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• Pull Request Changes, Multi-Selection in Advanced View, and Advertisement Changes

  [Do you tweet? Follow us on Twitter @matthawley and @adacole_msft] We deployed a new version of the CodePlex website today. Pull Request Changes In this release, we have begun to re-focus on Pull Requests to ensure a productive experience between the project users and developers. We feel we made significant progress in this area for this release and look forward to using your feedback to drive future iterations. One of the biggest hurdles people have indicated is the inability to see what a pull request includes without pulling the source down from a Mercurial client. With today’s changes, any user has the ability to view a pull request, the changesets / changes included, and perform an inline diff of the file. When a pull request is made, the CodePlex website will query for all outgoing changes from the fork to the main repository for a point-in-time comparison. Because of this point-in-time comparison… All existing pull requests created prior to this release will not have changesets associated with them. If new commits are pushed to the fork while a pull request is active, they will not appear associated with the pull request. The pull request will need to be re-submitted for them to appear. Once a pull request is created, you can “View the Pull Request” which takes you to a page that looks like As you may notice, we now display a lot more detailed information regarding that pull request including who it was requested by and when, the associated changesets, the description, who it’s assigned to (we’ll come back to this) and the listing of summarized file changes. What you’ll also notice, is that each modified file has the ability to view a diff of all changes made. When you click “(view diff)” for a file, an inline diff experience appears. This new experience allows you to quickly navigate through all of the modified files as well as viewing the various change blocks for each file. You’ll also notice as you browse through each file’s changes, we update the URL to include the file path so you can quickly send a direct link to a pull request’s file. Clicking “(close diff)” will bring you back to the original pull request view. View this pull request live on WikiPlex. Pull Request Review Assignment Another new feature we added for pull requests is the ability for project members to assign pull requests for review. Any project member has the ability to assign (and re-assign if needed) a pull request to a project member. Once the assignment has been made, that project member will be notified via email of the assignment. Once they complete the review of the pull request, they can either accept or deny it similarly to the previous process. Multi-Selection in Advanced View Filters One of the more recent requests we have heard from users is the ability multi-select advanced view filters for work items. We are happy to announce this is now possible. Simply control-click the multiple options for each filter item and your work item query will be refined as such. Should you happen to unselect all options for a given filter, it will automatically reset to the default option for that filter. Furthermore, the “Direct Link” URL will be updated to include the multi-selected options for each filter. Note: The “Direct Link” feature was released in our previous deployment, just never written about. It allows you to capture the current state of your query and send it to other individuals. Advertisement Changes Very recently, the advertiser (The Lounge) we partnered to provide advertising revenue for projects, or donated to charity, was acquired by Lake Quincy Media. There has been no change in the advertising platform offering, and all projects have been converted over to using the new infrastructure. Project owners should note the new contact information for getting paid. The CodePlex team values your feedback, and is frequently monitoring Twitter, our Discussions and Issue Tracker for new features or problems. If you’ve not visited the Issue Tracker recently, please take a few moments to log an idea or vote for the features you would most like to see implemented on CodePlex.

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• Developer Profile: Marcelo Quinta

  - by Tori Wieldt

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

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• Copy New Files Only in .NET

  - by psheriff

  Recently I had a client that had a need to copy files from one folder to another. However, there was a process that was running that would dump new files into the original folder every minute or so. So, we needed to be able to copy over all the files one time, then also be able to go back a little later and grab just the new files. After looking into the System.IO namespace, none of the classes within here met my needs exactly. Of course I could build it out of the various File and Directory classes, but then I remembered back to my old DOS days (yes, I am that old!). The XCopy command in DOS (or the command prompt for you pure Windows people) is very powerful. One of the options you can pass to this command is to grab only newer files when copying from one folder to another. So instead of writing a ton of code I decided to simply call the XCopy command using the Process class in .NET. The command I needed to run at the command prompt looked like this: XCopy C:\Original\*.* D:\Backup\*.* /q /d /y What this command does is to copy all files from the Original folder on the C drive to the Backup folder on the D drive. The /q option says to do it quitely without repeating all the file names as it copies them. The /d option says to get any newer files it finds in the Original folder that are not in the Backup folder, or any files that have a newer date/time stamp. The /y option will automatically overwrite any existing files without prompting the user to press the "Y" key to overwrite the file. To translate this into code that we can call from our .NET programs, you can write the CopyFiles method presented below. C# using System.Diagnostics public void CopyFiles(string source, string destination){  ProcessStartInfo si = new ProcessStartInfo();  string args = @"{0}\*.* {1}\*.* /q /d /y";   args = string.Format(args, source, destination);   si.FileName = "xcopy";  si.Arguments = args;  Process.Start(si);} VB.NET Imports System.Diagnostics Public Sub CopyFiles(source As String, destination As String)  Dim si As New ProcessStartInfo()  Dim args As String = "{0}\*.* {1}\*.* /q /d /y"   args = String.Format(args, source, destination)   si.FileName = "xcopy"  si.Arguments = args  Process.Start(si)End Sub The CopyFiles method first creates a ProcessStartInfo object. This object is where you fill in name of the command you wish to run and also the arguments that you wish to pass to the command. I created a string with the arguments then filled in the source and destination folders using the string.Format() method. Finally you call the Start method of the Process class passing in the ProcessStartInfo object. That's all there is to calling any command in the operating system. Very simple, and much less code than it would have taken had I coded it using the various File and Directory classes. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free video on Silverlight entitled Silverlight XAML for the Complete Novice - Part 1.  

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

  - by Gopinath

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

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• Managing Scripts in Oracle SQL Developer

  - by thatjeffsmith

  You backup your databases, right? You backup you home computer – your media collection, tax documents, bank accounts, etc, right? You backup your handy-dandy SQL scripts, right? Ok, now that I’ve got your head nodding, I want to answer a question I get every so often: How can I manage my scripts in SQL Developer? This is an interesting question. First, it assumes that one SHOULD manage their scripts in their IDE. Now, what I think the question generally gets around to is, how can we: Navigate to our scripts Open them Execute them What a good IDE should have is an interface to your existing Version Control System (VCS.) SQL Developer supports out-of-the-box both Subversion and Git. You can also download an extension via check-for-updates to get support for CVS. Now, what I’m about to show you COULD be done without versioning and controlling your scripts – but I want to ask you why you wouldn’t want to do this? So, I’m going to proceed and assume that you do INDEED version your scripts already. Seeing what scripts you’ve already got in your repository This is very straightforward – just open the Team Versions panel. Then connect to your repository. Shows you the files in your source control system. Now, I could ‘preview’ said file right away. If I open the file from here, we get a temp file copy down from the server to the local machine. This is a local temp copy of the controlled script – I can read/execute, but not write to it. And that might be all you need. But, if your script calls other scripts, then you’re going to want to check out the server copy of your stuff down your local SVN working copy directory. That way when your script calls another script – you’re executing the PRODUCTION APPROVED copies of said scripts. And if you do SPOOL or other file I/O stuff, it will work as expected. To get to those said client copies of your scripts… Enter the Files Panel The Files panel is accessible from the View menu. You can get to your files, one of two ways. If you’ve touched the file recently, you can see it under the Recent tree. Otherwise, you can navigate to your local ‘checked out’ copies of your script(s). Open your local copies, see what’s changed, etc. And I can access the change history and see what’s been touched… What changes am I going to ‘push out’ if I commit this back to the server? Most of us work on teams, yes? This panel also gives me a heads up if someone else is making changes to the same file. I can see the ‘incoming’ changes as well. To Sum It Up… If I want to get a script to run: do a full get to your local directory open the script(s) The files panel will tell you if your local copy is out of date from the server and if you have made local changes you’ve forgotten to commit back up to the server and your fellow teammates. Now, if you’re the selfish type and don’t want to share, that’s fine. But you should still be backing up your scripts, and you can still use the Files panel to manage your scripts.

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• NHibernate 3.0 and FluentNHibernate, how to get up and running&hellip;.

