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• Windows Azure: Backup Services Release, Hyper-V Recovery Manager, VM Enhancements, Enhanced Enterprise Management Support

  - by ScottGu

  This morning we released a huge set of updates to Windows Azure.  These new capabilities include: Backup Services: General Availability of Windows Azure Backup Services Hyper-V Recovery Manager: Public preview of Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager Virtual Machines: Delete Attached Disks, Availability Set Warnings, SQL AlwaysOn Configuration Active Directory: Securely manage hundreds of SaaS applications Enterprise Management: Use Active Directory to Better Manage Windows Azure Windows Azure SDK 2.2: A massive update of our SDK + Visual Studio tooling support All of these improvements are now available to use immediately.  Below are more details about them. Backup Service: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Backup Today we are releasing Windows Azure Backup Service as a general availability service.  This release is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production scenarios. Windows Azure Backup is a cloud based backup solution for Windows Server which allows files and folders to be backed up and recovered from the cloud, and provides off-site protection against data loss. The service provides IT administrators and developers with the option to back up and protect critical data in an easily recoverable way from any location with no upfront hardware cost. Windows Azure Backup is built on the Windows Azure platform and uses Windows Azure blob storage for storing customer data. Windows Server uses the downloadable Windows Azure Backup Agent to transfer file and folder data securely and efficiently to the Windows Azure Backup Service. Along with providing cloud backup for Windows Server, Windows Azure Backup Service also provides capability to backup data from System Center Data Protection Manager and Windows Server Essentials, to the cloud. All data is encrypted onsite before it is sent to the cloud, and customers retain and manage the encryption key (meaning the data is stored entirely secured and can’t be decrypted by anyone but yourself). Getting Started To get started with the Windows Azure Backup Service, create a new Backup Vault within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Click New->Data Services->Recovery Services->Backup Vault to do this: Once the backup vault is created you’ll be presented with a simple tutorial that will help guide you on how to register your Windows Servers with it: Once the servers you want to backup are registered, you can use the appropriate local management interface (such as the Microsoft Management Console snap-in, System Center Data Protection Manager Console, or Windows Server Essentials Dashboard) to configure the scheduled backups and to optionally initiate recoveries. You can follow these tutorials to learn more about how to do this: Tutorial: Schedule Backups Using the Windows Azure Backup Agent This tutorial helps you with setting up a backup schedule for your registered Windows Servers. Additionally, it also explains how to use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to set up a custom backup schedule. Tutorial: Recover Files and Folders Using the Windows Azure Backup Agent This tutorial helps you with recovering data from a backup. Additionally, it also explains how to use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to do the same tasks. Below are some of the key benefits the Windows Azure Backup Service provides: Simple configuration and management. Windows Azure Backup Service integrates with the familiar Windows Server Backup utility in Windows Server, the Data Protection Manager component in System Center and Windows Server Essentials, in order to provide a seamless backup and recovery experience to a local disk, or to the cloud. Block level incremental backups. The Windows Azure Backup Agent performs incremental backups by tracking file and block level changes and only transferring the changed blocks, hence reducing the storage and bandwidth utilization. Different point-in-time versions of the backups use storage efficiently by only storing the changes blocks between these versions. Data compression, encryption and throttling. The Windows Azure Backup Agent ensures that data is compressed and encrypted on the server before being sent to the Windows Azure Backup Service over the network. As a result, the Windows Azure Backup Service only stores encrypted data in the cloud storage. The encryption key is not available to the Windows Azure Backup Service, and as a result the data is never decrypted in the service. Also, users can setup throttling and configure how the Windows Azure Backup service utilizes the network bandwidth when backing up or restoring information. Data integrity is verified in the cloud. In addition to the secure backups, the backed up data is also automatically checked for integrity once the backup is done. As a result, any corruptions which may arise due to data transfer can be easily identified and are fixed automatically. Configurable retention policies for storing data in the cloud. The Windows Azure Backup Service accepts and implements retention policies to recycle backups that exceed the desired retention range, thereby meeting business policies and managing backup costs. Hyper-V Recovery Manager: Now Available in Public Preview I’m excited to also announce the public preview of a new Windows Azure Service – the Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager (HRM). Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager helps protect your business critical services by coordinating the replication and recovery of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 private clouds at a secondary location. With automated protection, asynchronous ongoing replication, and orderly recovery, the Hyper-V Recovery Manager service can help you implement Disaster Recovery and restore important services accurately, consistently, and with minimal downtime. Application data in an Hyper-V Recovery Manager scenarios always travels on your on-premise replication channel. Only metadata (such as names of logical clouds, virtual machines, networks etc.) that is needed for orchestration is sent to Azure. All traffic sent to/from Azure is encrypted. You can begin using Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery today by clicking New->Data Services->Recovery Services->Hyper-V Recovery Manager within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You can read more about Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager in Brad Anderson’s 9-part series, Transform the datacenter. To learn more about setting up Hyper-V Recovery Manager follow our detailed step-by-step guide. Virtual Machines: Delete Attached Disks, Availability Set Warnings, SQL AlwaysOn Today’s Windows Azure release includes a number of nice updates to Windows Azure Virtual Machines.  These improvements include: Ability to Delete both VM Instances + Attached Disks in One Operation Prior to today’s release, when you deleted VMs within Windows Azure we would delete the VM instance – but not delete the drives attached to the VM.  You had to manually delete these yourself from the storage account.  With today’s update we’ve added a convenience option that now allows you to either retain or delete the attached disks when you delete the VM:   We’ve also added the ability to delete a cloud service, its deployments, and its role instances with a single action. This can either be a cloud service that has production and staging deployments with web and worker roles, or a cloud service that contains virtual machines.  To do this, simply select the Cloud Service within the Windows Azure Management Portal and click the “Delete” button: Warnings on Availability Sets with Only One Virtual Machine In Them One of the nice features that Windows Azure Virtual Machines supports is the concept of “Availability Sets”.  An “availability set” allows you to define a tier/role (e.g. webfrontends, databaseservers, etc) that you can map Virtual Machines into – and when you do this Windows Azure separates them across fault domains and ensures that at least one of them is always available during servicing operations.  This enables you to deploy applications in a high availability way. One issue we’ve seen some customers run into is where they define an availability set, but then forget to map more than one VM into it (which defeats the purpose of having an availability set).  With today’s release we now display a warning in the Windows Azure Management Portal if you have only one virtual machine deployed in an availability set to help highlight this: You can learn more about configuring the availability of your virtual machines here. Configuring SQL Server Always On SQL Server Always On is a great feature that you can use with Windows Azure to enable high availability and DR scenarios with SQL Server. Today’s Windows Azure release makes it even easier to configure SQL Server Always On by enabling “Direct Server Return” endpoints to be configured and managed within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Previously, setting this up required using PowerShell to complete the endpoint configuration.  Starting today you can enable this simply by checking the “Direct Server Return” checkbox: You can learn more about how to use direct server return for SQL Server AlwaysOn availability groups here. Active Directory: Application Access Enhancements This summer we released our initial preview of our Application Access Enhancements for Windows Azure Active Directory.  This service enables you to securely implement single-sign-on (SSO) support against SaaS applications (including Office 365, SalesForce, Workday, Box, Google Apps, GitHub, etc) as well as LOB based applications (including ones built with the new Windows Azure AD support we shipped last week with ASP.NET and VS 2013). Since the initial preview we’ve enhanced our SAML federation capabilities, integrated our new password vaulting system, and shipped multi-factor authentication support. We've also turned on our outbound identity provisioning system and have it working with hundreds of additional SaaS Applications: Earlier this month we published an update on dates and pricing for when the service will be released in general availability form.  In this blog post we announced our intention to release the service in general availability form by the end of the year.  We also announced that the below features would be available in a free tier with it: SSO to every SaaS app we integrate with – Users can Single Sign On to any app we are integrated with at no charge. This includes all the top SAAS Apps and every app in our application gallery whether they use federation or password vaulting. Application access assignment and removal – IT Admins can assign access privileges to web applications to the users in their active directory assuring that every employee has access to the SAAS Apps they need. And when a user leaves the company or changes jobs, the admin can just as easily remove their access privileges assuring data security and minimizing IP loss User provisioning (and de-provisioning) – IT admins will be able to automatically provision users in 3rd party SaaS applications like Box, Salesforce.com, GoToMeeting, DropBox and others. We are working with key partners in the ecosystem to establish these connections, meaning you no longer have to continually update user records in multiple systems. Security and auditing reports – Security is a key priority for us. With the free version of these enhancements you'll get access to our standard set of access reports giving you visibility into which users are using which applications, when they were using them and where they are using them from. In addition, we'll alert you to un-usual usage patterns for instance when a user logs in from multiple locations at the same time. Our Application Access Panel – Users are logging in from every type of devices including Windows, iOS, & Android. Not all of these devices handle authentication in the same manner but the user doesn't care. They need to access their apps from the devices they love. Our Application Access Panel will support the ability for users to access access and launch their apps from any device and anywhere. You can learn more about our plans for application management with Windows Azure Active Directory here.  Try out the preview and start using it today. Enterprise Management: Use Active Directory to Better Manage Windows Azure Windows Azure Active Directory provides the ability to manage your organization in a directory which is hosted entirely in the cloud, or alternatively kept in sync with an on-premises Windows Server Active Directory solution (allowing you to seamlessly integrate with the directory you already have).  With today’s Windows Azure release we are integrating Windows Azure Active Directory even more within the core Windows Azure management experience, and enabling an even richer enterprise security offering.  Specifically: 1) All Windows Azure accounts now have a default Windows Azure Active Directory created for them.  You can create and map any users you want into this directory, and grant administrative rights to manage resources in Windows Azure to these users. 2) You can keep this directory entirely hosted in the cloud – or optionally sync it with your on-premises Windows Server Active Directory.  Both options are free.  The later approach is ideal for companies that wish to use their corporate user identities to sign-in and manage Windows Azure resources.  It also ensures that if an employee leaves an organization, his or her access control rights to the company’s Windows Azure resources are immediately revoked. 3) The Windows Azure Service Management APIs have been updated to support using Windows Azure Active Directory credentials to sign-in and perform management operations.  Prior to today’s release customers had to download and use management certificates (which were not scoped to individual users) to perform management operations.  We still support this management certificate approach (don’t worry – nothing will stop working).  But we think the new Windows Azure Active Directory authentication support enables an even easier and more secure way for customers to manage resources going forward.  4) The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release (which is also shipping today) includes built-in support for the new Service Management APIs that authenticate with Windows Azure Active Directory, and now allow you to create and manage Windows Azure applications and resources directly within Visual Studio using your Active Directory credentials.  This, combined with updated PowerShell scripts that also support Active Directory, enables an end-to-end enterprise authentication story with Windows Azure. Below are some details on how all of this works: Subscriptions within a Directory As part of today’s update, we have associated all existing Window Azure accounts with a Windows Azure Active Directory (and created one for you if you don’t already have one). When you login to the Windows Azure Management Portal you’ll now see the directory name in the URI of the browser.  For example, in the screen-shot below you can see that I have a “scottgu” directory that my subscriptions are hosted within: Note that you can continue to use Microsoft Accounts (formerly known as Microsoft Live IDs) to sign-into Windows Azure.  These map just fine to a Windows Azure Active Directory – so there is no need to create new usernames that are specific to a directory if you don’t want to.  In the scenario above I’m actually logged in using my @hotmail.com based Microsoft ID which is now mapped to a “scottgu” active directory that was created for me.  By default everything will continue to work just like you used to before. Manage your Directory You can manage an Active Directory (including the one we now create for you by default) by clicking the “Active Directory” tab in the left-hand side of the portal.  This will list all of the directories in your account.  Clicking one the first time will display a getting started page that provides documentation and links to perform common tasks with it: You can use the built-in directory management support within the Windows Azure Management Portal to add/remove/manage users within the directory, enable multi-factor authentication, associate a custom domain (e.g. mycompanyname.com) with the directory, and/or rename the directory to whatever friendly name you want (just click the configure tab to do this).  You can also setup the directory to automatically sync with an on-premises Active Directory using the “Directory Integration” tab. Note that users within a directory by default do not have admin rights to login or manage Windows Azure based resources.  You still need to explicitly grant them co-admin permissions on a subscription for them to login or manage resources in Windows Azure.  You can do this by clicking the Settings tab on the left-hand side of the portal and then by clicking the administrators tab within it. Sign-In Integration within Visual Studio If you install the new Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release, you can now connect to Windows Azure from directly inside Visual Studio without having to download any management certificates.  You can now just right-click on the “Windows Azure” icon within the Server Explorer and choose the “Connect to Windows Azure” context menu option to do so: Doing this will prompt you to enter the email address of the username you wish to sign-in with (make sure this account is a user in your directory with co-admin rights on a subscription): You can use either a Microsoft Account (e.g. Windows Live ID) or an Active Directory based Organizational account as the email.  The dialog will update with an appropriate login prompt depending on which type of email address you enter: Once you sign-in you’ll see the Windows Azure resources that you have permissions to manage show up automatically within the Visual Studio server explorer and be available to start using: No downloading of management certificates required.  All of the authentication was handled using your Windows Azure Active Directory! Manage Subscriptions across Multiple Directories If you have already have multiple directories and multiple subscriptions within your Windows Azure account, we have done our best to create a good default mapping of your subscriptions->directories as part of today’s update.  If you don’t like the default subscription-to-directory mapping we have done you can click the Settings tab in the left-hand navigation of the Windows Azure Management Portal and browse to the Subscriptions tab within it: If you want to map a subscription under a different directory in your account, simply select the subscription from the list, and then click the “Edit Directory” button to choose which directory to map it to.  Mapping a subscription to a different directory takes only seconds and will not cause any of the resources within the subscription to recycle or stop working.  We’ve made the directory->subscription mapping process self-service so that you always have complete control and can map things however you want. Filtering By Directory and Subscription Within the Windows Azure Management Portal you can filter resources in the portal by subscription (allowing you to show/hide different subscriptions).  If you have subscriptions mapped to multiple directory tenants, we also now have a filter drop-down that allows you to filter the subscription list by directory tenant.  This filter is only available if you have multiple subscriptions mapped to multiple directories within your Windows Azure Account:   Windows Azure SDK 2.2 Today we are also releasing a major update of our Windows Azure SDK.  The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release adds some great new features including: Visual Studio 2013 Support Integrated Windows Azure Sign-In support within Visual Studio Remote Debugging Cloud Services with Visual Studio Firewall Management support within Visual Studio for SQL Databases Visual Studio 2013 RTM VM Images for MSDN Subscribers Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET Updated Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets and ScriptCenter I’ll post a follow-up blog shortly with more details about all of the above. Additional Updates In addition to the above enhancements, today’s release also includes a number of additional improvements: AutoScale: Richer time and date based scheduling support (set different rules on different dates) AutoScale: Ability to Scale to Zero Virtual Machines (very useful for Dev/Test scenarios) AutoScale: Support for time-based scheduling of Mobile Service AutoScale rules Operation Logs: Auditing support for Service Bus management operations Today we also shipped a major update to the Windows Azure SDK – Windows Azure SDK 2.2.  It has so much goodness in it that I have a whole second blog post coming shortly on it! :-) Summary Today’s Windows Azure release enables a bunch of great new scenarios, and enables a much richer enterprise authentication offering. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• JMS Step 7 - How to Write to an AQ JMS (Advanced Queueing JMS) Queue from a BPEL Process

  - by John-Brown.Evans

  JMS Step 7 - How to Write to an AQ JMS (Advanced Queueing JMS) Queue from a BPEL Process ol{margin:0;padding:0} .jblist{list-style-type:disc;margin:0;padding:0;padding-left:0pt;margin-left:36pt} .c4_7{vertical-align:top;width:468pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt} .c3_7{vertical-align:top;width:234pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:0pt 5pt 0pt 5pt} .c6_7{vertical-align:top;width:156pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt} .c16_7{background-color:#ffffff;padding:0pt 0pt 0pt 0pt} .c0_7{height:11pt;direction:ltr} .c9_7{color:#1155cc;text-decoration:underline} .c17_7{color:inherit;text-decoration:inherit} .c5_7{direction:ltr} .c18_7{background-color:#ffff00} .c2_7{background-color:#f3f3f3} .c14_7{height:0pt} .c8_7{text-indent:36pt} .c11_7{text-align:center} .c7_7{font-style:italic} .c1_7{font-family:"Courier New"} .c13_7{line-height:1.0} .c15_7{border-collapse:collapse} .c12_7{font-weight:bold} .c10_7{font-size:8pt} .title{padding-top:24pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#000000;font-size:36pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:6pt} .subtitle{padding-top:18pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-style:italic;font-size:24pt;font-family:"Georgia";padding-bottom:4pt} li{color:#000000;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial"} p{color:#000000;font-size:10pt;margin:0;font-family:"Arial"} h1{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:24pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal} h2{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:18pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal} h3{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:14pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal} h4{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal} h5{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal} h6{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal} This post continues the series of JMS articles which demonstrate how to use JMS queues in a SOA context. The previous posts were: JMS Step 1 - How to Create a Simple JMS Queue in Weblogic Server 11g JMS Step 2 - Using the QueueSend.java Sample Program to Send a Message to a JMS Queue JMS Step 3 - Using the QueueReceive.java Sample Program to Read a Message from a JMS Queue JMS Step 4 - How to Create an 11g BPEL Process Which Writes a Message Based on an XML Schema to a JMS Queue JMS Step 5 - How to Create an 11g BPEL Process Which Reads a Message Based on an XML Schema from a JMS Queue JMS Step 6 - How to Set Up an AQ JMS (Advanced Queueing JMS) for SOA Purposes This example demonstrates how to write a simple message to an Oracle AQ via the the WebLogic AQ JMS functionality from a BPEL process and a JMS adapter. If you have not yet reviewed the previous posts, please do so first, especially the JMS Step 6 post, as this one references objects created there. 1. Recap and Prerequisites In the previous example, we created an Oracle Advanced Queue (AQ) and some related JMS objects in WebLogic Server to be able to access it via JMS. Here are the objects which were created and their names and JNDI names: Database Objects Name Type AQJMSUSER Database User MyQueueTable Advanced Queue (AQ) Table UserQueue Advanced Queue WebLogic Server Objects Object Name Type JNDI Name aqjmsuserDataSource Data Source jdbc/aqjmsuserDataSource AqJmsModule JMS System Module AqJmsForeignServer JMS Foreign Server AqJmsForeignServerConnectionFactory JMS Foreign Server Connection Factory AqJmsForeignServerConnectionFactory AqJmsForeignDestination AQ JMS Foreign Destination queue/USERQUEUE eis/aqjms/UserQueue Connection Pool eis/aqjms/UserQueue 2 . Create a BPEL Composite with a JMS Adapter Partner Link This step requires that you have a valid Application Server Connection defined in JDeveloper, pointing to the application server on which you created the JMS Queue and Connection Factory. You can create this connection in JDeveloper under the Application Server Navigator. Give it any name and be sure to test the connection before completing it. This sample will write a simple XML message to the AQ JMS queue via the JMS adapter, based on the following XSD file, which consists of a single string element: stringPayload.xsd <?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?> <xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"                xmlns="http://www.example.org"                targetNamespace="http://www.example.org"                elementFormDefault="qualified">  <xsd:element name="exampleElement" type="xsd:string">  </xsd:element> </xsd:schema> The following steps are all executed in JDeveloper. The SOA project will be created inside a JDeveloper Application. If you do not already have an application to contain the project, you can create a new one via File > New > General > Generic Application. Give the application any name, for example JMSTests and, when prompted for a project name and type, call the project   JmsAdapterWriteAqJms  and select SOA as the project technology type. If you already have an application, continue below. Create a SOA Project Create a new project and select SOA Tier > SOA Project as its type. Name it JmsAdapterWriteAqJms . When prompted for the composite type, choose Composite With BPEL Process. When prompted for the BPEL Process, name it JmsAdapterWriteAqJms too and choose Synchronous BPEL Process as the template. This will create a composite with a BPEL process and an exposed SOAP service. Double-click the BPEL process to open and begin editing it. You should see a simple BPEL process with a Receive and Reply activity. As we created a default process without an XML schema, the input and output variables are simple strings. Create an XSD File An XSD file is required later to define the message format to be passed to the JMS adapter. In this step, we create a simple XSD file, containing a string variable and add it to the project. First select the xsd item in the left-hand navigation tree to ensure that the XSD file is created under that item. Select File > New > General > XML and choose XML Schema. Call it stringPayload.xsd  and when the editor opens, select the Source view. then replace the contents with the contents of the stringPayload.xsd example above and save the file. You should see it under the XSD item in the navigation tree. Create a JMS Adapter Partner Link We will create the JMS adapter as a service at the composite level. If it is not already open, double-click the composite.xml file in the navigator to open it. From the Component Palette, drag a JMS adapter over onto the right-hand swim lane, under External References. This will start the JMS Adapter Configuration Wizard. Use the following entries: Service Name: JmsAdapterWrite Oracle Enterprise Messaging Service (OEMS): Oracle Advanced Queueing AppServer Connection: Use an existing application server connection pointing to the WebLogic server on which the connection factory created earlier is located. You can use the “+” button to create a connection directly from the wizard, if you do not already have one. Adapter Interface > Interface: Define from operation and schema (specified later) Operation Type: Produce Message Operation Name: Produce_message Produce Operation Parameters Destination Name: Wait for the list to populate. (Only foreign servers are listed here, because Oracle Advanced Queuing was selected earlier, in step 3) .         Select the foreign server destination created earlier, AqJmsForeignDestination (queue) . This will automatically populate the Destination Name field with the name of the foreign destination, queue/USERQUEUE . JNDI Name: The JNDI name to use for the JMS connection. This is the JNDI name of the connection pool created in the WebLogic Server.JDeveloper does not verify the value entered here. If you enter a wrong value, the JMS adapter won’t find the queue and you will get an error message at runtime. In our example, this is the value eis/aqjms/UserQueue Messages URL: We will use the XSD file we created earlier, stringPayload.xsd to define the message format for the JMS adapter. Press the magnifying glass icon to search for schema files. Expand Project Schema Files > stringPayload.xsd and select exampleElement : string . Press Next and Finish, which will complete the JMS Adapter configuration. Wire the BPEL Component to the JMS Adapter In this step, we link the BPEL process/component to the JMS adapter. From the composite.xml editor, drag the right-arrow icon from the BPEL process to the JMS adapter’s in-arrow.   This completes the steps at the composite level. 3. Complete the BPEL Process Design Invoke the JMS Adapter Open the BPEL component by double-clicking it in the design view of the composite.xml. This will display the BPEL process in the design view. You should see the JmsAdapterWrite partner link under one of the two swim lanes. We want it in the right-hand swim lane. If JDeveloper displays it in the left-hand lane, right-click it and choose Display > Move To Opposite Swim Lane. An Invoke activity is required in order to invoke the JMS adapter. Drag an Invoke activity between the Receive and Reply activities. Drag the right-hand arrow from the Invoke activity to the JMS adapter partner link. This will open the Invoke editor. The correct default values are entered automatically and are fine for our purposes. We only need to define the input variable to use for the JMS adapter. By pressing the green “+” symbol, a variable of the correct type can be auto-generated, for example with the name Invoke1_Produce_Message_InputVariable. Press OK after creating the variable. Assign Variables Drag an Assign activity between the Receive and Invoke activities. We will simply copy the input variable to the JMS adapter and, for completion, so the process has an output to print, again to the process’s output variable. Double-click the Assign activity and create two Copy rules: for the first, drag Variables > inputVariable > payload > client:process > client:input_string to Invoke1_Produce_Message_InputVariable > body > ns2:exampleElement for the second, drag the same input variable to outputVariable > payload > client:processResponse > client:result This will create two copy rules, similar to the following: Press OK. This completes the BPEL and Composite design. 4. Compile and Deploy the Composite Compile the process by pressing the Make or Rebuild icons or by right-clicking the project name in the navigator and selecting Make... or Rebuild... If the compilation is successful, deploy it to the SOA server connection defined earlier. (Right-click the project name in the navigator, select Deploy to Application Server, choose the application server connection, choose the partition on the server (usually default) and press Finish. You should see the message ----  Deployment finished.  ---- in the Deployment frame, if the deployment was successful. 5. Test the Composite Execute a Test Instance In a browser, log in to the Enterprise Manager 11g Fusion Middleware Control (EM) for your SOA installation. Navigate to SOA > soa-infra (soa_server1) > default (or wherever you deployed your composite) and click on  JmsAdapterWriteAqJms [1.0] , then press the Test button. Enter any string into the text input field, for example “Test message from JmsAdapterWriteAqJms” then press Test Web Service. If the instance is successful, you should see the same text you entered in the Response payload frame. Monitor the Advanced Queue The test message will be written to the advanced queue created at the top of this sample. To confirm it, log in to the database as AQJMSUSER and query the MYQUEUETABLE database table. For example, from a shell window with SQL*Plus sqlplus aqjmsuser/aqjmsuser SQL> SELECT user_data FROM myqueuetable; which will display the message contents, for example Similarly, you can use the JDeveloper Database Navigator to view the contents. Use a database connection to the AQJMSUSER and in the navigator, expand Queues Tables and select MYQUEUETABLE. Select the Data tab and scroll to the USER_DATA column to view its contents. This concludes this example. The following post will be the last one in this series. In it, we will learn how to read the message we just wrote using a BPEL process and AQ JMS. Best regards John-Brown Evans Oracle Technology Proactive Support Delivery

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• JMS Step 4 - How to Create an 11g BPEL Process Which Writes a Message Based on an XML Schema to a JMS Queue

