot of their budget and encumbrances at any given time. Position Budgeting with Hyperion Hyperion Planning world-class products now include delivered integration to PeopleSoft HCM. Position Budgeting is available in the new Public Sector Planning module of Hyperion. Web 2.0 features for the latest in usability PeopleSoft 9.1 features a contemporary internet user experience: Partial-page refreshing Drag and drop pagelets New menu structure Navigation pagelets Modal popup message windows Favorites & recently used links Type-ahead Drag and drop grid columns, pop-out grids Portal Workspaces Enterprise 2.0 for your collaborative web communities, using new content management, along with Wikis, blogs, and discussion forums in PeopleSoft Portal 9.1. PeopleTools enhanced by Oracle Fusion Middleware Standards-based tools have been added to the PeopleTools application infrastructure: BI (XML) Publisher, Java tools. Certified for use with PeopleSoft: Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE), Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle Weblogic Server, Oracle SOA Suite. Hosting for PeopleSoft applications A solid new deployment option: Oracle On Demand remote hosting center for high scalability, security, and continuity of operations. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) for HCM / Payroll functions Partnership with AT&T provides hosting of HR/Payroll application along with payroll business process operations, and subscription-based service fees (SaaS). AT&T BPO full service includes pay sheet processing, bank and 3rd party file transfer, payroll tax handling, etc. Continuous Delivery Model Feature Packs provide faster time-to-benefit; new features become available in PeopleSoft 9.1 (or Campus Solutions 9.0) without need to perform upgrade. Golden person data model across all campus applications Oracle Higher Education Constituent Hub provides synchronization and data governance of person data across any application, e.g. HR/ Payroll, Student Information System, Housing, Emergency Contact, LMS, CRM. Oracle's aggressive enhancement plans within the "Applications Unlimited" program continue, as new functionality is under development for a new version of a PeopleSoft release planned for 2012. Meanwhile, new capabilities are planned on an annual basis in Feature Packs. PeopleSoft just delivered the HCM 2010 Feature Pack and another is planned for 2011. In February we plan to have over 100 customers from our Customer Advisory Boards at our PeopleSoft Development Center in California to review designs for all of these releases. For those of you near New York City The investment and progressive development story described above is the subject of an Oracle road show event on February 9, 2011. Charting Your Course with Oracle Applications is a global event series designed to help business and IT executives assess the impact of new inflection points on their business and applications roadmap: changing workforces, shifting customer and constituent bases, and increased volatility. Learn how innovations ranging from new deployment models like cloud computing to the introduction of social applications and smart devices are delivering results across all areas of business and industry. THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND MAY NOT BE INCORPORATED INTO A CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT.

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• Handling HumanTask attachments in Oracle BPM 11g PS4FP+ (I)

  - by ccasares

  Adding attachments to a HumanTask is a feature that exists in Oracle HWF (Human Workflow) since 10g. However, in 11g there have been many improvements on this feature and this entry will try to summarize them. Oracle BPM 11g 11.1.1.5.1 (aka PS4 Feature Pack or PS4FP) introduced two great features: Ability to link attachments at a Task scope or at a Process scope: "Task" attachments are only visible within the scope (lifetime) of a task. This means that, initially, any member of the assignment pattern of the Human Task will be able to handle (add, review or remove) attachments. However, once the task is completed, subsequent human tasks will not have access to them. This does not mean those attachments got lost. Once the human task is completed, attachments can be retrieved in order to, i.e., check them in to a Content Server or to inject them to a new and different human task. Aside note: a "re-initiated" human task will inherit comments and attachments, along with history and -optionally- payload. See here for more info. "Process" attachments are visible within the scope of the process. This means that subsequent human tasks in the same process instance will have access to them. Ability to use Oracle WebCenter Content (previously known as "Oracle UCM") as the backend for the attachments instead of using HWF database backend. This feature adds all content server document lifecycle capabilities to HWF attachments (versioning, RBAC, metadata management, etc). As of today, only Oracle WCC is supported. However, Oracle BPM Suite does include a license of Oracle WCC for the solely usage of document management within BPM scope. Here are some code samples that leverage the above features. Retrieving uploaded attachments -Non UCM- Non UCM attachments (default ones or those that have existed from 10g, and are stored "as-is" in HWK database backend) can be retrieved after the completion of the Human Task. Firstly, we need to know whether any attachment has been effectively uploaded to the human task. There are two ways to find it out: Through an XPath function: Checking the execData/attachment[] structure. For example: Once we are sure one ore more attachments were uploaded to the Human Task, we want to get them. In this example, by "get" I mean to get the attachment name and the payload of the file. Aside note: Oracle HWF lets you to upload two kind of [non-UCM] attachments: a desktop document and a Web URL. This example focuses just on the desktop document one. In order to "retrieve" an uploaded Web URL, you can get it directly from the execData/attachment[] structure. Attachment content (payload) is retrieved through the getTaskAttachmentContents() XPath function: This example shows how to retrieve as many attachments as those had been uploaded to the Human Task and write them to the server using the File Adapter service. The sample process excerpt is as follows:  A dummy UserTask using "HumanTask1" Human Task followed by a Embedded Subprocess that will retrieve the attachments (we're assuming at least one attachment is uploaded): and once retrieved, we will write each of them back to a file in the server using a File Adapter service: In detail: We've defined an XSD structure that will hold the attachments (both name and payload): Then, we can create a BusinessObject based on such element (attachmentCollection) and create a variable (named attachmentBPM) of such BusinessObject type. We will also need to keep a copy of the HumanTask output's execData structure. Therefore we need to create a variable of type TaskExecutionData... ...and copy the HumanTask output execData to it: Now we get into the embedded subprocess that will retrieve the attachments' payload. First, and using an XSLT transformation, we feed the attachmentBPM variable with the name of each attachment and setting an empty value to the payload: Please note that we're using the XSLT for-each node to create as many target structures as necessary. Also note that we're setting an Empty text to the payload variable. The reason for this is to make sure the <payload></payload> tag gets created. This is needed when we map the payload to the XML variable later. Aside note: We are assuming that we're retrieving non-UCM attachments. However in real life you might want to check the type of attachment you're handling. The execData/attachment[]/storageType contains the values "UCM" for UCM type attachments, "TASK" for non-UCM ones or "URL" for Web URL ones. Those values are part of the "Ext.Com.Oracle.Xmlns.Bpel.Workflow.Task.StorageTypeEnum" enumeration. Once we have fed the attachmentsBPM structure and so it now contains the name of each of the attachments, it is time to iterate through it and get the payload. Therefore we will use a new embedded subprocess of type MultiInstance, that will iterate over the attachmentsBPM/attachment[] element: In every iteration we will use a Script activity to map the corresponding payload element with the result of the XPath function getTaskAttachmentContents(). Please, note how the target array element is indexed with the loopCounter predefined variable, so that we make sure we're feeding the right element during the array iteration:  The XPath function used looks as follows: hwf:getTaskAttachmentContents(bpmn:getDataObject('UserTask1LocalExecData')/ns1:systemAttributes/ns1:taskId, bpmn:getDataObject('attachmentsBPM')/ns:attachment[bpmn:getActivityInstanceAttribute('SUBPROCESS3067107484296', 'loopCounter')]/ns:fileName)  where the input parameters are: taskId of the just completed Human Task attachment name we're retrieving the payload from array index (loopCounter predefined variable)  Aside note: The reason whereby we're iterating the execData/attachment[] structure through embedded subprocess and not, i.e., using XSLT and for-each nodes, is mostly because the getTaskAttachmentContents() XPath function is currently not available in XSLT mappings. So all this example might be considered as a workaround until this gets fixed/enhanced in future releases. Once this embedded subprocess ends, we will have all attachments (name + payload) in the attachmentsBPM variable, which is the main goal of this sample. But in order to test everything runs fine, we finish the sample writing each attachment to a file. To that end we include a final embedded subprocess to concurrently iterate through each attachmentsBPM/attachment[] element: On each iteration we will use a Service activity that invokes a File Adapter write service. In here we have two important parameters to set. First, the payload itself. The file adapter awaits binary data in base64 format (string). We have to map it using XPath (Simple mapping doesn't recognize a String as a base64-binary valid target):  Second, we must set the target filename using the Service Properties dialog box:  Again, note how we're making use of the loopCounter index variable to get the right element within the embedded subprocess iteration. Handling UCM attachments will be part of a different and upcoming blog entry. Once I finish will all posts on this matter, I will upload the whole sample project to java.net.

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• Amazon Web Services (AWS) Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager

  - by Anand Akela

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Contributed by Sunil Kunisetty and Daniel Chan Introduction and ArchitectureAs more and more enterprises deploy some of their non-critical workload on Amazon Web Services (AWS), it’s becoming critical to monitor those public AWS resources along side with their on-premise resources. Oracle recently announced Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-in for Amazon Web Services (AWS) allows you to achieve that goal. The on-premise Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM12c) acts as a single tool to get a comprehensive view of your public AWS resources as well as your private cloud resources.  By deploying the plug-in within your Cloud Control environment, you gain the following management features: Monitor EBS, EC2 and RDS instances on Amazon Web Services Gather performance metrics and configuration details for AWS instances Raise alerts and violations based on thresholds set on monitoring Generate reports based on the gathered data Users of this Plug-in can leverage the rich Enterprise Manager features such as system promotion, incident generation based on thresholds, integration with 3rd party ticketing applications etc. AWS Monitoring via this Plug-in is enabled via Amazon CloudWatch API and the users of this Plug-in are responsible for supplying credentials for accessing AWS and the CloudWatch API. This Plug-in can only be deployed on an EM12C R2 platform and agent version should be at minimum 12c R2.Here is a pictorial view of the overall architecture: Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) Here are a few key features: Rich and exhaustive list of metrics. Metrics can be gathered from an Agent running outside AWS. Critical configuration information. Custom Home Pages with charts and AWS configuration information. Generate incidents based on thresholds set on monitoring data. Discovery and Monitoring AWS instances can be added to EM12C either via the EM12c User Interface (UI) or the EM12c Command Line Interface ( EMCLI)  by providing the AWS credentials (Secret Key and Access Key Id) as well as resource specific properties as target properties. Here is a quick mapping of target types and properties for each AWS resources AWS Resource Type Target Type Resource specific properties EBS Resource Amazon EBS Service CloudWatch base URI, EC2 Base URI, Period, Volume Id, Proxy Server and Port EC2 Resource Amazon EC2 Service CloudWatch base URI, EC2 Base URI, Period, Instance  Id, Proxy Server and Port RDS Resource Amazon RDS Service CloudWatch base URI, RDS Base URI, Period, Instance  Id, Proxy Server and Port Proxy server and port are optional and are only needed if the agent is within the firewall. Here is an emcli example to add an EC2 target. Please read the Installation and Readme guide for more details and step-by-step instructions to deploy  the plugin and adding the AWS the instances. ./emcli add_target \       -name="<target name>" \       -type="AmazonEC2Service" \       -host="<host>" \       -properties="ProxyHost=<proxy server>;ProxyPort=<proxy port>;EC2_BaseURI=http://ec2.<region>.amazonaws.com;BaseURI=http://monitoring.<region>.amazonaws.com;InstanceId=<EC2 instance Id>;Period=<data point periond>"  \     -subseparator=properties="=" ./emcli set_monitoring_credential \                 -set_name="AWSKeyCredentialSet"  \                 -target_name="<target name>"  \                 -target_type="AmazonEC2Service" \                 -cred_type="AWSKeyCredential"  \                 -attributes="AccessKeyId:<access key id>;SecretKey:<secret key>" Emcli utility is found under the ORACLE_HOME of EM12C install. Once the instance is discovered, the target will show up under the ‘All Targets’ list under “Amazon EC2 Service’. Once the instances are added, one can navigate to the custom homepages for these resource types. The custom home pages not only include critical metrics, but also vital configuration parameters and incidents raised for these instances.  By mapping the configuration parameters as instance properties, we can slice-and-dice and group various AWS instance by leveraging the EM12C Config search feature. The following configuration properties and metrics are collected for these Resource types. Resource Type Configuration Properties Metrics EBS Resource Volume Id, Volume Type, Device Name, Size, Availability Zone Response: Status Utilization: QueueLength, IdleTime Volume Statistics: ReadBrandwith, WriteBandwidth, ReadThroughput, WriteThroughput Operation Statistics: ReadSize, WriteSize, ReadLatency, WriteLatency EC2 Resource Instance ID, Owner Id, Root Device type, Instance Type. Availability Zone Response: Status CPU Utilization: CPU Utilization Disk I/O:  DiskReadBytes, DiskWriteBytes, DiskReadOps, DiskWriteOps, DiskReadRate, DiskWriteRate, DiskIOThroughput, DiskReadOpsRate, DiskWriteOpsRate, DiskOperationThroughput Network I/O : NetworkIn, NetworkOut, NetworkInRate, NetworkOutRate, NetworkThroughput RDS Resource Instance ID, Database Engine Name, Database Engine Version, Database Instance Class, Allocated Storage Size, Availability Zone Response: Status Disk I/O:  ReadIOPS, WriteIOPS, ReadLatency, WriteLatency, ReadThroughput, WriteThroughput DB Utilization:  BinLogDiskUsage, CPUUtilization, DatabaseConnections, FreeableMemory, ReplicaLag, SwapUsage Custom Home Pages As mentioned above, we have custom home pages for these target types that include basic configuration information,  last 24 hours availability, top metrics and the incidents generated. Here are few snapshots. EBS Instance Home Page: EC2 Instance Home Page: RDS Instance Home Page: Further Reading: 1)      AWS Plugin download 2)      Installation and  Read Me. 3)      Screenwatch on SlideShare 4)      Extensibility Programmer's Guide 5)      Amazon Web Services

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• SPARC T3-1 Record Results Running JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Day in the Life Benchmark with Added Batch Component

  - by Brian

  Using Oracle's SPARC T3-1 server for the application tier and Oracle's SPARC Enterprise M3000 server for the database tier, a world record result was produced running the Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications Day in the Life benchmark run concurrently with a batch workload. The SPARC T3-1 server based result has 25% better performance than the IBM Power 750 POWER7 server even though the IBM result did not include running a batch component. The SPARC T3-1 server based result has 25% better space/performance than the IBM Power 750 POWER7 server as measured by the online component. The SPARC T3-1 server based result is 5x faster than the x86-based IBM x3650 M2 server system when executing the online component of the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0.1 Day in the Life benchmark. The IBM result did not include a batch component. The SPARC T3-1 server based result has 2.5x better space/performance than the x86-based IBM x3650 M2 server as measured by the online component. The combination of SPARC T3-1 and SPARC Enterprise M3000 servers delivered a Day in the Life benchmark result of 5000 online users with 0.875 seconds of average transaction response time running concurrently with 19 Universal Batch Engine (UBE) processes at 10 UBEs/minute. The solution exercises various JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications while running Oracle WebLogic Server 11g Release 1 and Oracle Web Tier Utilities 11g HTTP server in Oracle Solaris Containers, together with the Oracle Database 11g Release 2. The SPARC T3-1 server showed that it could handle the additional workload of batch processing while maintaining the same number of online users for the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Day in the Life benchmark. This was accomplished with minimal loss in response time. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0.1 takes advantage of the large number of compute threads available in the SPARC T3-1 server at the application tier and achieves excellent response times. The SPARC T3-1 server consolidates the application/web tier of the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0.1 application using Oracle Solaris Containers. Containers provide flexibility, easier maintenance and better CPU utilization of the server leaving processing capacity for additional growth. A number of Oracle advanced technology and features were used to obtain this result: Oracle Solaris 10, Oracle Solaris Containers, Oracle Java Hotspot Server VM, Oracle WebLogic Server 11g Release 1, Oracle Web Tier Utilities 11g, Oracle Database 11g Release 2, the SPARC T3 and SPARC64 VII+ based servers. This is the first published result running both online and batch workload concurrently on the JD Enterprise Application server. No published results are available from IBM running the online component together with a batch workload. The 9.0.1 version of the benchmark saw some minor performance improvements relative to 9.0. When comparing between 9.0.1 and 9.0 results, the reader should take this into account when the difference between results is small. Performance Landscape JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Day in the Life Benchmark Online with Batch Workload This is the first publication on the Day in the Life benchmark run concurrently with batch jobs. The batch workload was provided by Oracle's Universal Batch Engine. System RackUnits Online Users Resp Time (sec) BatchConcur(# of UBEs) BatchRate(UBEs/m) Version SPARC T3-1, 1xSPARC T3 (1.65 GHz), Solaris 10 M3000, 1xSPARC64 VII+ (2.86 GHz), Solaris 10 4 5000 0.88 19 10 9.0.1 Resp Time (sec) — Response time of online jobs reported in seconds Batch Concur (# of UBEs) — Batch concurrency presented in the number of UBEs Batch Rate (UBEs/m) — Batch transaction rate in UBEs/minute. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Day in the Life Benchmark Online Workload Only These results are for the Day in the Life benchmark. They are run without any batch workload. System RackUnits Online Users ResponseTime (sec) Version SPARC T3-1, 1xSPARC T3 (1.65 GHz), Solaris 10 M3000, 1xSPARC64 VII (2.75 GHz), Solaris 10 4 5000 0.52 9.0.1 IBM Power 750, 1xPOWER7 (3.55 GHz), IBM i7.1 4 4000 0.61 9.0 IBM x3650M2, 2xIntel X5570 (2.93 GHz), OVM 2 1000 0.29 9.0 IBM result from http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/advantages/oracle/, IBM used WebSphere Configuration Summary Hardware Configuration: 1 x SPARC T3-1 server 1 x 1.65 GHz SPARC T3 128 GB memory 16 x 300 GB 10000 RPM SAS 1 x Sun Flash Accelerator F20 PCIe Card, 92 GB 1 x 10 GbE NIC 1 x SPARC Enterprise M3000 server 1 x 2.86 SPARC64 VII+ 64 GB memory 1 x 10 GbE NIC 2 x StorageTek 2540 + 2501 Software Configuration: JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0.1 with Tools 8.98.3.3 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Oracle 11g WebLogic server 11g Release 1 version 10.3.2 Oracle Web Tier Utilities 11g Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 Mercury LoadRunner 9.10 with Oracle Day in the Life kit for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0.1 Oracle’s Universal Batch Engine - Short UBEs and Long UBEs Benchmark Description JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is an integrated applications suite of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Oracle offers 70 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application modules to support a diverse set of business operations. Oracle's Day in the Life (DIL) kit is a suite of scripts that exercises most common transactions of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications, including business processes such as payroll, sales order, purchase order, work order, and other manufacturing processes, such as ship confirmation. These are labeled by industry acronyms such as SCM, CRM, HCM, SRM and FMS. The kit's scripts execute transactions typical of a mid-sized manufacturing company. The workload consists of online transactions and the UBE workload of 15 short and 4 long UBEs. LoadRunner runs the DIL workload, collects the user’s transactions response times and reports the key metric of Combined Weighted Average Transaction Response time. The UBE processes workload runs from the JD Enterprise Application server. Oracle's UBE processes come as three flavors: Short UBEs < 1 minute engage in Business Report and Summary Analysis, Mid UBEs > 1 minute create a large report of Account, Balance, and Full Address, Long UBEs > 2 minutes simulate Payroll, Sales Order, night only jobs. The UBE workload generates large numbers of PDF files reports and log files. The UBE Queues are categorized as the QBATCHD, a single threaded queue for large UBEs, and the QPROCESS queue for short UBEs run concurrently. One of the Oracle Solaris Containers ran 4 Long UBEs, while another Container ran 15 short UBEs concurrently. The mixed size UBEs ran concurrently from the SPARC T3-1 server with the 5000 online users driven by the LoadRunner. Oracle’s UBE process performance metric is Number of Maximum Concurrent UBE processes at transaction rate, UBEs/minute. Key Points and Best Practices Two JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Application Servers and two Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Servers 11g R1 coupled with two Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Web Tier HTTP Server instances on the SPARC T3-1 server were hosted in four separate Oracle Solaris Containers to demonstrate consolidation of multiple application and web servers. See Also SPARC T3-1 oracle.com SPARC Enterprise M3000 oracle.com Oracle Solaris oracle.com JD Edwards EnterpriseOne oracle.com Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com Disclosure Statement Copyright 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 6/27/2011.