  - by DesigningCode

  First up. Its actually really easy. I’m not very religious about my DB tech, I don’t really care, I just want something that works.  So I’m happy to consider all options if they provide an advantage, and recently I was considering jumping from NHibernate to EF 4.0.  However before ditching NHibernate and jumping to EF 4.0 I thought I should try the head version of NHibernates trunk and the Head version of FluentNHibernate. I currently have a “Repository / Unit of Work” Framework built up around these two techs.  All up it makes my life pretty simple for dealing with databases.   The problem is the current release of NHibernate + the Linq provider wasn’t too hot for our purposes.  Especially trying to plug it into older VB.NET code.   The Linq provider spat the dummy with VB.NET lambdas.  Mainly because in C# Query().Where(l => l.Name.Contains("x") || l.Name.Contains("y")).ToList(); is not the same as the VB.NET Query().Where(Function(l) l.Name.Contains("x") Or l.Name.Contains("y")).ToList VB.NET seems to spit out … well…. something different :-) so anyways… Compiling your own version of NHibernate and FluentNHibernate.  It’s actually pretty easy! First you’ll need to install tortisesvn NAnt and Git if you don’t already have them.  NHibernate first step, get the subversion trunk https://nhibernate.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/nhibernate/trunk/ into a directory somewhere.  eg \thirdparty\nhibernate Then use NAnt to build it.   (if you open the .sln it will show errors in that  AssemblyInfo.cs doesn’t exist ) to build it, there is a .txt document with sample command line build instructions,  I simply used :- NAnt -D:project.config=release clean build >output-release-build.log *wait* *wait* *wait* and ta da, you will have a bin directory with all the release dlls. FluentNHibernate This was pretty simple. there’s instructions here :- http://wiki.fluentnhibernate.org/Getting_started#Installation basically, with git, create a directory, and you issue the command git clone git://github.com/jagregory/fluent-nhibernate.git and wait, and soon enough you have the source. Now, from the bin directory that NHibernate spit out, take everything and dump it into the subdirectory “fluent-nhibernate\tools\NHibernate” Now, to build, you can use rake….which a ruby build system, however you can also just open the solution and build.   Which is what I did.  I had a few problems with the references which I simply re-added using the new ones.  Once built, I just took all the NHibnerate dlls, and the fluent ones and replaced my existing NHibernate / Fluent and killed off the old linq project. All I had to change is the places that used  .Linq<T>  and replace them with .Query<T>  (which was easy as I had wrapped it already to isolate my code from such changes) and hey presto, everything worked.  Even the VB.NET linq calls. I need to do some more testing as I’ve only done basic smoke tests, but its all looking pretty good, so for now, I will stick to NHibernate!

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• Do MORE with WebCenter

  - by Michael Snow

  WEBCAST THURSDAY!! 03/22/12 Do you need to lower costs? Raise Productivity? Foster Innovation? Improve Online Engagement? But you’re still stuck with Documentum? Step away from the ledge – there is hope – let us help you. Top 4 Content Imperatives · Lower Costs - Reduce labor, maintenance fees, storage and electrical consumption · Raise Productivity - Automation and integration, communication, findability · Foster Innovation - Enable collaboration, expertise location · Improve Online Engagement – enable user-driven, dynamic marketing initiatives With the coming technology wave we see four content imperatives. Every organization has had to reduce costs, cost cutting has become a way of life. Everyone is working three jobs as positions are eliminated. And so we have to reduce labor, reduce maintenance, and reduce money we are wasting on things like storing content that is redundant or no longer useful. We also, to fill that gap, need to raise productivity. Knowledge workers represent the fastest growing segment of the workforce, accounting for 40%-75% of the employees at organizations in sectors like financial services, life sciences, healthcare and retail.  What’s more, their wages total 18 percent of the United States GDP. And so we can’t afford information systems that don’t let our top performers be the best they can be. We look to automate the content processes, provide ways to integrate that content into our processes, provide communication to make decisions, and to make content more findable so people can make the right decision and move the process forward. And really to get ourselves out of the current financial status, we can only cut costs so far. We have to innovate out of economic tough times – to find new products and new markets. And to enable the innovation process, we have to enable collaboration and expertise location. So much of innovation is about building on innovations that have come before. To solve problems, we have to be able to find what our organization has already created. We find that problems we need to solve have already been solved if we can find the right document, the right person. So we have to provide systems that enable us to stand on the shoulders of our organization’s accomplishments. Good content drives great marketing. Online engagement is growing as an absolute necessity for modern growing marketing organizations that require the business users be enabled for dynamic marketing content creation, updates and targeted content creation and management. Unfortunately – if you are currently stuck with Documentum, you are really lacking in your Web Experience Management capabilities. Documentum previously used FatWire for web publishing. Now FatWire is part of Oracle. Oracle provides powerful web engagement capabilities: Increase sales and loyalty by optimizing online engagement Create, manage and moderate contextually relevant, targeted and interactive online experiences Optimize customer engagement across, web, mobile and social channels Manage large scale multichannel global online presence with integration to enterprise applications Enable business users to control their content and make their own updates Publish content from native files – enable navigation of project documents, procedures, policy information Enable content display and updates from existing web applications – one click to drag and drop content management functionality So you get the ability to self-publish information and make it navigable, to move the process of publishing from IT to business users, and the ability to address a whole new area of user engagement with web experience management. So… if you are still stuck with Documentum and don’t know what to do – contact us – not only will Oracle help you step away from the ledge, but also with the MoveOff Documentum program, we are offering you a way – trade-in your Documentum licenses for a 100% credit on Oracle WebCenter. How’s that for a nice bonus? It’s time to stop maintaining Documentum, and to start innovating with Oracle WebCenter. Learn More Here! To learn more about what Oracle WebCenter can offer you today – join us for a webcast – your eyes will be opened to all that’s possible. Do More with WebCenter: Extend Beyond Content Management

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• When to use Aspect Oriented Architecture (AOA/AOD)

  When is it appropriate to use aspect oriented architecture? I think the only honest answer to this question is that it depends on the context for which the question is being asked. There really are no hard and fast rules regarding the selection of an architectural model(s) for a project because each model provides good and bad benefits. Every system is built with a unique requirements and constraints. This context will dictate when to use one type of architecture over another or in conjunction with others. To me aspect oriented architecture models should be a sub-phase in the architectural modeling and design process especially when creating enterprise level models. Personally, I like to use this approach to create a base architectural model that is defined by non-functional requirements and system quality attributes.   This general model can then be used as a starting point for additional models because it is targets all of the business key quality attributes required by the system.Aspect oriented architecture is a method for modeling non-functional requirements and quality attributes of a system known as aspects. These models do not deal directly with specific functionality. They do categorize functionality of the system. This approach allows a system to be created with a strong emphasis on separating system concerns into individual components. These cross cutting components enables a systems to create with compartmentalization in regards to non-functional requirements or quality attributes.  This allows for the reduction in code because an each component maintains an aspect of a system that can be called by other aspects. This approach also allows for a much cleaner and smaller code base during the implementation and support of a system. Additionally, enabling developers to develop systems based on aspect-oriented design projects will be completed faster and will be more reliable because existing components can be shared across a system; thus, the time needed to create and test the functionality is reduced.   Example of an effective use of Aspect Oriented ArchitectureIn my experiences, aspect oriented architecture can be very effective with large or more complex systems. Typically, these types of systems have a large number of concerns so the act of defining them is very beneficial for reducing the system’s complexity because components can be developed to address each concern while exposing functionality to the other system components. The benefits to using the aspect oriented approach as the starting point for a system is that it promotes communication between IT and the business due to the fact that the aspect oriented models are quality attributes focused so not much technical understanding is needed to understand the model.An example of this can be in developing a new intranet website. Common Intranet Concerns: Error Handling Security Logging Notifications Database connectivity Example of a not as effective use of Aspect Oriented ArchitectureAgain in my experiences, aspect oriented architecture is not as effective with small or less complex systems in comparison.  There is no need to model concerns for a system that has a limited amount of them because the added overhead would not be justified for the actual benefits of creating the aspect oriented architecture model.  Furthermore, these types of projects typically have a reduced time schedule and a limited budget.  The creation of the Aspect oriented models would increase the overhead of a project and thus increase the time needed to implement the system. An example of this is seen by creating a small application to poll a network share for new files and then FTP them to a new location.  The two primary concerns for this project is to monitor a network drive and FTP files to a new location.  There is no need to create an aspect model for this system because there will never be a need to share functionality amongst either of these concerns.  To add to my point, this system is so small that it could be created with just a few classes so the added layer of componentizing the concerns would be complete overkill for this situation. References:Brichau, Johan; D'Hondt, Theo. (2006) Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) - An Introduction. Retreived from: http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~jbrichau/courses/introductionToAOSD.pdf