  - by John-Brown.Evans

  JMS Step 4 - How to Create an 11g BPEL Process Which Writes a Message Based on an XML Schema to a JMS Queue ol{margin:0;padding:0} .c11_4{vertical-align:top;width:129.8pt;border-style:solid;background-color:#f3f3f3;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt} .c9_4{vertical-align:top;width:207pt;border-style:solid;background-color:#f3f3f3;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt}.c14{vertical-align:top;width:207pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt} .c17_4{vertical-align:top;width:129.8pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt} .c7_4{vertical-align:top;width:130pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:0pt 5pt 0pt 5pt} .c19_4{vertical-align:top;width:468pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt} .c22_4{background-color:#ffffff} .c20_4{list-style-type:disc;margin:0;padding:0} .c6_4{font-size:8pt;font-family:"Courier New"} .c24_4{color:inherit;text-decoration:inherit} .c23_4{color:#1155cc;text-decoration:underline} .c0_4{height:11pt;direction:ltr} .c10_4{font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"} .c3_4{padding-left:0pt;margin-left:36pt} .c18_4{font-size:8pt} .c8_4{text-align:center} .c12_4{background-color:#ffff00} .c2_4{font-weight:bold} .c21_4{background-color:#00ff00} .c4_4{line-height:1.0} .c1_4{direction:ltr} .c15_4{background-color:#f3f3f3} .c13_4{font-family:"Courier New"} .c5_4{font-style:italic} .c16_4{border-collapse:collapse} .title{padding-top:24pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#000000;font-size:36pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:6pt} .subtitle{padding-top:18pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-style:italic;font-size:24pt;font-family:"Georgia";padding-bottom:4pt} li{color:#000000;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial"} p{color:#000000;font-size:10pt;margin:0;font-family:"Arial"} h1{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:18pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h2{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:18pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:0pt} h3{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:14pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h4{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-style:italic;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial";padding-bottom:0pt} h5{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h6{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#888;font-style:italic;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";padding-bottom:0pt} This post continues the series of JMS articles which demonstrate how to use JMS queues in a SOA context. The previous posts were: JMS Step 1 - How to Create a Simple JMS Queue in Weblogic Server 11g JMS Step 2 - Using the QueueSend.java Sample Program to Send a Message to a JMS Queue JMS Step 3 - Using the QueueReceive.java Sample Program to Read a Message from a JMS Queue In this example we will create a BPEL process which will write (enqueue) a message to a JMS queue using a JMS adapter. The JMS adapter will enqueue the full XML payload to the queue. This sample will use the following WebLogic Server objects. The first two, the Connection Factory and JMS Queue, were created as part of the first blog post in this series, JMS Step 1 - How to Create a Simple JMS Queue in Weblogic Server 11g. If you haven't created those objects yet, please see that post for details on how to do so. The Connection Pool will be created as part of this example. Object Name Type JNDI Name TestConnectionFactory Connection Factory jms/TestConnectionFactory TestJMSQueue JMS Queue jms/TestJMSQueue eis/wls/TestQueue Connection Pool eis/wls/TestQueue 1. Verify Connection Factory and JMS Queue As mentioned above, this example uses a WLS Connection Factory called TestConnectionFactory and a JMS queue TestJMSQueue. As these are prerequisites for this example, let us verify they exist. Log in to the WebLogic Server Administration Console. Select Services > JMS Modules > TestJMSModule You should see the following objects: If not, or if the TestJMSModule is missing, please see the abovementioned article and create these objects before continuing. 2. Create a JMS Adapter Connection Pool in WebLogic Server The BPEL process we are about to create uses a JMS adapter to write to the JMS queue. The JMS adapter is deployed to the WebLogic server and needs to be configured to include a connection pool which references the connection factory associated with the JMS queue. In the WebLogic Server Console Go to Deployments > Next and select (click on) the JmsAdapter Select Configuration > Outbound Connection Pools and expand oracle.tip.adapter.jms.IJmsConnectionFactory. This will display the list of connections configured for this adapter. For example, eis/aqjms/Queue, eis/aqjms/Topic etc. These JNDI names are actually quite confusing. We are expecting to configure a connection pool here, but the names refer to queues and topics. One would expect these to be called *ConnectionPool or *_CF or similar, but to conform to this nomenclature, we will call our entry eis/wls/TestQueue . This JNDI name is also the name we will use later, when creating a BPEL process to access this JMS queue! Select New, check the oracle.tip.adapter.jms.IJmsConnectionFactory check box and Next. Enter JNDI Name: eis/wls/TestQueue for the connection instance, then press Finish. Expand oracle.tip.adapter.jms.IJmsConnectionFactory again and select (click on) eis/wls/TestQueue The ConnectionFactoryLocation must point to the JNDI name of the connection factory associated with the JMS queue you will be writing to. In our example, this is the connection factory called TestConnectionFactory, with the JNDI name jms/TestConnectionFactory.( As a reminder, this connection factory is contained in the JMS Module called TestJMSModule, under Services > Messaging > JMS Modules > TestJMSModule which we verified at the beginning of this document. )Enter jms/TestConnectionFactory  into the Property Value field for Connection Factory Location. After entering it, you must press Return/Enter then Save for the value to be accepted. If your WebLogic server is running in Development mode, you should see the message that the changes have been activated and the deployment plan successfully updated. If not, then you will manually need to activate the changes in the WebLogic server console. Although the changes have been activated, the JmsAdapter needs to be redeployed in order for the changes to become effective. This should be confirmed by the message Remember to update your deployment to reflect the new plan when you are finished with your changes as can be seen in the following screen shot: The next step is to redeploy the JmsAdapter.Navigate back to the Deployments screen, either by selecting it in the left-hand navigation tree or by selecting the “Summary of Deployments” link in the breadcrumbs list at the top of the screen. Then select the checkbox next to JmsAdapter and press the Update button On the Update Application Assistant page, select “Redeploy this application using the following deployment files” and press Finish. After a few seconds you should get the message that the selected deployments were updated. The JMS adapter configuration is complete and it can now be used to access the JMS queue. To summarize: we have created a JMS adapter connection pool connector with the JNDI name jms/TestConnectionFactory. This is the JNDI name to be accessed by a process such as a BPEL process, when using the JMS adapter to access the previously created JMS queue with the JNDI name jms/TestJMSQueue. In the following step, we will set up a BPEL process to use this JMS adapter to write to the JMS queue. 3. Create a BPEL Composite with a JMS Adapter Partner Link This step requires that you have a valid Application Server Connection defined in JDeveloper, pointing to the application server on which you created the JMS Queue and Connection Factory. You can create this connection in JDeveloper under the Application Server Navigator. Give it any name and be sure to test the connection before completing it. This sample will use the connection name jbevans-lx-PS5, as that is the name of the connection pointing to my SOA PS5 installation. When using a JMS adapter from within a BPEL process, there are various configuration options, such as the operation type (consume message, produce message etc.), delivery mode and message type. One of these options is the choice of the format of the JMS message payload. This can be structured around an existing XSD, in which case the full XML element and tags are passed, or it can be opaque, meaning that the payload is sent as-is to the JMS adapter. In the case of an XSD-based message, the payload can simply be copied to the input variable of the JMS adapter. In the case of an opaque message, the JMS adapter’s input variable is of type base64binary. So the payload needs to be converted to base64 binary first. I will go into this in more detail in a later blog entry. This sample will pass a simple message to the adapter, based on the following simple XSD file, which consists of a single string element: stringPayload.xsd <?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?> <xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://www.example.org" targetNamespace="http://www.example.org" elementFormDefault="qualified" <xsd:element name="exampleElement" type="xsd:string"> </xsd:element> </xsd:schema> The following steps are all executed in JDeveloper. The SOA project will be created inside a JDeveloper Application. If you do not already have an application to contain the project, you can create a new one via File > New > General > Generic Application. Give the application any name, for example JMSTests and, when prompted for a project name and type, call the project JmsAdapterWriteWithXsd and select SOA as the project technology type. If you already have an application, continue below. Create a SOA Project Create a new project and choose SOA Tier > SOA Project as its type. Name it JmsAdapterWriteSchema. When prompted for the composite type, choose Composite With BPEL Process. When prompted for the BPEL Process, name it JmsAdapterWriteSchema too and choose Synchronous BPEL Process as the template. This will create a composite with a BPEL process and an exposed SOAP service. Double-click the BPEL process to open and begin editing it. You should see a simple BPEL process with a Receive and Reply activity. As we created a default process without an XML schema, the input and output variables are simple strings. Create an XSD File An XSD file is required later to define the message format to be passed to the JMS adapter. In this step, we create a simple XSD file, containing a string variable and add it to the project. First select the xsd item in the left-hand navigation tree to ensure that the XSD file is created under that item. Select File > New > General > XML and choose XML Schema. Call it stringPayload.xsd and when the editor opens, select the Source view. then replace the contents with the contents of the stringPayload.xsd example above and save the file. You should see it under the xsd item in the navigation tree. Create a JMS Adapter Partner Link We will create the JMS adapter as a service at the composite level. If it is not already open, double-click the composite.xml file in the navigator to open it. From the Component Palette, drag a JMS adapter over onto the right-hand swim lane, under External References. This will start the JMS Adapter Configuration Wizard. Use the following entries: Service Name: JmsAdapterWrite Oracle Enterprise Messaging Service (OEMS): Oracle Weblogic JMS AppServer Connection: Use an existing application server connection pointing to the WebLogic server on which the above JMS queue and connection factory were created. You can use the “+” button to create a connection directly from the wizard, if you do not already have one. This example uses a connection called jbevans-lx-PS5. Adapter Interface > Interface: Define from operation and schema (specified later) Operation Type: Produce Message Operation Name: Produce_message Destination Name: Press the Browse button, select Destination Type: Queues, then press Search. Wait for the list to populate, then select the entry for TestJMSQueue , which is the queue created earlier. JNDI Name: The JNDI name to use for the JMS connection. This is probably the most important step in this exercise and the most common source of error. This is the JNDI name of the JMS adapter’s connection pool created in the WebLogic Server and which points to the connection factory. JDeveloper does not verify the value entered here. If you enter a wrong value, the JMS adapter won’t find the queue and you will get an error message at runtime, which is very difficult to trace. In our example, this is the value eis/wls/TestQueue . (See the earlier step on how to create a JMS Adapter Connection Pool in WebLogic Server for details.) MessagesURL: We will use the XSD file we created earlier, stringPayload.xsd to define the message format for the JMS adapter. Press the magnifying glass icon to search for schema files. Expand Project Schema Files > stringPayload.xsd and select exampleElement: string. Press Next and Finish, which will complete the JMS Adapter configuration. Wire the BPEL Component to the JMS Adapter In this step, we link the BPEL process/component to the JMS adapter. From the composite.xml editor, drag the right-arrow icon from the BPEL process to the JMS adapter’s in-arrow. This completes the steps at the composite level. 4. Complete the BPEL Process Design Invoke the JMS Adapter Open the BPEL component by double-clicking it in the design view of the composite.xml, or open it from the project navigator by selecting the JmsAdapterWriteSchema.bpel file. This will display the BPEL process in the design view. You should see the JmsAdapterWrite partner link under one of the two swim lanes. We want it in the right-hand swim lane. If JDeveloper displays it in the left-hand lane, right-click it and choose Display > Move To Opposite Swim Lane. An Invoke activity is required in order to invoke the JMS adapter. Drag an Invoke activity between the Receive and Reply activities. Drag the right-hand arrow from the Invoke activity to the JMS adapter partner link. This will open the Invoke editor. The correct default values are entered automatically and are fine for our purposes. We only need to define the input variable to use for the JMS adapter. By pressing the green “+” symbol, a variable of the correct type can be auto-generated, for example with the name Invoke1_Produce_Message_InputVariable. Press OK after creating the variable. ( For some reason, while I was testing this, the JMS Adapter moved back to the left-hand swim lane again after this step. There is no harm in leaving it there, but I find it easier to follow if it is in the right-hand lane, because I kind-of think of the message coming in on the left and being routed through the right. But you can follow your personal preference here.) Assign Variables Drag an Assign activity between the Receive and Invoke activities. We will simply copy the input variable to the JMS adapter and, for completion, so the process has an output to print, again to the process’s output variable. Double-click the Assign activity and create two Copy rules: for the first, drag Variables > inputVariable > payload > client:process > client:input_string to Invoke1_Produce_Message_InputVariable > body > ns2:exampleElement for the second, drag the same input variable to outputVariable > payload > client:processResponse > client:result This will create two copy rules, similar to the following: Press OK. This completes the BPEL and Composite design. 5. Compile and Deploy the Composite We won’t go into too much detail on how to compile and deploy. In JDeveloper, compile the process by pressing the Make or Rebuild icons or by right-clicking the project name in the navigator and selecting Make... or Rebuild... If the compilation is successful, deploy it to the SOA server connection defined earlier. (Right-click the project name in the navigator, select Deploy to Application Server, choose the application server connection, choose the partition on the server (usually default) and press Finish. You should see the message ---- Deployment finished. ---- in the Deployment frame, if the deployment was successful. 6. Test the Composite This is the exciting part. Open two tabs in your browser and log in to the WebLogic Administration Console in one tab and the Enterprise Manager 11g Fusion Middleware Control (EM) for your SOA installation in the other. We will use the Console to monitor the messages being written to the queue and the EM to execute the composite. In the Console, go to Services > Messaging > JMS Modules > TestJMSModule > TestJMSQueue > Monitoring. Note the number of messages under Messages Current. In the EM, go to SOA > soa-infra (soa_server1) > default (or wherever you deployed your composite to) and click on JmsAdapterWriteSchema [1.0], then press the Test button. Under Input Arguments, enter any string into the text input field for the payload, for example Test Message then press Test Web Service. If the instance is successful you should see the same text in the Response message, “Test Message”. In the Console, refresh the Monitoring screen to confirm a new message has been written to the queue. Check the checkbox and press Show Messages. Click on the newest message and view its contents. They should include the full XML of the entered payload. 7. Troubleshooting If you get an exception similar to the following at runtime ... BINDING.JCA-12510 JCA Resource Adapter location error. Unable to locate the JCA Resource Adapter via .jca binding file element The JCA Binding Component is unable to startup the Resource Adapter specified in the element: location='eis/wls/QueueTest'. The reason for this is most likely that either 1) the Resource Adapters RAR file has not been deployed successfully to the WebLogic Application server or 2) the '' element in weblogic-ra.xml has not been set to eis/wls/QueueTest. In the last case you will have to add a new WebLogic JCA connection factory (deploy a RAR). Please correct this and then restart the Application Server at oracle.integration.platform.blocks.adapter.fw.AdapterBindingException. createJndiLookupException(AdapterBindingException.java:130) at oracle.integration.platform.blocks.adapter.fw.jca.cci. JCAConnectionManager$JCAConnectionPool.createJCAConnectionFactory (JCAConnectionManager.java:1387) at oracle.integration.platform.blocks.adapter.fw.jca.cci. JCAConnectionManager$JCAConnectionPool.newPoolObject (JCAConnectionManager.java:1285) ... then this is very likely due to an incorrect JNDI name entered for the JMS Connection in the JMS Adapter Wizard. Recheck those steps. The error message prints the name of the JNDI name used. In this example, it was incorrectly entered as eis/wls/QueueTest instead of eis/wls/TestQueue. This concludes this example. Best regards John-Brown Evans Oracle Technology Proactive Support Delivery

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• Guidance: A Branching strategy for Scrum Teams

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Having a good branching strategy will save your bacon, or at least your code. Be careful when deviating from your branching strategy because if you do, you may be worse off than when you started! This is one possible branching strategy for Scrum teams and I will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even assess your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. You can also read SSW’s Rules to Better Scrum using TFS which have been developed during our own Scrum implementations. Acknowledgements Bill Heys – Bill offered some good feedback on this post and helped soften the language. Note: Bill is a VS ALM Ranger and co-wrote the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Willy-Peter Schaub – Willy-Peter is an ex Visual Studio ALM MVP turned blue badge and has been involved in most of the guidance including the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Chris Birmele – Chris wrote some of the early TFS Branching and Merging Guidance. Dr Paul Neumeyer, Ph.D Parallel Processes, ScrumMaster and SSW Solution Architect – Paul wanted to have feature branches coming from the release branch as well. We agreed that this is really a spin-off that needs own project, backlog, budget and Team. Scenario: A product is developed RTM 1.0 is released and gets great sales.  Extra features are demanded but the new version will have double to price to pay to recover costs, work is approved by the guys with budget and a few sprints later RTM 2.0 is released.  Sales a very low due to the pricing strategy. There are lots of clients on RTM 1.0 calling out for patches. As I keep getting Reverse Integration and Forward Integration mixed up and Bill keeps slapping my wrists I thought I should have a reminder: You still seemed to use reverse and/or forward integration in the wrong context. I would recommend reviewing your document at the end to ensure that it agrees with the common understanding of these terms merge (forward integration) from parent to child (same direction as the branch), and merge  (reverse integration) from child to parent (the reverse direction of the branch). - one of my many slaps on the wrist from Bill Heys.   As I mentioned previously we are using a single feature branching strategy in our current project. The single biggest mistake developers make is developing against the “Main” or “Trunk” line. This ultimately leads to messy code as things are added and never finished. Your only alternative is to NEVER check in unless your code is 100%, but this does not work in practice, even with a single developer. Your ADD will kick in and your half-finished code will be finished enough to pass the build and the tests. You do use builds don’t you? Sadly, this is a very common scenario and I have had people argue that branching merely adds complexity. Then again I have seen the other side of the universe ... branching  structures from he... We should somehow convince everyone that there is a happy between no-branching and too-much-branching. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   A key benefit of branching for development is to isolate changes from the stable Main branch. Branching adds sanity more than it adds complexity. We do try to stress in our guidance that it is important to justify a branch, by doing a cost benefit analysis. The primary cost is the effort to do merges and resolve conflicts. A key benefit is that you have a stable code base in Main and accept changes into Main only after they pass quality gates, etc. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft The second biggest mistake developers make is branching anything other than the WHOLE “Main” line. If you branch parts of your code and not others it gets out of sync and can make integration a nightmare. You should have your Source, Assets, Build scripts deployment scripts and dependencies inside the “Main” folder and branch the whole thing. Some departments within MSFT even go as far as to add the environments used to develop the product in there as well; although I would not recommend that unless you have a massive SQL cluster to house your source code. We tried the “add environment” back in South-Africa and while it was “phenomenal”, especially when having to switch between environments, the disk storage and processing requirements killed us. We opted for virtualization to skin this cat of keeping a ready-to-go environment handy. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   I think people often think that you should have separate branches for separate environments (e.g. Dev, Test, Integration Test, QA, etc.). I prefer to think of deploying to environments (such as from Main to QA) rather than branching for QA). - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   You can read about SSW’s Rules to better Source Control for some additional information on what Source Control to use and how to use it. There are also a number of branching Anti-Patterns that should be avoided at all costs: You know you are on the wrong track if you experience one or more of the following symptoms in your development environment: Merge Paranoia—avoiding merging at all cost, usually because of a fear of the consequences. Merge Mania—spending too much time merging software assets instead of developing them. Big Bang Merge—deferring branch merging to the end of the development effort and attempting to merge all branches simultaneously. Never-Ending Merge—continuous merging activity because there is always more to merge. Wrong-Way Merge—merging a software asset version with an earlier version. Branch Mania—creating many branches for no apparent reason. Cascading Branches—branching but never merging back to the main line. Mysterious Branches—branching for no apparent reason. Temporary Branches—branching for changing reasons, so the branch becomes a permanent temporary workspace. Volatile Branches—branching with unstable software assets shared by other branches or merged into another branch. Note   Branches are volatile most of the time while they exist as independent branches. That is the point of having them. The difference is that you should not share or merge branches while they are in an unstable state. Development Freeze—stopping all development activities while branching, merging, and building new base lines. Berlin Wall—using branches to divide the development team members, instead of dividing the work they are performing. -Branching and Merging Primer by Chris Birmele - Developer Tools Technical Specialist at Microsoft Pty Ltd in Australia   In fact, this can result in a merge exercise no-one wants to be involved in, merging hundreds of thousands of change sets and trying to get a consolidated build. Again, we need to find a happy medium. - Willy-Peter Schaub on Merge Paranoia Merge conflicts are generally the result of making changes to the same file in both the target and source branch. If you create merge conflicts, you will eventually need to resolve them. Often the resolution is manual. Merging more frequently allows you to resolve these conflicts close to when they happen, making the resolution clearer. Waiting weeks or months to resolve them, the Big Bang approach, means you are more likely to resolve conflicts incorrectly. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Main line, this is where your stable code lives and where any build has known entities, always passes and has a happy test that passes as well? Many development projects consist of, a single “Main” line of source and artifacts. This is good; at least there is source control . There are however a couple of issues that need to be considered. What happens if: you and your team are working on a new set of features and the customer wants a change to his current version? you are working on two features and the customer decides to abandon one of them? you have two teams working on different feature sets and their changes start interfering with each other? I just use labels instead of branches? That's a lot of “what if’s”, but there is a simple way of preventing this. Branching… In TFS, labels are not immutable. This does not mean they are not useful. But labels do not provide a very good development isolation mechanism. Branching allows separate code sets to evolve separately (e.g. Current with hotfixes, and vNext with new development). I don’t see how labels work here. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Creating a single feature branch means you can isolate the development work on that branch.   Its standard practice for large projects with lots of developers to use Feature branching and you can check the Branching Guidance for the latest recommendations from the Visual Studio ALM Rangers for other methods. In the diagram above you can see my recommendation for branching when using Scrum development with TFS 2010. It consists of a single Sprint branch to contain all the changes for the current sprint. The main branch has the permissions changes so contributors to the project can only Branch and Merge with “Main”. This will prevent accidental check-ins or checkouts of the “Main” line that would contaminate the code. The developers continue to develop on sprint one until the completion of the sprint. Note: In the real world, starting a new Greenfield project, this process starts at Sprint 2 as at the start of Sprint 1 you would have artifacts in version control and no need for isolation.   Figure: Once the sprint is complete the Sprint 1 code can then be merged back into the Main line. There are always good practices to follow, and one is to always do a Forward Integration from Main into Sprint 1 before you do a Reverse Integration from Sprint 1 back into Main. In this case it may seem superfluous, but this builds good muscle memory into your developer’s work ethic and means that no bad habits are learned that would interfere with additional Scrum Teams being added to the Product. The process of completing your sprint development: The Team completes their work according to their definition of done. Merge from “Main” into “Sprint1” (Forward Integration) Stabilize your code with any changes coming from other Scrum Teams working on the same product. If you have one Scrum Team this should be quick, but there may have been bug fixes in the Release branches. (we will talk about release branches later) Merge from “Sprint1” into “Main” to commit your changes. (Reverse Integration) Check-in Delete the Sprint1 branch Note: The Sprint 1 branch is no longer required as its useful life has been concluded. Check-in Done But you are not yet done with the Sprint. The goal in Scrum is to have a “potentially shippable product” at the end of every Sprint, and we do not have that yet, we only have finished code.   Figure: With Sprint 1 merged you can create a Release branch and run your final packaging and testing In 99% of all projects I have been involved in or watched, a “shippable product” only happens towards the end of the overall lifecycle, especially when sprints are short. The in-between releases are great demonstration releases, but not shippable. Perhaps it comes from my 80’s brain washing that we only ship when we reach the agreed quality and business feature bar. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft Although you should have been testing and packaging your code all the way through your Sprint 1 development, preferably using an automated process, you still need to test and package with stable unchanging code. This is where you do what at SSW we call a “Test Please”. This is first an internal test of the product to make sure it meets the needs of the customer and you generally use a resource external to your Team. Then a “Test Please” is conducted with the Product Owner to make sure he is happy with the output. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: If you find a deviation from the expected result you fix it on the Release branch. If during your final testing or your “Test Please” you find there are issues or bugs then you should fix them on the release branch. If you can’t fix them within the time box of your Sprint, then you will need to create a Bug and put it onto the backlog for prioritization by the Product owner. Make sure you leave plenty of time between your merge from the development branch to find and fix any problems that are uncovered. This process is commonly called Stabilization and should always be conducted once you have completed all of your User Stories and integrated all of your branches. Even once you have stabilized and released, you should not delete the release branch as you would with the Sprint branch. It has a usefulness for servicing that may extend well beyond the limited life you expect of it. Note: Don't get forced by the business into adding features into a Release branch instead that indicates the unspoken requirement is that they are asking for a product spin-off. In this case you can create a new Team Project and branch from the required Release branch to create a new Main branch for that product. And you create a whole new backlog to work from.   Figure: When the Team decides it is happy with the product you can create a RTM branch. Once you have fixed all the bugs you can, and added any you can’t to the Product Backlog, and you Team is happy with the result you can create a Release. This would consist of doing the final Build and Packaging it up ready for your Sprint Review meeting. You would then create a read-only branch that represents the code you “shipped”. This is really an Audit trail branch that is optional, but is good practice. You could use a Label, but Labels are not Auditable and if a dispute was raised by the customer you can produce a verifiable version of the source code for an independent party to check. Rare I know, but you do not want to be at the wrong end of a legal battle. Like the Release branch the RTM branch should never be deleted, or only deleted according to your companies legal policy, which in the UK is usually 7 years.   Figure: If you have made any changes in the Release you will need to merge back up to Main in order to finalise the changes. Nothing is really ever done until it is in Main. The same rules apply when merging any fixes in the Release branch back into Main and you should do a reverse merge before a forward merge, again for the muscle memory more than necessity at this stage. Your Sprint is now nearly complete, and you can have a Sprint Review meeting knowing that you have made every effort and taken every precaution to protect your customer’s investment. Note: In order to really achieve protection for both you and your client you would add Automated Builds, Automated Tests, Automated Acceptance tests, Acceptance test tracking, Unit Tests, Load tests, Web test and all the other good engineering practices that help produce reliable software.     Figure: After the Sprint Planning meeting the process begins again. Where the Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings mark the end of the Sprint, the Sprint Planning meeting marks the beginning. After you have completed your Sprint Planning and you know what you are trying to achieve in Sprint 2 you can create your new Branch to develop in. How do we handle a bug(s) in production that can’t wait? Although in Scrum the only work done should be on the backlog there should be a little buffer added to the Sprint Planning for contingencies. One of these contingencies is a bug in the current release that can’t wait for the Sprint to finish. But how do you handle that? Willy-Peter Schaub asked an excellent question on the release activities: In reality Sprint 2 starts when sprint 1 ends + weekend. Should we not cater for a possible parallelism between Sprint 2 and the release activities of sprint 1? It would introduce FI’s from main to sprint 2, I guess. Your “Figure: Merging print 2 back into Main.” covers, what I tend to believe to be reality in most cases. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft I agree, and if you have a single Scrum team then your resources are limited. The Scrum Team is responsible for packaging and release, so at least one run at stabilization, package and release should be included in the Sprint time box. If more are needed on the current production release during the Sprint 2 time box then resource needs to be pulled from Sprint 2. The Product Owner and the Team have four choices (in order of disruption/cost): Backlog: Add the bug to the backlog and fix it in the next Sprint Buffer Time: Use any buffer time included in the current Sprint to fix the bug quickly Make time: Remove a Story from the current Sprint that is of equal value to the time lost fixing the bug(s) and releasing. Note: The Team must agree that it can still meet the Sprint Goal. Cancel Sprint: Cancel the sprint and concentrate all resource on fixing the bug(s) Note: This can be a very costly if the current sprint has already had a lot of work completed as it will be lost. The choice will depend on the complexity and severity of the bug(s) and both the Product Owner and the Team need to agree. In this case we will go with option #2 or #3 as they are uncomplicated but severe bugs. Figure: Real world issue where a bug needs fixed in the current release. If the bug(s) is urgent enough then then your only option is to fix it in place. You can edit the release branch to find and fix the bug, hopefully creating a test so it can’t happen again. Follow the prior process and conduct an internal and customer “Test Please” before releasing. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: After you have fixed the bug you need to ship again. You then need to again create an RTM branch to hold the version of the code you released in escrow.   Figure: Main is now out of sync with your Release. We now need to get these new changes back up into the Main branch. Do a reverse and then forward merge again to get the new code into Main. But what about the branch, are developers not working on Sprint 2? Does Sprint 2 now have changes that are not in Main and Main now have changes that are not in Sprint 2? Well, yes… and this is part of the hit you take doing branching. But would this scenario even have been possible without branching?   Figure: Getting the changes in Main into Sprint 2 is very important. The Team now needs to do a Forward Integration merge into their Sprint and resolve any conflicts that occur. Maybe the bug has already been fixed in Sprint 2, maybe the bug no longer exists! This needs to be identified and resolved by the developers before they continue to get further out of Sync with Main. Note: Avoid the “Big bang merge” at all costs.   Figure: Merging Sprint 2 back into Main, the Forward Integration, and R0 terminates. Sprint 2 now merges (Reverse Integration) back into Main following the procedures we have already established.   Figure: The logical conclusion. This then allows the creation of the next release. By now you should be getting the big picture and hopefully you learned something useful from this post. I know I have enjoyed writing it as I find these exploratory posts coupled with real world experience really help harden my understanding.  Branching is a tool; it is not a silver bullet. Don’t over use it, and avoid “Anti-Patterns” where possible. Although the diagram above looks complicated I hope showing you how it is formed simplifies it as much as possible.   Technorati Tags: Branching,Scrum,VS ALM,TFS 2010,VS2010

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• Using BPEL Performance Statistics to Diagnose Performance Bottlenecks

  - by fip

  Tuning performance of Oracle SOA 11G applications could be challenging. Because SOA is a platform for you to build composite applications that connect many applications and "services", when the overall performance is slow, the bottlenecks could be anywhere in the system: the applications/services that SOA connects to, the infrastructure database, or the SOA server itself.How to quickly identify the bottleneck becomes crucial in tuning the overall performance. Fortunately, the BPEL engine in Oracle SOA 11G (and 10G, for that matter) collects BPEL Engine Performance Statistics, which show the latencies of low level BPEL engine activities. The BPEL engine performance statistics can make it a bit easier for you to identify the performance bottleneck. Although the BPEL engine performance statistics are always available, the access to and interpretation of them are somewhat obscure in the early and current (PS5) 11G versions. This blog attempts to offer instructions that help you to enable, retrieve and interpret the performance statistics, before the future versions provides a more pleasant user experience. Overview of BPEL Engine Performance Statistics  SOA BPEL has a feature of collecting some performance statistics and store them in memory. One MBean attribute, StatLastN, configures the size of the memory buffer to store the statistics. This memory buffer is a "moving window", in a way that old statistics will be flushed out by the new if the amount of data exceeds the buffer size. Since the buffer size is limited by StatLastN, impacts of statistics collection on performance is minimal. By default StatLastN=-1, which means no collection of performance data. Once the statistics are collected in the memory buffer, they can be retrieved via another MBean oracle.as.soainfra.bpel:Location=[Server Name],name=BPELEngine,type=BPELEngine.> My friend in Oracle SOA development wrote this simple 'bpelstat' web app that looks up and retrieves the performance data from the MBean and displays it in a human readable form. It does not have beautiful UI but it is fairly useful. Although in Oracle SOA 11.1.1.5 onwards the same statistics can be viewed via a more elegant UI under "request break down" at EM -> SOA Infrastructure -> Service Engines -> BPEL -> Statistics, some unsophisticated minds like mine may still prefer the simplicity of the 'bpelstat' JSP. One thing that simple JSP does do well is that you can save the page and send it to someone to further analyze Follows are the instructions of how to install and invoke the BPEL statistic JSP. My friend in SOA Development will soon blog about interpreting the statistics. Stay tuned. Step1: Enable BPEL Engine Statistics for Each SOA Servers via Enterprise Manager First st you need to set the StatLastN to some number as a way to enable the collection of BPEL Engine Performance Statistics EM Console -> soa-infra(Server Name) -> SOA Infrastructure -> SOA Administration -> BPEL Properties Click on "More BPEL Configuration Properties" Click on attribute "StatLastN", set its value to some integer number. Typically you want to set it 1000 or more. Step 2: Download and Deploy bpelstat.war File to Admin Server, Note: the WAR file contains a JSP that does NOT have any security restriction. You do NOT want to keep in your production server for a long time as it is a security hazard. Deactivate the war once you are done. Download the bpelstat.war to your local PC At WebLogic Console, Go to Deployments -> Install Click on the "upload your file(s)" Click the "Browse" button to upload the deployment to Admin Server Accept the uploaded file as the path, click next Check the default option "Install this deployment as an application" Check "AdminServer" as the target server Finish the rest of the deployment with default settings Console -> Deployments Check the box next to "bpelstat" application Click on the "Start" button. It will change the state of the app from "prepared" to "active" Step 3: Invoke the BPEL Statistic Tool The BPELStat tool merely call the MBean of BPEL server and collects and display the in-memory performance statics. You usually want to do that after some peak loads. Go to http://<admin-server-host>:<admin-server-port>/bpelstat Enter the correct admin hostname, port, username and password Enter the SOA Server Name from which you want to collect the performance statistics. For example, SOA_MS1, etc. Click Submit Keep doing the same for all SOA servers. Step 3: Interpret the BPEL Engine Statistics You will see a few categories of BPEL Statistics from the JSP Page. First it starts with the overall latency of BPEL processes, grouped by synchronous and asynchronous processes. Then it provides the further break down of the measurements through the life time of a BPEL request, which is called the "request break down". 1. Overall latency of BPEL processes The top of the page shows that the elapse time of executing the synchronous process TestSyncBPELProcess from the composite TestComposite averages at about 1543.21ms, while the elapse time of executing the asynchronous process TestAsyncBPELProcess from the composite TestComposite2 averages at about 1765.43ms. The maximum and minimum latency were also shown. Synchronous process statistics <statistics>     <stats key="default/TestComposite!2.0.2-ScopedJMSOSB*soa_bfba2527-a9ba-41a7-95c5-87e49c32f4ff/TestSyncBPELProcess" min="1234" max="4567" average="1543.21" count="1000">     </stats> </statistics> Asynchronous process statistics <statistics>     <stats key="default/TestComposite2!2.0.2-ScopedJMSOSB*soa_bfba2527-a9ba-41a7-95c5-87e49c32f4ff/TestAsyncBPELProcess" min="2234" max="3234" average="1765.43" count="1000">     </stats> </statistics> 2. Request break down Under the overall latency categorized by synchronous and asynchronous processes is the "Request breakdown". Organized by statistic keys, the Request breakdown gives finer grain performance statistics through the life time of the BPEL requests.It uses indention to show the hierarchy of the statistics. Request breakdown <statistics>     <stats key="eng-composite-request" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="0">         <stats key="eng-single-request" min="22" max="606" average="258.43" count="277">             <stats key="populate-context" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="248"> Please note that in SOA 11.1.1.6, the statistics under Request breakdown is aggregated together cross all the BPEL processes based on statistic keys. It does not differentiate between BPEL processes. If two BPEL processes happen to have the statistic that share same statistic key, the statistics from two BPEL processes will be aggregated together. Keep this in mind when we go through more details below. 2.1 BPEL process activity latencies A very useful measurement in the Request Breakdown is the performance statistics of the BPEL activities you put in your BPEL processes: Assign, Invoke, Receive, etc. The names of the measurement in the JSP page directly come from the names to assign to each BPEL activity. These measurements are under the statistic key "actual-perform" Example 1:  Follows is the measurement for BPEL activity "AssignInvokeCreditProvider_Input", which looks like the Assign activity in a BPEL process that assign an input variable before passing it to the invocation:                                <stats key="AssignInvokeCreditProvider_Input" min="1" max="8" average="1.9" count="153">                                     <stats key="sensor-send-activity-data" min="0" max="1" average="0.0" count="306">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="sensor-send-variable-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="153">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="monitor-send-activity-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="306">                                     </stats>                                 </stats> Note: because as previously mentioned that the statistics cross all BPEL processes are aggregated together based on statistic keys, if two BPEL processes happen to name their Invoke activity the same name, they will show up at one measurement (i.e. statistic key). Example 2: Follows is the measurement of BPEL activity called "InvokeCreditProvider". You can not only see that by average it takes 3.31ms to finish this call (pretty fast) but also you can see from the further break down that most of this 3.31 ms was spent on the "invoke-service".                                  <stats key="InvokeCreditProvider" min="1" max="13" average="3.31" count="153">                                     <stats key="initiate-correlation-set-again" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="153">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="invoke-service" min="1" max="13" average="3.08" count="153">                                         <stats key="prep-call" min="0" max="1" average="0.04" count="153">                                         </stats>                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="initiate-correlation-set" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="153">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="sensor-send-activity-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="306">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="sensor-send-variable-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="153">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="monitor-send-activity-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="306">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="update-audit-trail" min="0" max="2" average="0.03" count="153">                                     </stats>                                 </stats> 2.2 BPEL engine activity latency Another type of measurements under Request breakdown are the latencies of underlying system level engine activities. These activities are not directly tied to a particular BPEL process or process activity, but they are critical factors in the overall engine performance. These activities include the latency of saving asynchronous requests to database, and latency of process dehydration. My friend Malkit Bhasin is working on providing more information on interpreting the statistics on engine activities on his blog (https://blogs.oracle.com/malkit/). I will update this blog once the information becomes available. Update on 2012-10-02: My friend Malkit Bhasin has published the detail interpretation of the BPEL service engine statistics at his blog http://malkit.blogspot.com/2012/09/oracle-bpel-engine-soa-suite.html.