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• New Feature in ODI 11.1.1.6: ODI for Big Data

  - by Julien Testut

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} By Ananth Tirupattur Starting with Oracle Data Integrator 11.1.1.6.0, ODI is offering a solution to process Big Data. This post provides an overview of this feature. With all the buzz around Big Data and before getting into the details of ODI for Big Data, I will provide a brief introduction to Big Data and Oracle Solution for Big Data. So, what is Big Data? Big data includes: structured data (this includes data from relation data stores, xml data stores), semi-structured data (this includes data from weblogs) unstructured data (this includes data from text blob, images) Traditionally, business decisions are based on the information gathered from transactional data. For example, transactional Data from CRM applications is fed to a decision system for analysis and decision making. Products such as ODI play a key role in enabling decision systems. However, with the emergence of massive amounts of semi-structured and unstructured data it is important for decision system to include them in the analysis to achieve better decision making capability. While there is an abundance of opportunities for business for gaining competitive advantages, process of Big Data has challenges. The challenges of processing Big Data include: Volume of data Velocity of data - The high Rate at which data is generated Variety of data In order to address these challenges and convert them into opportunities, we would need an appropriate framework, platform and the right set of tools. Hadoop is an open source framework which is highly scalable, fault tolerant system, for storage and processing large amounts of data. Hadoop provides 2 key services, distributed and reliable storage called Hadoop Distributed File System or HDFS and a framework for parallel data processing called Map-Reduce. Innovations in Hadoop and its related technology continue to rapidly evolve, hence therefore, it is highly recommended to follow information on the web to keep up with latest information. Oracle's vision is to provide a comprehensive solution to address the challenges faced by Big Data. Oracle is providing the necessary Hardware, software and tools for processing Big Data Oracle solution includes: Big Data Appliance Oracle NoSQL Database Cloudera distribution for Hadoop Oracle R Enterprise- R is a statistical package which is very popular among data scientists. ODI solution for Big Data Oracle Loader for Hadoop for loading data from Hadoop to Oracle. Further details can be found here: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/database/big-data-appliance/overview/index.html ODI Solution for Big Data: ODI’s goal is to minimize the need to understand the complexity of Hadoop framework and simplify the adoption of processing Big Data seamlessly in an enterprise. ODI is providing the capabilities for an integrated architecture for processing Big Data. This includes capability to load data in to Hadoop, process data in Hadoop and load data from Hadoop into Oracle. ODI is expanding its support for Big Data by providing the following out of the box Knowledge Modules (KMs). IKM File to Hive (LOAD DATA).Load unstructured data from File (Local file system or HDFS ) into Hive IKM Hive Control AppendTransform and validate structured data on Hive IKM Hive TransformTransform unstructured data on Hive IKM File/Hive to Oracle (OLH)Load processed data in Hive to Oracle RKM HiveReverse engineer Hive tables to generate models Using the Loading KM you can map files (local and HDFS files) to the corresponding Hive tables. For example, you can map weblog files categorized by date into a corresponding partitioned Hive table schema. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Using the Hive control Append KM you can validate and transform data in Hive. In the below example, two source Hive tables are joined and mapped to a target Hive table. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} The Hive Transform KM facilitates processing of semi-structured data in Hive. In the below example, the data from weblog is processed using a Perl script and mapped to target Hive table. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Using the Oracle Loader for Hadoop (OLH) KM you can load data from Hive table or HDFS to a corresponding table in Oracle. OLH is available as a standalone product. ODI greatly enhances OLH capability by generating the configuration and mapping files for OLH based on the configuration provided in the interface and KM options. ODI seamlessly invokes OLH when executing the scenario. In the below example, a HDFS file is mapped to a table in Oracle. Development and Deployment:The following diagram illustrates the development and deployment of ODI solution for Big Data. Using the ODI Studio on your development machine create and develop ODI solution for processing Big Data by connecting to a MySQL DB or Oracle database on a BDA machine or Hadoop cluster. Schedule the ODI scenarios to be executed on the ODI agent deployed on the BDA machine or Hadoop cluster. ODI Solution for Big Data provides several exciting new capabilities to facilitate the adoption of Big Data in an enterprise. You can find more information about the Oracle Big Data connectors on OTN. You can find an overview of all the new features introduced in ODI 11.1.1.6 in the following document: ODI 11.1.1.6 New Features Overview

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• Scripting Language Sessions at Oracle OpenWorld and MySQL Connect, 2012

  - by cj

  This posts highlights some great scripting language sessions coming up at the Oracle OpenWorld and MySQL Connect conferences. These events are happening in San Francisco from the end of September. You can search for other interesting conference sessions in the Content Catalog. Also check out what is happening at JavaOne in that event's Content Catalog (I haven't included sessions from it in this post.) To find the timeslots and locations of each session, click their respective link and check the "Session Schedule" box on the top right. GEN8431 - General Session: What’s New in Oracle Database Application Development This general session takes a look at what’s been new in the last year in Oracle Database application development tools using the latest generation of database technology. Topics range from Oracle SQL Developer and Oracle Application Express to Java and PHP. (Thomas Kyte - Architect, Oracle) BOF9858 - Meet the Developers of Database Access Services (OCI, ODBC, DRCP, PHP, Python) This session is your opportunity to meet in person the Oracle developers who have built Oracle Database access tools and products such as the Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Oracle C++ Call Interface (OCCI), and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers; Transparent Application Failover (TAF); Oracle Database Instant Client; Database Resident Connection Pool (DRCP); Oracle Net Services, and so on. The team also works with those who develop the PHP, Ruby, Python, and Perl adapters for Oracle Database. Come discuss with them the features you like, your pains, and new product enhancements in the latest database technology. CON8506 - Syndication and Consolidation: Oracle Database Driver for MySQL Applications This technical session presents a new Oracle Database driver that enables you to run MySQL applications (written in PHP, Perl, C, C++, and so on) against Oracle Database with almost no code change. Use cases for such a driver include application syndication such as interoperability across a relationship database management system, application migration, and database consolidation. In addition, the session covers enhancements in database technology that enable and simplify the migration of third-party databases and applications to and consolidation with Oracle Database. Attend this session to learn more and see a live demo. (Srinath Krishnaswamy - Director, Software Development, Oracle. Kuassi Mensah - Director Product Management, Oracle. Mohammad Lari - Principal Technical Staff, Oracle ) CON9167 - Current State of PHP and MySQL Together, PHP and MySQL power large parts of the Web. The developers of both technologies continue to enhance their software to ensure that developers can be satisfied despite all their changing and growing needs. This session presents an overview of changes in PHP 5.4, which was released earlier this year and shows you various new MySQL-related features available for PHP, from transparent client-side caching to direct support for scaling and high-availability needs. (Johannes Schlüter - SoftwareDeveloper, Oracle) CON8983 - Sharding with PHP and MySQL In deploying MySQL, scale-out techniques can be used to scale out reads, but for scaling out writes, other techniques have to be used. To distribute writes over a cluster, it is necessary to shard the database and store the shards on separate servers. This session provides a brief introduction to traditional MySQL scale-out techniques in preparation for a discussion on the different sharding techniques that can be used with MySQL server and how they can be implemented with PHP. You will learn about static and dynamic sharding schemes, their advantages and drawbacks, techniques for locating and moving shards, and techniques for resharding. (Mats Kindahl - Senior Principal Software Developer, Oracle) CON9268 - Developing Python Applications with MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python This session discusses MySQL Connector/Python and the MySQL Utilities component of MySQL Workbench and explains how to write MySQL applications in Python. It includes in-depth explanations of the features of MySQL Connector/Python and the MySQL Utilities library, along with example code to illustrate the concepts. Those interested in learning how to expand or build their own utilities and connector features will benefit from the tips and tricks from the experts. This session also provides an opportunity to meet directly with the engineers and provide feedback on your issues and priorities. You can learn what exists today and influence future developments. (Geert Vanderkelen - Software Developer, Oracle) BOF9141 - MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python: Python Developers, Unite! Come to this lively discussion of the MySQL Utilities component of MySQL Workbench and MySQL Connector/Python. It includes in-depth explanations of the features and dives into the code for those interested in learning how to expand or build their own utilities and connector features. This is an audience-driven session, so put on your best Python shirt and let’s talk about MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python. (Geert Vanderkelen - Software Developer, Oracle. Charles Bell - Senior Software Developer, Oracle) CON3290 - Integrating Oracle Database with a Social Network Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Google Maps. There are many social network sites, each with their own APIs for sharing data with them. Most developers do not realize that Oracle Database has base tools for communicating with these sites, enabling all manner of information, including multimedia, to be passed back and forth between the sites. This technical presentation goes through the methods in PL/SQL for connecting to, and then sending and retrieving, all types of data between these sites. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) CON3291 - Storing and Tuning Unstructured Data and Multimedia in Oracle Database Database administrators need to learn new skills and techniques when the decision is made in their organization to let Oracle Database manage its unstructured data. They will face new scalability challenges. A single row in a table can become larger than a whole database. This presentation covers the techniques a DBA needs for managing the large volume of data in a standard Oracle Database instance. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) CON3292 - Using PHP, Perl, Visual Basic, Ruby, and Python for Multimedia in Oracle Database These five programming languages are just some of the most popular ones in use at the moment in the marketplace. This presentation details how you can use them to access and retrieve multimedia from Oracle Database. It covers programming techniques and methods for achieving faster development against Oracle Database. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) UGF5181 - Building Real-World Oracle DBA Tools in Perl Perl is not normally associated with building mission-critical application or DBA tools. Learn why Perl could be a good choice for building your next killer DBA app. This session draws on real-world experience of building DBA tools in Perl, showing the framework and architecture needed to deal with portability, efficiency, and maintainability. Topics include Perl frameworks; Which Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) modules are good to use; Perl and CPAN module licensing; Perl and Oracle connectivity; Compiling and deploying your app; An example of what is possible with Perl. (Arjen Visser - CEO & CTO, Dbvisit Software Limited) CON3153 - Perl: A DBA’s and Developer’s Best (Forgotten) Friend This session reintroduces Perl as a language of choice for many solutions for DBAs and developers. Discover what makes Perl so successful and why it is so versatile in our day-to-day lives. Perl can automate all those manual tasks and is truly platform-independent. Perl may not be in the limelight the way other languages are, but it is a remarkable language, it is still very current with ongoing development, and it has amazing online resources. Learn what makes Perl so great (including CPAN), get an introduction to Perl language syntax, find out what you can use Perl for, hear how Oracle uses Perl, discover the best way to learn Perl, and take away a small Perl project challenge. (Arjen Visser - CEO & CTO, Dbvisit Software Limited) CON10332 - Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service’s Connect PHP API: Intro, What’s New, and Roadmap Connect PHP is a public API that enables developers to build solutions with the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service platform. This API is used primarily by developers working within the Oracle RightNow Customer Portal Cloud Service framework who are looking to gain access to data and services hosted by the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service platform through a backward-compatible API. Connect for PHP leverages the same data model and services as the Connect Web Services for SOAP API. Come to this session to get an introduction and learn what’s new and what’s coming up. (Mark Rhoads - Senior Principal Applications Engineer, Oracle. Mark Ericson - Sr. Principle Product Manager, Oracle) CON10330 - Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service APIs and Frameworks Overview Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service APIs are available in the following areas: desktop UI, Web services, customer portal, PHP, and knowledge. These frameworks provide access to Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service’s Connect Common Object Model and custom objects. This session provides a broad overview of capabilities in all these areas. (Mark Ericson - Sr. Principle Product Manager, Oracle)

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• nginx problem accessing virtual hosts