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• ResourceSerializable: an alternate to ORM and ActiveRecord

  - by Levi Morrison

  A few opinionated reasons I don't like the traditional ORM and ActiveRecord patterns: They work only with a database. Sometimes I'm dealing with objects from an API and other objects from a database. All the implementations I have seen don't allow for that. Feel free to clue me in if I'm wrong on this. They are brittle. Changes in the database will likely break your implemenation. Some implementations can help reduce this, but a few of the ones I've seen don't. Their very design is influenced by the database. If I want to switch to using an API, I'll have to redesign the object to get it to work (likely). It seems to violate the single-responsibility pattern. They know what they are and how they act, but they also know how they are created, destroyed and saved? Seems a bit much. What about an approach that is somewhat more familiar in PHP: implementing an interface? In php 5.4, we'll have the JsonSerializable interface that defines the data to be json_encoded, so users will become accustomed to this type of thing. What if there was a ResourceSerializable interface? This is still an ORM by name, but certainly not by tradition. interface ResourceSerializable { /** * Returns the id that identifies the resource. */ function resourceId(); /** * Returns the 'type' of the resource. */ function resourceType(); /** * Returns the data to be serialized. */ function resourceSerialize(); } Things might be poorly named, I'll take suggestions. Notes: ResourceId will work for API's and databases. As long as your primary key in the database is the same as the resource ID in the API, there is no conflict. All of the API's I've worked with have a unique ID for the resource, so I don't see any issues there. ResourceType is the group or type associated with the resource. You can use this to map the resource to an API call or a database table. If the ResourceType was person, it could map to /api/1/person/{resourceId} and the table persons (or people, if it's smart enough). resourceSerialize() returns the data to be stored. Keys would identify API parameters and database table columns. This also seems easier to test than ActiveRecord / Orm implemenations. I haven't done much automated testing on traditional ActiveRecord/ORM implemenations, so this is merely a guess. But it seems that I being able to create objects independently of the library helps me. I don't have to use load() to get an existing resource, I can simply create one and set all the right properties. This is not so easy in the ActiveRecord / Orm implemenations I've dealt with. Downsides: You need another object to serialize it. This also means you have more code in general as you have to use more objects. You have to map resource types to API calls and database tables. This is even more work, but some ORMs and ActiveRecord implementations require you to map objects to table names anyway. Are there other downsides that you see? Does this seem feasible to you? How would you improve it? Note: I almost asked this on StackOverflow because it might be too vague for their standards, but I'm still not really familiar with programmers.stackexchange.com, so please help me improve my question if it doesn't shape up to standards here.

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• Why you shouldn't add methods to interfaces in APIs

  - by Simon Cooper

  It is an oft-repeated maxim that you shouldn't add methods to a publically-released interface in an API. Recently, I was hit hard when this wasn't followed. As part of the work on ApplicationMetrics, I've been implementing auto-reporting of MVC action methods; whenever an action was called on a controller, ApplicationMetrics would automatically report it without the developer needing to add manual ReportEvent calls. Fortunately, MVC provides easy hook when a controller is created, letting me log when it happens - the IControllerFactory interface. Now, the dll we provide to instrument an MVC webapp has to be compiled against .NET 3.5 and MVC 1, as the lowest common denominator. This MVC 1 dll will still work when used in an MVC 2, 3 or 4 webapp because all MVC 2+ webapps have a binding redirect redirecting all references to previous versions of System.Web.Mvc to the correct version, and type forwards taking care of any moved types in the new assemblies. Or at least, it should. IControllerFactory In MVC 1 and 2, IControllerFactory was defined as follows: public interface IControllerFactory { IController CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName); void ReleaseController(IController controller); } So, to implement the logging controller factory, we simply wrap the existing controller factory: internal sealed class LoggingControllerFactory : IControllerFactory { private readonly IControllerFactory m_CurrentController; public LoggingControllerFactory(IControllerFactory currentController) { m_CurrentController = currentController; } public IController CreateController( RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName) { // log the controller being used FeatureSessionData.ReportEvent("Controller used:", controllerName); return m_CurrentController.CreateController(requestContext, controllerName); } public void ReleaseController(IController controller) { m_CurrentController.ReleaseController(controller); } } Easy. This works as expected in MVC 1 and 2. However, in MVC 3 this type was throwing a TypeLoadException, saying a method wasn't implemented. It turns out that, in MVC 3, the definition of IControllerFactory was changed to this: public interface IControllerFactory { IController CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName); SessionStateBehavior GetControllerSessionBehavior( RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName); void ReleaseController(IController controller); } There's a new method in the interface. So when our MVC 1 dll was redirected to reference System.Web.Mvc v3, LoggingControllerFactory tried to implement version 3 of IControllerFactory, was missing the GetControllerSessionBehaviour method, and so couldn't be loaded by the CLR. Implementing the new method Fortunately, there was a workaround. Because interface methods are normally implemented implicitly in the CLR, if we simply declare a virtual method matching the signature of the new method in MVC 3, then it will be ignored in MVC 1 and 2 and implement the extra method in MVC 3: internal sealed class LoggingControllerFactory : IControllerFactory { ... public virtual SessionStateBehaviour GetControllerSessionBehaviour( RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName) {} ... } However, this also has problems - the SessionStateBehaviour type only exists in .NET 4, and we're limited to .NET 3.5 by support for MVC 1 and 2. This means that the only solutions to support all MVC versions are: Construct the LoggingControllerFactory type at runtime using reflection Produce entirely separate dlls for MVC 1&2 and MVC 3. Ugh. And all because of that blasted extra method! Another solution? Fortunately, in this case, there is a third option - System.Web.Mvc also provides a DefaultControllerFactory type that can provide the implementation of GetControllerSessionBehaviour for us in MVC 3, while still allowing us to override CreateController and ReleaseController. However, this does mean that LoggingControllerFactory won't be able to wrap any calls to GetControllerSessionBehaviour. This is an acceptable bug, given the other options, as very few developers will be overriding GetControllerSessionBehaviour in their own custom controller factory. So, if you're providing an interface as part of an API, then please please please don't add methods to it. Especially if you don't provide a 'default' implementing type. Any code compiled against the previous version that can't be updated will have some very tough decisions to make to support both versions.

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• #altnetseattle &ndash; REST Services

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  Below are the notes I made in the REST Architecture Session I helped kick off with Andrew. RSS, ATOM, and such needed for better discovery.  i.e. there still is a need for some type of discovery. Difficult is modeling behaviors in a RESTful way.  ??  Invoking some type of state against an object.  For instance in the case of a POST vs. a GET.  The GET is easy, comes back as is, but what about a POST, which often changes some state or something. Challenge is doing multiple workflows with stateful workflows.  How does batch work.  Maybe model the batch as a resource. Frameworks aren’t particularly part of REST, REST is REST.  But point argued that REST is modeled, or part of modeling a state machine of some sort… ? Nothing is 100% reliable w/ REST – comparisons drawn with TCP/IP.  Sufficient probability is made however for the communications, but the idea of a possible failure has to be built into the usage model of REST. Ruby on Rails / RESTfully, and others used.  What were their issues, what do they do.  ATOM feeds, object serialized, using LINQ to XML w/ this.  No state machine libraries. Idempotent areas around REST and single change POST changes are inherent in the architecture. REST – one of the constrained languages is for the interaction w/ the system.  Limiting what can be done on the resources.  - disagreement, there is no agreed upon REST verbs. Sam Ruby – RESTful services.  Expanded the verbs within REST/HTTP pushes you off the web.  Of the existing verbs POST leaves the most up for debate. Robert Reem used Factory to deal with the POST to handle the new state.  The POST identifying what it just did by the return. Different states are put into POST, so that new prospective verbs, without creating verbs for REST/HTTP can be used to advantage without breaking universal clients. Biggest issue with REST services is their lack of state, yet it is also one of their biggest strengths.  What happens is that the client takes up the often onerous task of handling all state, state machines, and other extraneous resource management.  All the GETs, POSTs, DELETEs, INSERTs get all pushed into abstraction.  My 2 cents is that this in a way ends up pushing a huge proprietary burden onto the REST services often removing the point of REST to be simple and to the point. WADL does provide discovery and some state control (sort of?) Statement made, "WADL" isn't needed.  The JSON, XML, or other client side returned data handles this. I then applied the law of 2 feet rule for myself and headed to finish up these notes, post to the Wiki, and figure out what I was going to do next.  For the original Wiki entry check it out here. I will be adding more to this post with a subsequent post.  Please do feel free to post your thoughts and ideas about this, as I am sure everyone in the session will have more for elaboration.