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• Setup Custom Portal & Content Enabled Domain

  - by Stefan Krantz

  When overlooking the past year we have seen a large increase in deployments where only some parts of the WebCenter Suite infrastructure has been used. The most common from my personal perspective is a domain topology that includes: WebCenter Custom Portal, WebCenter Content and Oracle HTTP ServicesToday its very common to see installation where the whole suite is installed when the use case only requires the custom portal and some sub component like WebCenter Content. This post will go into detail on how to minimize the deployment time and effort by only laying down the necessary managed servers needed, by following this proposed method you will minimize the configuration steps and only install the required components and schema's, configure only the necessary components and minimize the impact of architectural changes through reduced dependencies. Assumptions: Oracle 11g Database installed SYS or equivalent access to Database to setup schema's via RCU Running Operating System supporting JDK 7 Update 2 (Check support matrix here) Good understanding of WebLogic Architecture Binaries: Oracle JDK 7 Update 2 (1.7.0_02) (Download) Oracle WebLogic 10.3.6 (Download) Oracle WebCenter Binaries (11.1.1.6) (Download) Oracle WebCenter Content Binaries (11.1.1.6) (Download 1) (Download 2) Oracle HTTP Services (11.1.1.6) (Download) Oracle Repository Creation Utility (11.1.1.6) (Download Linux or Windows) Schema's: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} MDS - Meta Data Services (WebCenter and OWSM) WebCenter (WebCenter Schema) OCS (Oracle WebCenter Content) Activities (WebCenter Activities) OPSS (Policy Store for WebCenter) Installation Structure: - [Installation Home]/Middleware    - Oracle_WC1 (WebCenter Installation)    - Oracle_WT1 (Oracle WebTier)    - Oracle_ECM (WebCenter Content)    - wlserver_10.3 (Weblogic installation)- [Installation Home]/domains    - webcenter (WebCenter Domain)    - instances (OHS/OPMN instance)- [Installation Home]/applications- [Installation Home]/JDK1.7.0_02 Installation and Configuration Steps: Install Java and configure Java Home Extract the Java Installable (jdk-7u2-linux-x64) to [Installation Home]/JDK1.7.0_02 Add JAVA_HOME to Environment Settings (JAVA_HOME=[Installation Home]/JDK1.7.0_02) Update PATH in Environment Settings (PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH) Install WebLogic Server (Middleware Home) Run the installer / execute jar file (java - jar wls1036_generic.jar) Create the Middleware Home under [Installation Home]/Middleware Install WebCenter Portal (Extend Middleware Home) Extract the compressed file (ofm_wc_generic_11.1.1.6.0_disk1_1of1.zip) to a temp folder Execute runInstaller under folder (DISK1/) with following command (runInstaller -jreLoc $JAVA_HOME) Make sure to install in following structure ([Installation Home]/Middleware/Oracle_WC1) Install WebCenter Content (Extend Middleware Home) Extract the compressed files (ofm_wcc_generic_11.1.1.6.0_disk1_1of2.zip & ofm_wcc_generic_11.1.1.6.0_disk1_2of2.zip) to the same temp folder Execute runInstaller under folder (DISK1/) with following command (runInstaller -jreLoc $JAVA_HOME) Make sure to install in following structure ([Installation Home]/Middleware/Oracle_ECM) Configure Initial Domain (Domain name webcenter) Execute configuration tool - [Installation Home]/Middleware/wlserver_10.3/common/bin/config Select "Create a New Weblogic Domain" Select following template (Basic Weblogic Server Domain, Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle WSM Policy Manager, Oracle JRF) Create new domain with name webcenter under following location ([Installation Home]/domains) for applications ([Installation Home]/applications) Select Production Mode Finish Configuration wizard Setup username for startup scripts - Add a new file called boot.properties to ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/servers/AdminServer/security)Add following lines to boot.propertiesusername=weblogicpassword=[password clear text, it will be encrypted during first start] Start AdminServer in the background ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/startWeblogic) Install and Configure Oracle WebTier (OHS Server) Extract compressed file (ofm_webtier_linux_11.1.1.6.0_64_disk1_1of1.zip) to a temp folder Execute runInstaller under folder (DISK1/) with following command (runInstaller) Select Install & Configure option Deselect Oracle WebCache Auto Configure Ports Configure Schema's with RCU (Repository Creation Utility) Extract compressed file (ofm_rcu_linux_11.1.1.6.0_disk1_1of1.zip) to a temp folder Execute rcu with following command ([temp]/rcuHome/rcu) Make sure database meets RCU requirements, particular (PROCESSES is 200 or more) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Using SQLPLUS and sys user tou can update this configuration in the database with following procedure:ALTER SYSTEM SET PROCESSES=200 SCOPE=SPFILE shutdown immediate startup Create and Configure following schemas:MDS - Meta Data Services (WebCenter and OWSM)WebCenter (WebCenter Schema)OCS (Oracle WebCenter Content)Activities (WebCenter Activities)OPSS (Policy Store for WebCenter) Remember selected schema prefix and password (will be used later) Configure WebCenter Portal instance (WC_CustomPortal) Execute following command to start configuration wizard ([Installation Home]/Middleware/Oracle_WC1/common/bin/config) Select Extend an Existing WebLogic domain Select the existing webcenter domain ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter) Select Extend my domain using existing extension templateBrowse to ([Installation Home]/Middleware/Oracle_WC1/common/templates/applications)Select oracle.wc_custom_portal_template_11.1.1.jar Select to configure (Managed Servers/Clusters/Machines) On the Managed Server Screen you can now configure 1 or more WC_CustomPortal managed servers (name them WC_CustomPortal[n] (skip numbering if not clustered)) In case of two WC_CustomPortal Servers then create a Cluster (any name) and make sure the managed servers join the new cluster Create a new machine with same name as the current machine Make sure the AdminServer and WC_CustomPortal[n] managed servers joins the machine Finish the configuration wizard Stop AdminServer ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/stopWeblogic) Start AdminServer in the background ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/startWeblogic) Start WC_CustomPortal in the foreground (([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/startManagedServer WC_CustomPortal))- repeat for each WC_CustomPortal instance on the host Give credentials for weblogic user on start up Copy folder security including file boot.properties - from ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/servers/AdminServer/) to ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/servers/WC_CustomPortal/) Result should be ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/servers/WC_CustomPortal/security/boot.properties) Configure WebCenter Content instance (UCM_server1) Execute following command to start configuration wizard ([Installation Home]/Middleware/Oracle_ECM/common/bin/config) Select Extend an Existing WebLogic domain Select Oracle Universal Content Management - Content Server Select to configure (Managed Servers/Clusters/Machines) On Managed Server Screen create only one managed server instance (UCM_server1 on port 16200 (you can select any other available port)) Make sure the UCM_server1 managed server joins the machine Finish the configuration wizard Stop AdminServer ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/stopWeblogic) Start AdminServer in the background ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/startWeblogic) Start UCM_server1 in the foreground ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/startManagedServer UCM_server1)Give credentials for weblogic user on start up Copy folder security including file boot.properties - from ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/servers/AdminServer/) to ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/servers/UCM_server1/ Result should be ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/servers/UCM_server1/security/boot.properties) Post Configure WebCenter Content instance for WebCenter Portal Open a browser where you have support for Java applets - navigate to http://host:port/cs WARNING: The page that you are presented with after authentication will only appear once for each instance WARNING: Make sure you set correct storage options - also remember to consider file sharing options if you like to cluster your Content Server instance over multiple hosts Set an appropriate Auto number prefix Update the Server Socket Port: Commonly set to (4444)  used for RIDC communication (a requirement for WebCenter Portal) Update the IP Address Filter to include the IP that is planned to access the server over RIDC - at the minimum add the ip address of the current host (this option can be updated later via EM) Stop UCM_server1 ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/stopManagedServer UCM_server1) Start UCM_server1 in the background([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/startManagedServer UCM_server1) Open a browser where you have support for Java applets - navigate to http://host:port/cs Navigate to Administration/Admin Server Go to General ConfigurationCheck Enable AccountsIn Additional Configuration Variables (Add on two lines) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} AllowUpdateForGenwww=1CollectionUseCache=1 Save the changes and go to Component Manager Click on the link advanced component manager Enable following components Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Folders_g, WebCenterConfigure, SiteStudio, SiteStudioExternalApplications, DBSearchContainsOpSupport WARNING: Make sure that following component is disabled: FrameworkFolders Stop UCM_server1 ([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/stopManagedServer UCM_server1) Start UCM_server1 in the background([Installation Home]/domains/webcenter/bin/startManagedServer UCM_server1) Open a browser where you have support for Java applets - navigate to http://host:port/cs Navigate to Administration/Site Studio Administration and update - Do not forget to save and submit each page Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Set Default ProjectSet Default WebAssets Post Configure Oracle WebTier (OHS) to include Content Server and WebCenter Portal application context Update following file - [Installation Home]/domains/instances/instance1/config/OHS/ohs1/mod_wl_ohs.conf For single add lines from following example: Link For clustered environment add lines from following template (note the clustering in example on applies to WC_CustomPortal): Link For more information on this: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/core.1111/e12037/contentsvr.htm#WCEDG318 Optional - Configure JOC Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Follow instructions: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/core.1111/e12037/extend_wc.htm#WCEDG264 Optional (Recommended) - Configure Node Manager Follow instructions: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/core.1111/e12037/node_manager.htm#WCEDG277 Optional (Mandatory for clustered environments) - Re-Associate Policy Store to Database or OID Follow instructions: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/webcenter.1111/e12405/wcadm_security_credstore.htm#CFHDEDJH Optional - Configure Coherence for Content Presenter Follow instructions in Blog Post (This post is for PS4): https://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/entry/enabling_coherence_for_content_presenter Other Recommended Post Cloning WebCenter Custom Portal - https://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/entry/cloning_a_webcenter_portal_managedImproving WebCenter Performance through caching - https://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/entry/improving_webcenter_performance

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• Simple MSBuild Configuration: Updating Assemblies With A Version Number

  - by srkirkland

  When distributing a library you often run up against versioning problems, once facet of which is simply determining which version of that library your client is running.  Of course, each project in your solution has an AssemblyInfo.cs file which provides, among other things, the ability to set the Assembly name and version number.  Unfortunately, setting the assembly version here would require not only changing the version manually for each build (depending on your schedule), but keeping it in sync across all projects.  There are many ways to solve this versioning problem, and in this blog post I’m going to try to explain what I think is the easiest and most flexible solution.  I will walk you through using MSBuild to create a simple build script, and I’ll even show how to (optionally) integrate with a Team City build server.  All of the code from this post can be found at https://github.com/srkirkland/BuildVersion. Create CommonAssemblyInfo.cs The first step is to create a common location for the repeated assembly info that is spread across all of your projects.  Create a new solution-level file (I usually create a Build/ folder in the solution root, but anywhere reachable by all your projects will do) called CommonAssemblyInfo.cs.  In here you can put any information common to all your assemblies, including the version number.  An example CommonAssemblyInfo.cs is as follows: using System.Reflection; using System.Resources; using System.Runtime.InteropServices;   [assembly: AssemblyCompany("University of California, Davis")] [assembly: AssemblyProduct("BuildVersionTest")] [assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Scott Kirkland & UC Regents")] [assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")] [assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]   [assembly: ComVisible(false)]   [assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.2.3.4")] //Will be replaced   [assembly: NeutralResourcesLanguage("en-US")] .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }   Cleanup AssemblyInfo.cs & Link CommonAssemblyInfo.cs For each of your projects, you’ll want to clean up your assembly info to contain only information that is unique to that assembly – everything else will go in the CommonAssemblyInfo.cs file.  For most of my projects, that just means setting the AssemblyTitle, though you may feel AssemblyDescription is warranted.  An example AssemblyInfo.cs file is as follows: using System.Reflection;   [assembly: AssemblyTitle("BuildVersionTest")] .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Next, you need to “link” the CommonAssemblyinfo.cs file into your projects right beside your newly lean AssemblyInfo.cs file.  To do this, right click on your project and choose Add | Existing Item from the context menu.  Navigate to your CommonAssemblyinfo.cs file but instead of clicking Add, click the little down-arrow next to add and choose “Add as Link.”  You should see a little link graphic similar to this: We’ve actually reduced complexity a lot already, because if you build all of your assemblies will have the same common info, including the product name and our static (fake) assembly version.  Let’s take this one step further and introduce a build script. Create an MSBuild file What we want from the build script (for now) is basically just to have the common assembly version number changed via a parameter (eventually to be passed in by the build server) and then for the project to build.  Also we’d like to have a flexibility to define what build configuration to use (debug, release, etc). In order to find/replace the version number, we are going to use a Regular Expression to find and replace the text within your CommonAssemblyInfo.cs file.  There are many other ways to do this using community build task add-ins, but since we want to keep it simple let’s just define the Regular Expression task manually in a new file, Build.tasks (this example taken from the NuGet build.tasks file). <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Go" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"> <UsingTask TaskName="RegexTransform" TaskFactory="CodeTaskFactory" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v4.0.dll"> <ParameterGroup> <Items ParameterType="Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITaskItem[]" /> </ParameterGroup> <Task> <Using Namespace="System.IO" /> <Using Namespace="System.Text.RegularExpressions" /> <Using Namespace="Microsoft.Build.Framework" /> <Code Type="Fragment" Language="cs"> <![CDATA[ foreach(ITaskItem item in Items) { string fileName = item.GetMetadata("FullPath"); string find = item.GetMetadata("Find"); string replaceWith = item.GetMetadata("ReplaceWith"); if(!File.Exists(fileName)) { Log.LogError(null, null, null, null, 0, 0, 0, 0, String.Format("Could not find version file: {0}", fileName), new object[0]); } string content = File.ReadAllText(fileName); File.WriteAllText( fileName, Regex.Replace( content, find, replaceWith ) ); } ]]> </Code> </Task> </UsingTask> </Project> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } If you glance at the code, you’ll see it’s really just going a Regex.Replace() on a given file, which is exactly what we need. Now we are ready to write our build file, called (by convention) Build.proj. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Go" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"> <Import Project="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Build.tasks" /> <PropertyGroup> <Configuration Condition="'$(Configuration)' == ''">Debug</Configuration> <SolutionRoot>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)</SolutionRoot> </PropertyGroup>   <ItemGroup> <RegexTransform Include="$(SolutionRoot)\CommonAssemblyInfo.cs"> <Find>(?&lt;major&gt;\d+)\.(?&lt;minor&gt;\d+)\.\d+\.(?&lt;revision&gt;\d+)</Find> <ReplaceWith>$(BUILD_NUMBER)</ReplaceWith> </RegexTransform> </ItemGroup>   <Target Name="Go" DependsOnTargets="UpdateAssemblyVersion; Build"> </Target>   <Target Name="UpdateAssemblyVersion" Condition="'$(BUILD_NUMBER)' != ''"> <RegexTransform Items="@(RegexTransform)" /> </Target>   <Target Name="Build"> <MSBuild Projects="$(SolutionRoot)\BuildVersionTest.sln" Targets="Build" /> </Target>   </Project> Reviewing this MSBuild file, we see that by default the “Go” target will be called, which in turn depends on “UpdateAssemblyVersion” and then “Build.”  We go ahead and import the Bulid.tasks file and then setup some handy properties for setting the build configuration and solution root (in this case, my build files are in the solution root, but we might want to create a Build/ directory later).  The rest of the file flows logically, we setup the RegexTransform to match version numbers such as <major>.<minor>.1.<revision> (1.2.3.4 in our example) and replace it with a $(BUILD_NUMBER) parameter which will be supplied externally.  The first target, “UpdateAssemblyVersion” just runs the RegexTransform, and the second target, “Build” just runs the default MSBuild on our solution. Testing the MSBuild file locally Now we have a build file which can replace assembly version numbers and build, so let’s setup a quick batch file to be able to build locally.  To do this you simply create a file called Build.cmd and have it call MSBuild on your Build.proj file.  I’ve added a bit more flexibility so you can specify build configuration and version number, which makes your Build.cmd look as follows: set config=%1 if "%config%" == "" ( set config=debug ) set version=%2 if "%version%" == "" ( set version=2.3.4.5 ) %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\msbuild Build.proj /p:Configuration="%config%" /p:build_number="%version%" .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Now if you click on the Build.cmd file, you will get a default debug build using the version 2.3.4.5.  Let’s run it in a command window with the parameters set for a release build version 2.0.1.453.   Excellent!  We can now run one simple command and govern the build configuration and version number of our entire solution.  Each DLL produced will have the same version number, making determining which version of a library you are running very simple and accurate. Configure the build server (TeamCity) Of course you are not really going to want to run a build command manually every time, and typing in incrementing version numbers will also not be ideal.  A good solution is to have a computer (or set of computers) act as a build server and build your code for you, providing you a consistent environment, excellent reporting, and much more.  One of the most popular Build Servers is JetBrains’ TeamCity, and this last section will show you the few configuration parameters to use when setting up a build using your MSBuild file created earlier.  If you are using a different build server, the same principals should apply. First, when setting up the project you want to specify the “Build Number Format,” often given in the form <major>.<minor>.<revision>.<build>.  In this case you will set major/minor manually, and optionally revision (or you can use your VCS revision number with %build.vcs.number%), and then build using the {0} wildcard.  Thus your build number format might look like this: 2.0.1.{0}.  During each build, this value will be created and passed into the $BUILD_NUMBER variable of our Build.proj file, which then uses it to decorate your assemblies with the proper version. After setting up the build number, you must choose MSBuild as the Build Runner, then provide a path to your build file (Build.proj).  After specifying your MSBuild Version (equivalent to your .NET Framework Version), you have the option to specify targets (the default being “Go”) and additional MSBuild parameters.  The one parameter that is often useful is manually setting the configuration property (/p:Configuration="Release") if you want something other than the default (which is Debug in our example).  Your resulting configuration will look something like this: [Under General Settings] [Build Runner Settings]   Now every time your build is run, a newly incremented build version number will be generated and passed to MSBuild, which will then version your assemblies and build your solution.   A Quick Review Our goal was to version our output assemblies in an automated way, and we accomplished it by performing a few quick steps: Move the common assembly information, including version, into a linked CommonAssemblyInfo.cs file Create a simple MSBuild script to replace the common assembly version number and build your solution Direct your build server to use the created MSBuild script That’s really all there is to it.  You can find all of the code from this post at https://github.com/srkirkland/BuildVersion. Enjoy!

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• Openvpn plugin openvpn-auth-ldap does not bind to Active Directory

  - by Selivanov Pavel

  I'm trying to configure OpenVPN with openvpn-auth-ldap plugin to authorize users via Active Directory LDAP. When I use the same server config without plugin option, and add client config with generated client key and cert, connection is successful, so problem is in the plugin. server.conf: plugin /usr/lib/openvpn/openvpn-auth-ldap.so "/etc/openvpn-test/openvpn-auth-ldap.conf" port 1194 proto tcp dev tun keepalive 10 60 topology subnet server 10.0.2.0 255.255.255.0 tls-server ca ca.crt dh dh1024.pem cert server.crt key server.key #crl-verify crl.pem persist-key persist-tun user nobody group nogroup verb 3 mute 20 openvpn-auth-ldap.conf: <LDAP> URL ldap://dc1.domain:389 TLSEnable no BindDN cn=bot_auth,cn=Users,dc=domain Password bot_auth Timeout 15 FollowReferrals yes </LDAP> <Authorization> BaseDN "cn=Users,dc=domain" SearchFilter "(sAMAccountName=%u)" RequireGroup false # <Group> # BaseDN "ou=groups,dc=mycompany,dc=local" # SearchFilter "(|(cn=developers)(cn=artists))" # MemberAttribute uniqueMember # </Group> </Authorization> Top-level domain in AD is used by historical reasons. Analogue configuration is working for Apache 2.2 in mod-authzn-ldap. User and password are correct. client.conf: remote server_name port 1194 proto tcp client pull remote-cert-tls server dev tun resolv-retry infinite nobind ca ca.crt ; with keys - works fine #cert test.crt #key test.key ; without keys - by password auth-user-pass persist-tun verb 3 mute 20 In server log there is string PLUGIN_INIT: POST /usr/lib/openvpn/openvpn-auth-ldap.so '[/usr/lib/openvpn/openvpn-auth-ldap.so] [/etc/openvpn-test/openvpn-auth-ldap.conf]' which indicates, that plugin failed. I can telnet to dc1.domain:389, so this is not network/firewall problem. Later server says TLS Error: TLS object -> incoming plaintext read error TLS handshake failed - without plugin it tryes to do usal key authentification. server log: Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 OpenVPN 2.1.3 i486-pc-linux-gnu [SSL] [LZO2] [EPOLL] [PKCS11] [MH] [PF_INET6] [eurephia] built on Oct 21 2010 Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 NOTE: OpenVPN 2.1 requires '--script-security 2' or higher to call user-defined scripts or executables Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 PLUGIN_INIT: POST /usr/lib/openvpn/openvpn-auth-ldap.so '[/usr/lib/openvpn/openvpn-auth-ldap.so] [/etc/openvpn-test/openvpn-auth-ldap.conf]' intercepted=PLUGIN_AUTH_USER_PASS_VERIFY|PLUGIN_CLIENT_CONNECT|PLUGIN_CLIENT_DISCONNECT Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 Diffie-Hellman initialized with 1024 bit key Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 /usr/bin/openssl-vulnkey -q -b 1024 -m <modulus omitted> Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 Control Channel Authentication: using 'ta.key' as a OpenVPN static key file Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 Outgoing Control Channel Authentication: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 Incoming Control Channel Authentication: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 TLS-Auth MTU parms [ L:1543 D:168 EF:68 EB:0 ET:0 EL:0 ] Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 Socket Buffers: R=[87380->131072] S=[16384->131072] Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 TUN/TAP device tun1 opened Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 TUN/TAP TX queue length set to 100 Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 /sbin/ifconfig tun1 10.0.2.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 mtu 1500 broadcast 10.0.2.255 Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 Data Channel MTU parms [ L:1543 D:1450 EF:43 EB:4 ET:0 EL:0 ] Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 GID set to nogroup Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 UID set to nobody Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 Listening for incoming TCP connection on [undef] Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 TCPv4_SERVER link local (bound): [undef] Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 TCPv4_SERVER link remote: [undef] Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 MULTI: multi_init called, r=256 v=256 Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 IFCONFIG POOL: base=10.0.2.2 size=252 Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 MULTI: TCP INIT maxclients=1024 maxevents=1028 Tue Nov 22 03:06:20 2011 Initialization Sequence Completed Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 MULTI: multi_create_instance called Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 Re-using SSL/TLS context Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 Control Channel MTU parms [ L:1543 D:168 EF:68 EB:0 ET:0 EL:0 ] Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 Data Channel MTU parms [ L:1543 D:1450 EF:43 EB:4 ET:0 EL:0 ] Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 Local Options hash (VER=V4): 'c413e92e' Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 Expected Remote Options hash (VER=V4): 'd8421bb0' Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 TCP connection established with [AF_INET]10.0.0.9:47808 Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 TCPv4_SERVER link local: [undef] Tue Nov 22 03:07:10 2011 TCPv4_SERVER link remote: [AF_INET]10.0.0.9:47808 Tue Nov 22 03:07:11 2011 10.0.0.9:47808 TLS: Initial packet from [AF_INET]10.0.0.9:47808, sid=a2cd4052 84b47108 Tue Nov 22 03:07:11 2011 10.0.0.9:47808 TLS_ERROR: BIO read tls_read_plaintext error: error:140890C7:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_CLIENT_CERTIFICATE:peer did not return a certificate Tue Nov 22 03:07:11 2011 10.0.0.9:47808 TLS Error: TLS object -> incoming plaintext read error Tue Nov 22 03:07:11 2011 10.0.0.9:47808 TLS Error: TLS handshake failed Tue Nov 22 03:07:11 2011 10.0.0.9:47808 Fatal TLS error (check_tls_errors_co), restarting Tue Nov 22 03:07:11 2011 10.0.0.9:47808 SIGUSR1[soft,tls-error] received, client-instance restarting Tue Nov 22 03:07:11 2011 TCP/UDP: Closing socket client log: Tue Nov 22 03:06:18 2011 OpenVPN 2.1.3 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu [SSL] [LZO2] [EPOLL] [PKCS11] [MH] [PF_INET6] [eurephia] built on Oct 22 2010 Enter Auth Username:user Enter Auth Password: Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 NOTE: OpenVPN 2.1 requires '--script-security 2' or higher to call user-defined scripts or executables Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Control Channel Authentication: using 'ta.key' as a OpenVPN static key file Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Outgoing Control Channel Authentication: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Incoming Control Channel Authentication: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Control Channel MTU parms [ L:1543 D:168 EF:68 EB:0 ET:0 EL:0 ] Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Socket Buffers: R=[87380->131072] S=[16384->131072] Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Data Channel MTU parms [ L:1543 D:1450 EF:43 EB:4 ET:0 EL:0 ] Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Local Options hash (VER=V4): 'd8421bb0' Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Expected Remote Options hash (VER=V4): 'c413e92e' Tue Nov 22 03:06:25 2011 Attempting to establish TCP connection with [AF_INET]10.0.0.2:1194 [nonblock] Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 TCP connection established with [AF_INET]10.0.0.2:1194 Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 TCPv4_CLIENT link local: [undef] Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 TCPv4_CLIENT link remote: [AF_INET]10.0.0.2:1194 Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 TLS: Initial packet from [AF_INET]10.0.0.2:1194, sid=7a3c2a0f bd35bca7 Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 WARNING: this configuration may cache passwords in memory -- use the auth-nocache option to prevent this Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 VERIFY OK: depth=1, /C=US/ST=CA/L=SanFrancisco/O=Fort-Funston/CN=Fort-Funston_CA/[email protected] Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 Validating certificate key usage Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 ++ Certificate has key usage 00a0, expects 00a0 Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 VERIFY KU OK Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 Validating certificate extended key usage Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 ++ Certificate has EKU (str) TLS Web Server Authentication, expects TLS Web Server Authentication Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 VERIFY EKU OK Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 VERIFY OK: depth=0, /C=US/ST=CA/L=SanFrancisco/O=Fort-Funston/CN=server/[email protected] Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 Connection reset, restarting [0] Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 TCP/UDP: Closing socket Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 SIGUSR1[soft,connection-reset] received, process restarting Tue Nov 22 03:06:26 2011 Restart pause, 5 second(s) ^CTue Nov 22 03:06:27 2011 SIGINT[hard,init_instance] received, process exiting Does anybody know how to get openvpn-auth-ldap wirking?

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• Announcing Entity Framework Code-First (CTP5 release)

  - by ScottGu

  This week the data team released the CTP5 build of the new Entity Framework Code-First library.  EF Code-First enables a pretty sweet code-centric development workflow for working with data.  It enables you to: Develop without ever having to open a designer or define an XML mapping file Define model objects by simply writing “plain old classes” with no base classes required Use a “convention over configuration” approach that enables database persistence without explicitly configuring anything Optionally override the convention-based persistence and use a fluent code API to fully customize the persistence mapping I’m a big fan of the EF Code-First approach, and wrote several blog posts about it this summer: Code-First Development with Entity Framework 4 (July 16th) EF Code-First: Custom Database Schema Mapping (July 23rd) Using EF Code-First with an Existing Database (August 3rd) Today’s new CTP5 release delivers several nice improvements over the CTP4 build, and will be the last preview build of Code First before the final release of it.  We will ship the final EF Code First release in the first quarter of next year (Q1 of 2011).  It works with all .NET application types (including both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC projects). Installing EF Code First You can install and use EF Code First CTP5 using one of two ways: Approach 1) By downloading and running a setup program.  Once installed you can reference the EntityFramework.dll assembly it provides within your projects.      or: Approach 2) By using the NuGet Package Manager within Visual Studio to download and install EF Code First within a project.  To do this, simply bring up the NuGet Package Manager Console within Visual Studio (View->Other Windows->Package Manager Console) and type “Install-Package EFCodeFirst”: Typing “Install-Package EFCodeFirst” within the Package Manager Console will cause NuGet to download the EF Code First package, and add it to your current project: Doing this will automatically add a reference to the EntityFramework.dll assembly to your project:   NuGet enables you to have EF Code First setup and ready to use within seconds.  When the final release of EF Code First ships you’ll also be able to just type “Update-Package EFCodeFirst” to update your existing projects to use the final release. EF Code First Assembly and Namespace The CTP5 release of EF Code First has an updated assembly name, and new .NET namespace: Assembly Name: EntityFramework.dll Namespace: System.Data.Entity These names match what we plan to use for the final release of the library. Nice New CTP5 Improvements The new CTP5 release of EF Code First contains a bunch of nice improvements and refinements. Some of the highlights include: Better support for Existing Databases Built-in Model-Level Validation and DataAnnotation Support Fluent API Improvements Pluggable Conventions Support New Change Tracking API Improved Concurrency Conflict Resolution Raw SQL Query/Command Support The rest of this blog post contains some more details about a few of the above changes. Better Support for Existing Databases EF Code First makes it really easy to create model layers that work against existing databases.  CTP5 includes some refinements that further streamline the developer workflow for this scenario. Below are the steps to use EF Code First to create a model layer for the Northwind sample database: Step 1: Create Model Classes and a DbContext class Below is all of the code necessary to implement a simple model layer using EF Code First that goes against the Northwind database: EF Code First enables you to use “POCO” – Plain Old CLR Objects – to represent entities within a database.  This means that you do not need to derive model classes from a base class, nor implement any interfaces or data persistence attributes on them.  This enables the model classes to be kept clean, easily testable, and “persistence ignorant”.  The Product and Category classes above are examples of POCO model classes. EF Code First enables you to easily connect your POCO model classes to a database by creating a “DbContext” class that exposes public properties that map to the tables within a database.  The Northwind class above illustrates how this can be done.  It is mapping our Product and Category classes to the “Products” and “Categories” tables within the database.  The properties within the Product and Category classes in turn map to the columns within the Products and Categories tables – and each instance of a Product/Category object maps to a row within the tables. The above code is all of the code required to create our model and data access layer!  Previous CTPs of EF Code First required an additional step to work against existing databases (a call to Database.Initializer<Northwind>(null) to tell EF Code First to not create the database) – this step is no longer required with the CTP5 release.  Step 2: Configure the Database Connection String We’ve written all of the code we need to write to define our model layer.  Our last step before we use it will be to setup a connection-string that connects it with our database.  To do this we’ll add a “Northwind” connection-string to our web.config file (or App.Config for client apps) like so:   <connectionStrings>          <add name="Northwind"          connectionString="data source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Integrated Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|\northwind.mdf;User Instance=true"          providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />   </connectionStrings> EF “code first” uses a convention where DbContext classes by default look for a connection-string that has the same name as the context class.  Because our DbContext class is called “Northwind” it by default looks for a “Northwind” connection-string to use.  Above our Northwind connection-string is configured to use a local SQL Express database (stored within the \App_Data directory of our project).  You can alternatively point it at a remote SQL Server. Step 3: Using our Northwind Model Layer We can now easily query and update our database using the strongly-typed model layer we just built with EF Code First. The code example below demonstrates how to use LINQ to query for products within a specific product category.  This query returns back a sequence of strongly-typed Product objects that match the search criteria: The code example below demonstrates how we can retrieve a specific Product object, update two of its properties, and then save the changes back to the database: EF Code First handles all of the change-tracking and data persistence work for us, and allows us to focus on our application and business logic as opposed to having to worry about data access plumbing. Built-in Model Validation EF Code First allows you to use any validation approach you want when implementing business rules with your model layer.  This enables a great deal of flexibility and power. Starting with this week’s CTP5 release, EF Code First also now includes built-in support for both the DataAnnotation and IValidatorObject validation support built-into .NET 4.  This enables you to easily implement validation rules on your models, and have these rules automatically be enforced by EF Code First whenever you save your model layer.  It provides a very convenient “out of the box” way to enable validation within your applications. Applying DataAnnotations to our Northwind Model The code example below demonstrates how we could add some declarative validation rules to two of the properties of our “Product” model: We are using the [Required] and [Range] attributes above.  These validation attributes live within the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace that is built-into .NET 4, and can be used independently of EF.  The error messages specified on them can either be explicitly defined (like above) – or retrieved from resource files (which makes localizing applications easy). Validation Enforcement on SaveChanges() EF Code-First (starting with CTP5) now automatically applies and enforces DataAnnotation rules when a model object is updated or saved.  You do not need to write any code to enforce this – this support is now enabled by default.  This new support means that the below code – which violates our above rules – will automatically throw an exception when we call the “SaveChanges()” method on our Northwind DbContext: The DbEntityValidationException that is raised when the SaveChanges() method is invoked contains a “EntityValidationErrors” property that you can use to retrieve the list of all validation errors that occurred when the model was trying to save.  This enables you to easily guide the user on how to fix them.  Note that EF Code-First will abort the entire transaction of changes if a validation rule is violated – ensuring that our database is always kept in a valid, consistent state. EF Code First’s validation enforcement works both for the built-in .NET DataAnnotation attributes (like Required, Range, RegularExpression, StringLength, etc), as well as for any custom validation rule you create by sub-classing the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.ValidationAttribute base class. UI Validation Support A lot of our UI frameworks in .NET also provide support for DataAnnotation-based validation rules. For example, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, and Silverlight (via WCF RIA Services) all provide support for displaying client-side validation UI that honor the DataAnnotation rules applied to model objects. The screen-shot below demonstrates how using the default “Add-View” scaffold template within an ASP.NET MVC 3 application will cause appropriate validation error messages to be displayed if appropriate values are not provided: ASP.NET MVC 3 supports both client-side and server-side enforcement of these validation rules.  The error messages displayed are automatically picked up from the declarative validation attributes – eliminating the need for you to write any custom code to display them. Keeping things DRY The “DRY Principle” stands for “Do Not Repeat Yourself”, and is a best practice that recommends that you avoid duplicating logic/configuration/code in multiple places across your application, and instead specify it only once and have it apply everywhere. EF Code First CTP5 now enables you to apply declarative DataAnnotation validations on your model classes (and specify them only once) and then have the validation logic be enforced (and corresponding error messages displayed) across all applications scenarios – including within controllers, views, client-side scripts, and for any custom code that updates and manipulates model classes. This makes it much easier to build good applications with clean code, and to build applications that can rapidly iterate and evolve. Other EF Code First Improvements New to CTP5 EF Code First CTP5 includes a bunch of other improvements as well.  Below are a few short descriptions of some of them: Fluent API Improvements EF Code First allows you to override an “OnModelCreating()” method on the DbContext class to further refine/override the schema mapping rules used to map model classes to underlying database schema.  CTP5 includes some refinements to the ModelBuilder class that is passed to this method which can make defining mapping rules cleaner and more concise.  The ADO.NET Team blogged some samples of how to do this here. Pluggable Conventions Support EF Code First CTP5 provides new support that allows you to override the “default conventions” that EF Code First honors, and optionally replace them with your own set of conventions. New Change Tracking API EF Code First CTP5 exposes a new set of change tracking information that enables you to access Original, Current & Stored values, and State (e.g. Added, Unchanged, Modified, Deleted).  This support is useful in a variety of scenarios. Improved Concurrency Conflict Resolution EF Code First CTP5 provides better exception messages that allow access to the affected object instance and the ability to resolve conflicts using current, original and database values.  Raw SQL Query/Command Support EF Code First CTP5 now allows raw SQL queries and commands (including SPROCs) to be executed via the SqlQuery and SqlCommand methods exposed off of the DbContext.Database property.  The results of these method calls can be materialized into object instances that can be optionally change-tracked by the DbContext.  This is useful for a variety of advanced scenarios. Full Data Annotations Support EF Code First CTP5 now supports all standard DataAnnotations within .NET, and can use them both to perform validation as well as to automatically create the appropriate database schema when EF Code First is used in a database creation scenario.  Summary EF Code First provides an elegant and powerful way to work with data.  I really like it because it is extremely clean and supports best practices, while also enabling solutions to be implemented very, very rapidly.  The code-only approach of the library means that model layers end up being flexible and easy to customize. This week’s CTP5 release further refines EF Code First and helps ensure that it will be really sweet when it ships early next year.  I recommend using NuGet to install and give it a try today.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how awesome it is. Hope this helps, Scott