  - by Sc0rian

  I am setting up nginx as a reverse proxy. The server runs on directadmin and lamp stack. I have nginx running on port 81. I can access all my sites (including virtual ips) on the port 81. However when I forward the traffic from port 80 to 81, the virtual ips have a message saying "Apache is running normally". Server IPs are fine, and I can still access virtual IP's on 81. [root@~]# netstat -an | grep LISTEN | egrep ":80|:81" tcp 0 0 <virtual ip>:81 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 <virtual ip>:81 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 <serverip>:81 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 :::80 :::* LISTEN apache 24090 0.6 1.3 29252 13612 ? S 18:34 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24092 0.9 2.1 39584 22056 ? S 18:34 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24096 0.2 1.9 35892 20256 ? S 18:34 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24120 0.3 1.7 35752 17840 ? S 18:34 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24495 0.0 1.4 30892 14756 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24496 1.0 2.1 39892 22164 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24516 1.5 3.6 55496 38040 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24519 0.1 1.2 28996 13224 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24521 2.7 4.0 58244 41984 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24522 0.0 1.2 29124 12672 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24524 0.0 1.1 28740 12364 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24535 1.1 1.7 36008 17876 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24536 0.0 1.1 28592 12084 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24537 0.0 1.1 28592 12112 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24539 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 18:35 0:00 [httpd] <defunct> apache 24540 0.0 1.1 28592 11540 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL apache 24541 0.0 1.1 28592 11548 ? S 18:35 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -DSSL root 24548 0.0 0.0 4132 752 pts/0 R+ 18:35 0:00 egrep apache|nginx root 28238 0.0 0.0 19576 284 ? Ss May29 0:00 nginx: master process /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -c /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf apache 28239 0.0 0.0 19888 804 ? S May29 0:00 nginx: worker process apache 28240 0.0 0.0 19888 548 ? S May29 0:00 nginx: worker process apache 28241 0.0 0.0 19736 484 ? S May29 0:00 nginx: cache manager process here is my nginx conf: cat /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf user apache apache; worker_processes 2; # Set it according to what your CPU have. 4 Cores = 4 worker_rlimit_nofile 8192; pid /var/run/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { include mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] ' '"$request" $status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" ' '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"'; server_tokens off; access_log /var/log/nginx_access.log main; error_log /var/log/nginx_error.log debug; server_names_hash_bucket_size 64; sendfile on; tcp_nopush on; tcp_nodelay off; keepalive_timeout 30; gzip on; gzip_comp_level 9; gzip_proxied any; proxy_buffering on; proxy_cache_path /usr/local/nginx/proxy_temp levels=1:2 keys_zone=one:15m inactive=7d max_size=1000m; proxy_buffer_size 16k; proxy_buffers 100 8k; proxy_connect_timeout 60; proxy_send_timeout 60; proxy_read_timeout 60; server { listen <server ip>:81 default rcvbuf=8192 sndbuf=16384 backlog=32000; # Real IP here server_name <server host name> _; # "_" is for handle all hosts that are not described by server_name charset off; access_log /var/log/nginx_host_general.access.log main; location / { proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_pass http://<server ip>; # Real IP here client_max_body_size 16m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_buffering on; proxy_connect_timeout 90; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 120; proxy_buffer_size 16k; proxy_buffers 32 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; } location /nginx_status { stub_status on; access_log off; allow 127.0.0.1; deny all; } } include /usr/local/nginx/vhosts/*.conf; } here is my vhost conf: # cat /usr/local/nginx/vhosts/1.conf server { listen <virt ip>:81 default rcvbuf=8192 sndbuf=16384 backlog=32000; # Real IP here server_name <virt domain name>.com ; # "_" is for handle all hosts that are not described by server_name charset off; access_log /var/log/nginx_host_general.access.log main; location / { proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_pass http://<virt ip>; # Real IP here client_max_body_size 16m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_buffering on; proxy_connect_timeout 90; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 120; proxy_buffer_size 16k; proxy_buffers 32 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; } }

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• Combination of Operating Mode and Commit Strategy

  - by Kevin Yang

  If you want to populate a source into multiple targets, you may also want to ensure that every row from the source affects all targets uniformly (or separately). Let’s consider the Example Mapping below. If a row from SOURCE causes different changes in multiple targets (TARGET_1, TARGET_2 and TARGET_3), for example, it can be successfully inserted into TARGET_1 and TARGET_3, but failed to be inserted into TARGET_2, and the current Mapping Property TLO (target load order) is “TARGET_1 -> TARGET_2 -> TARGET_3”. What should Oracle Warehouse Builder do, in order to commit the appropriate data to all affected targets at the same time? If it doesn’t behave as you intended, the data could become inaccurate and possibly unusable.                                               Example Mapping In OWB, we can use Mapping Configuration Commit Strategies and Operating Modes together to achieve this kind of requirements. Below we will explore the combination of these two features and how they affect the results in the target tables Before going to the example, let’s review some of the terms we will be using (Details can be found in white paper Oracle® Warehouse Builder Data Modeling, ETL, and Data Quality Guide11g Release 2): Operating Modes: Set-Based Mode: Warehouse Builder generates a single SQL statement that processes all data and performs all operations. Row-Based Mode: Warehouse Builder generates statements that process data row by row. The select statement is in a SQL cursor. All subsequent statements are PL/SQL. Row-Based (Target Only) Mode: Warehouse Builder generates a cursor select statement and attempts to include as many operations as possible in the cursor. For each target, Warehouse Builder inserts each row into the target separately. Commit Strategies: Automatic: Warehouse Builder loads and then automatically commits data based on the mapping design. If the mapping has multiple targets, Warehouse Builder commits and rolls back each target separately and independently of other targets. Use the automatic commit when the consequences of multiple targets being loaded unequally are not great or are irrelevant. Automatic correlated: It is a specialized type of automatic commit that applies to PL/SQL mappings with multiple targets only. Warehouse Builder considers all targets collectively and commits or rolls back data uniformly across all targets. Use the correlated commit when it is important to ensure that every row in the source affects all affected targets uniformly. Manual: select manual commit control for PL/SQL mappings when you want to interject complex business logic, perform validations, or run other mappings before committing data. Combination of the commit strategy and operating mode To understand the effects of each combination of operating mode and commit strategy, I’ll illustrate using the following example Mapping. Firstly we insert 100 rows into the SOURCE table and make sure that the 99th row and 100th row have the same ID value. And then we create a unique key constraint on ID column for TARGET_2 table. So while running the example mapping, OWB tries to load all 100 rows to each of the targets. But the mapping should fail to load the 100th row to TARGET_2, because it will violate the unique key constraint of table TARGET_2. With different combinations of Commit Strategy and Operating Mode, here are the results ¦ Set-based/ Correlated Commit: Configuration of Example mapping:                                                     Result:                                                      What’s happening: A single error anywhere in the mapping triggers the rollback of all data. OWB encounters the error inserting into Target_2, it reports an error for the table and does not load the row. OWB rolls back all the rows inserted into Target_1 and does not attempt to load rows to Target_3. No rows are added to any of the target tables. ¦ Row-based/ Correlated Commit: Configuration of Example mapping:                                                   Result:                                                  What’s happening: OWB evaluates each row separately and loads it to all three targets. Loading continues in this way until OWB encounters an error loading row 100th to Target_2. OWB reports the error and does not load the row. It rolls back the row 100th previously inserted into Target_1 and does not attempt to load row 100 to Target_3. Then, if there are remaining rows, OWB will continue loading them, resuming with loading rows to Target_1. The mapping completes with 99 rows inserted into each target. ¦ Set-based/ Automatic Commit: Configuration of Example mapping: Result: What’s happening: When OWB encounters the error inserting into Target_2, it does not load any rows and reports an error for the table. It does, however, continue to insert rows into Target_3 and does not roll back the rows previously inserted into Target_1. The mapping completes with one error message for Target_2, no rows inserted into Target_2, and 100 rows inserted into Target_1 and Target_3 separately. ¦ Row-based/Automatic Commit: Configuration of Example mapping: Result: What’s happening: OWB evaluates each row separately for loading into the targets. Loading continues in this way until OWB encounters an error loading row 100 to Target_2 and reports the error. OWB does not roll back row 100th from Target_1, does insert it into Target_3. If there are remaining rows, it will continue to load them. The mapping completes with 99 rows inserted into Target_2 and 100 rows inserted into each of the other targets. Note: Automatic Correlated commit is not applicable for row-based (target only). If you design a mapping with the row-based (target only) and correlated commit combination, OWB runs the mapping but does not perform the correlated commit. In set-based mode, correlated commit may impact the size of your rollback segments. Space for rollback segments may be a concern when you merge data (insert/update or update/insert). Correlated commit operates transparently with PL/SQL bulk processing code. The correlated commit strategy is not available for mappings run in any mode that are configured for Partition Exchange Loading or that include a Queue, Match Merge, or Table Function operator. If you want to practice in your own environment, you can follow the steps: 1. Import the MDL file: commit_operating_mode.mdl 2. Fix the location for oracle module ORCL and deploy all tables under it. 3. Insert sample records into SOURCE table, using below plsql code: begin     for i in 1..99     loop         insert into source values(i, 'col_'||i);     end loop;     insert into source values(99, 'col_99'); end; 4. Configure MAPPING_1 to any combinations of operating mode and commit strategy you want to test. And make sure feature TLO of mapping is open. 5. Deploy Mapping “MAPPING_1”. 6. Run the mapping and check the result.

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• C# Extension Methods - To Extend or Not To Extend...

