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• I'm creating my own scalable, rapid prototyping web server. How should I design it?

  - by Mike Willliams

  I'm going to create my own web server that focuses on scalability, rapid prototyping and the use of JavaScript as the server's scripting language, much like node.js. It will use a Model-View-Controller design pattern so a web application can support more concurrent users just by adding hardware -- and not having to redesign the software. Basically, I'm aiming to produce a framework that allows for fast and easy development of cloud applications without the need to write lots of boiler plate code. I've got some questions about this... How hard will it be to put MySQL in the cloud? How could I go about implementing this and make the resulting product free? Will I have to write my own engine or modify an existing one, if I do what should I watch out for? To make this scalable I need to adjust from one server to hundreds of servers this creates the requirement for the servers to be load balancing, how should I do this? If I balance based on the work load per server I would need gateway to handle all the incoming requests. Is it the right idea to have all the servers check into the gateway and update there status. By having the servers run through a gateway if the gateway dies all the incoming requests are ignored. I'm thinking that having all the servers maintain a list of each other, or at least a few I could rebuild the list of servers and establish a new gateway. Is it worth it? Or should I have a backup gateway that could switch out? Should I let the user choose? How should I pick which server handles the database and which handles the page serving? Should I spread the database so that queries are preformed on multiple servers? Which would theoretically improve performance. The servers would need to mirror the database at least once so that if a server goes down the database isn't corrupted. So this brings up writing another question, should I broadcast SQL queries so that all the servers can take a bit of the work load? If I do it that way wouldn't a query clog up the network so that other queries couldn't be preformed? What are my alternatives? Finally, is there a free solution already out there that might need a little modification that suits my needs?

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• Internships at Oracle &ndash; a truly multicultural experience!

  - by cristian.condurache(at)oracle.com

  Hello everybody!!! Our names are Lena and Laura, we both study in the same Grande Ecole in France, IPAG and we are about to complete our 16 week-internship in Oracle in the UK. Below a summary of our experience! My name is Lena. I am 20 years old and joined Oracle UK in September 2010 – more specifically, I joined the EMEA Graduate's Recruitment Team (EMEA stands for Europe, Middle East and Africa), and I have learned a lot about working life. It was a really good experience, which made me realize that I soon will be looking for a fulltime employee in a company in less than 3 years. I am glad to have had this first experience in Oracle. First of all because it's a very welcoming company which treats interns as employees and gives them the opportunity to show their potential. I also discovered that it is nice to work in a company where everybody knows everybody, and where the atmosphere is really good. The multicultural aspect is one of the most important and beautiful elements of Oracle. It gives you the opportunity to have contacts in many parts of the world and discover a lot of nice people. During my internship I learned a lot about Recruitment. I discovered I want to work in a Human Resources role after I graduate. I like the contact I will have with candidates and the fact that I have to be in touch with managers and understand their needs. I would be glad to work for the company in the near future. I would like to thank all my team members for welcoming me like they did. It was a real pleasure to share this experience in Oracle and in this team and I hope to return after I graduate.   Hi all! I am Laura. My wish for this internship was to focus on training of personal skills for employees and, by the same time of course, for the company’s development.... and I did it in the OTD team (EMEA Organization Talent Development Team). I could not have done something better than this! It was truly instructive. I learnt how to work in such a big international company, the values and the rules to follow and to interact and be part of the organisation. In Oracle, there are so different aspects of every department, so many possibilities in HR as well as in Finance or Sales... The jobs are very various and the employees’ cultures are also really different thanks to this international and multicultural company. I am working with OTD for the entire EMEA region, having many of my colleagues in other countries, with other cultures, other ways to work, and other ways to think... this is so inspiring! Oracle offers the best environment to learn about a job, as well as to learn about work life in such large companies. This company is about new technologies, it always goes fast, and everything changes quickly! You have to be aware of these changes and keep track of the wishes of customers. For OTD of course, these customers are the employees. Looking back I have learnt more then I would have ever thought and I know that it is what I want to do... And now I hope to come back again! I want to thank all my team for welcoming me and integrating me with such happiness. I will truly miss them!! If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact [email protected]. You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com. Technorati Tags: Oracle,EMEA,Recruitment,internship,ODT,team

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• AZURE - Stairway To Heaven