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• JSF Portlets in Liferay on JBoss

  - by JBirch

  I'm currently looking at working with and deploying JSF portlets into Liferay 6.0.5, sitting on JBoss 5.1.0. I ran into a lot of trouble trying to port some JSF-y/Seam-y/EJB-y stuff I had lying around, so I thought I'd start simple and work my way up. I could generate generic portlets using the NetBeans Maven archetype for Liferay portlets absolutely fine, but it's rather irrelevant because I wanted JSF portlets I took an example JSF portlet from http://www.liferay.com/downloads/liferay-portal/community-plugins/-/software_catalog/products/5546866 and attempted to deploy into a clean, vanilla installation of Liferay 6.0.5/JBoss 5.1.0 to no avail. The log messages are reproduced at the end of this. This particular example was actually tested for GlassFish and Tomcat, so it's not particularly helpful considering I'm deplying into JBoss. I tried ripping it apart and removing the jsf implementation contained within as there is a jsf implementation shipped with JBoss (Mojarra 1.2_12, in this case). 03:16:17,173 INFO [PortletAutoDeployListener] Copying portlets for /usr/local/[REDACTED]/liferay/liferay-portal-6.0.5/deploy/richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet-1.2.war Expanding: /usr/local/[REDACTED]/liferay/liferay-portal-6.0.5/deploy/richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet-1.2.war into /tmp/20110201031617188 Copying 1 file to /tmp/20110201031617188/WEB-INF Copying 1 file to /tmp/20110201031617188/WEB-INF/classes Copying 1 file to /tmp/20110201031617188/WEB-INF/classes Copying 47 files to /usr/local/[REDACTED]/liferay/liferay-portal-6.0.5/jboss-5.1.0/server/default/deploy/richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet.war Copying 1 file to /usr/local/[REDACTED]/liferay/liferay-portal-6.0.5/jboss-5.1.0/server/default/deploy/richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet.war Deleting directory /tmp/20110201031617188 03:16:20,075 INFO [PortletAutoDeployListener] Portlets for /usr/local/[REDACTED]/liferay/liferay-portal-6.0.5/deploy/richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet-1.2.war copied successfully. Deployment will start in a few seconds. 03:16:23,632 INFO [TomcatDeployment] deploy, ctxPath=/richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet 03:16:24,446 INFO [PortletHotDeployListener] Registering portlets for richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet 03:16:24,492 INFO [faces] Init GenericFacesPortlet for portlet 1 03:16:24,495 INFO [faces] Bridge class name is org.jboss.portletbridge.AjaxPortletBridge 03:16:24,509 INFO [faces] The bridge does not support doHeaders method 03:16:24,510 INFO [faces] GenericFacesPortlet for portlet 1 initialized 03:16:24,555 INFO [PortletHotDeployListener] 1 portlet for richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet is available for use 03:16:24,627 SEVERE [webapp] Initialization of the JSF runtime either failed or did not occurr. Review the server''s log for details. java.lang.InstantiationException: org.jboss.portletbridge.context.FacesContextFactoryImpl at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Class.java:340) at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:308) at javax.faces.FactoryFinder.getImplGivenPreviousImpl(FactoryFinder.java:537) at javax.faces.FactoryFinder.getImplementationInstance(FactoryFinder.java:394) at javax.faces.FactoryFinder.access$400(FactoryFinder.java:135) at javax.faces.FactoryFinder$FactoryManager.getFactory(FactoryFinder.java:717) at javax.faces.FactoryFinder.getFactory(FactoryFinder.java:239) at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.init(FacesServlet.java:164) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.loadServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1048) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.load(StandardWrapper.java:950) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.loadOnStartup(StandardContext.java:4122) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4421) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.deployers.TomcatDeployment.performDeployInternal(TomcatDeployment.java:310) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.deployers.TomcatDeployment.performDeploy(TomcatDeployment.java:142) at org.jboss.web.deployers.AbstractWarDeployment.start(AbstractWarDeployment.java:461) at org.jboss.web.deployers.WebModule.startModule(WebModule.java:118) at org.jboss.web.deployers.WebModule.start(WebModule.java:97) at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor286.invoke(Unknown Source) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ReflectedDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedDispatcher.java:157) at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.dispatch(Invocation.java:96) at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:88) at org.jboss.mx.server.AbstractMBeanInvoker.invoke(AbstractMBeanInvoker.java:264) at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:668) at org.jboss.system.microcontainer.ServiceProxy.invoke(ServiceProxy.java:206) at $Proxy38.start(Unknown Source) at org.jboss.system.microcontainer.StartStopLifecycleAction.installAction(StartStopLifecycleAction.java:42) at org.jboss.system.microcontainer.StartStopLifecycleAction.installAction(StartStopLifecycleAction.java:37) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.action.SimpleControllerContextAction.simpleInstallAction(SimpleControllerContextAction.java:62) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.action.AccessControllerContextAction.install(AccessControllerContextAction.java:71) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractControllerContextActions.install(AbstractControllerContextActions.java:51) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractControllerContext.install(AbstractControllerContext.java:348) at org.jboss.system.microcontainer.ServiceControllerContext.install(ServiceControllerContext.java:286) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.install(AbstractController.java:1631) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.incrementState(AbstractController.java:934) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.resolveContexts(AbstractController.java:1082) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.resolveContexts(AbstractController.java:984) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.change(AbstractController.java:822) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.change(AbstractController.java:553) at org.jboss.system.ServiceController.doChange(ServiceController.java:688) at org.jboss.system.ServiceController.start(ServiceController.java:460) at org.jboss.system.deployers.ServiceDeployer.start(ServiceDeployer.java:163) at org.jboss.system.deployers.ServiceDeployer.deploy(ServiceDeployer.java:99) at org.jboss.system.deployers.ServiceDeployer.deploy(ServiceDeployer.java:46) at org.jboss.deployers.spi.deployer.helpers.AbstractSimpleRealDeployer.internalDeploy(AbstractSimpleRealDeployer.java:62) at org.jboss.deployers.spi.deployer.helpers.AbstractRealDeployer.deploy(AbstractRealDeployer.java:50) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployerWrapper.deploy(DeployerWrapper.java:171) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.doDeploy(DeployersImpl.java:1439) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.doInstallParentFirst(DeployersImpl.java:1157) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.doInstallParentFirst(DeployersImpl.java:1178) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.install(DeployersImpl.java:1098) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractControllerContext.install(AbstractControllerContext.java:348) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.install(AbstractController.java:1631) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.incrementState(AbstractController.java:934) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.resolveContexts(AbstractController.java:1082) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.resolveContexts(AbstractController.java:984) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.change(AbstractController.java:822) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.change(AbstractController.java:553) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.process(DeployersImpl.java:781) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.main.MainDeployerImpl.process(MainDeployerImpl.java:702) at org.jboss.system.server.profileservice.repository.MainDeployerAdapter.process(MainDeployerAdapter.java:117) at org.jboss.system.server.profileservice.hotdeploy.HDScanner.scan(HDScanner.java:362) at org.jboss.system.server.profileservice.hotdeploy.HDScanner.run(HDScanner.java:255) at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:441) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRunAndReset(FutureTask.java:317) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.runAndReset(FutureTask.java:150) at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$101(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:98) at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.runPeriodic(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:181) at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:205) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:885) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:907) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619) 03:16:24,629 INFO [2-facelets-portlet]] Marking servlet FacesServlet as unavailable 03:16:24,630 ERROR [2-facelets-portlet]] Servlet /richfaces-sun-jsf1.2-facelets-portlet threw load() exception javax.servlet.UnavailableException: Initialization of the JSF runtime either failed or did not occurr. Review the server''s log for details. at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.init(FacesServlet.java:172) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.loadServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1048) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.load(StandardWrapper.java:950) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.loadOnStartup(StandardContext.java:4122) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4421) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.deployers.TomcatDeployment.performDeployInternal(TomcatDeployment.java:310) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.deployers.TomcatDeployment.performDeploy(TomcatDeployment.java:142) at org.jboss.web.deployers.AbstractWarDeployment.start(AbstractWarDeployment.java:461) at org.jboss.web.deployers.WebModule.startModule(WebModule.java:118) at org.jboss.web.deployers.WebModule.start(WebModule.java:97) at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor286.invoke(Unknown Source) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ReflectedDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedDispatcher.java:157) at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.dispatch(Invocation.java:96) at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:88) at org.jboss.mx.server.AbstractMBeanInvoker.invoke(AbstractMBeanInvoker.java:264) at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:668) at org.jboss.system.microcontainer.ServiceProxy.invoke(ServiceProxy.java:206) at $Proxy38.start(Unknown Source) at org.jboss.system.microcontainer.StartStopLifecycleAction.installAction(StartStopLifecycleAction.java:42) at org.jboss.system.microcontainer.StartStopLifecycleAction.installAction(StartStopLifecycleAction.java:37) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.action.SimpleControllerContextAction.simpleInstallAction(SimpleControllerContextAction.java:62) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.action.AccessControllerContextAction.install(AccessControllerContextAction.java:71) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractControllerContextActions.install(AbstractControllerContextActions.java:51) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractControllerContext.install(AbstractControllerContext.java:348) at org.jboss.system.microcontainer.ServiceControllerContext.install(ServiceControllerContext.java:286) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.install(AbstractController.java:1631) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.incrementState(AbstractController.java:934) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.resolveContexts(AbstractController.java:1082) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.resolveContexts(AbstractController.java:984) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.change(AbstractController.java:822) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.change(AbstractController.java:553) at org.jboss.system.ServiceController.doChange(ServiceController.java:688) at org.jboss.system.ServiceController.start(ServiceController.java:460) at org.jboss.system.deployers.ServiceDeployer.start(ServiceDeployer.java:163) at org.jboss.system.deployers.ServiceDeployer.deploy(ServiceDeployer.java:99) at org.jboss.system.deployers.ServiceDeployer.deploy(ServiceDeployer.java:46) at org.jboss.deployers.spi.deployer.helpers.AbstractSimpleRealDeployer.internalDeploy(AbstractSimpleRealDeployer.java:62) at org.jboss.deployers.spi.deployer.helpers.AbstractRealDeployer.deploy(AbstractRealDeployer.java:50) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployerWrapper.deploy(DeployerWrapper.java:171) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.doDeploy(DeployersImpl.java:1439) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.doInstallParentFirst(DeployersImpl.java:1157) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.doInstallParentFirst(DeployersImpl.java:1178) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.install(DeployersImpl.java:1098) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractControllerContext.install(AbstractControllerContext.java:348) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.install(AbstractController.java:1631) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.incrementState(AbstractController.java:934) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.resolveContexts(AbstractController.java:1082) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.resolveContexts(AbstractController.java:984) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.change(AbstractController.java:822) at org.jboss.dependency.plugins.AbstractController.change(AbstractController.java:553) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImpl.process(DeployersImpl.java:781) at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.main.MainDeployerImpl.process(MainDeployerImpl.java:702) at org.jboss.system.server.profileservice.repository.MainDeployerAdapter.process(MainDeployerAdapter.java:117) at org.jboss.system.server.profileservice.hotdeploy.HDScanner.scan(HDScanner.java:362) at org.jboss.system.server.profileservice.hotdeploy.HDScanner.run(HDScanner.java:255) at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:441) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRunAndReset(FutureTask.java:317) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.runAndReset(FutureTask.java:150) at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$101(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:98) at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.runPeriodic(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:181) at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:205) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:885) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:907) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

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• Yet Another ASP.NET MVC CRUD Tutorial

  - by Ricardo Peres

  I know that I have not posted much on MVC, mostly because I don’t use it on my daily life, but since I find it so interesting, and since it is gaining such popularity, I will be talking about it much more. This time, it’s about the most basic of scenarios: CRUD. Although there are several ASP.NET MVC tutorials out there that cover ordinary CRUD operations, I couldn’t find any that would explain how we can have also AJAX, optimistic concurrency control and validation, using Entity Framework Code First, so I set out to write one! I won’t go into explaining what is MVC, Code First or optimistic concurrency control, or AJAX, I assume you are all familiar with these concepts by now. Let’s consider an hypothetical use case, products. For simplicity, we only want to be able to either view a single product or edit this product. First, we need our model: 1: public class Product 2: { 3: public Product() 4: { 5: this.Details = new HashSet<OrderDetail>(); 6: } 7:  8: [Required] 9: [StringLength(50)] 10: public String Name 11: { 12: get; 13: set; 14: } 15:  16: [Key] 17: [ScaffoldColumn(false)] 18: [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)] 19: public Int32 ProductId 20: { 21: get; 22: set; 23: } 24:  25: [Required] 26: [Range(1, 100)] 27: public Decimal Price 28: { 29: get; 30: set; 31: } 32:  33: public virtual ISet<OrderDetail> Details 34: { 35: get; 36: protected set; 37: } 38:  39: [Timestamp] 40: [ScaffoldColumn(false)] 41: public Byte[] RowVersion 42: { 43: get; 44: set; 45: } 46: } Keep in mind that this is a simple scenario. Let’s see what we have: A class Product, that maps to a product record on the database; A product has a required (RequiredAttribute) Name property which can contain up to 50 characters (StringLengthAttribute); The product’s Price must be a decimal value between 1 and 100 (RangeAttribute); It contains a set of order details, for each time that it has been ordered, which we will not talk about (Details); The record’s primary key (mapped to property ProductId) comes from a SQL Server IDENTITY column generated by the database (KeyAttribute, DatabaseGeneratedAttribute); The table uses a SQL Server ROWVERSION (previously known as TIMESTAMP) column for optimistic concurrency control mapped to property RowVersion (TimestampAttribute). Then we will need a controller for viewing product details, which will located on folder ~/Controllers under the name ProductController: 1: public class ProductController : Controller 2: { 3: [HttpGet] 4: public ViewResult Get(Int32 id = 0) 5: { 6: if (id != 0) 7: { 8: using (ProductContext ctx = new ProductContext()) 9: { 10: return (this.View("Single", ctx.Products.Find(id) ?? new Product())); 11: } 12: } 13: else 14: { 15: return (this.View("Single", new Product())); 16: } 17: } 18: } If the requested product does not exist, or one was not requested at all, one with default values will be returned. I am using a view named Single to display the product’s details, more on that later. As you can see, it delegates the loading of products to an Entity Framework context, which is defined as: 1: public class ProductContext: DbContext 2: { 3: public DbSet<Product> Products 4: { 5: get; 6: set; 7: } 8: } Like I said before, I’ll keep it simple for now, only aggregate root Product is available. The controller will use the standard routes defined by the Visual Studio ASP.NET MVC 3 template: 1: routes.MapRoute( 2: "Default", // Route name 3: "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters 4: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults 5: ); Next, we need a view for displaying the product details, let’s call it Single, and have it located under ~/Views/Product: 1: <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<Product>" %> 2: <!DOCTYPE html> 3:  4: <html> 5: <head runat="server"> 6: <title>Product</title> 7: <script src="/Scripts/jquery-1.7.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 1:  2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery-ui-1.8.19.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.validate.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: function onFailure(error) 4: { 5: } 6:  7: function onComplete(ctx) 8: { 9: } 10:  11: </script> 8: </head> 9: <body> 10: <div> 11: <% 1: : this.Html.ValidationSummary(false) %> 12: <% 1: using (this.Ajax.BeginForm("Edit", "Product", new AjaxOptions{ HttpMethod = FormMethod.Post.ToString(), OnSuccess = "onSuccess", OnFailure = "onFailure" })) { %> 13: <% 1: : this.Html.EditorForModel() %> 14: <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /> 15: <% 1: } %> 16: </div> 17: </body> 18: </html> Yes… I am using ASPX syntax… sorry about that!   I implemented an editor template for the Product class, which must be located on the ~/Views/Shared/EditorTemplates folder as file Product.ascx: 1: <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<Product>" %> 2: <div> 3: <%: this.Html.HiddenFor(model => model.ProductId) %> 4: <%: this.Html.HiddenFor(model => model.RowVersion) %> 5: <fieldset> 6: <legend>Product</legend> 7: <div class="editor-label"> 8: <%: this.Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name) %> 9: </div> 10: <div class="editor-field"> 11: <%: this.Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Name) %> 12: <%: this.Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Name) %> 13: </div> 14: <div class="editor-label"> 15: <%= this.Html.LabelFor(model => model.Price) %> 16: </div> 17: <div class="editor-field"> 18: <%= this.Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Price) %> 19: <%: this.Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Price) %> 20: </div> 21: </fieldset> 22: </div> One thing you’ll notice is, I am including both the ProductId and the RowVersion properties as hidden fields; they will come handy later or, so that we know what product and version we are editing. The other thing is the included JavaScript files: jQuery, jQuery UI and unobtrusive validations. Also, I am not using the Content extension method for translating relative URLs, because that way I would lose JavaScript intellisense for jQuery functions. OK, so, at this moment, I want to add support for AJAX and optimistic concurrency control. So I write a controller method like this: 1: [HttpPost] 2: [AjaxOnly] 3: [Authorize] 4: public JsonResult Edit(Product product) 5: { 6: if (this.TryValidateModel(product) == true) 7: { 8: using (BlogContext ctx = new BlogContext()) 9: { 10: Boolean success = false; 11:  12: ctx.Entry(product).State = (product.ProductId == 0) ? EntityState.Added : EntityState.Modified; 13:  14: try 15: { 16: success = (ctx.SaveChanges() == 1); 17: } 18: catch (DbUpdateConcurrencyException) 19: { 20: ctx.Entry(product).Reload(); 21: } 22:  23: return (this.Json(new { Success = success, ProductId = product.ProductId, RowVersion = Convert.ToBase64String(product.RowVersion) })); 24: } 25: } 26: else 27: { 28: return (this.Json(new { Success = false, ProductId = 0, RowVersion = String.Empty })); 29: } 30: } So, this method is only valid for HTTP POST requests (HttpPost), coming from AJAX (AjaxOnly, from MVC Futures), and from authenticated users (Authorize). It returns a JSON object, which is what you would normally use for AJAX requests, containing three properties: Success: a boolean flag; RowVersion: the current version of the ROWVERSION column as a Base-64 string; ProductId: the inserted product id, as coming from the database. If the product is new, it will be inserted into the database, and its primary key will be returned into the ProductId property. Success will be set to true; If a DbUpdateConcurrencyException occurs, it means that the value in the RowVersion property does not match the current ROWVERSION column value on the database, so the record must have been modified between the time that the page was loaded and the time we attempted to save the product. In this case, the controller just gets the new value from the database and returns it in the JSON object; Success will be false. Otherwise, it will be updated, and Success, ProductId and RowVersion will all have their values set accordingly. So let’s see how we can react to these situations on the client side. Specifically, we want to deal with these situations: The user is not logged in when the update/create request is made, perhaps the cookie expired; The optimistic concurrency check failed; All went well. So, let’s change our view: 1: <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<Product>" %> 2: <%@ Import Namespace="System.Web.Security" %> 3:  4: <!DOCTYPE html> 5:  6: <html> 7: <head runat="server"> 8: <title>Product</title> 9: <script src="/Scripts/jquery-1.7.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 1:  2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery-ui-1.8.19.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.validate.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: function onFailure(error) 4: { 5: window.alert('An error occurred: ' + error); 6: } 7:  8: function onSuccess(ctx) 9: { 10: if (typeof (ctx.Success) != 'undefined') 11: { 12: $('input#ProductId').val(ctx.ProductId); 13: $('input#RowVersion').val(ctx.RowVersion); 14:  15: if (ctx.Success == false) 16: { 17: window.alert('An error occurred while updating the entity: it may have been modified by third parties. Please try again.'); 18: } 19: else 20: { 21: window.alert('Saved successfully'); 22: } 23: } 24: else 25: { 26: if (window.confirm('Not logged in. Login now?') == true) 27: { 28: document.location.href = '<%: FormsAuthentication.LoginUrl %>?ReturnURL=' + document.location.pathname; 29: } 30: } 31: } 32:  33: </script> 10: </head> 11: <body> 12: <div> 13: <% 1: : this.Html.ValidationSummary(false) %> 14: <% 1: using (this.Ajax.BeginForm("Edit", "Product", new AjaxOptions{ HttpMethod = FormMethod.Post.ToString(), OnSuccess = "onSuccess", OnFailure = "onFailure" })) { %> 15: <% 1: : this.Html.EditorForModel() %> 16: <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /> 17: <% 1: } %> 18: </div> 19: </body> 20: </html> The implementation of the onSuccess function first checks if the response contains a Success property, if not, the most likely cause is the request was redirected to the login page (using Forms Authentication), because it wasn’t authenticated, so we navigate there as well, keeping the reference to the current page. It then saves the current values of the ProductId and RowVersion properties to their respective hidden fields. They will be sent on each successive post and will be used in determining if the request is for adding a new product or to updating an existing one. The only thing missing is the ability to insert a new product, after inserting/editing an existing one, which can be easily achieved using this snippet: 1: <input type="button" value="New" onclick="$('input#ProductId').val('');$('input#RowVersion').val('');"/> And that’s it.

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• SOA Suite Integration: Part 1: Building a Web Service

  - by Anthony Shorten

  Over the next few weeks I will be posting blog entries outlying the SOA Suite integration of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework. This will illustrate how easy it is to integrate by providing some samples. I will use a consistent set of features as examples. The examples will be simple and while will not illustrate ALL the possibilities it will illustrate the relative ease of integration. Think of them as a foundation. You can obviously build upon them. Now, to ease a few customers minds, this series will certainly feature the latest version of SOA Suite and the latest version of Oracle Utilities Application Framework but the principles will apply to past versions of both those products. So if you have Oracle SOA Suite 10g or are a customer of Oracle Utilities Application Framework V2.1 or above most of what I will show you will work with those versions. It is just easier in Oracle SOA Suite 11g and Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4.x. This first posting will not feature SOA Suite at all but concentrate on the capability for the Oracle Utilities Application Framework to create Web Services you can use for integration. The XML Application Integration (XAI) component of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework allows product objects to be exposed as XML based transactions or as Web Services (or both). XAI was written before Web Services became fashionable and has allowed customers of our products to provide a consistent interface into and out of our product line. XAI has been enhanced over the last few years to take advantages of the maturing landscape of Web Services in the market place to a point where it now easier to integrate to SOA infrastructure. There are a number of object types that can be exposed as Web Services: Maintenance Objects – These are the lowest level objects that can be exposed as Web Services. Customers of past versions of the product will be familiar with XAI services based upon Maintenance Objects as they used to be the only method of generating Web Services. These are still supported for background compatibility but are starting to become less popular as they were strict in their structure and were solely attribute based. To generate Maintenance Object based Web Services definition you need to use the XAI Schema Editor component. Business Objects – In Oracle Utilities Application Framework V2.1 we introduced the concept of Business Objects. These are site or industry specific objects that are based upon Maintenance Objects. These allow sites to respecify, in configuration, the structure and elements of a Maintenance Object and other Business Objects (they are true objects with support for inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation etc.). These can be exposed as Web Services. Business Services – As with Business Objects, we introduced Business Services in Oracle Utilities Application Framework V2.1 which allowed applications services and query zones to be expressed as custom services. These can then be exposed as Web Services via the Business Service definition. Service Scripts - As with Business Objects and Business Services, we introduced Service Scripts in Oracle Utilities Application Framework V2.1. These allow services and/objects to be combined into complex objects or simply expose common routines as callable scripts. These can also be defined as Web Services. For the purpose of this series we will restrict ourselves to Business Objects. The techniques can apply to any of the objects discussed above. Now, lets get to the important bit of this blog post, the creation of a Web Service. To build a Business Object, you first logon to the product and navigate to the Administration Menu by selecting the Admin Menu from the Menu action on left top of the screen (next to Home). A popup menu will appear with the menu’s available. If you do not see the Admin menu then you do not have authority to use it. Here is an example: Navigate to the B menu and select the + symbol next to the Business Object menu item. This indicates that you want to ADD a new Business Object. This menu will appear if you are running Alphabetic mode in your installation (I almost forgot that point). You will be presented with the Business Object maintenance screen. You will fill out the following on the first tab (at a minimum): Business Object – The name of the Business Object. Typically you will make it descriptive and also prefix with CM to denote it as a customization (you can easily find it if you prefix it). As I running this on my personal copy of the product I will use my initials as the prefix and call the sample Web Service “AS-User”. Description – A short description of the object to tell others what it is used for. For my example, I will use “Anthony Shorten’s User Object”. Detailed Description – You can add a long description to help other developers understand your object. I am just going to specify “Anthony Shorten’s Test Object for SOA Suite Integration”. Maintenance Object – As this Business Service is going to be based upon a Maintenance Object I will specify the desired Maintenance Object. In this example, I have decided to use the Framework object USER. Now, I chose this for a number of reasons. It is meaningful, simple and is across all our product lines. I could choose ANY maintenance object I wished to expose (including any custom ones, if I had them). Parent Business Object – If I was not using a Maintenance Object but building a child Business Object against another Business Object, then I would specify the Parent Business Object here. I am not using Parent’s so I will leave this blank. You either use Parent Business Object or Maintenance Object not both. Application Service – Business Objects like other objects are subject to security. You can attach an Application Service to an object to specify which groups of users (remember services are attached to user groups not users) have appropriate access to the object. I will use a default service provided with the product, F1-DFLTS ,as this is just a demonstration so I do not have to be too sophisticated about security. Instance Control – This allows the object to create instances in its objects. You can specify a Business Object purely to hold rules. I am being simple here so I will set it to Allow New Instances to allow the Business Object to be used to create, read, update and delete user records. The rest of the tab I will leave empty as I want this to be a very simple object. Other options allow lots of flexibility. The contents should look like this: Before saving your work, you need to navigate to the Schema tab and specify the contents of your object. I will save some time. When you create an object the schema will only contain the basic root elements of the object (in fact only the schema tag is visible). When you go to the Schema Tab, on the dashboard you will see a BO Schema zone with a solitary button. This will allow you to Generate the Schema for you from our metadata. Click on the Generate button to generate a basic schema from the metadata. You will now see a Schema with the element tags and references to the metadata of the Maintenance object (in the mapField attribute). I could spend a while outlining all the ways you can change the schema with defaults, formatting, tagging etc but the online help has plenty of great examples to illustrate this. You can use the Schema Tips zone in the for more details of the available customizations. Note: The tags are generated from the language pack you have installed. The sample is English so the tags are in English (which is the base language of all installations). If you are using a language pack then the tags will be generated in the language of the user that generated the object. At this point you can save your Business Object by pressing the Save action. At this point you have a basic Business Object based on the USER maintenance object ready for use but it is not defined as a Web Service yet. To do this you need to define the newly created Business Object as an XAI Inbound Service. The easiest and quickest way is to select + off the XAI Inbound Service off the context menu on the Business Object maintenance screen. This will prepopulate the service definition with the following: Adapter – This will be set to Business Adaptor. This indicates that the service is either Business Object, Business Service or Service Script based. Schema Type – Whether the object is a Business Object, Business Service or Service Script. In this case it is a Business Object. Schema Name – The name of the object. In this case it is the Business Object AS-User. Active – Set to Yes. This means the service is available upon startup automatically. You can enable and disable services as needed. Transaction Type – A default transaction type as this is Business Object Service. More about this in later postings. In our case we use the default Read. This means that if we only specify data and not a transaction type then the product will assume you want to issue a read against the object. You need to fill in the following: XAI Inbound Service – The name of the Web Service. Usually people use the same name as the underlying object , in the case of this example, but this can match your sites interfacing standards. By the way you can define multiple XAI Inbound Services/Web Services against the same object if you want. Description and Detail Description – Documentation for your Web Service. I just supplied some basic documentation for this demonstration. You can now save the service definition. Note: There are lots of other options on this screen that allow for behavior of your service to be specified. I will leave them blank for now. When you save the service you are issued with two new pieces of information. XAI Inbound Service Id is a randomly generated identifier used internally by the XAI Servlet. WSDL URL is the WSDL standard URL used for integration. We will take advantage of that in later posts. An example of the definition is shown below: Now you have defined the service but it will only be available when the next server restart or when you flush the data cache. XAI Inbound Services are cached for performance so the cache needs to be told of this new service. To refresh the cache you can use the Admin –> X –> XAI Command menu item. From the command dropdown select Refresh Registry and press Send Command. You will see an XML of the command sent to the server (the presence of the XML means it is finished). If you have an error around the authorization, then check your default user and password settings on the XAI Options menu item. Be careful with flushing the cache as the cache is shared (unless of course you are the only Web Service user on the system – In that case it only affects you). The Web Service is NOW available to be used. To perform a simple test of your new Web Service, navigate to the Admin –> X –> XAI Submission menu item. You will see an open XML request tab. You need to type in the request XML you want to test in the Main tab. The first tag is the XAI Inbound Service Name and the elements are as per your schema (minus the schema tag itself as that is only used internally). My example is as follows (I want to return the details of user SYSUSER) – Remember to close tags. Hitting the Save button will issue the XML and return the response according to the Business Object schema. Now before you panic, you noticed that it did not ask for credentials. It propagates the online credentials to the service call on this function. You now have a Web Service you can use for integration. We will reuse this information in subsequent posts. The process I just described can be used for ANY object in the system you want to expose. This whole process at a minimum can take under a minute. Obviously I only showed the basics but you can at least get an appreciation of the ease of defining a Web Service (just by using a browser). The next posts now build upon this. Hope you enjoyed the post.