  - by James Michael Hare

  I've been thinking a lot about extension methods lately, and I must admit I both love them and hate them. They are a lot like sugar, they taste so nice and sweet, but they'll rot your teeth if you eat them too much.   I can't deny that they aren't useful and very handy. One of the major components of the Shared Component library where I work is a set of useful extension methods. But, I also can't deny that they tend to be overused and abused to willy-nilly extend every living type.   So what constitutes a good extension method? Obviously, you can write an extension method for nearly anything whether it is a good idea or not. Many times, in fact, an idea seems like a good extension method but in retrospect really doesn't fit.   So what's the litmus test? To me, an extension method should be like in the movies when a person runs into their twin, separated at birth. You just know you're related. Obviously, that's hard to quantify, so let's try to put a few rules-of-thumb around them.   A good extension method should:     Apply to any possible instance of the type it extends.     Simplify logic and improve readability/maintainability.     Apply to the most specific type or interface applicable.     Be isolated in a namespace so that it does not pollute IntelliSense.     So let's look at a few examples in relation to these rules.   The first rule, to me, is the most important of all. Once again, it bears repeating, a good extension method should apply to all possible instances of the type it extends. It should feel like the long lost relative that should have been included in the original class but somehow was missing from the family tree.    Take this nifty little int extension, I saw this once in a blog and at first I really thought it was pretty cool, but then I started noticing a code smell I couldn't quite put my finger on. So let's look:       public static class IntExtensinos     {         public static int Seconds(int num)         {             return num * 1000;         }           public static int Minutes(int num)         {             return num * 60000;         }     }     This is so you could do things like:       ...     Thread.Sleep(5.Seconds());     ...     proxy.Timeout = 1.Minutes();     ...     Awww, you say, that's cute! Well, that's the problem, it's kitschy and it doesn't always apply (and incidentally you could achieve the same thing with TimeStamp.FromSeconds(5)). It's syntactical candy that looks cool, but tends to rot and pollute the code. It would allow things like:       total += numberOfTodaysOrders.Seconds();     which makes no sense and should never be allowed. The problem is you're applying an extension method to a logical domain, not a type domain. That is, the extension method Seconds() doesn't really apply to ALL ints, it applies to ints that are representative of time that you want to convert to milliseconds.    Do you see what I mean? The two problems, in a nutshell, are that a) Seconds() called off a non-time value makes no sense and b) calling Seconds() off something to pass to something that does not take milliseconds will be off by a factor of 1000 or worse.   Thus, in my mind, you should only ever have an extension method that applies to the whole domain of that type.   For example, this is one of my personal favorites:       public static bool IsBetween<T>(this T value, T low, T high)         where T : IComparable<T>     {         return value.CompareTo(low) >= 0 && value.CompareTo(high) <= 0;     }   This allows you to check if any IComparable<T> is within an upper and lower bound. Think of how many times you type something like:       if (response.Employee.Address.YearsAt >= 2         && response.Employee.Address.YearsAt <= 10)     {     ...     }     Now, you can instead type:       if(response.Employee.Address.YearsAt.IsBetween(2, 10))     {     ...     }     Note that this applies to all IComparable<T> -- that's ints, chars, strings, DateTime, etc -- and does not depend on any logical domain. In addition, it satisfies the second point and actually makes the code more readable and maintainable.   Let's look at the third point. In it we said that an extension method should fit the most specific interface or type possible. Now, I'm not saying if you have something that applies to enumerables, you create an extension for List, Array, Dictionary, etc (though you may have reasons for doing so), but that you should beware of making things TOO general.   For example, let's say we had an extension method like this:       public static T ConvertTo<T>(this object value)     {         return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));     }         This lets you do more fluent conversions like:       double d = "5.0".ConvertTo<double>();     However, if you dig into Reflector (LOVE that tool) you will see that if the type you are calling on does not implement IConvertible, what you convert to MUST be the exact type or it will throw an InvalidCastException. Now this may or may not be what you want in this situation, and I leave that up to you. Things like this would fail:       object value = new Employee();     ...     // class cast exception because typeof(IEmployee) != typeof(Employee)     IEmployee emp = value.ConvertTo<IEmployee>();       Yes, that's a downfall of working with Convertible in general, but if you wanted your fluent interface to be more type-safe so that ConvertTo were only callable on IConvertibles (and let casting be a manual task), you could easily make it:         public static T ConvertTo<T>(this IConvertible value)     {         return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));     }         This is what I mean by choosing the best type to extend. Consider that if we used the previous (object) version, every time we typed a dot ('.') on an instance we'd pull up ConvertTo() whether it was applicable or not. By filtering our extension method down to only valid types (those that implement IConvertible) we greatly reduce our IntelliSense pollution and apply a good level of compile-time correctness.   Now my fourth rule is just my general rule-of-thumb. Obviously, you can make extension methods as in-your-face as you want. I included all mine in my work libraries in its own sub-namespace, something akin to:       namespace Shared.Core.Extensions { ... }     This is in a library called Shared.Core, so just referencing the Core library doesn't pollute your IntelliSense, you have to actually do a using on Shared.Core.Extensions to bring the methods in. This is very similar to the way Microsoft puts its extension methods in System.Linq. This way, if you want 'em, you use the appropriate namespace. If you don't want 'em, they won't pollute your namespace.   To really make this work, however, that namespace should only include extension methods and subordinate types those extensions themselves may use. If you plant other useful classes in those namespaces, once a user includes it, they get all the extensions too.   Also, just as a personal preference, extension methods that aren't simply syntactical shortcuts, I like to put in a static utility class and then have extension methods for syntactical candy. For instance, I think it imaginable that any object could be converted to XML:       namespace Shared.Core     {         // A collection of XML Utility classes         public static class XmlUtility         {             ...             // Serialize an object into an xml string             public static string ToXml(object input)             {                 var xs = new XmlSerializer(input.GetType());                   // use new UTF8Encoding here, not Encoding.UTF8. The later includes                 // the BOM which screws up subsequent reads, the former does not.                 using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())                 using (var xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, new UTF8Encoding()))                 {                     xs.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, input);                     return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());                 }             }             ...         }     }   I also wanted to be able to call this from an object like:       value.ToXml();     But here's the problem, if i made this an extension method from the start with that one little keyword "this", it would pop into IntelliSense for all objects which could be very polluting. Instead, I put the logic into a utility class so that users have the choice of whether or not they want to use it as just a class and not pollute IntelliSense, then in my extensions namespace, I add the syntactical candy:       namespace Shared.Core.Extensions     {         public static class XmlExtensions         {             public static string ToXml(this object value)             {                 return XmlUtility.ToXml(value);             }         }     }   So now it's the best of both worlds. On one hand, they can use the utility class if they don't want to pollute IntelliSense, and on the other hand they can include the Extensions namespace and use as an extension if they want. The neat thing is it also adheres to the Single Responsibility Principle. The XmlUtility is responsible for converting objects to XML, and the XmlExtensions is responsible for extending object's interface for ToXml().

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• Improved Performance on PeopleSoft Combined Benchmark using SPARC T4-4

  - by Brian

  Oracle's SPARC T4-4 server running Oracle's PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 combined online and batch benchmark achieved a world record 18,000 concurrent users experiencing subsecond response time while executing a PeopleSoft Payroll batch job of 500,000 employees in 32.4 minutes. This result was obtained with a SPARC T4-4 server running Oracle Database 11g Release 2, a SPARC T4-4 server running PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 application server and a SPARC T4-2 server running Oracle WebLogic Server in the web tier. The SPARC T4-4 server running the application tier used Oracle Solaris Zones which provide a flexible, scalable and manageable virtualization environment. The average CPU utilization on the SPARC T4-2 server in the web tier was 17%, on the SPARC T4-4 server in the application tier it was 59%, and on the SPARC T4-4 server in the database tier was 47% (online and batch) leaving significant headroom for additional processing across the three tiers. The SPARC T4-4 server used for the database tier hosted Oracle Database 11g Release 2 using Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) for database files management with I/O performance equivalent to raw devices. Performance Landscape Results are presented for the PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service and Payroll combined benchmark. The new result with 128 streams shows significant improvement in the payroll batch processing time with little impact on the self-service component response time. PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service and Payroll Benchmark Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) SPARC T4-4 (db) 18,000 0.988 0.539 32.4 128 SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) SPARC T4-4 (db) 18,000 0.944 0.503 43.3 64 The following results are for the PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service benchmark that was previous run. The results are not directly comparable with the combined results because they do not include the payroll component. PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service 9.1 Benchmark Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) 2x SPARC T4-2 (db) 18,000 1.048 0.742 N/A N/A The following results are for the PeopleSoft Payroll benchmark that was previous run. The results are not directly comparable with the combined results because they do not include the self-service component. PeopleSoft Payroll (N.A.) 9.1 - 500K Employees (7 Million SQL PayCalc, Unicode) Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-4 (db) N/A N/A N/A 30.84 96 Configuration Summary Application Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-4 server with 4 x SPARC T4 processors, 3.0 GHz 512 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 PeopleTools 8.52 PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 Oracle Tuxedo, Version 10.3.0.0, 64-bit, Patch Level 031 Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 6 Update 32 Database Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-4 server with 4 x SPARC T4 processors, 3.0 GHz 256 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 PeopleTools 8.52 Oracle Tuxedo, Version 10.3.0.0, 64-bit, Patch Level 031 Micro Focus Server Express (COBOL v 5.1.00) Web Tier Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 server with 2 x SPARC T4 processors, 2.85 GHz 256 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 PeopleTools 8.52 Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.4 Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 6 Update 32 Storage Configuration: 1 x Sun Server X2-4 as a COMSTAR head for data 4 x Intel Xeon X7550, 2.0 GHz 128 GB memory 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (80 flash modules) 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (40 flash modules) 1 x Sun Fire X4275 as a COMSTAR head for redo logs 12 x 2 TB SAS disks with Niwot Raid controller Benchmark Description This benchmark combines PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 HR Self Service online and PeopleSoft Payroll batch workloads to run on a unified database deployed on Oracle Database 11g Release 2. The PeopleSoft HRSS benchmark kit is a Oracle standard benchmark kit run by all platform vendors to measure the performance. It's an OLTP benchmark where DB SQLs are moderately complex. The results are certified by Oracle and a white paper is published. PeopleSoft HR SS defines a business transaction as a series of HTML pages that guide a user through a particular scenario. Users are defined as corporate Employees, Managers and HR administrators. The benchmark consist of 14 scenarios which emulate users performing typical HCM transactions such as viewing paycheck, promoting and hiring employees, updating employee profile and other typical HCM application transactions. All these transactions are well-defined in the PeopleSoft HR Self-Service 9.1 benchmark kit. This benchmark metric is the weighted average response search/save time for all the transactions. The PeopleSoft 9.1 Payroll (North America) benchmark demonstrates system performance for a range of processing volumes in a specific configuration. This workload represents large batch runs typical of a ERP environment during a mass update. The benchmark measures five application business process run times for a database representing large organization. They are Paysheet Creation, Payroll Calculation, Payroll Confirmation, Print Advice forms, and Create Direct Deposit File. The benchmark metric is the cumulative elapsed time taken to complete the Paysheet Creation, Payroll Calculation and Payroll Confirmation business application processes. The benchmark metrics are taken for each respective benchmark while running simultaneously on the same database back-end. Specifically, the payroll batch processes are started when the online workload reaches steady state (the maximum number of online users) and overlap with online transactions for the duration of the steady state. Key Points and Best Practices Two PeopleSoft Domain sets with 200 application servers each on a SPARC T4-4 server were hosted in 2 separate Oracle Solaris Zones to demonstrate consolidation of multiple application servers, ease of administration and performance tuning. Each Oracle Solaris Zone was bound to a separate processor set, each containing 15 cores (total 120 threads). The default set (1 core from first and third processor socket, total 16 threads) was used for network and disk interrupt handling. This was done to improve performance by reducing memory access latency by using the physical memory closest to the processors and offload I/O interrupt handling to default set threads, freeing up cpu resources for Application Servers threads and balancing application workload across 240 threads. A total of 128 PeopleSoft streams server processes where used on the database node to complete payroll batch job of 500,000 employees in 32.4 minutes. See Also Oracle PeopleSoft Benchmark White Papers oracle.com SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN SPARC T4-4 Server oracle.com OTN PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Managementoracle.com OTN PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management (Payroll) oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 8 November 2012.