  - by Waclaw Chrabaszcz

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Wchrabaszcz/archive/2014/08/02/azure---stairway-to-heaven.aspx  Before you’ll start reading please start to play this song.   OK boys and girls, time get familiar with clouds. Time to become a meteorologist. To be honest I don’t know how to start. Is cloud better or worse than on campus resources … hmm … it is just different. I think for successful adoption in cloud world IT Dinosaurs need to forget some “Private Cloud” virtualization bad habits, and learn new way of thinking. Take a look: - I don’t need any  tapes or  CDs  (Physical Kingdom of Windows XP and 2000) - I don’t need any locally stored MP3s (CD virtualization :-) - I can just stream music to your computer no matter whether my on-site infrastructure is powered on. Why not to do exactly the same with WebServer, SQL, or just rented for a while Windows server ? Let’s go, to the other side of the mirror. 1st  - register yourself for free one month trial, as happy MSDN subscriber you’ve got monthly budget to spent. In addition in default setting your limit protects you against loosing real money, if your toys will consume too much traffic and space. http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/ Once your account is ready forget WebPortal, we are PowerShell knights. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9811175&clcid=0x409 #Authenticate yourself in Azure Add-AzureAccount #download once your settings file Get-AzurePublishSettingsFile #Import it to your PowerShell Module Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile "C:\Azure\[filename].publishsettings" #validation Get-AzureAccount Get-AzureSubscription #where are Azure datacenters Get-AzureLocation #You will need it Update-Help #storage account is related to physical location, there are two datacenters on each continent, try nearest to you # all your VMs will store VHD files on your storage account #your storage account must be unique globally, so I assume that words account or server are already used New-AzureStorageAccount -StorageAccountName "[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]" -Label "AzureTwo" -Location "West Europe" Get-AzureStorageAccount #it looks like you are ready to deploy first VM, what templates we can use Get-AzureVMImage | Select ImageName #what a mess, let’s choose Server 2012 $ImageName = (Get-AzureVMImage)[74].ImageName $cloudSvcName = '[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]' $AdminUsername = "[YOUR-ADMIN]" $adminPassword = '[YOUR_PA$$W0RD]' $MediaLocation = "West Europe" $vmnameDC = 'DC01' #burn baby burn !!! $vmDC01 = New-AzureVMConfig -Name $vmnameDC -InstanceSize "Small" -ImageName $ImageName   `     | Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -Windows -Password $adminPassword -AdminUsername $AdminUsername   `     | New-AzureVM -ServiceName $cloudSvcName #ice, ice baby … Get-AzureVM Get-AzureRemoteDesktopFile -ServiceName "[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]" -Name "DC01" -LocalPath "c:\AZURE\DC01.rdp" As you can see it is not just a new-VM, you need to associate your VM with AzureVMConfig (it sets your template), AzureProvisioningConfig (it sets your customizations), and Storage account. In next releases you’ll need to put this machine in specific subnet, attach a HDD and many more. After second reading I found that I am using the same name for STORAGE and SERVICE account, please be aware of it if you need to split these values. Conclusions: - pipe rules ! - at the beginning it is hard to change your mind and agree with fact that it is easier to remove and recreate a VM than move it to different subnet - by default everything is firewalled, limited access to DNS, but NATed outside on custom ports. It is good to check these translations sometimes on the webportal. - if you remove your VMs your harddrives remains on storage and MS will charge you . Remove-AzureVM -DeleteVHD For me AZURE it is a lot of fun, once again I can be newbie and learn every page. For me Azure offers real freedom in deployment of VMs without arguing with NetAdmins, WinAdmins, DBAs, PMs and other Change Managers. Unfortunately soon or later they will come to my haven and change it into …

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• Physics/Graphics Components

  - by Brett Powell

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

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• Oracle OpenWorld Update: Demo Pods and Hands-on Labs