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• Copying A Slide From One Presentation To Another

  - by Tim Murphy

  There are many ways to generate a PowerPoint presentation using Open XML.  The first way is to build it by hand strictly using the SDK.  Alternately you can modify a copy of a base presentation in place.  The third approach to generate a presentation is to build a new presentation from the parts of an existing presentation by copying slides as needed.  This post will focus on the third option. In order to make this solution a little more elegant I am going to create a VSTO add-in as I did in my previous post.  This one is going to insert Tags to identify slides instead of NonVisualDrawingProperties which I used to identify charts, tables and images.  The code itself is fairly short. SlideNameForm dialog = new SlideNameForm(); Selection selection = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveWindow.Selection;   if(dialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) { selection.SlideRange.Tags.Add(dialog.slideName,dialog.slideName); } Zeyad Rajabi has a good post here on combining slides from two presentations.  The example he gives is great if you are doing a straight merge.  But what if you want to use your source file as almost a supermarket where you pick and chose slides and may even insert them repeatedly?  The following code uses the tags we created in the previous step to pick a particular slide an copy it to a destination file. using (PresentationDocument newDocument = PresentationDocument.Open(OutputFileText.Text,true)) { PresentationDocument templateDocument = PresentationDocument.Open(FileNameText.Text, false);   uniqueId = GetMaxIdFromChild(newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideMasterIdList); uint maxId = GetMaxIdFromChild(newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideIdList);   SlidePart oldPart = GetSlidePartByTagName(templateDocument, SlideToCopyText.Text);   SlidePart newPart = newDocument.PresentationPart.AddPart<SlidePart>(oldPart, "sourceId1");   SlideMasterPart newMasterPart = newDocument.PresentationPart.AddPart(newPart.SlideLayoutPart.SlideMasterPart);   SlideIdList idList = newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideIdList;   // create new slide ID maxId++; SlideId newId = new SlideId(); newId.Id = maxId; newId.RelationshipId = "sourceId1"; idList.Append(newId);   // Create new master slide ID uniqueId++; SlideMasterId newMasterId = new SlideMasterId(); newMasterId.Id = uniqueId; newMasterId.RelationshipId = newDocument.PresentationPart.GetIdOfPart(newMasterPart); newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideMasterIdList.Append(newMasterId);   // change slide layout ID FixSlideLayoutIds(newDocument.PresentationPart);     //newPart.Slide.Save(); newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.Save(); } The GetMaxIDFromChild and FixSlideLayoutID methods are barrowed from Zeyad’s article.  The GetSlidePartByTagName method is listed below.  It is really one LINQ query that finds SlideParts with child Tags that have the requested Name. private SlidePart GetSlidePartByTagName(PresentationDocument templateDocument, string tagName) { return (from p in templateDocument.PresentationPart.SlideParts where p.UserDefinedTagsParts.First().TagList.Descendants <DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Presentation.Tag>().First().Name == tagName.ToUpper() select p).First(); } This is what really makes the difference from what Zeyad posted.  The most powerful thing you can have when generating documents from templates is a consistent way of naming items to be manipulated.  I will be show more approaches like this in upcoming posts. del.icio.us Tags: Office Open XML,Presentation,PowerPoint,VSTO,TagList

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• Is there an IDE that can simplify the process of creating a game matchmaking website?

  - by Scott

  Yes, I'm an old guy. And I'm well versed in "C" and have written several games which I have been selling on the web for a number of years. And now, I would like to adapt one of my games to be "online". Sounds simple. I'm sure I can use the thousands of lines of "C" code that I've already written. Right? So my initial investigation begins. First, I think I'll need a server program that lives on a dedicated server (or a VPS probably) that talks to a bunch of client applications that live on individual devices around the world. I can certainly handle that! (I think to myself). I'll break up my existing game into two pieces, a client piece that is just the game displays and buttons, and a server piece that does everything else. Piece of cake, right? But that means that the "server piece" must be executed on a remote machine somewhere and run 24/7. Can I do that? [apparently, that question is so basic, so uneducated, and so lame, that nobody has ever posed it before. Because hours of Googling does not yield an answer. Fine. I'll assume I can do that and move on.] I'll need a "game room", which to me means a website where you log in and then go to a lobby of some kind where you can setup your preferences, see if any of your friends are connected, and create or join games. Should be easy, but it's not. No way. Can I do all this with my local website builder? (which happens to be 90 Second Website Builder, a nice product, btw). It turns out, I can not. I can start with that, but must modify each page, so I can interact with my sql database. So I begin making each page a "PHP" page and dynamically modifying the HTML code with PHP code. I'm already starting to get a headache. Because the resulting web pages looked terrible, I began looking at using JQuery. I want to user a JQuery dialog on my website to display a list of friends and allow the user to select one to invite to the game. [google search for "how to populate a JQuery dialog from a sql database" yields nothing but more confusion.] Javascript? Java? HTML? XML? HTML5? PHP? JQuery? Flash? Sockets? Forms? CSS? Learning about each one of these, and how they interact with each other and/or depend on each other is too much for my feeble old brain. Can anyone simplify this process for me? Is there an IDE that will help me do all this without having to go back to college for a few years? Thanks, Scott

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• SOA Community Newsletter October 2013

  - by JuergenKress

  Dear SOA & BPM Partner Community member, Our October newsletter edition focuses on Oracle OpenWorld 2013, highlights, keynotes and all presentations. Thanks to all partners who made the conference a huge success. If you could not come to San Francisco you will find all the details within this newsletter. As the newsletter edition contains a lot of content thus we have three sections - SOA, BPM & ACM, and AppAdvantage & UX. Make sure you share your content with the community, best via twitter @soacommunity #soacommunity! What is new in SOA Suite 12c? At OOW the product management team demonstrated some of the key features of the upcoming version. The important SOA topics are mobile integration and cloud integration - make sure you re-use your existing SOA platform! Bruce Tierney showcased the Agilent mobile integration and you try the new Mobile Order Management for EBS GSE Demo using middleware technology. On cloud integration the product management team presented several OOW sessions and published two whitepapers. As SOA becomes mature the awareness for SOA Governance continues to raise, Introducing Oracle Enterprise Repository Express Workflows and watch Luis Weir: Challenges to Implementing SOA Governance. Thanks to Ronald for the SOA Made Simple | Introduction to SOA series, the next article in the Industrial SOA series is SOA and User Interfaces (UI). Have you achieved successful BPM implementation? Nominate your customer references for the Gartner Business Process Management Excellence Awards 2014. Do you want to showcase the latest BPM Suite? Make sure you use the hosted BPM PS6 (11.1.1.7) demo. Do you want to become an expert in BPM Suite? Attend one of our BPM Bootcamps in Germany, Netherland, Spain or UK! If you can not make it – we offer plenty of on-demand content Advanced BPM Scenarios & BPM Architecture Topics & Process Modeling and Life Cycle & Adaptive Case Management & Smart Application Extensibility with Oracle Process Accelerators. I would also recommend to watch great introduction to Adaptive Case Management the on-demand webcast with Bruce Silver & Ajay Khanna. Thanks to Mark Foster from the A-team for the ACM article series & Leon Smiers for their blog posts. If you accomplished a SOA Suite or BPM Suite project and want to become a certified SOA or BPM expert, we are offering again free vouchers to become a certified SOA & BPM expert (limited to partners in Europe Middle East and Africa). Don't miss this opportunity and become Specialized! Best regards, Jürgen Kress To read the newsletter please visit http://tinyurl.com/soaNewsOctober2013 (OPN Account required) To become a member of the SOA Partner Community please register at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: newsletter,SOA Community newsletter,SOA Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• DAC pack up all your troubles