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• CEN/CENELEC Lacks Perspective

  - by trond-arne.undheim

  Over the last few months, two of the European Standardization Organizations (ESOs), CEN and CENELEC have circulated an unfortunate position statement distorting the facts around fora and consortia. For the benefit of outsiders to this debate, let's just say that this debate regards whether and how the EU should recognize standards and specifications from certain fora and consortia based on a process evaluating the openness and transparency of such deliverables. The topic is complex, and somewhat confusing even to insiders, but nevertheless crucial to the European economy. As far as I can judge, their positions are not based on facts. This is unfortunate. For the benefit of clarity, here are some of the observations they make: a)"Most consortia are in essence driven by technology companies making hardware and software solutions, by definition very few of the largest ones are European-based". b) "Most consortia lack a European presence, relevant Committees, even those that are often cited as having stronger links with Europe, seem to lack an overall, inclusive set of participants". c) "Recognising specific consortia specifications will not resolve any concrete problems of interoperability for public authorities; interoperability depends on stringing together a range of specifications (from formal global bodies or consortia alike)". d) "Consortia already have the option to have their specifications adopted by the international formal standards bodies and many more exercise this than the two that seem to be campaigning for European recognition. Such specifications can then also be adopted as European standards." e) "Consortium specifications completely lack any process to take due and balanced account of requirements at national level - this is not important for technologies but can be a critical issue when discussing cross-border issues within the EU such as eGovernment, eHealth and so on". f) "The proposed recognition will not lead to standstill on national or European activities, nor to the adoption of the specifications as national standards in the CEN and CENELEC members (usually in their official national languages), nor to withdrawal of conflicting national standards. A big asset of the European standardization system is its coherence and lack of fragmentation." g) "We always miss concrete and specific examples of where consortia referencing are supposed to be helpful." First of all, note that ETSI, the third ESO, did not join the position. The reason is, of course, that ETSI beyond being an ESO, also has a global perspective and, moreover, does consider reality. Secondly, having produced arguments a) to g), CEN/CENELEC has the audacity to call a meeting on Friday 25 February entitled "ICT standardization - improving collaboration in Europe". This sounds very nice, but they have not set the stage for constructive debate. Rather, they demonstrate a striking lack of vision and lack of perspective. I will back this up by three facts, and leave it there. 1. Since the 1980s, global industry fora and consortia, such as IETF, W3C and OASIS have emerged as world-leading ICT standards development organizations with excellent procedures for openness and transparency in all phases of standards development, ex post and ex ante. - Practically no ICT system can be built without using fora and consortia standards (FCS). - Without using FCS, neither the Internet, upon which the EU economy depends, nor EU institutions would operate. - FCS are of high relevance for achieving and promoting interoperability and driving innovation. 2. FCS are complementary to the formally recognized standards organizations including the ESOs. - No work will be taken away from the ESOs should the EU recognize certain FCS. - Each FCS would be evaluated on its merit and on the openness of the process that produced it. ESOs would, with other stakeholders, have a say. - ESOs could potentially educate and assist European stakeholders to engage more actively and constructively with FCS. - ETSI, also an ESO, seems to clearly recognize these facts. 3. Europe and its Member States have a strong voice in several of the most relevant global industry fora and consortia. - W3C: W3C was founded in 1994 by an Englishman, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, in collaboration with CERN, the European research lab. In April 1995, INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique) in France became the first European W3C host and in 2003, ERCIM (European Research Consortium in Informatics and Mathematics), also based in France, took over the role of European W3C host from INRIA. Today, W3C has 326 Members, 40% of which are European. Government participation is also strong, and it could be increased - a development that is very much desired by W3C. Current members of the W3C Advisory Board includes Ora Lassila (Nokia) and Charles McCathie Nevile (Opera). Nokia is Finnish company, Opera is a Norwegian company. SAP's Claus von Riegen is an alumni of the same Advisory Board. - OASIS: its membership - 30% of which is European - represents the marketplace, reflecting a balance of providers, user companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. In particular, about 15% of OASIS members are governments or universities. Frederick Hirsch from Nokia, Claus von Riegen from SAP AG and Charles-H. Schulz from Ars Aperta are on the Board of Directors. Nokia is a Finnish company, SAP is a German company and Ars Aperta is a French company. The Chairman of the Board is Peter Brown, who is an Independent Consultant, an Austrian citizen AND an official of the European Parliament currently on long-term leave. - IETF: The oversight of its activities is by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), since 2007 chaired by Olaf Kolkman, a Dutch national who lives in Uithoorn, NL. Kolkman is director of NLnet Labs, a foundation chartered to develop open source software and open source standards for the Internet. Other IAB members include Marcelo Bagnulo whose affiliation is the University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain as well as Hannes Tschofenig from Nokia Siemens Networks. Nokia is a Finnish company. Siemens is a German company. Nokia Siemens is a European joint venture. - Member States: At least 17 European Member States have developed Interoperability Frameworks that include FCS, according to the EU-funded National Interoperability Framework Observatory (see list and NIFO web site on IDABC). This also means they actively procure solutions using FCS, reference FCS in their policies and even in laws. Member State reps are free to engage in FCS, and many do. It would be nice if the EU adjusted to this reality. - A huge number of European nationals work in the global IT industry, on European soil or elsewhere, whether in EU registered companies or not. CEN/CENELEC lacks perspective and has engaged in an effort to twist facts that is quite striking from a publicly funded organization. I wish them all possible success with Friday's meeting but I fear all of the most important stakeholders will not be at the table. Not because they do not wish to collaborate, but because they just have been insulted. If they do show up, it would be a gracious move, almost beyond comprehension. While I do not expect CEN/CENELEC to line up perfectly in favor of fora and consortia, I think it would be to their benefit to stick to more palatable observations. Actually, I would suggest an apology, straightening out the facts. This works among friends and it works in an organizational context. Then, we can all move on. Standardization is important. Too important to ignore. Too important to distort. The European economy depends on it. We need CEN/CENELEC. It is an important organization. But CEN/CENELEC needs fora and consortia, too.

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• 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.

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• Sliding collision response

  - by dbostream

  I have been reading plenty of tutorials about sliding collision responses yet I am not able to implement it properly in my project. What I want to do is make a puck slide along the rounded corner boards of a hockey rink. In my latest attempt the puck does slide along the boards but there are some strange velocity behaviors. First of all the puck slows down a lot pretty much right away and then it slides for awhile and stops before exiting the corner. Even if I double the speed I get a similar behavior and the puck does not make it out of the corner. I used some ideas from this document http://www.peroxide.dk/papers/collision/collision.pdf. This is what I have: Update method called from the game loop when it is time to update the puck (I removed some irrelevant parts). I use two states (current, previous) which are used to interpolate the position during rendering. public override void Update(double fixedTimeStep) { /* Acceleration is set to 0 for now. */ Acceleration.Zero(); PreviousState = CurrentState; _collisionRecursionDepth = 0; CurrentState.Position = SlidingCollision(CurrentState.Position, CurrentState.Velocity * fixedTimeStep + 0.5 * Acceleration * fixedTimeStep * fixedTimeStep); /* Should not this be affected by a sliding collision? and not only the position. */ CurrentState.Velocity = CurrentState.Velocity + Acceleration * fixedTimeStep; Heading = Vector2.NormalizeRet(CurrentState.Velocity); } private Vector2 SlidingCollision(Vector2 position, Vector2 velocity) { if(_collisionRecursionDepth > 5) return position; bool collisionFound = false; Vector2 futurePosition = position + velocity; Vector2 intersectionPoint = new Vector2(); Vector2 intersectionPointNormal = new Vector2(); /* I did not include the collision detection code, if a collision is detected the intersection point and normal in that point is returned. */ if(!collisionFound) return futurePosition; /* If no collision was detected it is safe to move to the future position. */ /* It is not exactly the intersection point, but slightly before. */ Vector2 newPosition = intersectionPoint; /* oldVelocity is set to the distance from the newPosition(intersection point) to the position it had moved to had it not collided. */ Vector2 oldVelocity = futurePosition - newPosition; /* Project the distance left to move along the intersection normal. */ Vector2 newVelocity = oldVelocity - intersectionPointNormal * oldVelocity.DotProduct(intersectionPointNormal); if(newVelocity.LengthSq() < 0.001) return newPosition; /* If almost no speed, no need to continue. */ _collisionRecursionDepth++; return SlidingCollision(newPosition, newVelocity); } What am I doing wrong with the velocity? I have been staring at this for very long so I have gone blind. I have tried different values of recursion depth but it does not seem to make it better. Let me know if you need more information. I appreciate any help. EDIT: A combination of Patrick Hughes' and teodron's answers solved the velocity problem (I think), thanks a lot! This is the new code: I decided to use a separate recursion method now too since I don't want to recalculate the acceleration in each recursion. public override void Update(double fixedTimeStep) { Acceleration.Zero();// = CalculateAcceleration(fixedTimeStep); PreviousState = new MovingEntityState(CurrentState.Position, CurrentState.Velocity); CurrentState = SlidingCollision(CurrentState, fixedTimeStep); Heading = Vector2.NormalizeRet(CurrentState.Velocity); } private MovingEntityState SlidingCollision(MovingEntityState state, double timeStep) { bool collisionFound = false; /* Calculate the next position given no detected collision. */ Vector2 futurePosition = state.Position + state.Velocity * timeStep; Vector2 intersectionPoint = new Vector2(); Vector2 intersectionPointNormal = new Vector2(); /* I did not include the collision detection code, if a collision is detected the intersection point and normal in that point is returned. */ /* If no collision was detected it is safe to move to the future position. */ if (!collisionFound) return new MovingEntityState(futurePosition, state.Velocity); /* Set new position to the intersection point (slightly before). */ Vector2 newPosition = intersectionPoint; /* Project the new velocity along the intersection normal. */ Vector2 newVelocity = state.Velocity - 1.90 * intersectionPointNormal * state.Velocity.DotProduct(intersectionPointNormal); /* Calculate the time of collision. */ double timeOfCollision = Math.Sqrt((newPosition - state.Position).LengthSq() / (futurePosition - state.Position).LengthSq()); /* Calculate new time step, remaining time of full step after the collision * current time step. */ double newTimeStep = timeStep * (1 - timeOfCollision); return SlidingCollision(new MovingEntityState(newPosition, newVelocity), newTimeStep); } Even though the code above seems to slide the puck correctly please have a look at it. I have a few questions, if I don't multiply by 1.90 in the newVelocity calculation it doesn't work (I get a stack overflow when the puck enters the corner because the timeStep decreases very slowly - a collision is found early in every recursion), why is that? what does 1.90 really do and why 1.90? Also I have a new problem, the puck does not move parallell to the short side after exiting the curve; to be more exact it moves outside the rink (I am not checking for any collisions with the short side at the moment). When I perform the collision detection I first check that the puck is in the correct quadrant. For example bottom-right corner is quadrant four i.e. circleCenter.X < puck.X && circleCenter.Y puck.Y is this a problem? or should the short side of the rink be the one to make the puck go parallell to it and not the last collision in the corner? EDIT2: This is the code I use for collision detection, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I can't make the puck slide (-1.0) but only reflect (-2.0): /* Point is the current position (not the predicted one) and quadrant is 4 for the bottom-right corner for example. */ if (GeometryHelper.PointInCircleQuadrant(circleCenter, circleRadius, state.Position, quadrant)) { /* The line is: from = state.Position, to = futurePosition. So a collision is detected when from is inside the circle and to is outside. */ if (GeometryHelper.LineCircleIntersection2d(state.Position, futurePosition, circleCenter, circleRadius, intersectionPoint, quadrant)) { collisionFound = true; /* Set the intersection point to slightly before the real intersection point (I read somewhere this was good to do because of floting point precision, not sure exactly how much though). */ intersectionPoint = intersectionPoint - Vector2.NormalizeRet(state.Velocity) * 0.001; /* Normal at the intersection point. */ intersectionPointNormal = Vector2.NormalizeRet(circleCenter - intersectionPoint) } } When I set the intersection point, if I for example use 0.1 instead of 0.001 the puck travels further before it gets stuck, but for all values I have tried (including 0 - the real intersection point) it gets stuck somewhere (but I necessarily not get a stack overflow). Can something in this part be the cause of my problem? I can see why I get the stack overflow when using -1.0 when calculating the new velocity vector; but not how to solve it. I traced the time steps used in the recursion (initial time step is always 1/60 ~ 0.01666): Recursion depth Time step next recursive call [Start recursion, time step ~ 0.016666] 0 0,000985806527246773 [No collision, stop recursion] [Start recursion, time step ~ 0.016666] 0 0,0149596704364629 1 0,0144883449376379 2 0,0143155612984837 3 0,014224925727213 4 0,0141673917461608 5 0,0141265435314026 6 0,0140953966184117 7 0,0140704653746625 ...and so on. As you can see the collision is detected early in every recursive call which means the next time step decreases very slowly thus the recursion depth gets very big - stack overflow.