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• Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate 2010-Part 3

  - by Tarun Arora

  Welcome back once again, in Part 1 of Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 I talked about why Performance Testing the application is important, the test tools available in Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 and various test rig topologies, in Part 2 of Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 I discussed the details of web performance & load tests as well as why it’s important to follow a goal based pattern while performance testing your application. In part 3 I’ll be discussing Test Result Analysis, Test Result Drill through, Test Report Generation, Test Run Comparison, Asp.net Profiler and some closing thoughts. Test Results – I see some creepy worms! In Part 2 we put together a web performance test and a load test, lets run the test to see load test to see how the Web site responds to the load simulation. While the load test is running you will be able to see close to real time analysis in the Load Test Analyser window. You can use the Load Test Analyser to conduct load test analysis in three ways: Monitor a running load test - A condensed set of the performance counter data is maintained in memory. To prevent the results memory requirements from growing unbounded, up to 200 samples for each performance counter are maintained. This includes 100 evenly spaced samples that span the current elapsed time of the run and the most recent 100 samples.         After the load test run is completed - The test controller spools all collected performance counter data to a database while the test is running. Additional data, such as timing details and error details, is loaded into the database when the test completes. The performance data for a completed test is loaded from the database and analysed by the Load Test Analyser. Below you can see a screen shot of the summary view, this provides key results in a format that is compact and easy to read. You can also print the load test summary, this is generated after the test has completed or been stopped.         Analyse the load test results of a previously run load test – We’ll see this in the section where i discuss comparison between two test runs. The performance counters can be plotted on the graphs. You also have the option to highlight a selected part of the test and view details, drill down to the user activity chart where you can hover over to see more details of the test run.   Generate Report => Test Run Comparisons The level of reports you can generate using the Load Test Analyser is astonishing. You have the option to create excel reports and conduct side by side analysis of two test results or to track trend analysis. The tools also allows you to export the graph data either to MS Excel or to a CSV file. You can view the ASP.NET profiler report to conduct further analysis as well. View Data and Diagnostic Attachments opens the Choose Diagnostic Data Adapter Attachment dialog box to select an adapter to analyse the result type. For example, you can select an IntelliTrace adapter, click OK and open the IntelliTrace summary for the test agent that was used in the load test.   Compare results This creates a set of reports that compares the data from two load test results using tables and bar charts. I have taken these screen shots from the MSDN documentation, I would highly recommend exploring the wealth of knowledge available on MSDN. Leaving Thoughts While load testing the application with an excessive load for a longer duration of time, i managed to bring the IIS to its knees by piling up a huge queue of requests waiting to be processed. This clearly means that the IIS had run out of threads as all the threads were busy processing existing request, one easy way of fixing this is by increasing the default number of allocated threads, but this might escalate the problem. The better suggestion is to try and drill down to the actual root cause of the problem. When ever the garbage collection runs it stops processing any pages so all requests that come in during that period are queued up, but realistically the garbage collection completes in fraction of a a second. To understand this better lets look at the .net heap, it is divided into large heap and small heap, anything greater than 85kB in size will be allocated to the Large object heap, the Large object heap is non compacting and remember large objects are expensive to move around, so if you are allocating something in the large object heap, make sure that you really need it! The small object heap on the other hand is divided into generations, so all objects that are supposed to be short-lived are suppose to live in Gen-0 and the long living objects eventually move to Gen-2 as garbage collection goes through.  As you can see in the picture below all < 85 KB size objects are first assigned to Gen-0, when Gen-0 fills up and a new object comes in and finds Gen-0 full, the garbage collection process is started, the process checks for all the dead objects and assigns them as the valid candidate for deletion to free up memory and promotes all the remaining objects in Gen-0 to Gen-1. So in the future when ever you clean up Gen-1 you have to clean up Gen-0 as well. When you fill up Gen – 0 again, all of Gen – 1 dead objects are drenched and rest are moved to Gen-2 and Gen-0 objects are moved to Gen-1 to free up Gen-0, but by this time your Garbage collection process has started to take much more time than it usually takes. Now as I mentioned earlier when garbage collection is being run all page requests that come in during that period are queued up. Does this explain why possibly page requests are getting queued up, apart from this it could also be the case that you are waiting for a long running database process to complete.      Lets explore the heap a bit more… What is really a case of crisis is when the objects are living long enough to make it to Gen-2 and then dying, this is definitely a high cost operation. But sometimes you need objects in memory, for example when you cache data you hold on to the objects because you need to use them right across the user session, which is acceptable. But if you wanted to see what extreme caching can do to your server then write a simple application that chucks in a lot of data in cache, run a load test over it for about 10-15 minutes, forcing a lot of data in memory causing the heap to run out of memory. If you get to such a state where you start running out of memory the IIS as a mode of recovery restarts the worker process. It is great way to free up all your memory in the heap but this would clear the cache. The problem with this is if the customer had 10 items in their shopping basket and that data was stored in the application cache, the user basket will now be empty forcing them either to get frustrated and go to a competitor website or if the customer is really patient, give it another try! How can you address this, well two ways of addressing this; 1. Workaround – A x86 bit processor only allows a maximum of 4GB of RAM, this means the machine effectively has around 3.4 GB of RAM available, the OS needs about 1.5 GB of RAM to run efficiently, the IIS and .net framework also need their share of memory, leaving you a heap of around 800 MB to play with. Because Team builds by default build your application in ‘Compile as any mode’ it means the application is build such that it will run in x86 bit mode if run on a x86 bit processor and run in a x64 bit mode if run on a x64 but processor. The problem with this is not all applications are really x64 bit compatible specially if you are using com objects or external libraries. So, as a quick win if you compiled your application in x86 bit mode by changing the compile as any selection to compile as x86 in the team build, you will be able to run your application on a x64 bit machine in x86 bit mode (WOW – By running Windows on Windows) and what that means is, you could use 8GB+ worth of RAM, if you take away everything else your application will roughly get a heap size of at least 4 GB to play with, which is immense. If you need a heap size of more than 4 GB you have either build a software for NASA or there is something fundamentally wrong in your application. 2. Solution – Now that you have put a workaround in place the IIS will not restart the worker process that regularly, which means you can take a breather and start working to get to the root cause of this memory leak. But this begs a question “How do I Identify possible memory leaks in my application?” Well i won’t say that there is one single tool that can tell you where the memory leak is, but trust me, ‘Performance Profiling’ is a great start point, it definitely gets you started in the right direction, let’s have a look at how. Performance Wizard - Start the Performance Wizard and select Instrumentation, this lets you measure function call counts and timings. Before running the performance session right click the performance session settings and chose properties from the context menu to bring up the Performance session properties page and as shown in the screen shot below, check the check boxes in the group ‘.NET memory profiling collection’ namely ‘Collect .NET object allocation information’ and ‘Also collect the .NET Object lifetime information’.    Now if you fire off the profiling session on your pages you will notice that the results allows you to view ‘Object Lifetime’ which shows you the number of objects that made it to Gen-0, Gen-1, Gen-2, Large heap, etc. Another great feature about the profile is that if your application has > 5% cases where objects die right after making to the Gen-2 storage a threshold alert is generated to alert you. Since you have the option to also view the most expensive methods and by capturing the IntelliTrace data you can drill in to narrow down to the line of code that is the root cause of the problem. Well now that we have seen how crucial memory management is and how easy Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 makes it for us to identify and reproduce the problem with the best of breed tools in the product. Caching One of the main ways to improve performance is Caching. Which basically means you tell the web server that instead of going to the database for each request you keep the data in the webserver and when the user asks for it you serve it from the webserver itself. BUT that can have consequences! Let’s look at some code, trust me caching code is not very intuitive, I define a cache key for almost all searches made through the common search page and cache the results. The approach works fine, first time i get the data from the database and second time data is served from the cache, significant performance improvement, EXCEPT when two users try to do the same operation and run into each other. But it is easy to handle this by adding the lock as you can see in the snippet below. So, as long as a user comes in and finds that the cache is empty, the user locks and starts to get the cache no more concurrency issues. But lets say you are processing 10 requests per second, by the time i have locked the operation to get the results from the database, 9 other users came in and found that the cache key is null so after i have come out and populated the cache they will still go in to get the results again. The application will still be faster because the next set of 10 users and so on would continue to get data from the cache. BUT if we added another null check after locking to build the cache and before actual call to the db then the 9 users who follow me would not make the extra trip to the database at all and that would really increase the performance, but didn’t i say that the code won’t be very intuitive, may be you should leave a comment you don’t want another developer to come in and think what a fresher why is he checking for the cache key null twice !!! The downside of caching is, you are storing the data outside of the database and the data could be wrong because the updates applied to the database would make the data cached at the web server out of sync. So, how do you invalidate the cache? Well if you only had one way of updating the data lets say only one entry point to the data update you can write some logic to say that every time new data is entered set the cache object to null. But this approach will not work as soon as you have several ways of feeding data to the system or your system is scaled out across a farm of web servers. The perfect solution to this is Micro Caching which means you cache the query for a set time duration and invalidate the cache after that set duration. The advantage is every time the user queries for that data with in the time span for which you have cached the results there are no calls made to the database and the data is served right from the server which makes the response immensely quick. Now figuring out the appropriate time span for which you micro cache the query results really depends on the application. Lets say your website gets 10 requests per second, if you retain the cache results for even 1 minute you will have immense performance gains. You would reduce 90% hits to the database for searching. Ever wondered why when you go to e-bookers.com or xpedia.com or yatra.com to book a flight and you click on the book button because the fare seems too exciting and you get an error message telling you that the fare is not valid any more. Yes, exactly => That is a cache failure! These travel sites or price compare engines are not going to hit the database every time you hit the compare button instead the results will be served from the cache, because the query results are micro cached, its a perfect trade-off, by micro caching the results the site gains 100% performance benefits but every once in a while annoys a customer because the fare has expired. But the trade off works in the favour of these sites as they are still able to process up to 30+ page requests per second which means cater to the site traffic by may be losing 1 customer every once in a while to a competitor who is also using a similar caching technique what are the odds that the user will not come back to their site sooner or later? Recap   Resources Below are some Key resource you might like to review. I would highly recommend the documentation, walkthroughs and videos available on MSDN. You can always make use of Fiddler to debug Web Performance Tests. Some community test extensions and plug ins available on Codeplex might also be of interest to you. The Road Ahead Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post, you may also want to read Part I and Part II if you haven’t so far. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Questions/Feedback/Suggestions, etc please leave a comment. Next ‘Load Testing in the cloud’, I’ll be working on exploring the possibilities of running Test controller/Agents in the Cloud. See you on the other side! Thank You!   Share this post : CodeProject

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• Creating static NAT blocks outbound traffic Cisco ASA

  - by natediggs

  Hi Everyone, I have two web servers sitting behind a Cisco ASA 5505, which I don't have much experience with. I'm trying to create two static NATs. One static NAT that goes to xx.xx.xx.150 and another that goes to xx.xx.xx.151. I've created the static NAT for the .150 web server and it works FINE. Incoming and outgoing traffic work great. This is the staging web server. I now need to duplicate the setup for the production web server. So, I connect the webserver to the firewall, change the public IP address on one of the NICs reboot the server and I have outbound internet access. Then I run the command: static (inside,outside) xx.xx.xx.150 192.168.1.x which is successful. I then run the command: access-list acl-outside permit tcp any host xx.xx.xx.150 eq 80 Which is successful. I then try to browse the internet and I get nothing. I try to telnet in through port 80 and I get nothing (though I'm guessing because the response to the telnet request is being blocked). I've tried this with the production web server and then I tried it with another web server that is for internal testing and have the exact same problem. Both work fine until I run the static NAT rule and then no outbound internet access. I have a feeling that it's something simple that I'm missing, but my limited experience with this device is killing me. Below I've pasted the current configuration. I'm currently trying to get this to work on the .153 server which is the internal testing server. Once I can verify that works, I'll try it with production. : Saved : ASA Version 8.2(4) ! hostname QG domain-name XX.com enable password passwd names ! interface Ethernet0/0 switchport access vlan 2 ! interface Ethernet0/1 ! interface Ethernet0/2 ! interface Ethernet0/3 ! interface Ethernet0/4 ! interface Ethernet0/5 ! interface Ethernet0/6 ! interface Ethernet0/7 ! interface Vlan1 nameif inside security-level 100 ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 ! interface Vlan2 nameif outside security-level 0 ip address XX.XX.XX.148 255.255.255.0 ! interface Vlan3 shutdown no forward interface Vlan1 nameif dmz security-level 50 ip address dhcp ! boot system disk0:/asa824.bin ftp mode passive clock timezone EST -5 clock summer-time EDT recurring dns server-group DefaultDNS domain-name fw.XXgroup.com same-security-traffic permit inter-interface access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.150 eq www access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.150 eq https access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.151 eq www access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.151 eq https access-list acl-outside extended permit tcp any host XX.XX.XX.153 eq www access-list inside_access_in extended permit ip 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 any access-list inside_nat0_outbound extended permit ip any 192.168.1.32 255.255.255.240 pager lines 24 logging enable logging asdm informational mtu inside 1500 mtu outside 1500 mtu dmz 1500 ip local pool VPNIPs 192.168.1.35-192.168.1.44 mask 255.255.255.0 icmp unreachable rate-limit 1 burst-size 1 asdm image disk0:/asdm-635.bin no asdm history enable arp timeout 14400 global (outside) 1 interface nat (inside) 0 access-list inside_nat0_outbound nat (inside) 1 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 static (inside,outside) XX.XX.XX150 192.168.1.100 netmask 255.255.255.255 static (inside,outside) XX.XX.XX153 192.168.1.102 netmask 255.255.255.255 access-group acl-outside in interface outside route outside 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 XX.XX.XX129 1 timeout xlate 3:00:00 timeout conn 1:00:00 half-closed 0:10:00 udp 0:02:00 icmp 0:00:02 timeout sunrpc 0:10:00 h323 0:05:00 h225 1:00:00 mgcp 0:05:00 mgcp-pat 0:05:00 timeout sip 0:30:00 sip_media 0:02:00 sip-invite 0:03:00 sip-disconnect 0:02:00 timeout sip-provisional-media 0:02:00 uauth 0:05:00 absolute timeout tcp-proxy-reassembly 0:01:00 dynamic-access-policy-record DfltAccessPolicy aaa authorization command LOCAL http server enable http 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 inside http 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 outside no snmp-server location no snmp-server contact snmp-server enable traps snmp authentication linkup linkdown coldstart crypto ipsec transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA esp-3des esp-sha-hmac crypto ipsec security-association lifetime seconds 28800 crypto ipsec security-association lifetime kilobytes 4608000 crypto dynamic-map outside_dyn_map 20 set pfs group1 crypto dynamic-map outside_dyn_map 20 set transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA crypto map outside_map 65535 ipsec-isakmp dynamic outside_dyn_map crypto map outside_map interface outside crypto isakmp enable outside crypto isakmp policy 10 authentication crack encryption 3des hash sha group 2 lifetime 86400 no crypto isakmp nat-traversal client-update enable telnet timeout 5 ssh timeout 5 console timeout 0 dhcpd auto_config outside ! dhcpd address 192.168.1.2-192.168.1.33 inside dhcpd dns 208.77.88.4 interface inside dhcpd enable inside ! threat-detection basic-threat threat-detection statistics access-list no threat-detection statistics tcp-intercept webvpn enable outside svc image disk0:/sslclient-win-1.1.0.154.pkg 1 svc image disk0:/anyconnect-win-2.5.2019-k9.pkg 2 svc enable group-policy ATSAdmin internal group-policy ATSAdmin attributes dns-server value 208.77.88.4 208.85.174.9 vpn-tunnel-protocol IPSec svc webvpn webvpn url-list none svc keep-installer installed svc rekey method ssl svc ask enable username qgadmin password /oHfeGQ/R.bd3KPR encrypted privilege 15 username benl password 0HNIGQNI0uruJvhW encrypted privilege 0 username benl attributes vpn-group-policy ATSAdmin username kuzma password rH7MM7laoynyvf9U encrypted privilege 0 username kuzma attributes vpn-group-policy ATSAdmin username nate password BXHOURyT37e4O5mt encrypted privilege 0 username nate attributes vpn-group-policy ATSAdmin tunnel-group ATSAdmin type remote-access tunnel-group ATSAdmin general-attributes address-pool VPNIPs default-group-policy ATSAdmin tunnel-group SSLVPN type remote-access tunnel-group SSLVPN general-attributes address-pool VPNIPs default-group-policy ATSAdmin ! class-map inspection_default match default-inspection-traffic ! ! policy-map type inspect dns preset_dns_map parameters message-length maximum 512 policy-map global_policy class inspection_default inspect dns preset_dns_map inspect ftp inspect h323 h225 inspect h323 ras inspect rsh inspect rtsp inspect esmtp inspect sqlnet inspect skinny inspect sunrpc inspect xdmcp inspect sip inspect netbios inspect tftp inspect ip-options ! service-policy global_policy global privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command perfmon privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command ping privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command who privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command logging privilege cmd level 3 mode exec command failover privilege show level 5 mode exec command running-config privilege show level 3 mode exec command reload privilege show level 3 mode exec command mode privilege show level 3 mode exec command firewall privilege show level 3 mode exec command interface privilege show level 3 mode exec command clock privilege show level 3 mode exec command dns-hosts privilege show level 3 mode exec command access-list privilege show level 3 mode exec command logging privilege show level 3 mode exec command ip privilege show level 3 mode exec command failover privilege show level 3 mode exec command asdm privilege show level 3 mode exec command arp privilege show level 3 mode exec command route privilege show level 3 mode exec command ospf privilege show level 3 mode exec command aaa-server privilege show level 3 mode exec command aaa privilege show level 3 mode exec command crypto privilege show level 3 mode exec command vpn-sessiondb privilege show level 3 mode exec command ssh privilege show level 3 mode exec command dhcpd privilege show level 3 mode exec command vpn privilege show level 3 mode exec command blocks privilege show level 3 mode exec command uauth privilege show level 3 mode configure command interface privilege show level 3 mode configure command clock privilege show level 3 mode configure command access-list privilege show level 3 mode configure command logging privilege show level 3 mode configure command ip privilege show level 3 mode configure command failover privilege show level 5 mode configure command asdm privilege show level 3 mode configure command arp privilege show level 3 mode configure command route privilege show level 3 mode configure command aaa-server privilege show level 3 mode configure command aaa privilege show level 3 mode configure command crypto privilege show level 3 mode configure command ssh privilege show level 3 mode configure command dhcpd privilege show level 5 mode configure command privilege privilege clear level 3 mode exec command dns-hosts privilege clear level 3 mode exec command logging privilege clear level 3 mode exec command arp privilege clear level 3 mode exec command aaa-server privilege clear level 3 mode exec command crypto privilege cmd level 3 mode configure command failover privilege clear level 3 mode configure command logging privilege clear level 3 mode configure command arp privilege clear level 3 mode configure command crypto privilege clear level 3 mode configure command aaa-server prompt hostname context call-home profile CiscoTAC-1 no active destination address http https://tools.cisco.com/its/service/oddce/services/DDCEService destination address email [email protected] destination transport-method http subscribe-to-alert-group diagnostic subscribe-to-alert-group environment subscribe-to-alert-group inventory periodic monthly subscribe-to-alert-group configuration periodic monthly subscribe-to-alert-group telemetry periodic daily Cryptochecksum:0ed0580e151af288d865f4f3603d792a : end asdm image disk0:/asdm-635.bin no asdm history enable

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• How to find and fix performance problems in ORM powered applications

  - by FransBouma

  Once in a while we get requests about how to fix performance problems with our framework. As it comes down to following the same steps and looking into the same things every single time, I decided to write a blogpost about it instead, so more people can learn from this and solve performance problems in their O/R mapper powered applications. In some parts it's focused on LLBLGen Pro but it's also usable for other O/R mapping frameworks, as the vast majority of performance problems in O/R mapper powered applications are not specific for a certain O/R mapper framework. Too often, the developer looks at the wrong part of the application, trying to fix what isn't a problem in that part, and getting frustrated that 'things are so slow with <insert your favorite framework X here>'. I'm in the O/R mapper business for a long time now (almost 10 years, full time) and as it's a small world, we O/R mapper developers know almost all tricks to pull off by now: we all know what to do to make task ABC faster and what compromises (because there are almost always compromises) to deal with if we decide to make ABC faster that way. Some O/R mapper frameworks are faster in X, others in Y, but you can be sure the difference is mainly a result of a compromise some developers are willing to deal with and others aren't. That's why the O/R mapper frameworks on the market today are different in many ways, even though they all fetch and save entities from and to a database. I'm not suggesting there's no room for improvement in today's O/R mapper frameworks, there always is, but it's not a matter of 'the slowness of the application is caused by the O/R mapper' anymore. Perhaps query generation can be optimized a bit here, row materialization can be optimized a bit there, but it's mainly coming down to milliseconds. Still worth it if you're a framework developer, but it's not much compared to the time spend inside databases and in user code: if a complete fetch takes 40ms or 50ms (from call to entity object collection), it won't make a difference for your application as that 10ms difference won't be noticed. That's why it's very important to find the real locations of the problems so developers can fix them properly and don't get frustrated because their quest to get a fast, performing application failed. Performance tuning basics and rules Finding and fixing performance problems in any application is a strict procedure with four prescribed steps: isolate, analyze, interpret and fix, in that order. It's key that you don't skip a step nor make assumptions: these steps help you find the reason of a problem which seems to be there, and how to fix it or leave it as-is. Skipping a step, or when you assume things will be bad/slow without doing analysis will lead to the path of premature optimization and won't actually solve your problems, only create new ones. The most important rule of finding and fixing performance problems in software is that you have to understand what 'performance problem' actually means. Most developers will say "when a piece of software / code is slow, you have a performance problem". But is that actually the case? If I write a Linq query which will aggregate, group and sort 5 million rows from several tables to produce a resultset of 10 rows, it might take more than a couple of milliseconds before that resultset is ready to be consumed by other logic. If I solely look at the Linq query, the code consuming the resultset of the 10 rows and then look at the time it takes to complete the whole procedure, it will appear to me to be slow: all that time taken to produce and consume 10 rows? But if you look closer, if you analyze and interpret the situation, you'll see it does a tremendous amount of work, and in that light it might even be extremely fast. With every performance problem you encounter, always do realize that what you're trying to solve is perhaps not a technical problem at all, but a perception problem. The second most important rule you have to understand is based on the old saying "Penny wise, Pound Foolish": the part which takes e.g. 5% of the total time T for a given task isn't worth optimizing if you have another part which takes a much larger part of the total time T for that same given task. Optimizing parts which are relatively insignificant for the total time taken is not going to bring you better results overall, even if you totally optimize that part away. This is the core reason why analysis of the complete set of application parts which participate in a given task is key to being successful in solving performance problems: No analysis -> no problem -> no solution. One warning up front: hunting for performance will always include making compromises. Fast software can be made maintainable, but if you want to squeeze as much performance out of your software, you will inevitably be faced with the dilemma of compromising one or more from the group {readability, maintainability, features} for the extra performance you think you'll gain. It's then up to you to decide whether it's worth it. In almost all cases it's not. The reason for this is simple: the vast majority of performance problems can be solved by implementing the proper algorithms, the ones with proven Big O-characteristics so you know the performance you'll get plus you know the algorithm will work. The time taken by the algorithm implementing code is inevitable: you already implemented the best algorithm. You might find some optimizations on the technical level but in general these are minor. Let's look at the four steps to see how they guide us through the quest to find and fix performance problems. Isolate The first thing you need to do is to isolate the areas in your application which are assumed to be slow. For example, if your application is a web application and a given page is taking several seconds or even minutes to load, it's a good candidate to check out. It's important to start with the isolate step because it allows you to focus on a single code path per area with a clear begin and end and ignore the rest. The rest of the steps are taken per identified problematic area. Keep in mind that isolation focuses on tasks in an application, not code snippets. A task is something that's started in your application by either another task or the user, or another program, and has a beginning and an end. You can see a task as a piece of functionality offered by your application.  Analyze Once you've determined the problem areas, you have to perform analysis on the code paths of each area, to see where the performance problems occur and which areas are not the problem. This is a multi-layered effort: an application which uses an O/R mapper typically consists of multiple parts: there's likely some kind of interface (web, webservice, windows etc.), a part which controls the interface and business logic, the O/R mapper part and the RDBMS, all connected with either a network or inter-process connections provided by the OS or other means. Each of these parts, including the connectivity plumbing, eat up a part of the total time it takes to complete a task, e.g. load a webpage with all orders of a given customer X. To understand which parts participate in the task / area we're investigating and how much they contribute to the total time taken to complete the task, analysis of each participating task is essential. Start with the code you wrote which starts the task, analyze the code and track the path it follows through your application. What does the code do along the way, verify whether it's correct or not. Analyze whether you have implemented the right algorithms in your code for this particular area. Remember we're looking at one area at a time, which means we're ignoring all other code paths, just the code path of the current problematic area, from begin to end and back. Don't dig in and start optimizing at the code level just yet. We're just analyzing. If your analysis reveals big architectural stupidity, it's perhaps a good idea to rethink the architecture at this point. For the rest, we're analyzing which means we collect data about what could be wrong, for each participating part of the complete application. Reviewing the code you wrote is a good tool to get deeper understanding of what is going on for a given task but ultimately it lacks precision and overview what really happens: humans aren't good code interpreters, computers are. We therefore need to utilize tools to get deeper understanding about which parts contribute how much time to the total task, triggered by which other parts and for example how many times are they called. There are two different kind of tools which are necessary: .NET profilers and O/R mapper / RDBMS profilers. .NET profiling .NET profilers (e.g. dotTrace by JetBrains or Ants by Red Gate software) show exactly which pieces of code are called, how many times they're called, and the time it took to run that piece of code, at the method level and sometimes even at the line level. The .NET profilers are essential tools for understanding whether the time taken to complete a given task / area in your application is consumed by .NET code, where exactly in your code, the path to that code, how many times that code was called by other code and thus reveals where hotspots are located: the areas where a solution can be found. Importantly, they also reveal which areas can be left alone: remember our penny wise pound foolish saying: if a profiler reveals that a group of methods are fast, or don't contribute much to the total time taken for a given task, ignore them. Even if the code in them is perhaps complex and looks like a candidate for optimization: you can work all day on that, it won't matter.  As we're focusing on a single area of the application, it's best to start profiling right before you actually activate the task/area. Most .NET profilers support this by starting the application without starting the profiling procedure just yet. You navigate to the particular part which is slow, start profiling in the profiler, in your application you perform the actions which are considered slow, and afterwards you get a snapshot in the profiler. The snapshot contains the data collected by the profiler during the slow action, so most data is produced by code in the area to investigate. This is important, because it allows you to stay focused on a single area. O/R mapper and RDBMS profiling .NET profilers give you a good insight in the .NET side of things, but not in the RDBMS side of the application. As this article is about O/R mapper powered applications, we're also looking at databases, and the software making it possible to consume the database in your application: the O/R mapper. To understand which parts of the O/R mapper and database participate how much to the total time taken for task T, we need different tools. There are two kind of tools focusing on O/R mappers and database performance profiling: O/R mapper profilers and RDBMS profilers. For O/R mapper profilers, you can look at LLBLGen Prof by hibernating rhinos or the Linq to Sql/LLBLGen Pro profiler by Huagati. Hibernating rhinos also have profilers for other O/R mappers like NHibernate (NHProf) and Entity Framework (EFProf) and work the same as LLBLGen Prof. For RDBMS profilers, you have to look whether the RDBMS vendor has a profiler. For example for SQL Server, the profiler is shipped with SQL Server, for Oracle it's build into the RDBMS, however there are also 3rd party tools. Which tool you're using isn't really important, what's important is that you get insight in which queries are executed during the task / area we're currently focused on and how long they took. Here, the O/R mapper profilers have an advantage as they collect the time it took to execute the query from the application's perspective so they also collect the time it took to transport data across the network. This is important because a query which returns a massive resultset or a resultset with large blob/clob/ntext/image fields takes more time to get transported across the network than a small resultset and a database profiler doesn't take this into account most of the time. Another tool to use in this case, which is more low level and not all O/R mappers support it (though LLBLGen Pro and NHibernate as well do) is tracing: most O/R mappers offer some form of tracing or logging system which you can use to collect the SQL generated and executed and often also other activity behind the scenes. While tracing can produce a tremendous amount of data in some cases, it also gives insight in what's going on. Interpret After we've completed the analysis step it's time to look at the data we've collected. We've done code reviews to see whether we've done anything stupid and which parts actually take place and if the proper algorithms have been implemented. We've done .NET profiling to see which parts are choke points and how much time they contribute to the total time taken to complete the task we're investigating. We've performed O/R mapper profiling and RDBMS profiling to see which queries were executed during the task, how many queries were generated and executed and how long they took to complete, including network transportation. All this data reveals two things: which parts are big contributors to the total time taken and which parts are irrelevant. Both aspects are very important. The parts which are irrelevant (i.e. don't contribute significantly to the total time taken) can be ignored from now on, we won't look at them. The parts which contribute a lot to the total time taken are important to look at. We now have to first look at the .NET profiler results, to see whether the time taken is consumed in our own code, in .NET framework code, in the O/R mapper itself or somewhere else. For example if most of the time is consumed by DbCommand.ExecuteReader, the time it took to complete the task is depending on the time the data is fetched from the database. If there was just 1 query executed, according to tracing or O/R mapper profilers / RDBMS profilers, check whether that query is optimal, uses indexes or has to deal with a lot of data. Interpret means that you follow the path from begin to end through the data collected and determine where, along the path, the most time is contributed. It also means that you have to check whether this was expected or is totally unexpected. My previous example of the 10 row resultset of a query which groups millions of rows will likely reveal that a long time is spend inside the database and almost no time is spend in the .NET code, meaning the RDBMS part contributes the most to the total time taken, the rest is compared to that time, irrelevant. Considering the vastness of the source data set, it's expected this will take some time. However, does it need tweaking? Perhaps all possible tweaks are already in place. In the interpret step you then have to decide that further action in this area is necessary or not, based on what the analysis results show: if the analysis results were unexpected and in the area where the most time is contributed to the total time taken is room for improvement, action should be taken. If not, you can only accept the situation and move on. In all cases, document your decision together with the analysis you've done. If you decide that the perceived performance problem is actually expected due to the nature of the task performed, it's essential that in the future when someone else looks at the application and starts asking questions you can answer them properly and new analysis is only necessary if situations changed. Fix After interpreting the analysis results you've concluded that some areas need adjustment. This is the fix step: you're actively correcting the performance problem with proper action targeted at the real cause. In many cases related to O/R mapper powered applications it means you'll use different features of the O/R mapper to achieve the same goal, or apply optimizations at the RDBMS level. It could also mean you apply caching inside your application (compromise memory consumption over performance) to avoid unnecessary re-querying data and re-consuming the results. After applying a change, it's key you re-do the analysis and interpretation steps: compare the results and expectations with what you had before, to see whether your actions had any effect or whether it moved the problem to a different part of the application. Don't fall into the trap to do partly analysis: do the full analysis again: .NET profiling and O/R mapper / RDBMS profiling. It might very well be that the changes you've made make one part faster but another part significantly slower, in such a way that the overall problem hasn't changed at all. Performance tuning is dealing with compromises and making choices: to use one feature over the other, to accept a higher memory footprint, to go away from the strict-OO path and execute queries directly onto the RDBMS, these are choices and compromises which will cross your path if you want to fix performance problems with respect to O/R mappers or data-access and databases in general. In most cases it's not a big issue: alternatives are often good choices too and the compromises aren't that hard to deal with. What is important is that you document why you made a choice, a compromise: which analysis data, which interpretation led you to the choice made. This is key for good maintainability in the years to come. Most common performance problems with O/R mappers Below is an incomplete list of common performance problems related to data-access / O/R mappers / RDBMS code. It will help you with fixing the hotspots you found in the interpretation step. SELECT N+1: (Lazy-loading specific). Lazy loading triggered performance bottlenecks. Consider a list of Orders bound to a grid. You have a Field mapped onto a related field in Order, Customer.CompanyName. Showing this column in the grid will make the grid fetch (indirectly) for each row the Customer row. This means you'll get for the single list not 1 query (for the orders) but 1+(the number of orders shown) queries. To solve this: use eager loading using a prefetch path to fetch the customers with the orders. SELECT N+1 is easy to spot with an O/R mapper profiler or RDBMS profiler: if you see a lot of identical queries executed at once, you have this problem. Prefetch paths using many path nodes or sorting, or limiting. Eager loading problem. Prefetch paths can help with performance, but as 1 query is fetched per node, it can be the number of data fetched in a child node is bigger than you think. Also consider that data in every node is merged on the client within the parent. This is fast, but it also can take some time if you fetch massive amounts of entities. If you keep fetches small, you can use tuning parameters like the ParameterizedPrefetchPathThreshold setting to get more optimal queries. Deep inheritance hierarchies of type Target Per Entity/Type. If you use inheritance of type Target per Entity / Type (each type in the inheritance hierarchy is mapped onto its own table/view), fetches will join subtype- and supertype tables in many cases, which can lead to a lot of performance problems if the hierarchy has many types. With this problem, keep inheritance to a minimum if possible, or switch to a hierarchy of type Target Per Hierarchy, which means all entities in the inheritance hierarchy are mapped onto the same table/view. Of course this has its own set of drawbacks, but it's a compromise you might want to take. Fetching massive amounts of data by fetching large lists of entities. LLBLGen Pro supports paging (and limiting the # of rows returned), which is often key to process through large sets of data. Use paging on the RDBMS if possible (so a query is executed which returns only the rows in the page requested). When using paging in a web application, be sure that you switch server-side paging on on the datasourcecontrol used. In this case, paging on the grid alone is not enough: this can lead to fetching a lot of data which is then loaded into the grid and paged there. Keep note that analyzing queries for paging could lead to the false assumption that paging doesn't occur, e.g. when the query contains a field of type ntext/image/clob/blob and DISTINCT can't be applied while it should have (e.g. due to a join): the datareader will do DISTINCT filtering on the client. this is a little slower but it does perform paging functionality on the data-reader so it won't fetch all rows even if the query suggests it does. Fetch massive amounts of data because blob/clob/ntext/image fields aren't excluded. LLBLGen Pro supports field exclusion for queries. You can exclude fields (also in prefetch paths) per query to avoid fetching all fields of an entity, e.g. when you don't need them for the logic consuming the resultset. Excluding fields can greatly reduce the amount of time spend on data-transport across the network. Use this optimization if you see that there's a big difference between query execution time on the RDBMS and the time reported by the .NET profiler for the ExecuteReader method call. Doing client-side aggregates/scalar calculations by consuming a lot of data. If possible, try to formulate a scalar query or group by query using the projection system or GetScalar functionality of LLBLGen Pro to do data consumption on the RDBMS server. It's far more efficient to process data on the RDBMS server than to first load it all in memory, then traverse the data in-memory to calculate a value. Using .ToList() constructs inside linq queries. It might be you use .ToList() somewhere in a Linq query which makes the query be run partially in-memory. Example: var q = from c in metaData.Customers.ToList() where c.Country=="Norway" select c; This will actually fetch all customers in-memory and do an in-memory filtering, as the linq query is defined on an IEnumerable<T>, and not on the IQueryable<T>. Linq is nice, but it can often be a bit unclear where some parts of a Linq query might run. Fetching all entities to delete into memory first. To delete a set of entities it's rather inefficient to first fetch them all into memory and then delete them one by one. It's more efficient to execute a DELETE FROM ... WHERE query on the database directly to delete the entities in one go. LLBLGen Pro supports this feature, and so do some other O/R mappers. It's not always possible to do this operation in the context of an O/R mapper however: if an O/R mapper relies on a cache, these kind of operations are likely not supported because they make it impossible to track whether an entity is actually removed from the DB and thus can be removed from the cache. Fetching all entities to update with an expression into memory first. Similar to the previous point: it is more efficient to update a set of entities directly with a single UPDATE query using an expression instead of fetching the entities into memory first and then updating the entities in a loop, and afterwards saving them. It might however be a compromise you don't want to take as it is working around the idea of having an object graph in memory which is manipulated and instead makes the code fully aware there's a RDBMS somewhere. Conclusion Performance tuning is almost always about compromises and making choices. It's also about knowing where to look and how the systems in play behave and should behave. The four steps I provided should help you stay focused on the real problem and lead you towards the solution. Knowing how to optimally use the systems participating in your own code (.NET framework, O/R mapper, RDBMS, network/services) is key for success as well as knowing what's going on inside the application you built. I hope you'll find this guide useful in tracking down performance problems and dealing with them in a useful way.  