  - by Tony Davis

  Visual Studio 2010, or perhaps its apparently-forthcoming sister, "SQL Studio", is being geared up to become the natural way for developers to create databases. Central to this drive is the introduction of 'data-tier application components', or DACs. Applications are developed as normal but when it comes to deployment, instead of supplying the DBA with a bunch of scripts to create the required database objects, the developer creates a single DAC Package ("DAC Pack"); a zipped XML file containing all the database objects needed by the application, along with versioning information, policies for deployment, and so on. It's an intriguing prospect. Developers can work on their development database using their existing tools and source control, and then package up the changes into a single DACPAC for deployment and management. DBAs get an "application level view" of how their instances are being used and the ability to collectively, rather than individually, manage the objects. The DBA needing to manage a large number of relatively small databases can use "DAC snapshots" to get a quick overview of what has changed across all the databases they manage. The reason that DAC packs haven't caused more excitement is that they can only be pushed to SQL Server 2008 R2, and they must be developed or inspected using Visual Studio 2010. Furthermore, what we see right now in VS2010 is more of a 'work-in-progress' or 'vision of the future', with serious shortcomings and restrictions that render it unsuitable for anything but small 'non-critical' departmental databases. The first problem is that DAC packs support a limited set of schema objects (corresponding closely to the features available on 'Azure'). This means that Service Broker queues, CLR Objects, and perhaps most critically security (permissions, certificates etc.), are off-limits. Applications that require these objects will need to add them via a post-deployment TSQL script, rather defeating the whole idea. More worrying still is the process for altering a database with a DAC pack. The grand 'collective' philosophy, whereby a single XML file can be used for deploying and managing builds and changes, extends, unfortunately, to database upgrades. Any change to a database object will result in the creation of a new database, copying the data from the old version, nuking the previous one, and then renaming the new one. Simple eh? The problem is that even something as trivial as adding a comment to a stored procedure in a 5GB database will require the server to find at least twice as much space, as well sufficient elbow-room in the transaction log for copying the largest table. Of course, you'll need to take the database offline for the full course of the deployment, which is likely to take a long time if there is a lot of data. This upgrade/rename process breaks the log chain, makes any subsequent full restore operation highly complicated, and will also break log shipping. As with any grand vision, the devil is always in the detail. It's hard to fathom why Microsoft hasn't used a SQL Compare-style approach to the upgrade process, altering a database with a change script, and this will surely be adopted in the near future. Something had to be in place for VS2010, but right now DAC packs only make sense for Azure. For this, they're cute, but hardly compelling. Nevertheless, DBAs would do well to get familiar with VS 2010 and DAC packs. Like it or not, they're both coming. Cheers, Tony.

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• C# 5 Async, Part 2: Asynchrony Today

  - by Reed

  The .NET Framework has always supported asynchronous operations.  However, different mechanisms for supporting exist throughout the framework.  While there are at least three separate asynchronous patterns used through the framework, only the latest is directly usable with the new Visual Studio Async CTP.  Before delving into details on the new features, I will talk about existing asynchronous code, and demonstrate how to adapt it for use with the new pattern. The first asynchronous pattern used in the .NET framework was the Asynchronous Programming Model (APM).  This pattern was based around callbacks.  A method is used to start the operation.  It typically is named as BeginSomeOperation.  This method is passed a callback defined as an AsyncCallback, and returns an object that implements IAsyncResult.  Later, the IAsyncResult is used in a call to a method named EndSomeOperation, which blocks until completion and returns the value normally directly returned from the synchronous version of the operation.  Often, the EndSomeOperation call would be called from the callback function passed, which allows you to write code that never blocks. While this pattern works perfectly to prevent blocking, it can make quite confusing code, and be difficult to implement.  For example, the sample code provided for FileStream’s BeginRead/EndRead methods is not simple to understand.  In addition, implementing your own asynchronous methods requires creating an entire class just to implement the IAsyncResult. Given the complexity of the APM, other options have been introduced in later versions of the framework.  The next major pattern introduced was the Event-based Asynchronous Pattern (EAP).  This provides a simpler pattern for asynchronous operations.  It works by providing a method typically named SomeOperationAsync, which signals its completion via an event typically named SomeOperationCompleted. The EAP provides a simpler model for asynchronous programming.  It is much easier to understand and use, and far simpler to implement.  Instead of requiring a custom class and callbacks, the standard event mechanism in C# is used directly.  For example, the WebClient class uses this extensively.  A method is used, such as DownloadDataAsync, and the results are returned via the DownloadDataCompleted event. While the EAP is far simpler to understand and use than the APM, it is still not ideal.  By separating your code into method calls and event handlers, the logic of your program gets more complex.  It also typically loses the ability to block until the result is received, which is often useful.  Blocking often requires writing the code to block by hand, which is error prone and adds complexity. As a result, .NET 4 introduced a third major pattern for asynchronous programming.  The Task<T> class introduced a new, simpler concept for asynchrony.  Task and Task<T> effectively represent an operation that will complete at some point in the future.  This is a perfect model for thinking about asynchronous code, and is the preferred model for all new code going forward.  Task and Task<T> provide all of the advantages of both the APM and the EAP models – you have the ability to block on results (via Task.Wait() or Task<T>.Result), and you can stay completely asynchronous via the use of Task Continuations.  In addition, the Task class provides a new model for task composition and error and cancelation handling.  This is a far superior option to the previous asynchronous patterns. The Visual Studio Async CTP extends the Task based asynchronous model, allowing it to be used in a much simpler manner.  However, it requires the use of Task and Task<T> for all operations.

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• Abstracting entity caching in XNA

  - by Grofit

  I am in a situation where I am writing a framework in XNA and there will be quite a lot of static (ish) content which wont render that often. Now I am trying to take the same sort of approach I would use when doing non game development, where I don't even think about caching until I have finished my application and realise there is a performance problem and then implement a layer of caching over whatever needs it, but wrap it up so nothing is aware its happening. However in XNA the way we would usually cache would be drawing our objects to a texture and invalidating after a change occurs. So if you assume an interface like so: public interface IGameComponent { void Update(TimeSpan elapsedTime); void Render(GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice); } public class ContainerComponent : IGameComponent { public IList<IGameComponent> ChildComponents { get; private set; } // Assume constructor public void Update(TimeSpan elapsedTime) { // Update anything that needs it } public void Render(GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice) { foreach(var component in ChildComponents) { // draw every component } } } Then I was under the assumption that we just draw everything directly to the screen, then when performance becomes an issue we just add a new implementation of the above like so: public class CacheableContainerComponent : IGameComponent { private Texture2D cachedOutput; private bool hasChanged; public IList<IGameComponent> ChildComponents { get; private set; } // Assume constructor public void Update(TimeSpan elapsedTime) { // Update anything that needs it // set hasChanged to true if required } public void Render(GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice) { if(hasChanged) { CacheComponents(graphicsDevice); } // Draw cached output } private void CacheComponents(GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice) { // Clean up existing cache if needed var cachedOutput = new RenderTarget2D(...); graphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(renderTarget); foreach(var component in ChildComponents) { // draw every component } graphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); } } Now in this example you could inherit, but your Update may become a bit tricky then without changing your base class to alert you if you had changed, but it is up to each scenario to choose if its inheritance/implementation or composition. Also the above implementation will re-cache within the rendering cycle, which may cause performance stutters but its just an example of the scenario... Ignoring those facts as you can see that in this example you could use a cache-able component or a non cache-able one, the rest of the framework needs not know. The problem here is that if lets say this component is drawn mid way through the game rendering, other items will already be within the default drawing buffer, so me doing this would discard them, unless I set it to be persisted, which I hear is a big no no on the Xbox. So is there a way to have my cake and eat it here? One simple solution to this is make an ICacheable interface which exposes a cache method, but then to make any use of this interface you would need the rest of the framework to be cache aware, and check if it can cache, and to then do so. Which then means you are polluting and changing your main implementations to account for and deal with this cache... I am also employing Dependency Injection for alot of high level components so these new cache-able objects would be spat out from that, meaning no where in the actual game would they know they are caching... if that makes sense. Just incase anyone asked how I expected to keep it cache aware when I would need to new up a cachable entity.