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• Refactoring a Single Rails Model with large methods & long join queries trying to do everything

  - by Kelseydh

  I have a working Ruby on Rails Model that I suspect is inefficient, hard to maintain, and full of unnecessary SQL join queries. I want to optimize and refactor this Model (Quiz.rb) to comply with Rails best practices, but I'm not sure how I should do it. The Rails app is a game that has Missions with many Stages. Users complete Stages by answering Questions that have correct or incorrect Answers. When a User tries to complete a stage by answering questions, the User gets a Quiz entry with many Attempts. Each Attempt records an Answer submitted for that Question within the Stage. A user completes a stage or mission by getting every Attempt correct, and their progress is tracked by adding a new entry to the UserMission & UserStage join tables. All of these features work, but unfortunately the Quiz.rb Model has been twisted to handle almost all of it exclusively. The callbacks began at 'Quiz.rb', and because I wasn't sure how to leave the Quiz Model during a multi-model update, I resorted to using Rails Console to have the @quiz instance variable via self.some_method do all the heavy lifting to retrieve every data value for the game's business logic; resulting in large extended join queries that "dance" all around the Database schema. The Quiz.rb Model that Smells: class Quiz < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user has_many :attempts, dependent: :destroy before_save :check_answer before_save :update_user_mission_and_stage accepts_nested_attributes_for :attempts, :reject_if => lambda { |a| a[:answer_id].blank? }, :allow_destroy => true #Checks every answer within each quiz, adding +1 for each correct answer #within a stage quiz, and -1 for each incorrect answer def check_answer stage_score = 0 self.attempts.each do |attempt| if attempt.answer.correct? == true stage_score += 1 elsif attempt.answer.correct == false stage_score - 1 end end stage_score end def winner return true end def update_user_mission_and_stage ####### #Step 1: Checks if UserMission exists, finds or creates one. #if no UserMission for the current mission exists, creates a new UserMission if self.user_has_mission? == false @user_mission = UserMission.new(user_id: self.user.id, mission_id: self.current_stage.mission_id, available: true) @user_mission.save else @user_mission = self.find_user_mission end ####### #Step 2: Checks if current UserStage exists, stops if true to prevent duplicate entry if self.user_has_stage? @user_mission.save return true else ####### ##Step 3: if step 2 returns false: ##Initiates UserStage creation instructions #checks for winner (winner actions need to be defined) if they complete last stage of last mission for a given orientation if self.passed? && self.is_last_stage? && self.is_last_mission? create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission self.winner #NOTE: The rest are the same, but specify conditions that are available to add badges or other actions upon those conditions occurring: ##if user completes first stage of a mission elsif self.passed? && self.is_first_stage? && self.is_first_mission? create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission #creates user badge for finishing first stage of first mission self.user.add_badge(5) self.user.activity_logs.create(description: "granted first-stage badge", type_event: "badge", value: "first-stage") #If user completes last stage of a given mission, creates a new UserMission elsif self.passed? && self.is_last_stage? && self.is_first_mission? create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission #creates user badge for finishing first mission self.user.add_badge(6) self.user.activity_logs.create(description: "granted first-mission badge", type_event: "badge", value: "first-mission") elsif self.passed? create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission else self.passed? == false return true end end end #Creates a new UserStage record in the database for a successful Quiz question passing def create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission @nu_stage = @user_mission.user_stages.new(user_id: self.user.id, stage_id: self.current_stage.id) @nu_stage.save @user_mission.save self.user.add_points(50) end #Boolean that defines passing a stage as answering every question in that stage correct def passed? self.check_answer >= self.number_of_questions end #Returns the number of questions asked for that stage's quiz def number_of_questions self.attempts.first.answer.question.stage.questions.count end #Returns the current_stage for the Quiz, routing through 1st attempt in that Quiz def current_stage self.attempts.first.answer.question.stage end #Gives back the position of the stage relative to its mission. def stage_position self.attempts.first.answer.question.stage.position end #will find the user_mission for the current user and stage if it exists def find_user_mission self.user.user_missions.find_by_mission_id(self.current_stage.mission_id) end #Returns true if quiz was for the last stage within that mission #helpful for triggering actions related to a user completing a mission def is_last_stage? self.stage_position == self.current_stage.mission.stages.last.position end #Returns true if quiz was for the first stage within that mission #helpful for triggering actions related to a user completing a mission def is_first_stage? self.stage_position == self.current_stage.mission.stages_ordered.first.position end #Returns true if current user has a UserMission for the current stage def user_has_mission? self.user.missions.ids.include?(self.current_stage.mission.id) end #Returns true if current user has a UserStage for the current stage def user_has_stage? self.user.stages.include?(self.current_stage) end #Returns true if current user is on the last mission based on position within a given orientation def is_first_mission? self.user.missions.first.orientation.missions.by_position.first.position == self.current_stage.mission.position end #Returns true if current user is on the first stage & mission of a given orientation def is_last_mission? self.user.missions.first.orientation.missions.by_position.last.position == self.current_stage.mission.position end end My Question Currently my Rails server takes roughly 500ms to 1 sec to process single @quiz.save action. I am confident that the slowness here is due to sloppy code, not bad Database ERD design. What does a better solution look like? And specifically: Should I use join queries to retrieve values like I did here, or is it better to instantiate new objects within the model instead? Or am I missing a better solution? How should update_user_mission_and_stage be refactored to follow best practices? Relevant Code for Reference: quizzes_controller.rb w/ Controller Route Initiating Callback: class QuizzesController < ApplicationController before_action :find_stage_and_mission before_action :find_orientation before_action :find_question def show end def create @user = current_user @quiz = current_user.quizzes.new(quiz_params) if @quiz.save if @quiz.passed? if @mission.next_mission.nil? && @stage.next_stage.nil? redirect_to root_path, notice: "Congratulations, you have finished the last mission!" elsif @stage.next_stage.nil? redirect_to [@mission.next_mission, @mission.first_stage], notice: "Correct! Time for Mission #{@mission.next_mission.position}", info: "Starting next mission" else redirect_to [@mission, @stage.next_stage], notice: "Answer Correct! You passed the stage!" end else redirect_to [@mission, @stage], alert: "You didn't get every question right, please try again." end else redirect_to [@mission, @stage], alert: "Sorry. We were unable to save your answer. Please contact the admministrator." end @questions = @stage.questions.all end private def find_stage_and_mission @stage = Stage.find(params[:stage_id]) @mission = @stage.mission end def find_question @question = @stage.questions.find_by_id params[:id] end def quiz_params params.require(:quiz).permit(:user_id, :attempt_id, {attempts_attributes: [:id, :quiz_id, :answer_id]}) end def find_orientation @orientation = @mission.orientation @missions = @orientation.missions.by_position end end Overview of Relevant ERD Database Relationships: Mission - Stage - Question - Answer - Attempt <- Quiz <- User Mission - UserMission <- User Stage - UserStage <- User Other Models: Mission.rb class Mission < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :orientation has_many :stages has_many :user_missions, dependent: :destroy has_many :users, through: :user_missions #SCOPES scope :by_position, -> {order(position: :asc)} def stages_ordered stages.order(:position) end def next_mission self.orientation.missions.find_by_position(self.position.next) end def first_stage next_mission.stages_ordered.first end end Stage.rb: class Stage < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :mission has_many :questions, dependent: :destroy has_many :user_stages, dependent: :destroy has_many :users, through: :user_stages accepts_nested_attributes_for :questions, reject_if: :all_blank, allow_destroy: true def next_stage self.mission.stages.find_by_position(self.position.next) end end Question.rb class Question < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :stage has_many :answers, dependent: :destroy accepts_nested_attributes_for :answers, :reject_if => lambda { |a| a[:body].blank? }, :allow_destroy => true end Answer.rb: class Answer < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :question has_many :attempts, dependent: :destroy end Attempt.rb: class Attempt < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :answer belongs_to :quiz end User.rb: class User < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :school has_many :activity_logs has_many :user_missions, dependent: :destroy has_many :missions, through: :user_missions has_many :user_stages, dependent: :destroy has_many :stages, through: :user_stages has_many :orientations, through: :school has_many :quizzes, dependent: :destroy has_many :attempts, through: :quizzes def latest_stage_position self.user_missions.last.user_stages.last.stage.position end end UserMission.rb class UserMission < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user belongs_to :mission has_many :user_stages, dependent: :destroy end UserStage.rb class UserStage < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user belongs_to :stage belongs_to :user_mission end

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• Automating deployments with the SQL Compare command line