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• Install Control Center Agent on Oracle Application Server

  - by qianqian.wu

  Control Center Agent (CCA) The Control Center Agent is the OWB component that runs the Template Mappings in the Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J) server; also referred to as the J2EE Runtime. The Control Center Agent provides a Java-based runtime environment that can be installed on Oracle and non-Oracle database hosts. The Control Center Agent provides fundamental infrastructure for the heterogeneous, Code Template-based mapping support and Web services-related features of OWB in this release. In Oracle Warehouse Builder 11gR2 the Control Center Agent, by default will run in the built-in OC4J that is bundled in the Oracle Home. Besides that, you also have ability to install the Control Center Agent in an Oracle Application Server install. In this article, you will find step-by-step instructions how to install the Control Center Agent on an Oracle Application Server instance. The instructions cover the following tasks: Task 1: Install and Configure the Application Server Task 2: Deploy the Control Center Agent to the Application Server Task 3: Optional Configuration Tasks   Task 1: Install and Configure the Application Server Before configuring the Application Server, you need to install it from Oracle Application Server CD-ROM, or by downloading the installation program from Oracle Technology Network (OTN). Once the installation is completed, you are ready to configure the Application Server. The purpose of the configuration task is to make sure the Control Center Agent ear file can be deployed and runs in the Application Server successfully. The essential configuration tasks are outlined below: · Modify the OC4J Startup Script · Set up Control Center Agent Server Side Logging · Set up Audit Table Data Source · Copy ct_permissions.properties File · Set up Security Roles for Control Center Agent · Create JMS Queues · Install JDBC Drivers to OC4J Modify the OC4J Startup Script The OC4J startup script “opmn.xml” is located in Application Server configuration directory, $AS_HOME/opmn/conf. $AS_HOME stands for the root home directory of the application server. Open the file opmn.xml in a text editor, and alter the contents of the file as displayed in the following sample. You need to make sure that: The MaxPerSize is set to 128M. This is to ensure that you allocate enough PermGen space to OC4J to run Control Center Agent. This will prevent java.lang.OutOfMemoryError when running the agent. The Python.path sets the path for the Python library files used by the Control Center Agent: jython_lib.zip and jython_owblib.jar. These two files are in the $OWB_HOME/owb/lib/int directory, where $OWB_HOME is the directory where owb is installed. · The km_security_needed determines whether restrictions will be applied to the kinds of operating system commands allowed to be executed by the OWB Code Template script executed by Control Center Agent. Setting km_security_needed to “true” enforces such restriction while setting it to “false” removes such restrictions. Set up Control Center Agent Server Side Logging Ensure that you are in the Application Server configuration directory, $AS_HOME/j2ee/home/config. Open the file j2ee-logging.xml in a text editor and add the following lines to the log handler section. The jrt-internal-log-handler is the handler used by Control Center Agent runtime logger to create log files. Then add the following entry into the loggers section to create the logger for Control Center Agent runtime auditing. Set up Audit Table Data Source To enable Audit Table logging, a managed data source and connection pool need to be set up before Control Center Agent deployment. Ensure that you are in the Application Server configuration directory, $AS_HOME/j2ee/home/config. Open the file data-sources.xml in a text editor. Define the audit data source shown below in the file, <managed-data-source name="AuditDS" connection-pool-name="OWBSYS Audit   Connection Pool" jndi-name="jdbc/AuditDS"/> <connection-pool name="OWBSYS Audit Connection Pool">   <connection-factory factory-class="oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleDataSource"     user="owbsys_audit" password="owbsys_audit"     url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@//localhost:1521/ORCL"/> </connection-pool> Copy ct_permissions.properties File The ct_permissions.properties can be obtained from $OWB_HOME /owb/jrt/config/ directory. You need to copy the file to $AS_HOME/j2ee/home/config directory.This properties file takes effect when the setting km-security is set to true in Control Center Agent. By default the ALLOWED_CMD is commented out in ct_permissions.properties file. This prevents all system command from being invoked from scripts executed in Control Center Agent (when km-security is set to true). To allow certain system commands to be invoked, ALLOWED_CMD needs to be uncommented out, and the system commands (allowed to be invoked) need to be added to the ALLOWED_CMD. Set up Security Roles for Control Center Agent You can set up the Control Center Agent security roles through Oracle Enterprise Manager. In a web browser, navigate to Enterprise Manager Homepage (e.g. http://hostname:8889/em). 1. Log in using the oc4jadmin credentials. After the Cluster Topology page is loaded, click home (the OC4J instance). This takes you to the home page of the OC4J instance. On the OC4J home screen, click the Administration tab. On the Administration Tasks screen, expand Security. Click the task icon next to Security Providers. 2. On Security Providers page click on the button “Instance Level Security”. On Instance Level Security page, go to “Realms” tab. You will see a row for the default realm “jazn.com” in the results table. It has a “Roles” column and a “Users” column. Click on the number in “Roles” column. In the “Roles” page it will display all the roles available for the realm. Click on “Create” button to create a new role “OWB_J2EE_ EXECUTOR”. 3. On the Add Role screen, enter Name OWB_J2EE_EXECUTOR, and click OK. 4. Follow the same steps as before, and create a new role “OWB_J2EE_OPERATOR”. 5. Assign role “oc4j-administrators” and “OWB_J2EE_EXECUTOR” to the role “OWB_J2EE_OPERATOR” by moving these roles from “Available Roles” and click “OK” to save. 6. Go back to Instance Level Security page and create a new role “OWB_J2EE_ADMINISTRATOR”. 7. Assign roles “OWB_J2EE_ OPERATOR” and “OWB_J2EE_EXECUTOR” to the role “OWB_J2EE_ ADMINISTRATOR” by moving these roles from “Available Roles” and click “OK” to save. 8.Go back to Instance Level Security page. This time, click on the number in “Users” column for the realm “jazn.com”. In the “Users” page, it shows all the users defined for this realm. Locate the user “oc4jadmin” in the results table and click on it. 9. Assign the roles “OWB_J2EE_ADMINISTRATOR” and “oc4j-app-administrators” to this user by moving the role from the “Available Roles” selection box to “Selected Roles” box and click “Apply” to save. 10. Go back to Instance Level Security page and create a new role “OWB_INTERNAL_USERS”, assign no user or role to this role. Simply click “OK” to create this role. Now you have finished creating the security roles required for Control Center Agent. Create JMS Queues You need to create two JMS queues for Control Center Agent: owbQueue and abort_owbQueue. 1. Now go to OC4J home Page. On the OC4J home screen, click the Administration tab. On the Administration Tasks screen, expand Services and then expand Enterprise Messaging Service. Click the task icon next to JMS Destinations. 2. On JMS Destinations page, click “Create New” button to create a new JMS queue. On Add Destination page, choose “Queue” as Destination Type. Put “owbQueue” as Destination Name. Select “In Memory Persistence Only” as the Persistence Type and put “jms/owbQueue” as JNDI Location and click on “OK” to finish. 3. Follow the same instruction as above to create the owb_abortQueue. Now you have finished creating the JMS queues required for Control Center Agent. Install JDBC Drivers to OC4J In order to execute Code Templates using commercial databases other than Oracle, e.g. DB2, SQL Server etc, the corresponding jdbc driver files need to be added to $AS_HOME/j2ee/home/applib directory. 1. To install other JDBC drivers to OC4J, first obtain the .jar file containing the JDBC driver. All the external JDBC drivers .jar files can be found in the directory: $OWB_HOME/owb/lib/ext/. For DB2, the files needed are db2jcc.jar and db2jcc_license_cu.jar. For SQL Server the file is sqljdbc.jar. For sunopsis JDBC drivers, the file needed is snpsxmlo.jar. 2. Copy the required JDBC driver file into the directory $AS_HOME/j2ee/home/applib. Now you have finished the Application Server configuration. To make the configuration to take an effect, you need to restart the Application Server.   Task 2: Deploy the Control Center Agent to the Application Server Now you can deploy the Control Center Agent to the Application Server. In a web browser, navigate to Enterprise Manager Homepage (e.g. http://hostname:8889/em). 1. Log in using the oc4jadmin credentials. After the Cluster Topology page is loaded, click home (the OC4J instance). This takes you to the home page of the OC4J instance. On the OC4J home screen, click the Applications tab. Click Deploy to begin deploying Control Center Agent. 2. On the Deploy: Select Archive screen, under Archive, select Archive is present on local host. Upload the archive to the server where Application Server Control is running. Click Browse and locate the jrt.ear file in the $OWB_HOME/owb/jrt/applications directory. Under Deployment Plan, select Automatically create a new deployment plan. Click Next. 3. Wait for the ear file to be uploaded to Application Server. On the Deploy: Application Attributes screen, enter Application Name jrt, and Context Root jrt. Leave the other attributes at their default values. Click Next. 4. On Deploy: Deployment Settings screen, leave all attributes at their default values, and click Deploy. This will take about 1 minute or so and when the application is deployed successfully, a confirmation message will be displayed. Now the Control Center Agent is started automatically. Go back to OC4J home page and click on Applications tab to make sure the deployed application jrt is showing in the applications list.   Task 3: Optional Configuration Tasks The optional configuration tasks contain: · Secure Control Center Agent Web Service · Setting the PATH Environment Variable Secure Control Center Agent Web Service If you want to use JRTWebService with a secure website, you need to do the following steps, 1. Create a file “secure-web-site.xml” in the $AS_HOME/j2ee/home/config directory. The file can be obtained from $OWB_HOME/owb/jrt/config directory. A sample secure-web-site.xml is shown as below. We need to modify the “protocol” to “https”, and “secure” to “true”, also choose an port as the secure http port. Also we need to add the entry “ssl-config” in the file. Remember to use the absolute path for the key store file. 2. Modify the file “server.xml” that is located at $AS_HOME/j2ee/home/config directory. Then add the <web-site> element in the file for the secure-web-site. 3. Create a key store file “serverkeystore.jks” in the $AS_HOME/j2ee/home/config directory. The file can be obtained from $OWB_HOME/owb/jrt/config directory. After the three files are altered, restart the application server. Now you can access the JRTWebService in SSL way through https://hostname:4443/jrt/webservice. Setting the PATH Environment Variable Sometimes, some system commands such as linux ls, sh etc, can not be executed successfully during the script execution due to they are not found in PATH. To ensure they work normally, you can setup the environment variable PATH. Let’s navigate to the Enterprise Manager Homepage. 1. Go to OC4J home screen and click the Administration tab. Expand Administration Tasks, then expand Properties. Click the task icon next to Server Properties. 2. On the Server Properties screen, scroll down to Environment Variables section. Under Environment Variables, click Add Another Row. Enter PATH in Name, and fill Value with directories that contain the system commands. Click Apply.   After you work through this article, I believe you have developed a deeper understanding of the Control Center Agent installation process, and you can apply this knowledge in other installation plan such as Control Center Agent installation on Standalone OC4J.

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• ASP.NET and HTML5 Local Storage

  - by Stephen Walther

  My favorite feature of HTML5, hands-down, is HTML5 local storage (aka DOM storage). By taking advantage of HTML5 local storage, you can dramatically improve the performance of your data-driven ASP.NET applications by caching data in the browser persistently. Think of HTML5 local storage like browser cookies, but much better. Like cookies, local storage is persistent. When you add something to browser local storage, it remains there when the user returns to the website (possibly days or months later). Importantly, unlike the cookie storage limitation of 4KB, you can store up to 10 megabytes in HTML5 local storage. Because HTML5 local storage works with the latest versions of all modern browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari), you can start taking advantage of this HTML5 feature in your applications right now. Why use HTML5 Local Storage? I use HTML5 Local Storage in the JavaScript Reference application: http://Superexpert.com/JavaScriptReference The JavaScript Reference application is an HTML5 app that provides an interactive reference for all of the syntax elements of JavaScript (You can read more about the application and download the source code for the application here). When you open the application for the first time, all of the entries are transferred from the server to the browser (all 300+ entries). All of the entries are stored in local storage. When you open the application in the future, only changes are transferred from the server to the browser. The benefit of this approach is that the application performs extremely fast. When you click the details link to view details on a particular entry, the entry details appear instantly because all of the entries are stored on the client machine. When you perform key-up searches, by typing in the filter textbox, matching entries are displayed very quickly because the entries are being filtered on the local machine. This approach can have a dramatic effect on the performance of any interactive data-driven web application. Interacting with data on the client is almost always faster than interacting with the same data on the server. Retrieving Data from the Server In the JavaScript Reference application, I use Microsoft WCF Data Services to expose data to the browser. WCF Data Services generates a REST interface for your data automatically. Here are the steps: Create your database tables in Microsoft SQL Server. For example, I created a database named ReferenceDB and a database table named Entities. Use the Entity Framework to generate your data model. For example, I used the Entity Framework to generate a class named ReferenceDBEntities and a class named Entities. Expose your data through WCF Data Services. I added a WCF Data Service to my project and modified the data service class to look like this:   using System.Data.Services; using System.Data.Services.Common; using System.Web; using JavaScriptReference.Models; namespace JavaScriptReference.Services { [System.ServiceModel.ServiceBehavior(IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults = true)] public class EntryService : DataService<ReferenceDBEntities> { // This method is called only once to initialize service-wide policies. public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) { config.UseVerboseErrors = true; config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("*", EntitySetRights.All); config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; } // Define a change interceptor for the Products entity set. [ChangeInterceptor("Entries")] public void OnChangeEntries(Entry entry, UpdateOperations operations) { if (!HttpContext.Current.Request.IsAuthenticated) { throw new DataServiceException("Cannot update reference unless authenticated."); } } } }     The WCF data service is named EntryService. Notice that it derives from DataService<ReferenceEntitites>. Because it derives from DataService<ReferenceEntities>, the data service exposes the contents of the ReferenceEntitiesDB database. In the code above, I defined a ChangeInterceptor to prevent un-authenticated users from making changes to the database. Anyone can retrieve data through the service, but only authenticated users are allowed to make changes. After you expose data through a WCF Data Service, you can use jQuery to retrieve the data by performing an Ajax call. For example, I am using an Ajax call that looks something like this to retrieve the JavaScript entries from the EntryService.svc data service: $.ajax({ dataType: "json", url: “/Services/EntryService.svc/Entries”, success: function (result) { var data = callback(result["d"]); } });     Notice that you must unwrap the data using result[“d”]. After you unwrap the data, you have a JavaScript array of the entries. I’m transferring all 300+ entries from the server to the client when the application is opened for the first time. In other words, I transfer the entire database from the server to the client, once and only once, when the application is opened for the first time. The data is transferred using JSON. Here is a fragment: { "d" : [ { "__metadata": { "uri": "http://superexpert.com/javascriptreference/Services/EntryService.svc/Entries(1)", "type": "ReferenceDBModel.Entry" }, "Id": 1, "Name": "Global", "Browsers": "ff3_6,ie8,ie9,c8,sf5,es3,es5", "Syntax": "object", "ShortDescription": "Contains global variables and functions", "FullDescription": "<p>\nThe Global object is determined by the host environment. In web browsers, the Global object is the same as the windows object.\n</p>\n<p>\nYou can use the keyword <code>this</code> to refer to the Global object when in the global context (outside of any function).\n</p>\n<p>\nThe Global object holds all global variables and functions. For example, the following code demonstrates that the global <code>movieTitle</code> variable refers to the same thing as <code>window.movieTitle</code> and <code>this.movieTitle</code>.\n</p>\n<pre>\nvar movieTitle = \"Star Wars\";\nconsole.log(movieTitle === this.movieTitle); // true\nconsole.log(movieTitle === window.movieTitle); // true\n</pre>\n", "LastUpdated": "634298578273756641", "IsDeleted": false, "OwnerId": null }, { "__metadata": { "uri": "http://superexpert.com/javascriptreference/Services/EntryService.svc/Entries(2)", "type": "ReferenceDBModel.Entry" }, "Id": 2, "Name": "eval(string)", "Browsers": "ff3_6,ie8,ie9,c8,sf5,es3,es5", "Syntax": "function", "ShortDescription": "Evaluates and executes JavaScript code dynamically", "FullDescription": "<p>\nThe following code evaluates and executes the string \"3+5\" at runtime.\n</p>\n<pre>\nvar result = eval(\"3+5\");\nconsole.log(result); // returns 8\n</pre>\n<p>\nYou can rewrite the code above like this:\n</p>\n<pre>\nvar result;\neval(\"result = 3+5\");\nconsole.log(result);\n</pre>", "LastUpdated": "634298580913817644", "IsDeleted": false, "OwnerId": 1 } … ]} I worried about the amount of time that it would take to transfer the records. According to Google Chome, it takes about 5 seconds to retrieve all 300+ records on a broadband connection over the Internet. 5 seconds is a small price to pay to avoid performing any server fetches of the data in the future. And here are the estimated times using different types of connections using Fiddler: Notice that using a modem, it takes 33 seconds to download the database. 33 seconds is a significant chunk of time. So, I would not use the approach of transferring the entire database up front if you expect a significant portion of your website audience to connect to your website with a modem. Adding Data to HTML5 Local Storage After the JavaScript entries are retrieved from the server, the entries are stored in HTML5 local storage. Here’s the reference documentation for HTML5 storage for Internet Explorer: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc197062(VS.85).aspx You access local storage by accessing the windows.localStorage object in JavaScript. This object contains key/value pairs. For example, you can use the following JavaScript code to add a new item to local storage: <script type="text/javascript"> window.localStorage.setItem("message", "Hello World!"); </script>   You can use the Google Chrome Storage tab in the Developer Tools (hit CTRL-SHIFT I in Chrome) to view items added to local storage: After you add an item to local storage, you can read it at any time in the future by using the window.localStorage.getItem() method: <script type="text/javascript"> window.localStorage.setItem("message", "Hello World!"); </script>   You only can add strings to local storage and not JavaScript objects such as arrays. Therefore, before adding a JavaScript object to local storage, you need to convert it into a JSON string. In the JavaScript Reference application, I use a wrapper around local storage that looks something like this: function Storage() { this.get = function (name) { return JSON.parse(window.localStorage.getItem(name)); }; this.set = function (name, value) { window.localStorage.setItem(name, JSON.stringify(value)); }; this.clear = function () { window.localStorage.clear(); }; }   If you use the wrapper above, then you can add arbitrary JavaScript objects to local storage like this: var store = new Storage(); // Add array to storage var products = [ {name:"Fish", price:2.33}, {name:"Bacon", price:1.33} ]; store.set("products", products); // Retrieve items from storage var products = store.get("products");   Modern browsers support the JSON object natively. If you need the script above to work with older browsers then you should download the JSON2.js library from: https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js The JSON2 library will use the native JSON object if a browser already supports JSON. Merging Server Changes with Browser Local Storage When you first open the JavaScript Reference application, the entire database of JavaScript entries is transferred from the server to the browser. Two items are added to local storage: entries and entriesLastUpdated. The first item contains the entire entries database (a big JSON string of entries). The second item, a timestamp, represents the version of the entries. Whenever you open the JavaScript Reference in the future, the entriesLastUpdated timestamp is passed to the server. Only records that have been deleted, updated, or added since entriesLastUpdated are transferred to the browser. The OData query to get the latest updates looks like this: http://superexpert.com/javascriptreference/Services/EntryService.svc/Entries?$filter=(LastUpdated%20gt%20634301199890494792L) If you remove URL encoding, the query looks like this: http://superexpert.com/javascriptreference/Services/EntryService.svc/Entries?$filter=(LastUpdated gt 634301199890494792L) This query returns only those entries where the value of LastUpdated > 634301199890494792 (the version timestamp). The changes – new JavaScript entries, deleted entries, and updated entries – are merged with the existing entries in local storage. The JavaScript code for performing the merge is contained in the EntriesHelper.js file. The merge() method looks like this:   merge: function (oldEntries, newEntries) { // concat (this performs the add) oldEntries = oldEntries || []; var mergedEntries = oldEntries.concat(newEntries); // sort this.sortByIdThenLastUpdated(mergedEntries); // prune duplicates (this performs the update) mergedEntries = this.pruneDuplicates(mergedEntries); // delete mergedEntries = this.removeIsDeleted(mergedEntries); // Sort this.sortByName(mergedEntries); return mergedEntries; },   The contents of local storage are then updated with the merged entries. I spent several hours writing the merge() method (much longer than I expected). I found two resources to be extremely useful. First, I wrote extensive unit tests for the merge() method. I wrote the unit tests using server-side JavaScript. I describe this approach to writing unit tests in this blog entry. The unit tests are included in the JavaScript Reference source code. Second, I found the following blog entry to be super useful (thanks Nick!): http://nicksnettravels.builttoroam.com/post/2010/08/03/OData-Synchronization-with-WCF-Data-Services.aspx One big challenge that I encountered involved timestamps. I originally tried to store an actual UTC time as the value of the entriesLastUpdated item. I quickly discovered that trying to work with dates in JSON turned out to be a big can of worms that I did not want to open. Next, I tried to use a SQL timestamp column. However, I learned that OData cannot handle the timestamp data type when doing a filter query. Therefore, I ended up using a bigint column in SQL and manually creating the value when a record is updated. I overrode the SaveChanges() method to look something like this: public override int SaveChanges(SaveOptions options) { var changes = this.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries( EntityState.Modified | EntityState.Added | EntityState.Deleted); foreach (var change in changes) { var entity = change.Entity as IEntityTracking; if (entity != null) { entity.LastUpdated = DateTime.Now.Ticks; } } return base.SaveChanges(options); }   Notice that I assign Date.Now.Ticks to the entity.LastUpdated property whenever an entry is modified, added, or deleted. Summary After building the JavaScript Reference application, I am convinced that HTML5 local storage can have a dramatic impact on the performance of any data-driven web application. If you are building a web application that involves extensive interaction with data then I recommend that you take advantage of this new feature included in the HTML5 standard.

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• Developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part 1

  - by shiju

  In this post, I will demonstrate web application development using ASP. NET MVC 3, Razor and EF code First. This post will also cover Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 and generic Repository and Unit of Work for EF Code First. The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial. ASP.NET MVC 3 EF Code First CTP 5 Unity 2.0 Define Domain Model Let’s create domain model for our simple web application Category class public class Category {     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } }   Expense class public class Expense {             public int ExpenseId { get; set; }            public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     public virtual Category Category { get; set; } } We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. In this post, we will be focusing on CRUD operations for the entity Category and will be working on the Expense entity with a View Model object in the later post. And the source code for this application will be refactored over time. The above entities are very simple POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) classes and the entity Category is decorated with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. Now we want to use these entities for defining model objects for the Entity Framework 4. Using the Code First approach of Entity Framework, we can first define the entities by simply writing POCO classes without any coupling with any API or database library. This approach lets you focus on domain model which will enable Domain-Driven Development for applications. EF code first support is currently enabled with a separate API that is runs on top of the Entity Framework 4. EF Code First is reached CTP 5 when I am writing this article. Creating Context Class for Entity Framework We have created our domain model and let’s create a class in order to working with Entity Framework Code First. For this, you have to download EF Code First CTP 5 and add reference to the assembly EntitFramework.dll. You can also use NuGet to download add reference to EEF Code First.    public class MyFinanceContext : DbContext {     public MyFinanceContext() : base("MyFinance") { }     public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }     public DbSet<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }         }   The above class MyFinanceContext is derived from DbContext that can connect your model classes to a database. The MyFinanceContext class is mapping our Category and Expense class into database tables Categories and Expenses using DbSet<TEntity> where TEntity is any POCO class. When we are running the application at first time, it will automatically create the database. EF code-first look for a connection string in web.config or app.config that has the same name as the dbcontext class. If it is not find any connection string with the convention, it will automatically create database in local SQL Express database by default and the name of the database will be same name as the dbcontext class. You can also define the name of database in constructor of the the dbcontext class. Unlike NHibernate, we don’t have to use any XML based mapping files or Fluent interface for mapping between our model and database. The model classes of Code First are working on the basis of conventions and we can also use a fluent API to refine our model. The convention for primary key is ‘Id’ or ‘<class name>Id’.  If primary key properties are detected with type ‘int’, ‘long’ or ‘short’, they will automatically registered as identity columns in the database by default. Primary key detection is not case sensitive. We can define our model classes with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace and it automatically enforces validation rules when a model object is updated or saved. Generic Repository for EF Code First We have created model classes and dbcontext class. Now we have to create generic repository pattern for data persistence with EF code first. If you don’t know about the repository pattern, checkout Martin Fowler’s article on Repository Let’s create a generic repository to working with DbContext and DbSet generics. public interface IRepository<T> where T : class     {         void Add(T entity);         void Delete(T entity);         T GetById(long Id);         IEnumerable<T> All();     }   RepositoryBasse – Generic Repository class public abstract class RepositoryBase<T> where T : class { private MyFinanceContext database; private readonly IDbSet<T> dbset; protected RepositoryBase(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory) {     DatabaseFactory = databaseFactory;     dbset = Database.Set<T>(); }   protected IDatabaseFactory DatabaseFactory {     get; private set; }   protected MyFinanceContext Database {     get { return database ?? (database = DatabaseFactory.Get()); } } public virtual void Add(T entity) {     dbset.Add(entity);            }        public virtual void Delete(T entity) {     dbset.Remove(entity); }   public virtual T GetById(long id) {     return dbset.Find(id); }   public virtual IEnumerable<T> All() {     return dbset.ToList(); } }   DatabaseFactory class public class DatabaseFactory : Disposable, IDatabaseFactory {     private MyFinanceContext database;     public MyFinanceContext Get()     {         return database ?? (database = new MyFinanceContext());     }     protected override void DisposeCore()     {         if (database != null)             database.Dispose();     } } Unit of Work If you are new to Unit of Work pattern, checkout Fowler’s article on Unit of Work . According to Martin Fowler, the Unit of Work pattern "maintains a list of objects affected by a business transaction and coordinates the writing out of changes and the resolution of concurrency problems." Let’s create a class for handling Unit of Work   public interface IUnitOfWork {     void Commit(); }   UniOfWork class public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork {     private readonly IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory;     private MyFinanceContext dataContext;       public UnitOfWork(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)     {         this.databaseFactory = databaseFactory;     }       protected MyFinanceContext DataContext     {         get { return dataContext ?? (dataContext = databaseFactory.Get()); }     }       public void Commit()     {         DataContext.Commit();     } }   The Commit method of the UnitOfWork will call the commit method of MyFinanceContext class and it will execute the SaveChanges method of DbContext class.   Repository class for Category In this post, we will be focusing on the persistence against Category entity and will working on other entities in later post. Let’s create a repository for handling CRUD operations for Category using derive from a generic Repository RepositoryBase<T>.   public class CategoryRepository: RepositoryBase<Category>, ICategoryRepository     {     public CategoryRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface ICategoryRepository : IRepository<Category> { } If we need additional methods than generic repository for the Category, we can define in the CategoryRepository. Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 If you are new to Inversion of Control/ Dependency Injection or Unity, please have a look on my articles at http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/tags/IoC/default.aspx. I want to create a custom lifetime manager for Unity to store container in the current HttpContext.   public class HttpContextLifetimeManager<T> : LifetimeManager, IDisposable {     public override object GetValue()     {         return HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName];     }     public override void RemoveValue()     {         HttpContext.Current.Items.Remove(typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName);     }     public override void SetValue(object newValue)     {         HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName] = newValue;     }     public void Dispose()     {         RemoveValue();     } }   Let’s create controller factory for Unity in the ASP.NET MVC 3 application. public class UnityControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory { IUnityContainer container; public UnityControllerFactory(IUnityContainer container) {     this.container = container; } protected override IController GetControllerInstance(RequestContext reqContext, Type controllerType) {     IController controller;     if (controllerType == null)         throw new HttpException(                 404, String.Format(                     "The controller for path '{0}' could not be found" +     "or it does not implement IController.",                 reqContext.HttpContext.Request.Path));       if (!typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(controllerType))         throw new ArgumentException(                 string.Format(                     "Type requested is not a controller: {0}",                     controllerType.Name),                     "controllerType");     try     {         controller= container.Resolve(controllerType) as IController;     }     catch (Exception ex)     {         throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(                                 "Error resolving controller {0}",                                 controllerType.Name), ex);     }     return controller; }   }   Configure contract and concrete types in Unity Let’s configure our contract and concrete types in Unity for resolving our dependencies.   private void ConfigureUnity() {     //Create UnityContainer               IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer()                 .RegisterType<IDatabaseFactory, DatabaseFactory>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IDatabaseFactory>())     .RegisterType<IUnitOfWork, UnitOfWork>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IUnitOfWork>())     .RegisterType<ICategoryRepository, CategoryRepository>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<ICategoryRepository>());                 //Set container for Controller Factory                ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(             new UnityControllerFactory(container)); }   In the above ConfigureUnity method, we are registering our types onto Unity container with custom lifetime manager HttpContextLifetimeManager. Let’s call ConfigureUnity method in the Global.asax.cs for set controller factory for Unity and configuring the types with Unity.   protected void Application_Start() {     AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();     RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);     RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);     ConfigureUnity(); }   Developing web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 We have created our domain model for our web application and also have created repositories and configured dependencies with Unity container. Now we have to create controller classes and views for doing CRUD operations against the Category entity. Let’s create controller class for Category Category Controller   public class CategoryController : Controller {     private readonly ICategoryRepository categoryRepository;     private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;           public CategoryController(ICategoryRepository categoryRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {         this.categoryRepository = categoryRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }       public ActionResult Index()     {         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return View(categories);     }     [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Edit(int id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         return View(category);     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection collection)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         if (TryUpdateModel(category))         {             unitOfWork.Commit();             return RedirectToAction("Index");         }         else return View(category);                 }       [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Create()     {         var category = new Category();         return View(category);     }           [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Create(Category category)     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             return View("Create", category);         }                     categoryRepository.Add(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         return RedirectToAction("Index");     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Delete(int  id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         categoryRepository.Delete(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return PartialView("CategoryList", categories);       }        }   Creating Views in Razor Now we are going to create views in Razor for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application.  Let’s create a partial view CategoryList.cshtml for listing category information and providing link for Edit and Delete operations. CategoryList.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @using MyFinance.Domain; @model IEnumerable<Category>      <table>         <tr>         <th>Actions</th>         <th>Name</th>          <th>Description</th>         </tr>     @foreach (var item in Model) {             <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.CategoryId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.CategoryId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divCategoryList" })                           </td>             <td>                 @item.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Description             </td>         </tr>          }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create")     </p> The delete link is providing Ajax functionality using the Ajax.ActionLink. This will call an Ajax request for Delete action method in the CategoryCotroller class. In the Delete action method, it will return Partial View CategoryList after deleting the record. We are using CategoryList view for the Ajax functionality and also for Index view using for displaying list of category information. Let’s create Index view using partial view CategoryList  Index.chtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Category> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Category List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>    <div id="divCategoryList">               @Html.Partial("CategoryList", Model) </div>   We can call the partial views using Html.Partial helper method. Now we are going to create View pages for insert and update functionality for the Category. Both view pages are sharing common user interface for entering the category information. So I want to create an EditorTemplate for the Category information. We have to create the EditorTemplate with the same name of entity object so that we can refer it on view pages using @Html.EditorFor(model => model) . So let’s create template with name Category. Let’s create view page for insert Category information   @model MyFinance.Domain.Category   @{     ViewBag.Title = "Save"; }   <h2>Create</h2>   <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>   @using (Html.BeginForm()) {     @Html.ValidationSummary(true)     <fieldset>         <legend>Category</legend>                @Html.EditorFor(model => model)               <p>             <input type="submit" value="Create" />         </p>     </fieldset> }   <div>     @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div> ViewStart file In Razor views, we can add a file named _viewstart.cshtml in the views directory  and this will be shared among the all views with in the Views directory. The below code in the _viewstart.cshtml, sets the Layout page for every Views in the Views folder.      @{     Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; }   Source Code You can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com/ . The source will be refactored on over time.   Summary In this post, we have created a simple web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First. We have discussed on technologies and practices such as ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor, EF Code First, Unity 2, generic Repository and Unit of Work. In my later posts, I will modify the application and will be discussed on more things. Stay tuned to my blog  for more posts on step by step application building.

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• When is a SQL function not a function?