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• Windows Azure Recipe: Social Web / Big Media

  - by Clint Edmonson

  With the rise of social media there’s been an explosion of special interest media web sites on the web. From athletics to board games to funny animal behaviors, you can bet there’s a group of people somewhere on the web talking about it. Social media sites allow us to interact, share experiences, and bond with like minded enthusiasts around the globe. And through the power of software, we can follow trends in these unique domains in real time. Drivers Reach Scalability Media hosting Global distribution Solution Here’s a sketch of how a social media application might be built out on Windows Azure: Ingredients Traffic Manager (optional) – can be used to provide hosting and load balancing across different instances and/or data centers. Perfect if the solution needs to be delivered to different cultures or regions around the world. Access Control – this service is essential to managing user identity. It’s backed by a full blown implementation of Active Directory and allows the definition and management of users, groups, and roles. A pre-built ASP.NET membership provider is included in the training kit to leverage this capability but it’s also flexible enough to be combined with external Identity providers including Windows LiveID, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook. The provider model has extensibility points to hook into other identity providers as well. Web Role – hosts the core of the web application and presents a central social hub users. Database – used to store core operational, functional, and workflow data for the solution’s web services. Caching (optional) – as a web site traffic grows caching can be leveraged to keep frequently used read-only, user specific, and application resource data in a high-speed distributed in-memory for faster response times and ultimately higher scalability without spinning up more web and worker roles. It includes a token based security model that works alongside the Access Control service. Tables (optional) – for semi-structured data streams that don’t need relational integrity such as conversations, comments, or activity streams, tables provide a faster and more flexible way to store this kind of historical data. Blobs (optional) – users may be creating or uploading large volumes of heterogeneous data such as documents or rich media. Blob storage provides a scalable, resilient way to store terabytes of user data. The storage facilities can also integrate with the Access Control service to ensure users’ data is delivered securely. Content Delivery Network (CDN) (optional) – for sites that service users around the globe, the CDN is an extension to blob storage that, when enabled, will automatically cache frequently accessed blobs and static site content at edge data centers around the world. The data can be delivered statically or streamed in the case of rich media content. Training These links point to online Windows Azure training labs and resources where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. (Note: The entire Windows Azure Training Kit can also be downloaded for offline use.) Windows Azure (16 labs) Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services which can be used individually or together. It gives developers the choice to build web applications; applications running on connected devices, PCs, or servers; or hybrid solutions offering the best of both worlds. New or enhanced applications can be built using existing skills with the Visual Studio development environment and the .NET Framework. With its standards-based and interoperable approach, the services platform supports multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and plain XML SQL Azure (7 labs) Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. Windows Azure Services (9 labs) As applications collaborate across organizational boundaries, ensuring secure transactions across disparate security domains is crucial but difficult to implement. Windows Azure Services provides hosted authentication and access control using powerful, secure, standards-based infrastructure. See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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• Stuck with Documentum Still? Do MORE with Oracle WebCenter!

  - by Michael Snow

  WEBCAST TODAY!! 03/22/12 Do you need to lower costs? Raise Productivity? Foster Innovation? Improve Online Engagement? But you’re still stuck with Documentum? Step away from the ledge – there is hope – let us help you. Top 4 Content Imperatives · Lower Costs - Reduce labor, maintenance fees, storage and electrical consumption · Raise Productivity - Automation and integration, communication, findability · Foster Innovation - Enable collaboration, expertise location · Improve Online Engagement – enable user-driven, dynamic marketing initiatives With the coming technology wave we see four content imperatives. Every organization has had to reduce costs, cost cutting has become a way of life. Everyone is working three jobs as positions are eliminated. And so we have to reduce labor, reduce maintenance, and reduce money we are wasting on things like storing content that is redundant or no longer useful. We also, to fill that gap, need to raise productivity. Knowledge workers represent the fastest growing segment of the workforce, accounting for 40%-75% of the employees at organizations in sectors like financial services, life sciences, healthcare and retail.  What’s more, their wages total 18 percent of the United States GDP. And so we can’t afford information systems that don’t let our top performers be the best they can be. We look to automate the content processes, provide ways to integrate that content into our processes, provide communication to make decisions, and to make content more findable so people can make the right decision and move the process forward. And really to get ourselves out of the current financial status, we can only cut costs so far. We have to innovate out of economic tough times – to find new products and new markets. And to enable the innovation process, we have to enable collaboration and expertise location. So much of innovation is about building on innovations that have come before. To solve problems, we have to be able to find what our organization has already created. We find that problems we need to solve have already been solved if we can find the right document, the right person. So we have to provide systems that enable us to stand on the shoulders of our organization’s accomplishments. Good content drives great marketing. Online engagement is growing as an absolute necessity for modern growing marketing organizations that require the business users be enabled for dynamic marketing content creation, updates and targeted content creation and management. Unfortunately – if you are currently stuck with Documentum, you are really lacking in your Web Experience Management capabilities. Documentum previously used FatWire for web publishing. Now FatWire is part of Oracle. Oracle provides powerful web engagement capabilities: Increase sales and loyalty by optimizing online engagement Create, manage and moderate contextually relevant, targeted and interactive online experiences Optimize customer engagement across, web, mobile and social channels Manage large scale multichannel global online presence with integration to enterprise applications Enable business users to control their content and make their own updates Publish content from native files – enable navigation of project documents, procedures, policy information Enable content display and updates from existing web applications – one click to drag and drop content management functionality So you get the ability to self-publish information and make it navigable, to move the process of publishing from IT to business users, and the ability to address a whole new area of user engagement with web experience management. So… if you are still stuck with Documentum and don’t know what to do – contact us – not only will Oracle help you step away from the ledge, but also with the MoveOff Documentum program, we are offering you a way – trade-in your Documentum licenses for a 100% credit on Oracle WebCenter. How’s that for a nice bonus? It’s time to stop maintaining Documentum, and to start innovating with Oracle WebCenter. Learn More Here! To learn more about what Oracle WebCenter can offer you today – join us for a webcast – your eyes will be opened to all that’s possible. Do More with WebCenter: Extend Beyond Content Management

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• Oracle Database Upcoming Event dates to know