  - by Doug Reid

  0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* 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-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:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Less than one week away until the start of Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and the Data Integration Solutions team is ready to go!  We have an exciting line up for you this year which we have summarized for you in the Oracle OpenWorld Focus on Data Integration Solutions document. In past posts we have discussed session themes and our customer panel, but today I would like to summarize our Hands-on Labs and Demo Pods that we have available for attendees. For Oracle GoldenGate Hands-On Labs we have two labs that we are running this year. Deep Dive into Oracle GoldenGate Thursday October 4th at 11:15AM in the Marriott Marquis Salon 1/2 Oracle GoldenGate provides real-time log-based change data capture and delivery between heterogeneous systems. It enables cost-effective, low-impact, real-time data integration and continuous availability solutions. This session covers Oracle GoldenGate 11g’s internal product architecture and includes a hands-on lab that covers configuration examples for target database instantiation and real-time change data capture and delivery. The participants will configure Oracle GoldenGate to instantiate a secondary database that can be used for disaster recovery or a reporting instance. Come learn how easy it is to use and how this can be a very valuable and easy technology solution for your organization. Introduction to Oracle GoldenGate Veridata Wednesday October 3rd 10:15AM in the Marriott Marquis Sales 1/2 Oracle GoldenGate Veridata compares one set of data with another and identifies data that is out of synchronization. In this hands-on lab, you will be introduced to the key features of this product. Using the Oracle GoldenGate Veridata Web client, you will have the opportunity to configure comparison objects and rules, initiate a comparison, review the status and output of a comparison, and review out-of-sync data. As a bonus this year, we have recorded the labs and made them available on youtube.com/oraclegoldengate. These will be available the day of the labs. Our demo pods are an opportunity for attendees to see our products but more so to meet the product management and development teams. I would like to point out that we have two Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 demo pods, one in the database camp and the other in the middleware camp. The one in the middleware camp will be focused on all platforms while the one in the database camp will have a focus on the Oracle platform. The other two I would like to point out are the Monitoring Oracle GoldenGate and the Oracle Enterprise Manager demo pods; both of these pods will focus on methods to monitor GoldenGate but the OEM demo pod will have a specific focus on the Oracle GoldenGate Management Pack plug-in for OEM. Below is a list of our demo pods and their locations. Monitoring Oracle GoldenGate for End-to-End Visibility Moscone South, Right - S-241 Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate for Oracle Applications Moscone South, Right - S-240 Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 New Features Moscone South, Right - S-239 Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2: Real-Time, Transactional Database Replication     Moscone South, Left - S-027 Oracle GoldenGate Veridata and Adapters Moscone South, Right - S-242 Oracle Enterprise Manager Moscone South, Left - S-040 Keep tuned to our blog during the show for news and highlights from the Data Integration Solutions team. See you there.

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• Windows Azure Recipe: Big Data

  - by Clint Edmonson

  As the name implies, what we’re talking about here is the explosion of electronic data that comes from huge volumes of transactions, devices, and sensors being captured by businesses today. This data often comes in unstructured formats and/or too fast for us to effectively process in real time. Collectively, we call these the 4 big data V’s: Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Variability. These qualities make this type of data best managed by NoSQL systems like Hadoop, rather than by conventional Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). We know that there are patterns hidden inside this data that might provide competitive insight into market trends.  The key is knowing when and how to leverage these “No SQL” tools combined with traditional business such as SQL-based relational databases and warehouses and other business intelligence tools. Drivers Petabyte scale data collection and storage Business intelligence and insight Solution The sketch below shows one of many big data solutions using Hadoop’s unique highly scalable storage and parallel processing capabilities combined with Microsoft Office’s Business Intelligence Components to access the data in the cluster. Ingredients Hadoop – this big data industry heavyweight provides both large scale data storage infrastructure and a highly parallelized map-reduce processing engine to crunch through the data efficiently. Here are the key pieces of the environment: Pig - a platform for analyzing large data sets that consists of a high-level language for expressing data analysis programs, coupled with infrastructure for evaluating these programs. Mahout - a machine learning library with algorithms for clustering, classification and batch based collaborative filtering that are implemented on top of Apache Hadoop using the map/reduce paradigm. Hive - data warehouse software built on top of Apache Hadoop that facilitates querying and managing large datasets residing in distributed storage. Directly accessible to Microsoft Office and other consumers via add-ins and the Hive ODBC data driver. Pegasus - a Peta-scale graph mining system that runs in parallel, distributed manner on top of Hadoop and that provides algorithms for important graph mining tasks such as Degree, PageRank, Random Walk with Restart (RWR), Radius, and Connected Components. Sqoop - a tool designed for efficiently transferring bulk data between Apache Hadoop and structured data stores such as relational databases. Flume - a distributed, reliable, and available service for efficiently collecting, aggregating, and moving large log data amounts to HDFS. Database – directly accessible to Hadoop via the Sqoop based Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop, data can be efficiently transferred to traditional relational data stores for replication, reporting, or other needs. Reporting – provides easily consumable reporting when combined with a database being fed from the Hadoop environment. Training These links point to online Windows Azure training labs where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. Hadoop Learning Resources (20+ tutorials and labs) Huge collection of resources for learning about all aspects of Apache Hadoop-based development on Windows Azure and the Hadoop and Windows Azure Ecosystems SQL Azure (7 labs) Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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• What&rsquo;s new in RadChart for 2010 Q1 (Silverlight / WPF)