  - by Rob Farley

  Should SQL Server even have functions? (Oh yeah – this is a T-SQL Tuesday post, hosted this month by Brad Schulz) Functions serve an important part of programming, in almost any language. A function is a piece of code that is designed to return something, as opposed to a piece of code which isn’t designed to return anything (which is known as a procedure). SQL Server is no different. You can call stored procedures, even from within other stored procedures, and you can call functions and use these in other queries. Stored procedures might query something, and therefore ‘return data’, but a function in SQL is considered to have the type of the thing returned, and can be used accordingly in queries. Consider the internal GETDATE() function. SELECT GETDATE(), SomeDatetimeColumn FROM dbo.SomeTable; There’s no logical difference between the field that is being returned by the function and the field that’s being returned by the table column. Both are the datetime field – if you didn’t have inside knowledge, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell which was which. And so as developers, we find ourselves wanting to create functions that return all kinds of things – functions which look up values based on codes, functions which do string manipulation, and so on. But it’s rubbish. Ok, it’s not all rubbish, but it mostly is. And this isn’t even considering the SARGability impact. It’s far more significant than that. (When I say the SARGability aspect, I mean “because you’re unlikely to have an index on the result of some function that’s applied to a column, so try to invert the function and query the column in an unchanged manner”) I’m going to consider the three main types of user-defined functions in SQL Server: Scalar Inline Table-Valued Multi-statement Table-Valued I could also look at user-defined CLR functions, including aggregate functions, but not today. I figure that most people don’t tend to get around to doing CLR functions, and I’m going to focus on the T-SQL-based user-defined functions. Most people split these types of function up into two types. So do I. Except that most people pick them based on ‘scalar or table-valued’. I’d rather go with ‘inline or not’. If it’s not inline, it’s rubbish. It really is. Let’s start by considering the two kinds of table-valued function, and compare them. These functions are going to return the sales for a particular salesperson in a particular year, from the AdventureWorks database. CREATE FUNCTION dbo.FetchSales_inline(@salespersonid int, @orderyear int) RETURNS TABLE AS  RETURN (     SELECT e.LoginID as EmployeeLogin, o.OrderDate, o.SalesOrderID     FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS o     LEFT JOIN HumanResources.Employee AS e     ON e.EmployeeID = o.SalesPersonID     WHERE o.SalesPersonID = @salespersonid     AND o.OrderDate >= DATEADD(year,@orderyear-2000,'20000101')     AND o.OrderDate < DATEADD(year,@orderyear-2000+1,'20000101') ) ; GO CREATE FUNCTION dbo.FetchSales_multi(@salespersonid int, @orderyear int) RETURNS @results TABLE (     EmployeeLogin nvarchar(512),     OrderDate datetime,     SalesOrderID int     ) AS BEGIN     INSERT @results (EmployeeLogin, OrderDate, SalesOrderID)     SELECT e.LoginID, o.OrderDate, o.SalesOrderID     FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS o     LEFT JOIN HumanResources.Employee AS e     ON e.EmployeeID = o.SalesPersonID     WHERE o.SalesPersonID = @salespersonid     AND o.OrderDate >= DATEADD(year,@orderyear-2000,'20000101')     AND o.OrderDate < DATEADD(year,@orderyear-2000+1,'20000101')     ;     RETURN END ; GO You’ll notice that I’m being nice and responsible with the use of the DATEADD function, so that I have SARGability on the OrderDate filter. Regular readers will be hoping I’ll show what’s going on in the execution plans here. Here I’ve run two SELECT * queries with the “Show Actual Execution Plan” option turned on. Notice that the ‘Query cost’ of the multi-statement version is just 2% of the ‘Batch cost’. But also notice there’s trickery going on. And it’s nothing to do with that extra index that I have on the OrderDate column. Trickery. Look at it – clearly, the first plan is showing us what’s going on inside the function, but the second one isn’t. The second one is blindly running the function, and then scanning the results. There’s a Sequence operator which is calling the TVF operator, and then calling a Table Scan to get the results of that function for the SELECT operator. But surely it still has to do all the work that the first one is doing... To see what’s actually going on, let’s look at the Estimated plan. Now, we see the same plans (almost) that we saw in the Actuals, but we have an extra one – the one that was used for the TVF. Here’s where we see the inner workings of it. You’ll probably recognise the right-hand side of the TVF’s plan as looking very similar to the first plan – but it’s now being called by a stack of other operators, including an INSERT statement to be able to populate the table variable that the multi-statement TVF requires. And the cost of the TVF is 57% of the batch! But it gets worse. Let’s consider what happens if we don’t need all the columns. We’ll leave out the EmployeeLogin column. Here, we see that the inline function call has been simplified down. It doesn’t need the Employee table. The join is redundant and has been eliminated from the plan, making it even cheaper. But the multi-statement plan runs the whole thing as before, only removing the extra column when the Table Scan is performed. A multi-statement function is a lot more powerful than an inline one. An inline function can only be the result of a single sub-query. It’s essentially the same as a parameterised view, because views demonstrate this same behaviour of extracting the definition of the view and using it in the outer query. A multi-statement function is clearly more powerful because it can contain far more complex logic. But a multi-statement function isn’t really a function at all. It’s a stored procedure. It’s wrapped up like a function, but behaves like a stored procedure. It would be completely unreasonable to expect that a stored procedure could be simplified down to recognise that not all the columns might be needed, but yet this is part of the pain associated with this procedural function situation. The biggest clue that a multi-statement function is more like a stored procedure than a function is the “BEGIN” and “END” statements that surround the code. If you try to create a multi-statement function without these statements, you’ll get an error – they are very much required. When I used to present on this kind of thing, I even used to call it “The Dangers of BEGIN and END”, and yes, I’ve written about this type of thing before in a similarly-named post over at my old blog. Now how about scalar functions... Suppose we wanted a scalar function to return the count of these. CREATE FUNCTION dbo.FetchSales_scalar(@salespersonid int, @orderyear int) RETURNS int AS BEGIN     RETURN (         SELECT COUNT(*)         FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS o         LEFT JOIN HumanResources.Employee AS e         ON e.EmployeeID = o.SalesPersonID         WHERE o.SalesPersonID = @salespersonid         AND o.OrderDate >= DATEADD(year,@orderyear-2000,'20000101')         AND o.OrderDate < DATEADD(year,@orderyear-2000+1,'20000101')     ); END ; GO Notice the evil words? They’re required. Try to remove them, you just get an error. That’s right – any scalar function is procedural, despite the fact that you wrap up a sub-query inside that RETURN statement. It’s as ugly as anything. Hopefully this will change in future versions. Let’s have a look at how this is reflected in an execution plan. Here’s a query, its Actual plan, and its Estimated plan: SELECT e.LoginID, y.year, dbo.FetchSales_scalar(p.SalesPersonID, y.year) AS NumSales FROM (VALUES (2001),(2002),(2003),(2004)) AS y (year) CROSS JOIN Sales.SalesPerson AS p LEFT JOIN HumanResources.Employee AS e ON e.EmployeeID = p.SalesPersonID; We see here that the cost of the scalar function is about twice that of the outer query. Nicely, the query optimizer has worked out that it doesn’t need the Employee table, but that’s a bit of a red herring here. There’s actually something way more significant going on. If I look at the properties of that UDF operator, it tells me that the Estimated Subtree Cost is 0.337999. If I just run the query SELECT dbo.FetchSales_scalar(281,2003); we see that the UDF cost is still unchanged. You see, this 0.0337999 is the cost of running the scalar function ONCE. But when we ran that query with the CROSS JOIN in it, we returned quite a few rows. 68 in fact. Could’ve been a lot more, if we’d had more salespeople or more years. And so we come to the biggest problem. This procedure (I don’t want to call it a function) is getting called 68 times – each one between twice as expensive as the outer query. And because it’s calling it in a separate context, there is even more overhead that I haven’t considered here. The cheek of it, to say that the Compute Scalar operator here costs 0%! I know a number of IT projects that could’ve used that kind of costing method, but that’s another story that I’m not going to go into here. Let’s look at a better way. Suppose our scalar function had been implemented as an inline one. Then it could have been expanded out like a sub-query. It could’ve run something like this: SELECT e.LoginID, y.year, (SELECT COUNT(*)     FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS o     LEFT JOIN HumanResources.Employee AS e     ON e.EmployeeID = o.SalesPersonID     WHERE o.SalesPersonID = p.SalesPersonID     AND o.OrderDate >= DATEADD(year,y.year-2000,'20000101')     AND o.OrderDate < DATEADD(year,y.year-2000+1,'20000101')     ) AS NumSales FROM (VALUES (2001),(2002),(2003),(2004)) AS y (year) CROSS JOIN Sales.SalesPerson AS p LEFT JOIN HumanResources.Employee AS e ON e.EmployeeID = p.SalesPersonID; Don’t worry too much about the Scan of the SalesOrderHeader underneath a Nested Loop. If you remember from plenty of other posts on the matter, execution plans don’t push the data through. That Scan only runs once. The Index Spool sucks the data out of it and populates a structure that is used to feed the Stream Aggregate. The Index Spool operator gets called 68 times, but the Scan only once (the Number of Executions property demonstrates this). Here, the Query Optimizer has a full picture of what’s being asked, and can make the appropriate decision about how it accesses the data. It can simplify it down properly. To get this kind of behaviour from a function, we need it to be inline. But without inline scalar functions, we need to make our function be table-valued. Luckily, that’s ok. CREATE FUNCTION dbo.FetchSales_inline2(@salespersonid int, @orderyear int) RETURNS table AS RETURN (SELECT COUNT(*) as NumSales     FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS o     LEFT JOIN HumanResources.Employee AS e     ON e.EmployeeID = o.SalesPersonID     WHERE o.SalesPersonID = @salespersonid     AND o.OrderDate >= DATEADD(year,@orderyear-2000,'20000101')     AND o.OrderDate < DATEADD(year,@orderyear-2000+1,'20000101') ); GO But we can’t use this as a scalar. Instead, we need to use it with the APPLY operator. SELECT e.LoginID, y.year, n.NumSales FROM (VALUES (2001),(2002),(2003),(2004)) AS y (year) CROSS JOIN Sales.SalesPerson AS p LEFT JOIN HumanResources.Employee AS e ON e.EmployeeID = p.SalesPersonID OUTER APPLY dbo.FetchSales_inline2(p.SalesPersonID, y.year) AS n; And now, we get the plan that we want for this query. All we’ve done is tell the function that it’s returning a table instead of a single value, and removed the BEGIN and END statements. We’ve had to name the column being returned, but what we’ve gained is an actual inline simplifiable function. And if we wanted it to return multiple columns, it could do that too. I really consider this function to be superior to the scalar function in every way. It does need to be handled differently in the outer query, but in many ways it’s a more elegant method there too. The function calls can be put amongst the FROM clause, where they can then be used in the WHERE or GROUP BY clauses without fear of calling the function multiple times (another horrible side effect of functions). So please. If you see BEGIN and END in a function, remember it’s not really a function, it’s a procedure. And then fix it. @rob_farley

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• ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: How to Deploy Web Apps Using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part I

  - by mbridge

  First, you can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com. The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial. public class Category {     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } } Expense Class public class Expense {             public int ExpenseId { get; set; }            public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     public virtual Category Category { get; set; } }    Define Domain Model Let’s create domain model for our simple web application Category Class We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. In this post, we will be focusing on CRUD operations for the entity Category and will be working on the Expense entity with a View Model object in the later post. And the source code for this application will be refactored over time. The above entities are very simple POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) classes and the entity Category is decorated with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. Now we want to use these entities for defining model objects for the Entity Framework 4. Using the Code First approach of Entity Framework, we can first define the entities by simply writing POCO classes without any coupling with any API or database library. This approach lets you focus on domain model which will enable Domain-Driven Development for applications. EF code first support is currently enabled with a separate API that is runs on top of the Entity Framework 4. EF Code First is reached CTP 5 when I am writing this article. Creating Context Class for Entity Framework We have created our domain model and let’s create a class in order to working with Entity Framework Code First. For this, you have to download EF Code First CTP 5 and add reference to the assembly EntitFramework.dll. You can also use NuGet to download add reference to EEF Code First. public class MyFinanceContext : DbContext {     public MyFinanceContext() : base("MyFinance") { }     public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }     public DbSet<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }         }   The above class MyFinanceContext is derived from DbContext that can connect your model classes to a database. The MyFinanceContext class is mapping our Category and Expense class into database tables Categories and Expenses using DbSet<TEntity> where TEntity is any POCO class. When we are running the application at first time, it will automatically create the database. EF code-first look for a connection string in web.config or app.config that has the same name as the dbcontext class. If it is not find any connection string with the convention, it will automatically create database in local SQL Express database by default and the name of the database will be same name as the dbcontext class. You can also define the name of database in constructor of the the dbcontext class. Unlike NHibernate, we don’t have to use any XML based mapping files or Fluent interface for mapping between our model and database. The model classes of Code First are working on the basis of conventions and we can also use a fluent API to refine our model. The convention for primary key is ‘Id’ or ‘<class name>Id’.  If primary key properties are detected with type ‘int’, ‘long’ or ‘short’, they will automatically registered as identity columns in the database by default. Primary key detection is not case sensitive. We can define our model classes with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace and it automatically enforces validation rules when a model object is updated or saved. Generic Repository for EF Code First We have created model classes and dbcontext class. Now we have to create generic repository pattern for data persistence with EF code first. If you don’t know about the repository pattern, checkout Martin Fowler’s article on Repository Let’s create a generic repository to working with DbContext and DbSet generics. public interface IRepository<T> where T : class     {         void Add(T entity);         void Delete(T entity);         T GetById(long Id);         IEnumerable<T> All();     } RepositoryBasse – Generic Repository class protected MyFinanceContext Database {     get { return database ?? (database = DatabaseFactory.Get()); } } public virtual void Add(T entity) {     dbset.Add(entity);            }        public virtual void Delete(T entity) {     dbset.Remove(entity); }   public virtual T GetById(long id) {     return dbset.Find(id); }   public virtual IEnumerable<T> All() {     return dbset.ToList(); } } DatabaseFactory class public class DatabaseFactory : Disposable, IDatabaseFactory {     private MyFinanceContext database;     public MyFinanceContext Get()     {         return database ?? (database = new MyFinanceContext());     }     protected override void DisposeCore()     {         if (database != null)             database.Dispose();     } } Unit of Work If you are new to Unit of Work pattern, checkout Fowler’s article on Unit of Work . According to Martin Fowler, the Unit of Work pattern "maintains a list of objects affected by a business transaction and coordinates the writing out of changes and the resolution of concurrency problems." Let’s create a class for handling Unit of Work public interface IUnitOfWork {     void Commit(); } UniOfWork class public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork {     private readonly IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory;     private MyFinanceContext dataContext;       public UnitOfWork(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)     {         this.databaseFactory = databaseFactory;     }       protected MyFinanceContext DataContext     {         get { return dataContext ?? (dataContext = databaseFactory.Get()); }     }       public void Commit()     {         DataContext.Commit();     } } The Commit method of the UnitOfWork will call the commit method of MyFinanceContext class and it will execute the SaveChanges method of DbContext class.   Repository class for Category In this post, we will be focusing on the persistence against Category entity and will working on other entities in later post. Let’s create a repository for handling CRUD operations for Category using derive from a generic Repository RepositoryBase<T>. public class CategoryRepository: RepositoryBase<Category>, ICategoryRepository     {     public CategoryRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface ICategoryRepository : IRepository<Category> { } If we need additional methods than generic repository for the Category, we can define in the CategoryRepository. Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 If you are new to Inversion of Control/ Dependency Injection or Unity, please have a look on my articles at http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/tags/IoC/default.aspx. I want to create a custom lifetime manager for Unity to store container in the current HttpContext. public class HttpContextLifetimeManager<T> : LifetimeManager, IDisposable {     public override object GetValue()     {         return HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName];     }     public override void RemoveValue()     {         HttpContext.Current.Items.Remove(typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName);     }     public override void SetValue(object newValue)     {         HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName] = newValue;     }     public void Dispose()     {         RemoveValue();     } } Let’s create controller factory for Unity in the ASP.NET MVC 3 application.                 404, String.Format(                     "The controller for path '{0}' could not be found" +     "or it does not implement IController.",                 reqContext.HttpContext.Request.Path));       if (!typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(controllerType))         throw new ArgumentException(                 string.Format(                     "Type requested is not a controller: {0}",                     controllerType.Name),                     "controllerType");     try     {         controller= container.Resolve(controllerType) as IController;     }     catch (Exception ex)     {         throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(                                 "Error resolving controller {0}",                                 controllerType.Name), ex);     }     return controller; }   } Configure contract and concrete types in Unity Let’s configure our contract and concrete types in Unity for resolving our dependencies. private void ConfigureUnity() {     //Create UnityContainer               IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer()                 .RegisterType<IDatabaseFactory, DatabaseFactory>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IDatabaseFactory>())     .RegisterType<IUnitOfWork, UnitOfWork>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IUnitOfWork>())     .RegisterType<ICategoryRepository, CategoryRepository>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<ICategoryRepository>());                 //Set container for Controller Factory                ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(             new UnityControllerFactory(container)); } In the above ConfigureUnity method, we are registering our types onto Unity container with custom lifetime manager HttpContextLifetimeManager. Let’s call ConfigureUnity method in the Global.asax.cs for set controller factory for Unity and configuring the types with Unity. protected void Application_Start() {     AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();     RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);     RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);     ConfigureUnity(); } Developing web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 We have created our domain model for our web application and also have created repositories and configured dependencies with Unity container. Now we have to create controller classes and views for doing CRUD operations against the Category entity. Let’s create controller class for Category Category Controller public class CategoryController : Controller {     private readonly ICategoryRepository categoryRepository;     private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;           public CategoryController(ICategoryRepository categoryRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {         this.categoryRepository = categoryRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }       public ActionResult Index()     {         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return View(categories);     }     [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Edit(int id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         return View(category);     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection collection)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         if (TryUpdateModel(category))         {             unitOfWork.Commit();             return RedirectToAction("Index");         }         else return View(category);                 }       [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Create()     {         var category = new Category();         return View(category);     }           [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Create(Category category)     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             return View("Create", category);         }                     categoryRepository.Add(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         return RedirectToAction("Index");     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Delete(int  id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         categoryRepository.Delete(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return PartialView("CategoryList", categories);       }        } Creating Views in Razor Now we are going to create views in Razor for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application.  Let’s create a partial view CategoryList.cshtml for listing category information and providing link for Edit and Delete operations. CategoryList.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @using MyFinance.Domain; @model IEnumerable<Category>      <table>         <tr>         <th>Actions</th>         <th>Name</th>          <th>Description</th>         </tr>     @foreach (var item in Model) {             <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.CategoryId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.CategoryId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divCategoryList" })                           </td>             <td>                 @item.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Description             </td>         </tr>         }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create")     </p> The delete link is providing Ajax functionality using the Ajax.ActionLink. This will call an Ajax request for Delete action method in the CategoryCotroller class. In the Delete action method, it will return Partial View CategoryList after deleting the record. We are using CategoryList view for the Ajax functionality and also for Index view using for displaying list of category information. Let’s create Index view using partial view CategoryList  Index.chtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Category> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Category List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>    <div id="divCategoryList">               @Html.Partial("CategoryList", Model) </div> We can call the partial views using Html.Partial helper method. Now we are going to create View pages for insert and update functionality for the Category. Both view pages are sharing common user interface for entering the category information. So I want to create an EditorTemplate for the Category information. We have to create the EditorTemplate with the same name of entity object so that we can refer it on view pages using @Html.EditorFor(model => model) . So let’s create template with name Category. Category.cshtml @model MyFinance.Domain.Category <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Name) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Description) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Description) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Description) </div> Let’s create view page for insert Category information @model MyFinance.Domain.Category   @{     ViewBag.Title = "Save"; }   <h2>Create</h2>   <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>   @using (Html.BeginForm()) {     @Html.ValidationSummary(true)     <fieldset>         <legend>Category</legend>                @Html.EditorFor(model => model)               <p>             <input type="submit" value="Create" />         </p>     </fieldset> }   <div>     @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div> ViewStart file In Razor views, we can add a file named _viewstart.cshtml in the views directory  and this will be shared among the all views with in the Views directory. The below code in the _viewstart.cshtml, sets the Layout page for every Views in the Views folder.     @{     Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; } Tomorrow, we will cotinue the second part of this article. :)

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• Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET

  - by user647124

  This year I embarked on a journey to migrate a group of ASP.NET web applications developed to integrate with WebLogic Portal 9.2 via the AquaLogic® Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.0 to instead use the Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET and integrated with WebLogic Portal 10.3.4. It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings. Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there. For the Curious From the perspective of necessity, this section would be better at the end. If it were there, though, it would probably be read by far fewer people, including those that are actually interested in these types of sections. Those in a hurry may skip past and be none the worst for it in dealing with the hands-on bits of performing a migration from .NET Accelerator to WSRP Producer. For others who want to talk about why they did what they did after they did it, or just want to know for themselves, enjoy. A Brief (and edited) History of the WSRP for .NET Technologies (as Relevant to the this Post) Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration path is not as simple as many other Oracle technologies. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The currently deployed architecture that was to be migrated and upgraded achieved initial integration between .NET and J2EE over the WSRP protocol through the use of The AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator. The .NET Accelerator allowed the applications that were written in ASP.NET and deployed on a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) to interact with a WebLogic Portal application deployed on a WebLogic (J2EE application) Server (both version 9.2, the state of the art at the time of its creation). At the time this architectural decision for the application was made, both the AquaLogic and WebLogic brands were owned by BEA Systems. The AquaLogic brand included products acquired by BEA through the acquisition of Plumtree, whose flagship product was a portal platform available in both J2EE and .NET versions. As part of this dual technology support an adaptor was created to facilitate the use of WSRP as a communication protocol where customers wished to integrate components from both versions of the Plumtree portal. The adapter evolved over several product generations to include a broad array of both standard and proprietary WSRP integration capabilities. Later, BEA Systems was acquired by Oracle. Over the course of several years Oracle has acquired a large number of portal applications and has taken the strategic direction to migrate users of these myriad (and formerly competitive) products to the Oracle WebCenter technology stack. As part of Oracle’s strategic technology roadmap, older portal products are being schedule for end of life, including the portal products that were part of the BEA acquisition. The .NET Accelerator has been modified over a very long period of time with features driven by users of that product and developed under three different vendors (each a direct competitor in the same solution space prior to merger). The Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET was introduced much more recently with the key objective to specifically address the needs of the WebCenter customers developing solutions accessible through both J2EE and .NET platforms utilizing the WSRP specifications. The Oracle Product Development Team also provides these insights on the drivers for developing the WSRP Producer: ***************************************** Support for ASP.NET AJAX. Controls using the ASP.NET AJAX script manager do not function properly in the Application Accelerator for .NET. Support 2 way SSL in WLP. This was not possible with the proxy/bridge set up in the existing Application Accelerator for .NET. Allow developers to code portlets (Web Parts) using the .NET framework rather than a proprietary framework. Developers had to use the Application Accelerator for .NET plug-ins to Visual Studio to manage preferences and profile data. This is now replaced with the .NET Framework Personalization (for preferences) and Profile providers. The WSRP Producer for .NET was created as a new way of developing .NET portlets. It was never designed to be an upgrade path for the Application Accelerator for .NET. .NET developers would create new .NET portlets with the WSRP Producer for .NET and leave any existing .NET portlets running in the Application Accelerator for .NET. ***************************************** The advantage to creating a new solution for WSRP is a product that is far easier for Oracle to maintain and support which in turn improves quality, reliability and maintainability for their customers. No changes to J2EE applications consuming the WSRP portlets previously rendered by the.NET Accelerator is required to migrate from the Aqualogic WSRP solution. For some customers using the .NET Accelerator the challenge is adapting their current .NET applications to work with the WSRP Producer (or any other WSRP adapter as they are proprietary by nature). Part of this adaptation is the need to deploy the .NET applications as a child to the WSRP producer web application as root. Differences between .NET Accelerator and WSRP Producer Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration is not as pluggable as something such as changing security providers in WebLogic Server. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The basic terminology used to describe the participating applications in a WSRP environment are the same when applied to either the .NET Accelerator or the WSRP Producer: Producer and Consumer. In both cases the .NET application serves as what is referred to as a WSRP environment as the Producer. The difference lies in how the two adapters create the WSRP translation of the .NET application. The .NET Accelerator, as the name implies, is meant to serve as a quick way of adding WSRP capability to a .NET application. As such, at a high level, the .NET Accelerator behaves as a proxy for requests between the .NET application and the WSRP Consumer. A WSRP request is sent from the consumer to the .NET Accelerator, the.NET Accelerator transforms this request into an ASP.NET request, receives the response, then transforms the response into a WSRP response. The .NET Accelerator is deployed as a stand-alone application on IIS. The WSRP Producer is deployed as a parent application on IIS and all ASP.NET modules that will be made available over WSRP are deployed as children of the WSRP Producer application. In this manner, the WSRP Producer acts more as a Request Filter than a proxy in the WSRP transactions between Producer and Consumer. Highly Recommended Enabling Logging Note: You can skip this section now, but you will most likely want to come back to it later, so why not just read it now? Logging is very helpful in tracking down the causes of any anomalies during testing of migrated portlets. To enable the WSRP Producer logging, update the Application_Start method in the Global.asax.cs for your .NET application by adding log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(); IIS logs will usually (in a standard configuration) be in a sub folder under C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC. WSRP Producer logs will be found at C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\Logs\WSRPProducer.log InputTrace.webinfo and OutputTrace.webinfo are located under C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault and can be useful in debugging issues related to markup transformations. Things You Must Do Merge Web.Config Note: If you have been skipping all the sections that you can, now is the time to stop and pay attention J Because the existing .NET application will become a sub-application to the WSRP Producer, you will want to merge required settings from the existing Web.Config to the one in the WSRP Producer. Use the WSRP Producer Master Page The Master Page installed for the WSRP Producer provides common, hiddenform fields and JavaScripts to facilitate portlet instance management and display configuration when the child page is being rendered over WSRP. You add the Master Page by including it in the <@ Page declaration with MasterPageFile="~/portlets/Resources/MasterPages/WSRP.Master" . You then replace: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" > <HTML> <HEAD> With <asp:Content ID="ContentHead1" ContentPlaceHolderID="wsrphead" Runat="Server"> And </HEAD> <body> <form id="theForm" method="post" runat="server"> With </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="ContentBody1" ContentPlaceHolderID="Main" Runat="Server"> And finally </form> </body> </HTML> With </asp:Content> In the event you already use Master Pages, adapt your existing Master Pages to be sub masters. See Nested ASP.NET Master Pages for a detailed reference of how to do this. It Happened to Me, It Might Happen to You…Or Not Watch for Use of Session or Request in OnInit In the event the .NET application being modified has pages developed to assume the user has been authenticated in an earlier page request there may be direct or indirect references in the OnInit method to request or session objects that may not have been created yet. This will vary from application to application, so the recommended approach is to test first. If there is an issue with a page running as a WSRP portlet then check for potential references in the OnInit method (including references by methods called within OnInit) to session or request objects. If there are, the simplest solution is to create a new method and then call that method once the necessary object(s) is fully available. I find doing this at the start of the Page_Load method to be the simplest solution. Case Sensitivity .NET languages are not case sensitive, but Java is. This means it is possible to have many variations of SRC= and src= or .JPG and .jpg. The preferred solution is to make these mark up instances all lower case in your .NET application. This will allow the default Rewriter rules in wsrp-producer.xml to work as is. If this is not practical, then make duplicates of any rules where an issue is occurring due to upper or mixed case usage in the .NET application markup and match the case in use with the duplicate rule. For example: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(href=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> May need to be duplicated as: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(HREF=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> While it is possible to write a regular expression that will handle mixed case usage, it would be long and strenous to test and maintain, so the recommendation is to use duplicate rules. Is it Still Relative? Some .NET applications base relative paths with a fixed root location. With the introduction of the WSRP Producer, the root has moved up one level. References to ~/ will need to be updated to ~/portlets and many ../ paths will need another ../ in front. I Can See You But I Can’t Find You This issue was first discovered while debugging modules with code that referenced the form on a page from the code-behind by name and/or id. The initial error presented itself as run-time error that was difficult to interpret over WSRP but seemed clear when run as straight ASP.NET as it indicated that the object with the form name did not exist. Since the form name was no longer valid after implementing the WSRP Master Page, the likely fix seemed to simply update the references in the code. However, as the WSRP Master Page is external to the code, a compile time error resulted: Error      155         The name 'form1' does not exist in the current context                C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\portlets\legacywebsite\module\Screens \Reporting.aspx.cs                51           52           legacywebsite.module Much hair-pulling research later it was discovered that it was the use of the FindControl method causing the issue. FindControl doesn’t work quite as expected once a Master Page has been introduced as the controls become embedded in controls, require a recursion to find them that is not part of the FindControl method. In code where the page form is referenced by name, there are two steps to the solution. First, the form needs to be referenced in code generically with Page.Form. For example, this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(frmManualEntry, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Becomes this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(Page.Form, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Generally the form id is referenced in most ASP.NET applications as a path to a control on the form. To reach the control once a MasterPage has been added requires an additional method to recurse through the controls collections within the form and find the control ID. The following method (found at Rick Strahl's Web Log) corrects this very nicely: public static Control FindControlRecursive(Control Root, string Id) { if (Root.ID == Id) return Root; foreach (Control Ctl in Root.Controls) { Control FoundCtl = FindControlRecursive(Ctl, Id); if (FoundCtl != null) return FoundCtl; } return null; } Where the form name is not referenced, simply using the FindControlRecursive method in place of FindControl will be all that is necessary. Following the second part of the example referenced earlier, the method called with Page.Form changes its value extraction code block from this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label)frmRef.FindControl("lblBRMsg" To this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label) FunctionLibrary.FindControlRecursive(frmRef, "lblBRMsg" The Master That Won’t Step Aside In most migrations it is preferable to make as few changes as possible. In one case I ran across an existing Master Page that would not function as a sub-Master Page. While it would probably have been educational to trace down why, the expedient process of updating it to take the place of the WSRP Master Page is the route I took. The changes are highlighted below: … <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="wsrphead" runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> <body leftMargin="0" topMargin="0"> <form id="TheForm" runat="server"> <input type="hidden" name="key" id="key" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="formactionurl" id="formactionurl" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="handle" id="handle" value="" /> <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" EnablePartialRendering="true" > </asp:ScriptManager> This approach did not work for all existing Master Pages, but fortunately all of the other existing Master Pages I have run across worked fine as a sub-Master to the WSRP Master Page. Moving On In Enterprise Portals, even after you get everything working, the work is not finished. Next you need to get it where everyone will work with it. Migration Planning Providing that the server where IIS is running is adequately sized, it is possible to run both the .NET Accelerator and the WSRP Producer on the same server during the upgrade process. The upgrade can be performed incrementally, i.e., one portlet at a time, if server administration processes support it. Those processes would include the ability to manage a second producer in the consuming portal and to change over individual portlet instances from one provider to the other. If processes or requirements demand that all portlets be cut over at the same time, it needs to be determined if this cut over should include a new producer, updating all of the portlets in the consumer, or if the WSRP Producer portlet configuration must maintain the naming conventions used by the .NET Accelerator and simply change the WSRP end point configured in the consumer. In some enterprises it may even be necessary to maintain the same WSDL end point, at which point the IIS configuration will be where the updates occur. The downside to such a requirement is that it makes rolling back very difficult, should the need arise. Location, Location, Location Not everyone wants the web application to have the descriptively obvious wsrpdefault location, or needs to create a second WSRP site on the same server. The instructions below are from the product team and, while targeted towards making a second site, will work for creating a site with a different name and then remove the old site. You can also change just the name in IIS. Manually Creating a WSRP Producer Site Instructions (NOTE: all executables used are the same ones used by the installer and “wsrpdev” will be the name of the new instance): 1. Copy C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault to C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev. 2. Bring up a command window as an administrator 3. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\IISAppAccelSiteCreator.exe install WSRPProducers wsrpdev "C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev" 8678 2.0.50727 4. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev "NETWORK SERVICE" 3 1 5. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev EVERYONE 1 1 6. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev 7. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\2.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev Tests: 1. Bring up a browser on the host itself and go to http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/wsdl/1.0/WSRPService.wsdl and make sure that the URLs in the XML returned include the wsrpdev changes you made in step 6. 2. Bring up a browser on the host itself and see if the default sample comes up: http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/portlets/ASPNET_AJAX_sample/default.aspx 3. Register the producer in WLP and test the portlet. Changing the Port used by WSRP Producer The pre-configured port for the WSRP Producer is 8678. You can change this port by updating both the IIS configuration and C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\[WSRP_APP_NAME]\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl. Do You Need to Migrate? Oracle Premier Support ended in November of 2010 for AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.x and Extended Support ends in November 2012 (see http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/lifetime-support-software-342730.html for other related dates). This means that integration with products released after November of 2010 is not supported. If having such support is the policy within your enterprise, you do indeed need to migrate. If changes in your enterprise cause your current solution with the .NET Accelerator to no longer function properly, you may need to migrate. Migration is a choice, and if the goals of your enterprise are to take full advantage of newer technologies then migration is certainly one activity you should be planning for.