  - by mandy.ho

  February may be a short month, but it's not short of exciting Oracle events. From information packed "Real Performance Days" to participation in one of the biggest IT Security events - look out for Oracle Database and let us know if you are there with us! Feb 13-18, 2011 - Las Vegas, NV TDWI World Conference Series Join Oracle in highlighting Exadata x2-2 and x2-8, along with Oracle Business Intelligence, Enterprise Performance management and Data Warehousing solutions. Oracle will be presenting a workshop - Oracle Data Integration: Best-of-Breed Solutions for the Enterprise Wednesday, February 16, 2011 7p.m - 9p.m Glen Goodrich, Director of Product Management Christophe Dupupet, Director of Product Management, Data Integration http://events.tdwi.org/events/las-vegas-world-conference-2011/sessions/session-list.aspx Feb 14-17, 2011 - Barcelona, Spain Mobile World Congress MWC is an event where Oracle showcases the near complete breadth and depth of value that our Communications Industry strategy and Hardware and Software Solutions can deliver. Oracle supports Communications Service Providers today and delivers platforms and flexibility primed for the future. Oracle will have a two story Pavilion, along with an Oracle Java and Embedded Solutions Center - App Planet. The Exhibition times are Monday, 14th February 09.00 - 19.00 Tuesday, 15th February 09.00 - 19.00 Wednesday, 16th February 09.00 - 19.00 Thursday, 17th February 09.00 - 16.00 Have questions? Meet with Oracle Sales representatives at the Oracle Café. Open every day from 9am to 17:00pm. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=109912&src=6973382&src=6973382&Act=4 Feb 14-18, 2011 - San Francisco, CA RSA Conference As the world's most complete, open, integrated business software and hardware systems provider, Oracle can uniquely safeguard your information throughout its entire lifecycle. Learn more by attending these sessions: Cloud Computing: A Brave New World for Security and Privacy (CLD-201) Wednesday, February 16 at 8:30 a.m. Databases Under Attack - Securing Heterogeneous Database Infrastructures (DAS-301) Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 8:30 a.m. Seven Steps to Protecting Databases (DAS-402) Friday, February 18 at 10:10 a.m. RSA Conference Attendees will also have the opportunity to meet with Oracle Security Solution experts, see live product demos and more by visiting booth # 1559. Hours: Monday, February 14, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Tuesday, February 15, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. - 6:00p.m., Wednesday, February 16, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., and Thursday, February 17, 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=127657&src=6967733&src=6967733&Act=12 Feb 21-25, 2011 - Various Locations IOUG Presents - A Day of Real World Performance with Tom Kyte, Andrew Holdsworth and Graham Wood These Oracle experts will debate, discuss and delineate the best practices for designing hardware architectures, deploying Oracle databases, and developing applications that deliver the fastest possible performance for your business.Topics are covered in a conversational format - with all three chiming in where appropriate. Each presenter has their own screen projector to demonstrate their individual points to the participants. Customers will have the opportunity to get their specific performance/tuning questions answered and learn how to balance all the different environmental requirements for their applications to improve performance. Register today for the following dates and locations • February 21 in San Diego, CA • February 22 in Los Angeles, CA • February 23 in Seattle, WA • February 25 in Phoenix, AZ http://www.ioug.org/tabid/194/Default.aspx Feb 8-24 - Various Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit This series of full-day events with cloud experts, sharing real-world best practices, reference architectures and more continues during the month of February. Attend the Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit to learn how to: • Build a state-of-the-art cloud architecture • Leverage your existing IT investments • Optimize your IT management processes Whether you are considering a move to cloud computing or have already adopted a cloud model, this event offers you the insights you need to take full advantage of cloud computing. Check below to see if the event is coming to a city near you. http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/events/cloud-events-214342.html

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• Do MORE with WebCenter - Webcast Overview & TIES Tour

  - by Michael Snow

  Today's post is from Michelle Huff, Senior Director, Product Management, Oracle WebCenter `````````````````  In case you missed it, I presented on a webcast yesterday focused on how you can “Do More with Oracle WebCenter – Expand Beyond Content Management.” As you may remember, we rebranded Oracle’s Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Suite, which some people knew by the wonderfully techie three-letter acronyms -- UCM, URM & IPM -- to Oracle WebCenter Content last year. Since it’s a unified ECM platform, I’ve seen many customers over the years continue to expand the number of content-centric solutions and application integrations powered by WebCenter throughout their organizations. But, did you know WebCenter also provides portal, collaboration and web experience management capabilities as well? This enables you to leverage your existing investment in the WebCenter platform as well as the information you’re managing to create engaging sites, collaborative spaces, or self-service portals and composite applications. In the webcast I walked through six different ways that you can do more with WebCenter: Collaborative content contribution and sharing environment Share content across intranets and extranets Combine content in composite applications Create targeted online experiences Manage interactive social experiences Optimize multi-channel customer experiences Joining me on the call was Greg Utecht with TIES. TIES is a joint powers cooperative owned by 46 Minnesota school districts, represents 514 schools – and provides software applications, hardware and software, internet service and professional development designed by educators for education. I was having a lot of fun over the past few days talking with Greg about the TIES implementation and future plans with WebCenter. He joined me on the call for a little Q&A to explain how he’s using WebCenter today for their iContent implementation for document management, records management and archiving. And also covered how they have expanded their implementation to create a collaborative space called their HRPay System with WebCenter to facilitate collaboration and to better engage their users within the school districts. During our conversation a few questions came from the audience about their implementation. They were curious to see how the system looked – so let’s take a peak. This first screenshot shows the screen that a human resources or payroll worker in one of our member districts would see upon logging in, based on their credentials and role in their district. This shows the result of clicking on the SUBSCRIBE link on the main page. It allows the user to subscribe to parts of the portal which will e-mail him/her when those are updated in any way. This shows the screen that a human resources or payroll worker in one of our member districts would see upon clicking on the Resources link. This shows the screen that a human resources or payroll worker in one of our member districts would see upon clicking on the Finance Advisory link. It shows the discussion threads and document sharing areas. This shows the screen that appears when the forum topic on the preceding screen is clicked. This shows the screen portlet up close with shared documents. This shows the screen that appears when a shared document is clicked on. Note that there is also a download button and an update button, meaning people can work on these collaboratively. If you missed the webcast, check it out! You can watch the replay OnDemand HERE. If you attended the webcast, thanks for joining - I hoped you learned a little from the session. I learned that kids are getting digital report cards today! Wow, have times changed with technology. Uh oh, is this when I start saying “You know, back in my days…?”

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• Why Ultra-Low Power Computing Will Change Everything

  - by Tori Wieldt

  The ARM TechCon keynote "Why Ultra-Low Power Computing Will Change Everything" was anything but low-powered. The speaker, Dr. Johnathan Koomey, knows his subject: he is a Consulting Professor at Stanford University, worked for more than two decades at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, Yale University, and UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group. His current focus is creating a standard (computations per kilowatt hour) and measuring computer energy consumption over time. The trends are impressive: energy consumption has halved every 1.5 years for the last 60 years. Battery life has made roughly a 10x improvement each decade since 1960. It's these improvements that have made laptops and cell phones possible. What does the future hold? Dr. Koomey said that in the past, the race by chip manufacturers was to create the fastest computer, but the priorities have now changed. New computers are tiny, smart, connected and cheap. "You can't underestimate the importance of a shift in industry focus from raw performance to power efficiency for mobile devices," he said. There is also a confluence of trends in computing, communications, sensors, and controls. The challenge is how to reduce the power requirements for these tiny devices. Alternate sources of power that are being explored are light, heat, motion, and even blood sugar. The University of Michigan has produced a miniature sensor that harnesses solar energy and could last for years without needing to be replaced. Also, the University of Washington has created a sensor that scavenges power from existing radio and TV signals.Specific devices designed for a purpose are much more efficient than general purpose computers. With all these sensors, instead of big data, developers should focus on nano-data, personalized information that will adjust the lights in a room, a machine, a variable sign, etc.Dr. Koomey showed some examples:The Proteus Digital Health Feedback System, an ingestible sensor that transmits when a patient has taken their medicine and is powered by their stomach juices. (Gives "powered by you" a whole new meaning!) Streetline Parking Systems, that provide real-time data about available parking spaces. The information can be sent to your phone or update parking signs around the city to point to areas with available spaces. Less driving around looking for parking spaces!The BigBelly trash system that uses solar power, compacts trash, and sends a text message when it is full. This dramatically reduces the number of times a truck has to come to pick up trash, freeing up resources and slashing fuel costs. This is a classic example of the efficiency of moving "bits not atoms." But researchers are approaching the physical limits of sensors, Dr. Kommey explained. With the current rate of technology improvement, they'll reach the three-atom transistor by 2041. Once they hit that wall, it will force a revolution they way we do computing. But wait, researchers at Purdue University and the University of New South Wales are both working on a reliable one-atom transistors! Other researchers are working on "approximate computing" that will reduce computing requirements drastically. So it's unclear where the wall actually is. In the meantime, as Dr. Koomey promised, ultra-low power computing will change everything.