  - by Jonathan Hickford

  In my previous article, “Five Tips to Get Your Organisation Releasing Software Frequently” I looked at how teams can automate processes to speed up release frequency. In this post, I’m looking specifically at automating deployments using the SQL Compare command line. SQL Compare compares SQL Server schemas and deploys the differences. It works very effectively in scenarios where only one deployment target is required – source and target databases are specified, compared, and a change script is automatically generated and applied. But if multiple targets exist, and pressure to increase the frequency of releases builds, this solution quickly becomes unwieldy.   This is where SQL Compare’s command line comes into its own. I’ve put together a PowerShell script that loops through the Servers table and pulls out the server and database, these are then passed to sqlcompare.exe to be used as target parameters. In the example the source database is a scripts folder, a folder structure of scripted-out database objects used by both SQL Source Control and SQL Compare. The script can easily be adapted to use schema snapshots.     -- Create a DeploymentTargets database and a Servers table CREATE DATABASE DeploymentTargets GO USE DeploymentTargets GO CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Servers]( [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [serverName] [nvarchar](50) NULL, [environment] [nvarchar](50) NULL, [databaseName] [nvarchar](50) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_Servers] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([id] ASC) ) GO -- Now insert your target server and database details INSERT INTO dbo.Servers ( serverName , environment , databaseName) VALUES ( N'myserverinstance' , N'myenvironment1' , N'mydb1') INSERT INTO dbo.Servers ( serverName , environment , databaseName) VALUES ( N'myserverinstance' , N'myenvironment2' , N'mydb2') Here’s the PowerShell script you can adapt for yourself as well. # We're holding the server names and database names that we want to deploy to in a database table. # We need to connect to that server to read these details $serverName = "" $databaseName = "DeploymentTargets" $authentication = "Integrated Security=SSPI" #$authentication = "User Id=xxx;PWD=xxx" # If you are using database authentication instead of Windows authentication. # Path to the scripts folder we want to deploy to the databases $scriptsPath = "SimpleTalk" # Path to SQLCompare.exe $SQLComparePath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Red Gate\SQL Compare 10\sqlcompare.exe" # Create SQL connection string, and connection $ServerConnectionString = "Data Source=$serverName;Initial Catalog=$databaseName;$authentication" $ServerConnection = new-object system.data.SqlClient.SqlConnection($ServerConnectionString); # Create a Dataset to hold the DataTable $dataSet = new-object "System.Data.DataSet" "ServerList" # Create a query $query = "SET NOCOUNT ON;" $query += "SELECT serverName, environment, databaseName " $query += "FROM dbo.Servers; " # Create a DataAdapter to populate the DataSet with the results $dataAdapter = new-object "System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter" ($query, $ServerConnection) $dataAdapter.Fill($dataSet) | Out-Null # Close the connection $ServerConnection.Close() # Populate the DataTable $dataTable = new-object "System.Data.DataTable" "Servers" $dataTable = $dataSet.Tables[0] #For every row in the DataTable $dataTable | FOREACH-OBJECT { "Server Name: $($_.serverName)" "Database Name: $($_.databaseName)" "Environment: $($_.environment)" # Compare the scripts folder to the database and synchronize the database to match # NB. Have set SQL Compare to abort on medium level warnings. $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/AbortOnWarnings:Medium") # + @("/sync" ) # Commented out the 'sync' parameter for safety, write-host $arguments & $SQLComparePath $arguments "Exit Code: $LASTEXITCODE" # Some interesting variations # Check that every database matches a folder. # For example this might be a pre-deployment step to validate everything is at the same baseline state. # Or a post deployment script to validate the deployment worked. # An exit code of 0 means the databases are identical. # # $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/Assertidentical") # Generate a report of the difference between the folder and each database. Generate a SQL update script for each database. # For example use this after the above to generate upgrade scripts for each database # Examine the warnings and the HTML diff report to understand how the script will change objects # #$arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/ScriptFile:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).sql", "/report:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).html" , "/reportType:Interactive", "/showWarnings", "/include:Identical") } It’s worth noting that the above example generates the deployment scripts dynamically. This approach should be problem-free for the vast majority of changes, but it is still good practice to review and test a pre-generated deployment script prior to deployment. An alternative approach would be to pre-generate a single deployment script using SQL Compare, and run this en masse to multiple targets programmatically using sqlcmd, or using a tool like SQL Multi Script.  You can use the /ScriptFile, /report, and /showWarnings flags to generate change scripts, difference reports and any warnings.  See the commented out example in the PowerShell: #$arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/ScriptFile:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).sql", "/report:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).html" , "/reportType:Interactive", "/showWarnings", "/include:Identical") There is a drawback of running a pre-generated deployment script; it assumes that a given database target hasn’t drifted from its expected state. Often there are (rightly or wrongly) many individuals within an organization who have permissions to alter the production database, and changes can therefore be made outside of the prescribed development processes. The consequence is that at deployment time, the applied script has been validated against a target that no longer represents reality. The solution here would be to add a check for drift prior to running the deployment script. This is achieved by using sqlcompare.exe to compare the target against the expected schema snapshot using the /Assertidentical flag. Should this return any differences (sqlcompare.exe Exit Code 79), a drift report is outputted instead of executing the deployment script.  See the commented out example. # $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/Assertidentical") Any checks and processes that should be undertaken prior to a manual deployment, should also be happen during an automated deployment. You might think about triggering backups prior to deployment – even better, automate the verification of the backup too.   You can use SQL Compare’s command line interface along with PowerShell to automate multiple actions and checks that you need in your deployment process. Automation is a practical solution where multiple targets and a higher release cadence come into play. As we know, with great power comes great responsibility – responsibility to ensure that the necessary checks are made so deployments remain trouble-free.  (The code sample supplied in this post automates the simple dynamic deployment case – if you are considering more advanced automation, e.g. the drift checks, script generation, deploying to large numbers of targets and backup/verification, please email me at [email protected] for further script samples or if you have further questions)

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• Oracle Tutor: Top 10 to Implement Sustainable Policies and Procedures

  - by emily.chorba(at)oracle.com

  Overview Your organization (executives, managers, and employees) understands the value of having written business process documents (process maps, procedures, instructions, reference documents, and form abstracts). Policies and procedures should be documented because they help to reduce the range of individual decisions and encourage management by exception: the manager only needs to give special attention to unusual problems, not covered by a specific policy or procedure. As more and more procedures are written to cover recurring situations, managers will begin to make decisions which will be consistent from one functional area to the next.Companies should take a project management approach when implementing an environment for a sustainable documentation program and do the following:1. Identify an Executive Champion2. Put together a winning team3. Assign ownership4. Centralize publishing5. Establish the Document Maintenance Process Up Front6. Document critical activities only7. Document actual practice8. Minimize documentation9. Support continuous improvement10. Keep it simple 1. Identify an Executive ChampionAppoint a top down driver. Select one key individual to be a mentor for the procedure planning team. The individual should be a senior manager, such as your company president, CIO, CFO, the vice-president of quality, manufacturing, or engineering. Written policies and procedures can be important supportive aids when known to express the thinking for the chief executive officer and / or the president and to have his or her full support. 2. Put Together a Winning TeamChoose a strong Project Management Leader and staff the procedure planning team with management members from cross functional groups. Make sure team members have the responsibility - and the authority - to make things happen.The winning team should consist of the Documentation Project Manager, Document Owners (one for each functional area), a Document Controller, and Document Specialists (as needed). The Tutor Implementation Guide has complete job descriptions for these roles. 3. Assign Ownership It is virtually impossible to keep process documentation simple and meaningful if employees who are far removed from the activity itself create it. It is impossible to keep documentation up-to-date when responsibility for the document is not clearly understood.Key to the Tutor methodology, therefore, is the concept of ownership. Each document has a single owner, who is responsible for ensuring that the document is necessary and that it reflects actual practice. The owner must be a person who is knowledgeable about the activity and who has the authority to build consensus among the persons who participate in the activity as well as the authority to define or change the way an activity is performed. The owner must be an advocate of the performers and negotiate, not dictate practices.In the Tutor environment, a document's owner is the only person with the authority to approve an update to that document. 4. Centralize Publishing Although it is tempting (especially in a networked environment and with document management software solutions) to decentralize the control of all documents -- with each owner updating and distributing his own -- Tutor promotes centralized publishing by assigning the Document Administrator (gate keeper) to manage the updates and distribution of the procedures library. 5. Establish a Document Maintenance Process Up Front (and stick to it) Everyone in your organization should know they are invited to suggest changes to procedures and should understand exactly what steps to take to do so. Tutor provides a set of procedures to help your company set up a healthy document control system. There are many document management products available to automate some of the document change and maintenance steps. Depending on the size of your organization, a simple document management system can reduce the effort it takes to track and distribute document changes and updates. Whether your company decides to store the written policies and procedures on a file server or in a database, the essential tasks for maintaining documents are the same, though some tasks are automated. 6. Document Critical Activities Only The best way to keep your documentation simple is to reduce the number of process documents to a bare minimum and to include in those documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary. The first step to reducing process documentation is to document only those activities that are deemed critical. Not all activities require documentation. In fact, some critical activities cannot and should not be standardized. Others may be sufficiently documented with an instruction or a checklist and may not require a procedure. A document should only be created when it enhances the performance of the employee performing the activity. If it does not help the employee, then there is no reason to maintain the document. Activities that represent little risk (such as project status), activities that cannot be defined in terms of specific tasks (such as product research), and activities that can be performed in a variety of ways (such as advertising) often do not require documentation. Sometimes, an activity will evolve to the point where documentation is necessary. For example, an activity performed by single employee may be straightforward and uncomplicated -- that is, until the activity is performed by multiple employees. Sometimes, it is the interaction between co-workers that necessitates documentation; sometimes, it is the complexity or the diversity of the activity.7. Document Actual Practices The only reason to maintain process documentation is to enhance the performance of the employee performing the activity. And documentation can only enhance performance if it reflects reality -- that is, current best practice. Documentation that reflects an unattainable ideal or outdated practices will end up on the shelf, unused and forgotten.Documenting actual practice means (1) auditing the activity to understand how the work is really performed, (2) identifying best practices with employees who are involved in the activity, (3) building consensus so that everyone agrees on a common method, and (4) recording that consensus.8. Minimize Documentation One way to keep it simple is to document at the highest level possible. That is, include in your documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary.When writing a document, you should ask yourself, What is the purpose of this document? That is, what problem will it solve?By focusing on this question, you can target the critical information.• What questions are the end users likely to have?• What level of detail is required?• Is any of this information extraneous to the document's purpose? Short, concise documents are user friendly and they are easier to keep up to date. 9. Support Continuous Improvement Employees who perform an activity are often in the best position to identify improvements to the process. In other words, continuous improvement is a natural byproduct of the work itself -- but only if the improvements are communicated to all employees who are involved in the process, and only if there is consensus among those employees.Traditionally, process documentation has been used to dictate performance, to limit employees' actions. In the Tutor environment, process documents are used to communicate improvements identified by employees. How does this work? The Tutor methodology requires a process document to reflect actual practice, so the owner of a document must routinely audit its content -- does the document match what the employees are doing? If it doesn't, the owner has the responsibility to evaluate the process, to build consensus among the employees, to identify "best practices," and to communicate these improvements via a document update. Continuous improvement can also be an outgrowth of corrective action -- but only if the solutions to problems are communicated effectively. The goal should be to solve a problem once and only once, which means not only identifying the solution, but ensuring that the solution becomes part of the process. The Tutor system provides the method through which improvements and solutions are documented and communicated to all affected employees in a cost-effective, timely manner; it ensures that improvements are not lost or confined to a single employee. 10. Keep it Simple Process documents don't have to be complex and unfriendly. In fact, the simpler the format and organization, the more likely the documents will be used. And the simpler the method of maintenance, the more likely the documents will be kept up-to-date. Keep it simply by:• Minimizing skills and training required• Following the established Tutor document format and layout• Avoiding technology just for technology's sake No other rule has as major an impact on the success of your internal documentation as -- keep it simple. Learn More For more information about Tutor, visit Oracle.Com or the Tutor Blog. Post your questions at the Tutor Forum.   Emily Chorba Principle Product Manager Oracle Tutor & BPM 

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