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• Building a jQuery Plug-in to make an HTML Table scrollable

  - by Rick Strahl

  Today I got a call from a customer and we were looking over an older application that uses a lot of tables to display financial and other assorted data. The application is mostly meta-data driven with lots of layout formatting automatically driven through meta data rather than through explicit hand coded HTML layouts. One of the problems in this apps are tables that display a non-fixed amount of data. The users of this app don't want to use paging to see more data, but instead want to display overflow data using a scrollbar. Many of the forms are very densely populated, often with multiple data tables that display a few rows of data in the UI at the most. This sort of layout does not lend itself well to paging, but works much better with scrollable data. Unfortunately scrollable tables are not easily created. HTML Tables are mangy beasts as anybody who's done any sort of Web development knows. Tables are finicky when it comes to styling and layout, and they have many funky quirks, especially when it comes to scrolling both of the table rows themselves or even the child columns. There's no built-in way to make tables scroll and to lock headers while you do, and while you can embed a table (or anything really) into a scrolling div with something like this: <div style="position:relative; overflow: hidden; overflow-y: scroll; height: 200px; width: 400px;"> <table id="table" style="width: 100%" class="blackborder" > <thead> <tr class="gridheader"> <th>Column 1</th> <th>Column 2</th> <th>Column 3</th> <th >Column 4</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Column 1 Content</td> <td>Column 2 Content</td> <td>Column 3 Content</td> <td>Column 4 Content</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Column 1 Content</td> <td>Column 2 Content</td> <td>Column 3 Content</td> <td>Column 4 Content</td> </tr> … </tbody> </table> </div> </div> that won't give a very satisfying visual experience: Both the header and body scroll which looks odd. You lose context as soon as the header scrolls off the top and when you reach the bottom of the list the bottom outline of the table shows which also looks off. The the side bar shows all the way down the length of the table yet another visual miscue. In a pinch this will work, but it's ugly. What's out there? Before we go further here you should know that there are a few capable grid plug-ins out there already. Among them: Flexigrid (can work of any table as well as with AJAX data) jQuery Scrollable Table Plug-in (feature similar to what I need but not quite) jqGrid (mostly an Ajax Grid which is very powerful and works very well) But in the end none of them fit the bill of what I needed in this situation. All of these require custom CSS and some of them are fairly complex to restyle. Others are AJAX only or work better with AJAX loaded data. However, I need to actually try (as much as possible) to maintain the original styling of the tables without requiring extensive re-styling. Building the makeTableScrollable() Plug-in To make a table scrollable requires rearranging the table a bit. In the plug-in I built I create two <div> tags and split the table into two: one for the table header and one for the table body. The bottom <div> tag then contains only the table's row data and can be scrolled while the header stays fixed. Using jQuery the basic idea is pretty simple: You create the divs, copy the original table into the bottom, then clone the table, clear all content append the <thead> section, into new table and then copy that table into the second header <div>. Easy as pie, right? Unfortunately it's a bit more complicated than that as it's tricky to get the width of the table right to account for the scrollbar (by adding a small column) and making sure the borders properly line up for the two tables. A lot of style settings have to be made to ensure the table is a fixed size, to remove and reattach borders, to add extra space to allow for the scrollbar and so forth. The end result of my plug-in is a table with a scrollbar. Using the same table I used earlier the result looks like this: To create it, I use the following jQuery plug-in logic to select my table and run the makeTableScrollable() plug-in against the selector: $("#table").makeTableScrollable( { cssClass:"blackborder"} ); Without much further ado, here's the short code for the plug-in: (function ($) { $.fn.makeTableScrollable = function (options) { return this.each(function () { var $table = $(this); var opt = { // height of the table height: "250px", // right padding added to support the scrollbar rightPadding: "10px", // cssclass used for the wrapper div cssClass: "" } $.extend(opt, options); var $thead = $table.find("thead"); var $ths = $thead.find("th"); var id = $table.attr("id"); var cssClass = $table.attr("class"); if (!id) id = "_table_" + new Date().getMilliseconds().ToString(); $table.width("+=" + opt.rightPadding); $table.css("border-width", 0); // add a column to all rows of the table var first = true; $table.find("tr").each(function () { var row = $(this); if (first) { row.append($("<th>").width(opt.rightPadding)); first = false; } else row.append($("<td>").width(opt.rightPadding)); }); // force full sizing on each of the th elemnts $ths.each(function () { var $th = $(this); $th.css("width", $th.width()); }); // Create the table wrapper div var $tblDiv = $("<div>").css({ position: "relative", overflow: "hidden", overflowY: "scroll" }) .addClass(opt.cssClass); var width = $table.width(); $tblDiv.width(width).height(opt.height) .attr("id", id + "_wrapper") .css("border-top", "none"); // Insert before $tblDiv $tblDiv.insertBefore($table); // then move the table into it $table.appendTo($tblDiv); // Clone the div for header var $hdDiv = $tblDiv.clone(); $hdDiv.empty(); var width = $table.width(); $hdDiv.attr("style", "") .css("border-bottom", "none") .width(width) .attr("id", id + "_wrapper_header"); // create a copy of the table and remove all children var $newTable = $($table).clone(); $newTable.empty() .attr("id", $table.attr("id") + "_header"); $thead.appendTo($newTable); $hdDiv.insertBefore($tblDiv); $newTable.appendTo($hdDiv); $table.css("border-width", 0); }); } })(jQuery); Oh sweet spaghetti code :-) The code starts out by dealing the parameters that can be passed in the options object map: height The height of the full table/structure. The height of the outside wrapper container. Defaults to 200px. rightPadding The padding that is added to the right of the table to account for the scrollbar. Creates a column of this width and injects it into the table. If too small the rightmost column might get truncated. if too large the empty column might show. cssClass The CSS class of the wrapping container that appears to wrap the table. If you want a border around your table this class should probably provide it since the plug-in removes the table border. The rest of the code is obtuse, but pretty straight forward. It starts by creating a new column in the table to accommodate the width of the scrollbar and avoid clipping of text in the rightmost column. The width of the columns is explicitly set in the header elements to force the size of the table to be fixed and to provide the same sizing when the THEAD section is moved to a new copied table later. The table wrapper div is created, formatted and the table is moved into it. The new wrapper div is cloned for the header wrapper and configured. Finally the actual table is cloned and cleared of all elements. The original table's THEAD section is then moved into the new table. At last the new table is added to the header <div>, and the header <div> is inserted before the table wrapper <div>. I'm always amazed how easy jQuery makes it to do this sort of re-arranging, and given of what's happening the amount of code is rather small. Disclaimer: Your mileage may vary A word of warning: I make no guarantees about the code above. It's a first cut and I provided this here mainly to demonstrate the concepts of decomposing and reassembling an HTML layout :-) which jQuery makes so nice and easy. I tested this component against the typical scenarios we plan on using it for which are tables that use a few well known styles (or no styling at all). I suspect if you have complex styling on your <table> tag that things might not go so well. If you plan on using this plug-in you might want to minimize your styling of the table tag and defer any border formatting using the class passed in via the cssClass parameter, which ends up on the two wrapper div's that wrap the header and body rows. There's also no explicit support for footers. I rarely if ever use footers (when not using paging that is), so I didn't feel the need to add footer support. However, if you need that it's not difficult to add - the logic is the same as adding the header. The plug-in relies on a well-formatted table that has THEAD and TBODY sections along with TH tags in the header. Note that ASP.NET WebForm DataGrids and GridViews by default do not generate well-formatted table HTML. You can look at my Adding proper THEAD sections to a GridView post for more info on how to get a GridView to render properly. The plug-in has no dependencies other than jQuery. Even with the limitations in mind I hope this might be useful to some of you. I know I've already identified a number of places in my own existing applications where I will be plugging this in almost immediately. Resources Download Sample and Plug-in code Latest version in the West Wind Web & AJAX Toolkit Repository © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in jQuery  HTML  ASP.NET  

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• Transformation of Product Management in Telecommunications for Rapid Launch of Next Generation Products

  - by raul.goycoolea

  @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } The Telecom industry continues to evolve through disruptive products, uncertain markets, shorter product lifecycles and convergence of technologies. Today’s market has moved from network centric to consumer centric and focuses primarily on the customer experience. It has resulted in several product management challenges such as an increased complexity and volume of offerings, creating product variants, accelerating time-to-market, ability to provide multiple product views for varied stakeholders, leveraging OSS intelligence to BSS layer, product co-creation and increasing audit and security concerns for service providers. The document discusses how enterprise product management enabled by PLM-based product catalogue solutions helps to launch next generation products rapidly in the context of the Telecommunication Industry.   1.0.       Introduction   Figure 1: Business Scenario   Modern business demands the launch of complex products in a very short timeframe and effecting changes in the price plan faster without IT intervention. One of the key transformation initiatives companies are focusing on is in the area of product management transformation and operational efficiency improvement. As part of these initiatives, companies are investing in best- in-class COTs-based Product Management solutions developed on industry-wide standards.   The new COTs packages are planned to integrate with existing or new B/OSS systems to provide a strategic end-to-end agile solution for reduced time-to-market and order journey time. In addition, system rationalization is being undertaken to phase out legacy systems and migrate to strategic systems.   2.0.       An Overview of Product Management in Telecom   Product data in telecom is multi- dimensional and difficult to manage. It increased significantly due to the complexity of the product, product offerings on the converged network, increased volume of offerings, bundled offering structures and ever increasing regulatory requirements.   In addition, the shrinking product lifecycle in telecom makes it difficult to manage the dynamic product data. Mergers and acquisitions coupled with organic growth pose major challenges in product portfolio management. It is a roadblock in the journey towards becoming an agile organization.       Figure 2: Complexity in Product Management   Network Technology’ is the new dimension in telecom product management where the same products are realized through different networks i.e., Soiled network to Converged network. Consequently, the product solution is different.     Figure 3: Current Scenario - Pain Points in Product Management   The major business implications arising out of the current scenario are slow time-to-market and an inefficient process that affects innovation.   3.0. Transformation of Next Generation Product Management   Companies must focus on their Product Management Transformation Journey in the areas of:   ·       Management of single truth of product information across the organization/geographies which is currently managed in heterogeneous systems   ·       Management of the Intellectual Property (IP) on the product concept and partnership in the design of discrete components to integrate into the system   ·       Leveraging structured and unstructured product data within the extended enterprise to extract consumer insights and drive innovation   ·       Management of effective operational separation to comply with regulatory bodies   ·       Reuse of existing designs and add relevant features such as value-added services to enable effective product bundling     Figure 4: Next generation needs   PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions efficiently address the above requirements and act as an enabler towards product management transformation and rapid product launch.   4.0. PLM-based Enterprise Product Management     Figure 5: PLM-based Enterprise Product Mastering   Enterprise Product Management (EPM) enables the business to manage complex product attributes of data in complex environments. Product Mastering helps create a 'single view' of the product by creating a business-driven, IT-supported environment where a global 'single truth record' is created, managed and reused.   4.1 The Business Case for Telco PLM-based solutions for Enterprise Product Management   ·       Telco PLM-based Product Mastering solutions provide a centralized authoring environment for product definition and control of all product data and rules   ·       PLM packages are designed to support multiple perspectives of product data (ordering perspective, billing perspective, provisioning perspective)   ·       Maintains relationships/links between different elements of the entire product definition   ·       Telco PLM packages are specialized in next generation lifecycle management requirements of products such as revision and state management, test and release management, role management and impact analysis)   ·       Takes into consideration all aspects of OSS product requirements compared to CRM product catalogue solutions where the product data managed is mostly order oriented and transactional     ·       New breed of Telco PLM packages are designed with 'open' standards such as SID and eTOM. They are interoperable, support integration frameworks such as subscription and notification.   ·       Telco PLM packages have developed good collaboration frameworks to integrate suppliers and partners into the product development value chain   4.2 Various Architectures/Approaches for Product Mastering using Telco PLM systems   4. 2.a Single Central Product Management (Mastering) Approach   Figure 6: Single Central Product Management (Master) Approach       This approach is implemented across verticals such as aerospace and automotive. It focuses on a physically centralized product master to which other sources are dependent on. The product definition data (Product bundles, service bundles, price plans, offers and discounts, product configuration rules and market campaigns) is created and maintained physically in a centralized environment. In addition, the product definition/authoring environment is centralized. The existing legacy product definition data available in CRM product catalogue, billing catalogue and the legacy product catalogue is migrated to the centralized PLM-based Enterprise Product Management solution.   Architectural changes must be made in the existing business landscape of applications to create and revise data because the applications have to refer to the central repository for approvals and validation of product configurations. It is achieved by modifying how the applications write data or how the applications can be adapted to use the rules to be managed and published.   Complete product configuration validation will be done in enterprise / central product catalogue and final configuration will be sent to the B/OSS system through the SOA compliant product distribution architecture. The approach/architecture enables greater control in terms of product data management and product data governance.   4.2.b Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture     Figure 7: Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture   In the federated product mastering approach, the basic unique product definition data (product id, description product hierarchy, basic price plans and simple product design rules) will be centrally created and will be maintained. And, the advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers & discount plans) will be created in respective down stream OSS systems. The advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers and discount plans) will be created in respective downstream OSS systems.   For example, basic product definitions such as attributes, product hierarchy and basic price plans will be created and maintained in Enterprise/Central product reference catalogue and distributed to downstream OSS systems. Respective downstream OSS systems build product bundles, promotions, advanced price plans over the basic product definition and master the advanced product definition. Central reference database accesses the respective other source product master data and assembles a point-in-time consolidated view of the product. The approach is typically adapted in some merger and acquisition scenarios where there is a low probability of a central physical authority managing the data. In addition, the migration effort in this case is minimal and there are no big architectural changes to the organization application landscape. However, this approach will not result in better product data management and data governance.   5.0 Customer Scenario – Before EPC deployment   A leading global telecommunications service provider wanted to launch a quad play and triple play service offering in the shortest possible lead time. The service provider was offering Broadband and VoIP services to customers. The company wanted to reuse a majority of the Broadband services and price plans and bundle them with new wireless and IPTV services for quad play and triple play. The challenges in launching the new service offerings were:       Figure 8: Triple Play Plan   ·       Broadband product data was stored in multiple product catalogues (CRM catalogue, Billing catalogue, spread sheets)   ·       Product managers spent a lot of time performing tasks involving duplication or re-keying of data. Manual effort caused errors, cost and time over-runs.   ·       No effective product and price data governance mechanism. Price change issues arising from the lack of data consistency across systems resulted in leakage of customer value and revenue.   ·       Product data had re-usability issues and was not in a structured format. It resulted in uncontrolled product portfolio creation and product management issues.   ·       Lack of enterprise product model resulted into product distribution challenges and thus delays in product launch.   ·       Designers are constrained by existing legacy product management solutions to model product/service requirements and product configuration rules such as upgrading, downgrading and cross selling.    5.1 Customer Scenario - After EPC deployment     Figure 9: SOA-based end-to-end EPC Solution   The company deployed PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions to launch quad play service after evaluating various product catalogues. The broadband product offering, service and price data were migrated to the new system, and the product and price plan hierarchy for new offerings were created using the entities defined in the Enterprise Product Model. Supplier product catalogue data such as routers and set up boxes were loaded onto the new solution through SOA-based web service. Price plans and configuration rules were built in the new system. The validated final product configurations were extracted from the product catalogue in a SID format and were distributed to the downstream B/OSS systems through exposed SOA-based web services. The transformations required for the B/OSS system were handled using the transformation layer as part of the solution.   6.0 How PLM enabled Product Management Transformation         Figure 10: Product Management Transformation     PLM-based Product Catalogue Solution helped the customer reduce the product launch cycle time by 30% and enable transformation of Product Management for next generation services.   7.0 Conclusion   On the one hand, the telecom industry is undergoing changes due to disruptions, uncertain product markets and increased complexity of products. On the other hand, the ARPU is decreasing year-on-year. Communications Service Providers are embarking on convergence, bundled service offerings, flexibility to cross-sell and up-sell, introduce new value-added services, leverage Web 2.0 concepts and network capabilities. Consequently, large scale IT transformation initiatives to improve their ARPU supporting network and business transformations are a business imperative. Product Management has become a focus area. Companies are investing in best-in- class COTS solutions to reduce time-to-market, ensure rapid service delivery and improve operational efficiency. An efficient PLM-based enterprise product mastering solution plays a key role in achieving zero touch automation and rapid product launch.   References:   1.     Preston G.Smith, Donald G.Reineristsem, Van Nostrand Reinhold “Developing Products in Half the time”.   2.     John G. Innes, "Achieving Successful Product Change", Pitman Publishing.   3.     D T Pham and R M Setchi (16th Jan, 2001) "Authoring environment for documentation development" University of Wales Cardiff, U.K., Proceedings on Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 215, Part B.   4.     Oracle Product Hub for Communications:   http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/master-data-management/product-hub-082059.html  

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• ERR_INCOMPLETE_CHUNKED_ENCODING apache 2.4

  - by Bujanca Mihai

  I upgraded my Ubuntu server to 14.04 and Apache 2.4.7. Now my images don't load and console yields net::ERR_INCOMPLETE_CHUNKED_ENCODING. Also, I can sometimes see some of the images load for a little while (1 sec max) and then they disappear. .htaccess RewriteEngine On # Serve the favicon file from img folder RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/favicon.ico$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /img/$1 [NC,L] # Redirect HTTP traffic to WWW subdomain RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] # Redirect HTTPS traffic to WWW subdomain RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] # Auto Versioning rules RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-s RewriteRule ^(.*)\.[\d]+\.(css|js)$ $1.$2 [L] # Default Zend rewrite rules RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L] RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L] VHost <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin admin@localhost ServerName localhost DocumentRoot /home/mihai/ARTD/www/public/website # Omit this in production environment SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV local <Directory /home/mihai/ARTD/www/public/website > Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All #Order deny,allow #Allow from all Require all granted </Directory> <IfModule mod_php5.c> php_value memory_limit 128M php_value upload_max_filesize 20M php_value post_max_size 20M </IfModule> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/ARTD-error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/ARTD-access.log combined </VirtualHost> <IfModule mod_ssl.c> <VirtualHost *:443> ServerAdmin admin@localhost ServerName localhost DocumentRoot /home/mihai/ARTD/www/public/website # Omit this in production environment SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV local <Directory /home/mihai/ARTD/www/public/website > Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All #Order deny,allow #Allow from all Require all granted </Directory> <IfModule mod_php5.c> php_value memory_limit 128M php_value upload_max_filesize 20M php_value post_max_size 20M </IfModule> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/ARTD-ssl-error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/ARTD.log combined # SSL Engine Switch: # Enable/Disable SSL for this virtual host. SSLEngine on # A self-signed (snakeoil) certificate can be created by installing # the ssl-cert package. See # /usr/share/doc/apache2.2-common/README.Debian.gz for more info. # If both key and certificate are stored in the same file, only the # SSLCertificateFile directive is needed. SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key # Server Certificate Chain: # Point SSLCertificateChainFile at a file containing the # concatenation of PEM encoded CA certificates which form the # certificate chain for the server certificate. Alternatively # the referenced file can be the same as SSLCertificateFile # when the CA certificates are directly appended to the server # certificate for convinience. #SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/server-ca.crt # Certificate Authority (CA): # Set the CA certificate verification path where to find CA # certificates for client authentication or alternatively one # huge file containing all of them (file must be PEM encoded) # Note: Inside SSLCACertificatePath you need hash symlinks # to point to the certificate files. Use the provided # Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes. #SSLCACertificatePath /etc/ssl/certs/ #SSLCACertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/ca-bundle.crt # Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL): # Set the CA revocation path where to find CA CRLs for client # authentication or alternatively one huge file containing all # of them (file must be PEM encoded) # Note: Inside SSLCARevocationPath you need hash symlinks # to point to the certificate files. Use the provided # Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes. #SSLCARevocationPath /etc/apache2/ssl.crl/ #SSLCARevocationFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crl/ca-bundle.crl # Client Authentication (Type): # Client certificate verification type and depth. Types are # none, optional, require and optional_no_ca. Depth is a # number which specifies how deeply to verify the certificate # issuer chain before deciding the certificate is not valid. #SSLVerifyClient require #SSLVerifyDepth 10 # Access Control: # With SSLRequire you can do per-directory access control based # on arbitrary complex boolean expressions containing server # variable checks and other lookup directives. The syntax is a # mixture between C and Perl. See the mod_ssl documentation # for more details. #<Location /> #SSLRequire ( %{SSL_CIPHER} !~ m/^(EXP|NULL)/ \ # and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_O} eq "Snake Oil, Ltd." \ # and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_OU} in {"Staff", "CA", "Dev"} \ # and %{TIME_WDAY} >= 1 and %{TIME_WDAY} <= 5 \ # and %{TIME_HOUR} >= 8 and %{TIME_HOUR} <= 20 ) \ # or %{REMOTE_ADDR} =~ m/^192\.76\.162\.[0-9]+$/ #</Location> # SSL Engine Options: # Set various options for the SSL engine. # o FakeBasicAuth: # Translate the client X.509 into a Basic Authorisation. This means that # the standard Auth/DBMAuth methods can be used for access control. The # user name is the `one line' version of the client's X.509 certificate. # Note that no password is obtained from the user. Every entry in the user # file needs this password: `xxj31ZMTZzkVA'. # o ExportCertData: # This exports two additional environment variables: SSL_CLIENT_CERT and # SSL_SERVER_CERT. These contain the PEM-encoded certificates of the # server (always existing) and the client (only existing when client # authentication is used). This can be used to import the certificates # into CGI scripts. # o StdEnvVars: # This exports the standard SSL/TLS related `SSL_*' environment variables. # Per default this exportation is switched off for performance reasons, # because the extraction step is an expensive operation and is usually # useless for serving static content. So one usually enables the # exportation for CGI and SSI requests only. # o StrictRequire: # This denies access when "SSLRequireSSL" or "SSLRequire" applied even # under a "Satisfy any" situation, i.e. when it applies access is denied # and no other module can change it. # o OptRenegotiate: # This enables optimized SSL connection renegotiation handling when SSL # directives are used in per-directory context. #SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +StrictRequire #<FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$"> # SSLOptions +StdEnvVars #</FilesMatch> # SSL Protocol Adjustments: # The safe and default but still SSL/TLS standard compliant shutdown # approach is that mod_ssl sends the close notify alert but doesn't wait for # the close notify alert from client. When you need a different shutdown # approach you can use one of the following variables: # o ssl-unclean-shutdown: # This forces an unclean shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. no # SSL close notify alert is send or allowed to received. This violates # the SSL/TLS standard but is needed for some brain-dead browsers. Use # this when you receive I/O errors because of the standard approach where # mod_ssl sends the close notify alert. # o ssl-accurate-shutdown: # This forces an accurate shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. a # SSL close notify alert is send and mod_ssl waits for the close notify # alert of the client. This is 100% SSL/TLS standard compliant, but in # practice often causes hanging connections with brain-dead browsers. Use # this only for browsers where you know that their SSL implementation # works correctly. # Notice: Most problems of broken clients are also related to the HTTP # keep-alive facility, so you usually additionally want to disable # keep-alive for those clients, too. Use variable "nokeepalive" for this. # Similarly, one has to force some clients to use HTTP/1.0 to workaround # their broken HTTP/1.1 implementation. Use variables "downgrade-1.0" and # "force-response-1.0" for this. #BrowserMatch ".*MSIE.*" \ # nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \ # downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0 </VirtualHost> </IfModule> logs Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.3 OpenSSL/1.0.1f (internal dummy connection) 127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2014:13:09:53 +0300] "GET /img/header/top-nav-separator.png HTTP/1.1" 200 462 "https://localhost/art" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/34.0.1847.132 Safari/537.36"

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• The Inkremental Architect&acute;s Napkin - #4 - Make increments tangible

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/06/12/the-inkremental-architectacutes-napkin---4---make-increments-tangible.aspxThe driver of software development are increments, small increments, tiny increments. With an increment being a slice of the overall requirement scope thin enough to implement and get feedback from a product owner within 2 days max. Such an increment might concern Functionality or Quality.[1] To make such high frequency delivery of increments possible, the transition from talking to coding needs to be as easy as possible. A user story or some other documentation of what´s supposed to get implemented until tomorrow evening at latest is one side of the medal. The other is where to put the logic in all of the code base. To implement an increment, only logic statements are needed. Functionality like Quality are just about expressions and control flow statements. Think of Assembler code without the CALL/RET instructions. That´s all is needed. Forget about functions, forget about classes. To make a user happy none of that is really needed. It´s just about the right expressions and conditional executions paths plus some memory allocation. Automatic function inlining of compilers which makes it clear how unimportant functions are for delivering value to users at runtime. But why then are there functions? Because they were invented for optimization purposes. We need them for better Evolvability and Production Efficiency. Nothing more, nothing less. No software has become faster, more secure, more scalable, more functional because we gathered logic under the roof of a function or two or a thousand. Functions make logic easier to understand. Functions make us faster in producing logic. Functions make it easier to keep logic consistent. Functions help to conserve memory. That said, functions are important. They are even the pivotal element of software development. We can´t code without them - whether you write a function yourself or not. Because there´s always at least one function in play: the Entry Point of a program. In Ruby the simplest program looks like this:puts "Hello, world!" In C# more is necessary:class Program { public static void Main () { System.Console.Write("Hello, world!"); } } C# makes the Entry Point function explicit, not so Ruby. But still it´s there. So you can think of logic always running in some function. Which brings me back to increments: In order to make the transition from talking to code as easy as possible, it has to be crystal clear into which function you should put the logic. Product owners might be content once there is a sticky note a user story on the Scrum or Kanban board. But developers need an idea of what that sticky note means in term of functions. Because with a function in hand, with a signature to run tests against, they have something to focus on. All´s well once there is a function behind whose signature logic can be piled up. Then testing frameworks can be used to check if the logic is correct. Then practices like TDD can help to drive the implementation. That´s why most code katas define exactly how the API of a solution should look like. It´s a function, maybe two or three, not more. A requirement like “Write a function f which takes this as parameters and produces such and such output by doing x” makes a developer comfortable. Yes, there are all kinds of details to think about, like which algorithm or technology to use, or what kind of state and side effects to consider. Even a single function not only must deliver on Functionality, but also on Quality and Evolvability. Nevertheless, once it´s clear which function to put logic in, you have a tangible starting point. So, yes, what I´m suggesting is to find a single function to put all the logic in that´s necessary to deliver on a the requirements of an increment. Or to put it the other way around: Slice requirements in a way that each increment´s logic can be located under the roof of a single function. Entry points Of course, the logic of a software will always be spread across many, many functions. But there´s always an Entry Point. That´s the most important function for each increment, because that´s the root to put integration or even acceptance tests on. A batch program like the above hello-world application only has a single Entry Point. All logic is reached from there, regardless how deep it´s nested in classes. But a program with a user interface like this has at least two Entry Points: One is the main function called upon startup. The other is the button click event handler for “Show my score”. But maybe there are even more, like another Entry Point being a handler for the event fired when one of the choices gets selected; because then some logic could check if the button should be enabled because all questions got answered. Or another Entry Point for the logic to be executed when the program is close; because then the choices made should be persisted. You see, an Entry Point to me is a function which gets triggered by the user of a software. With batch programs that´s the main function. With GUI programs on the desktop that´s event handlers. With web programs that´s handlers for URL routes. And my basic suggestion to help you with slicing requirements for Spinning is: Slice them in a way so that each increment is related to only one Entry Point function.[2] Entry Points are the “outer functions” of a program. That´s where the environment triggers behavior. That´s where hardware meets software. Entry points always get called because something happened to hardware state, e.g. a key was pressed, a mouse button clicked, the system timer ticked, data arrived over a wire.[3] Viewed from the outside, software is just a collection of Entry Point functions made accessible via buttons to press, menu items to click, gestures, URLs to open, keys to enter. Collections of batch processors I´d thus say, we haven´t moved forward since the early days of software development. We´re still writing batch programs. Forget about “event-driven programming” with its fancy GUI applications. Software is just a collection of batch processors. Earlier it was just one per program, today it´s hundreds we bundle up into applications. Each batch processor is represented by an Entry Point as its root that works on a number of resources from which it reads data to process and to which it writes results. These resources can be the keyboard or main memory or a hard disk or a communication line or a display. Together many batch processors - large and small - form applications the user perceives as a single whole: Software development that way becomes quite simple: just implement one batch processor after another. Well, at least in principle ;-) Features Each batch processor entered through an Entry Point delivers value to the user. It´s an increment. Sometimes its logic is trivial, sometimes it´s very complex. Regardless, each Entry Point represents an increment. An Entry Point implemented thus is a step forward in terms of Agility. At the same time it´s a tangible unit for developers. Therefore, identifying the more or less numerous batch processors in a software system is a rewarding task for product owners and developers alike. That´s where user stories meet code. In this example the user story translates to the Entry Point triggered by clicking the login button on a dialog like this: The batch then retrieves what has been entered via keyboard, loads data from a user store, and finally outputs some kind of response on the screen, e.g. by displaying an error message or showing the next dialog. This is all very simple, but you see, there is not just one thing happening, but several. Get input (email address, password) Load user for email address If user not found report error Check password Hash password Compare hash to hash stored in user Show next dialog Viewed from 10,000 feet it´s all done by the Entry Point function. And of course that´s technically possible. It´s just a bunch of logic and calling a couple of API functions. However, I suggest to take these steps as distinct aspects of the overall requirement described by the user story. Such aspects of requirements I call Features. Features too are increments. Each provides some (small) value of its own to the user. Each can be checked individually by a product owner. Instead of implementing all the logic behind the Login() entry point at once you can move forward increment by increment, e.g. First implement the dialog, let the user enter any credentials, and log him/her in without any checks. Features 1 and 4. Then hard code a single user and check the email address. Features 2 and 2.1. Then check password without hashing it (or use a very simple hash like the length of the password). Features 3. and 3.2 Replace hard coded user with a persistent user directoy, but a very simple one, e.g. a CSV file. Refinement of feature 2. Calculate the real hash for the password. Feature 3.1. Switch to the final user directory technology. Each feature provides an opportunity to deliver results in a short amount of time and get feedback. If you´re in doubt whether you can implement the whole entry point function until tomorrow night, then just go for a couple of features or even just one. That´s also why I think, you should strive for wrapping feature logic into a function of its own. It´s a matter of Evolvability and Production Efficiency. A function per feature makes the code more readable, since the language of requirements analysis and design is carried over into implementation. It makes it easier to apply changes to features because it´s clear where their logic is located. And finally, of course, it lets you re-use features in different context (read: increments). Feature functions make it easier for you to think of features as Spinning increments, to implement them independently, to let the product owner check them for acceptance individually. Increments consist of features, entry point functions consist of feature functions. So you can view software as a hierarchy of requirements from broad to thin which map to a hierarchy of functions - with entry points at the top.   I like this image of software as a self-similar structure on many levels of abstraction where requirements and code match each other. That to me is true agile design: the core tenet of Agility to move forward in increments is carried over into implementation. Increments on paper are retained in code. This way developers can easily relate to product owners. Elusive and fuzzy requirements are not tangible. Software production is moving forward through requirements one increment at a time, and one function at a time. In closing Product owners and developers are different - but they need to work together towards a shared goal: working software. So their notions of software need to be made compatible, they need to be connected. The increments of the product owner - user stories and features - need to be mapped straightforwardly to something which is relevant to developers. To me that´s functions. Yes, functions, not classes nor components nor micro services. We´re talking about behavior, actions, activities, processes. Their natural representation is a function. Something has to be done. Logic has to be executed. That´s the purpose of functions. Later, classes and other containers are needed to stay on top of a growing amount of logic. But to connect developers and product owners functions are the appropriate glue. Functions which represent increments. Can there always be such a small increment be found to deliver until tomorrow evening? I boldly say yes. Yes, it´s always possible. But maybe you´ve to start thinking differently. Maybe the product owner needs to start thinking differently. Completion is not the goal anymore. Neither is checking the delivery of an increment through the user interface of a software. Product owners need to become comfortable using test beds for certain features. If it´s hard to slice requirements thin enough for Spinning the reason is too little knowledge of something. Maybe you don´t yet understand the problem domain well enough? Maybe you don´t yet feel comfortable with some tool or technology? Then it´s time to acknowledge this fact. Be honest about your not knowing. And instead of trying to deliver as a craftsman officially become a researcher. Research an check back with the product owner every day - until your understanding has grown to a level where you are able to define the next Spinning increment. ? Sometimes even thin requirement slices will cover several Entry Points, like “Add validation of email addresses to all relevant dialogs.” Validation then will it put into a dozen functons. Still, though, it´s important to determine which Entry Points exactly get affected. That´s much easier, if strive for keeping the number of Entry Points per increment to 1. ? If you like call Entry Point functions event handlers, because that´s what they are. They all handle events of some kind, whether that´s palpable in your code or note. A public void btnSave_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {…} might look like an event handler to you, but public static void Main() {…} is one also - for then event “program started”. ?

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