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• Drinking Our Own Champagne: Fusion Accounting Hub at Oracle

  - by Di Seghposs

  A guest post by Corey West, Senior Vice President, Oracle's Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer There's no better story to tell than one about Oracle using its own products with blowout success. Here's how this one goes. As you know, Oracle has increased its share of the software market through a number of high-profile acquisitions. Legally combining companies is a very complicated process -- it can take months to complete, especially for the acquisitions with offices in several countries, each with its own unique laws and regulations. It's a mission critical and time sensitive process to roll an acquired company's legacy systems (running vital operations, such as accounts receivable and general ledger (GL)) into the existing systems at Oracle. To date, we've run our primary financial ledgers in E-Business Suite R12 -- and we've successfully met the requirements of the business and closed the books on time every single quarter. But there's always room for improvement and that comes in the form of Fusion Applications. We are now live on Fusion Accounting Hub (FAH), which is the first critical step in moving to a full Fusion Financials instance. We started with FAH so that we could design a global chart of accounts. Eventually, every transaction in every country will originate from this global chart of accounts -- it becomes the structure for managing our business more uniformly. In conjunction, we're using Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management (DRM) to centralize and automate governance of our global chart of accounts and related hierarchies, which will help us lower our costs and greatly reduce risk. Each month, we have to consolidate data from our primary general ledgers. We have been able to simplify this process considerably using FAH. We can now submit our primary ledgers running in E-Business Suite (EBS) R12 directly to FAH, eliminating the need for more than 90 redundant consolidation ledgers. Also we can submit incrementally, so if we need to book an adjustment in a primary ledger after close, we can do so without re-opening it and re-submitting. As a result, we have earlier visibility to period-end actuals during the close. A goal of this implementation, and one that we successfully achieved, is that we are able to use FAH globally with no customization. This means we have the ability to fully deploy ledger sets at the consolidation level, plus we can use standard functionality for currency translation and mass allocations. We're able to use account monitoring and drill down functionality from the consolidation level all the way through to EBS primary ledgers and sub-ledgers, which allows someone to click through a transaction appearing at the consolidation level clear through to its original source, a significant productivity enhancement when doing research. We also see a significant improvement in reporting using Essbase cube and Hyperion Smart View. Specifically, "the addition of an Essbase cube on top of the GL gives us tremendous versatility to automate and speed our elimination process," says Claire Sebti, Senior Director of Corporate Accounting at Oracle. A highlight of this story is that FAH is running in a co-existence environment. Our plan is to move to Fusion Financials in steps, starting with FAH. Next, our Oracle Financial Services Software subsidiary will move to a full Fusion Financials instance. Then we'll replace our EBS instance with Fusion Financials. This approach allows us to plan in steps, learn as we go, and not overwhelm our teams. It also reduces the risk that comes with moving the entire instance at once. Maria Smith, Vice President of Global Controller Operations, is confident about how they've positioned themselves to uptake more Fusion functionality and is eager to "continue to drive additional efficiency and cost savings." In this story, the happy customers are Oracle controllers, financial analysts, accounting specialists, and our management team that get earlier access to more flexible reporting. "Fusion Accounting Hub simplifies our processes and gives us more transparency into account activity," raves Alex SanJuan, Senior Director, Record to Report Strategic Process Owner. Overall, the team has been very impressed with the usability and functionality of FAH and are pleased with the quantifiable improvements. Claire Sebti states, "Our WD5 close activities have been reduced by at least four hours of system processing time, just for the consolidation group." Fusion Accounting Hub is an inspiring beginning to our Fusion Financials implementation story. There's no doubt it's going to be an international bestseller! Corey West, Senior Vice President Oracle's Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer

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• Framework 4 Features: Login Id Support

  - by Anthony Shorten

  Given that Oracle Utilities Application Framework 4 is available as part of Mobile Work Force Management and other product progressively I am preparing a number of short but sweet blog entries highlighting some of the new functionality that has been implemented. This is the first entry and it is on a new security feature called Login Id. In past releases of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework, the userid used for authentication and authorization was limited to eight (8) characters in length. This mirrored what the market required in the past with LAN userids and even legacy userids being that length. The technology market has since progressed to longer userid lengths. It is very common to hear that email addresses are being used as credentials for production systems. To achieve this in past versions of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework, sites had to introduce a short userid (8 characters in length) as an alias in your preferred security store. You then configured your J2EE Web Application Server to use the alias as credentials. This sometimes was a standard feaure of the security store and/or the J2EE Web Application Server, if you were lucky. If not, some java code has to be written to implement the solution. In Oracle Utilities Application Framework 4 we introduced a new attribute on the user object called Login Id. The Login Id can be up to 256 characters in length and is an alternative to the existing userid stored on the user object. This means the Oracle Utilities Application Framework can support both long and short userids. For backward compatibility we use the Login Id for authentication but the short userid for authorization and auditing. The user object within the Oracle Utilities Application Framework holds the translation. Backward compatibility is always a consideration in any of our designs for future or changed functionality. You will see reference to this fact in the blog entries I will be composing over the next few months. We have also thought about the flexibility in implementing this feature. The Login Id can be the same value of the Userid (the default for backward compatibility) or can be different. Both the Login Id and Userid have to be unique. This avoids sharing of credentials and is also backward compatible. You can manually enter the Login Id or provision it from Oracle Identity Manager (or other tool). If you use the Login Id only, then we will not autogenerate a short userid automatically as the rules for this can vary from site to site. You have a number of options there. Most Identity provisioning tools can generate a short userid at user creation time and this can be used. If you do not use provisioning tools, then you can write a class extension using the SDK to autoegenerate the userid based upon your sites preference. When we designed the feature there were lots of styles of generating userids (random, initial and surname, numbers etc). We could not really see a clear winner in that respect so we just allowed the extension to be inserted in if necessary. Most customers indicated to us that identity provisioning was the preferred way. This is why we released an Oracle Identity Manager integration with the framework. The Login id is case sensitive now which was not supported under userid. The introduction of the Login Id allows the product to offer flexible options when configuring security whilst maintaining backward compatibility.

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• #OOW 2012: Big Data and The Social Revolution

  - by Eric Bezille

  As what was saying Cognizant CSO Malcolm Frank about the "Futur of Work", and how the Business should prepare in the face of the new generation  not only of devices and "internet of things" but also due to their users ("The Millennials"), moving from "consumers" to "prosumers" :  we are at a turning point today which is bringing us to the next IT Architecture Wave. So this is no more just about putting Big Data, Social Networks and Customer Experience (CxM) on top of old existing processes, it is about embracing the next curve, by identifying what processes need to be improve, but also and more importantly what processes are obsolete and need to be get ride of, and new processes put in place. It is about managing both the hierarchical and structured Enterprise and its social connections and influencers inside and outside of the Enterprise. And this does apply everywhere, up to the Utilities and Smart Grids, where it is no more just about delivering (faster) the same old 300 reports that have grown over time with those new technologies but to understand what need to be looked at, in real-time, down to an hand full relevant reports with the KPI relevant to the business. It is about how IT can anticipate the next wave, and is able to answers Business questions, and give those capabilities in real-time right at the hand of the decision makers... This is the turning curve, where IT is really moving from the past decade "Cost Center" to "Value for the Business", as Corporate Stakeholders will be able to touch the value directly at the tip of their fingers. It is all about making Data Driven Strategic decisions, encompassed and enriched by ALL the Data, and connected to customers/prosumers influencers. This brings to stakeholders the ability to make informed decisions on question like : “What would be the best Olympic Gold winner to represent my automotive brand ?”... in a few clicks and in real-time, based on social media analysis (twitter, Facebook, Google+...) and connections link to my Enterprise data. A true example demonstrated by Larry Ellison in real-time during his yesterday’s key notes, where “Hardware and Software Engineered to Work Together” is not only about extreme performances but also solutions that Business can touch thanks to well integrated Customer eXperience Management and Social Networking : bringing the capabilities to IT to move to the IT Architecture Next wave. An example, illustrated also todays in 2 others sessions, that I had the opportunity to attend. The first session bringing the “Internet of Things” in Oil&Gaz into actionable decisions thanks to Complex Event Processing capturing sensors data with the ready to run IT infrastructure leveraging Exalogic for the CEP side, Exadata for the enrich datasets and Exalytics to provide the informed decision interface up to end-user. The second session showing Real Time Decision engine in action for ACCOR hotels, with Eric Wyttynck, VP eCommerce, and his Technical Director Pascal Massenet. I have to close my post here, as I have to go to run our practical hands-on lab, cooked with Olivier Canonge, Christophe Pauliat and Simon Coter, illustrating in practice the Oracle Infrastructure Private Cloud recently announced last Sunday by Larry, and developed through many examples this morning by John Folwer. John also announced today Solaris 11.1 with a range of network innovation and virtualization at the OS level, as well as many optimizations for applications, like for Oracle RAC, with the introduction of the lock manager inside Solaris Kernel. Last but not least, he introduced Xsigo Datacenter Fabric for highly simplified networks and storage virtualization for your Cloud Infrastructure. Hoping you will get ready to jump on the next wave, we are here to help...

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