  Greetings, RadChart fans! It is with great pleasure that I present this short highlight of our accomplishments for the Q1 release :). Weve worked very hard to make the best silverlight and WPF charting product even better. Here is some of what we did during the past few months.   1) Zooming&Scrolling and the new sampling engine: Without a doubt one of the most important things we did. This new feature allows you to bind your chart to a very large set of data with blazing performance. Dont take my word for it give it a try!   2) New Smart Label Positioning and Spider-like labels feature: This new feature really helps with very busy graphs. You can play with the different settings we offer in this example.   3) Sorting and Filtering. Much like our RadGridview control the chart now allows you to sort and filter your data out of the box with a single line of code!   4) Legend improvements Weve also been paying attention to those of you who wanted a much improved legend. It is now possible to customize the look and feel of legend items and legend position with a single click.   5) Custom palette brushes. You have told us that you want to easily customize all palette colors using a single clean API from both XAML and code behind. The new custom palette brushes API does exactly that.   There are numerous other improvements as well, as much improved themes, performance optimizations and other features that we did. If you want to dig in further check the release notes and changes and backwards compatibility topics.   Feel free to share the pains and gains of working with RadChart. Our team is always open to receiving constructive feedback and beer :-)Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Per-vertex position/normal and per-index texture coordinate

  - by Boreal

  In my game, I have a mesh with a vertex buffer and index buffer up and running. The vertex buffer stores a Vector3 for the position and a Vector2 for the UV coordinate for each vertex. The index buffer is a list of ushorts. It works well, but I want to be able to use 3 discrete texture coordinates per triangle. I assume I have to create another vertex buffer, but how do I even use it? Here is my vertex/index buffer creation code: // vertices is a Vertex[] // indices is a ushort[] // VertexDefs stores the vertex size (sizeof(float) * 5) // vertex data numVertices = vertices.Length; DataStream data = new DataStream(VertexDefs.size * numVertices, true, true); data.WriteRange<Vertex>(vertices); data.Position = 0; // vertex buffer parameters BufferDescription vbDesc = new BufferDescription() { BindFlags = BindFlags.VertexBuffer, CpuAccessFlags = CpuAccessFlags.None, OptionFlags = ResourceOptionFlags.None, SizeInBytes = VertexDefs.size * numVertices, StructureByteStride = VertexDefs.size, Usage = ResourceUsage.Default }; // create vertex buffer vertexBuffer = new Buffer(Graphics.device, data, vbDesc); vertexBufferBinding = new VertexBufferBinding(vertexBuffer, VertexDefs.size, 0); data.Dispose(); // index data numIndices = indices.Length; data = new DataStream(sizeof(ushort) * numIndices, true, true); data.WriteRange<ushort>(indices); data.Position = 0; // index buffer parameters BufferDescription ibDesc = new BufferDescription() { BindFlags = BindFlags.IndexBuffer, CpuAccessFlags = CpuAccessFlags.None, OptionFlags = ResourceOptionFlags.None, SizeInBytes = sizeof(ushort) * numIndices, StructureByteStride = sizeof(ushort), Usage = ResourceUsage.Default }; // create index buffer indexBuffer = new Buffer(Graphics.device, data, ibDesc); data.Dispose(); Engine.Log(MessageType.Success, string.Format("Mesh created with {0} vertices and {1} indices", numVertices, numIndices)); And my drawing code: // ShaderEffect, ShaderTechnique, and ShaderPass all store effect data // e is of type ShaderEffect // get the technique ShaderTechnique t; if(!e.techniques.TryGetValue(techniqueName, out t)) return; // effect variables e.SetMatrix("worldView", worldView); e.SetMatrix("projection", projection); e.SetResource("diffuseMap", texture); e.SetSampler("textureSampler", sampler); // set per-mesh/technique settings Graphics.context.InputAssembler.SetVertexBuffers(0, vertexBufferBinding); Graphics.context.InputAssembler.SetIndexBuffer(indexBuffer, SlimDX.DXGI.Format.R16_UInt, 0); Graphics.context.PixelShader.SetSampler(sampler, 0); // render for each pass foreach(ShaderPass p in t.passes) { Graphics.context.InputAssembler.InputLayout = p.layout; p.pass.Apply(Graphics.context); Graphics.context.DrawIndexed(numIndices, 0, 0); } How can I do this?

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• Oracle Employees Support New World Record for IYF Children's Hour

  - by Maria Sandu

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 960 students ‘crouched’, ‘touched’ and ‘set’ under the watchful eye of International Rugby Referee Alain Roland, and supported by Oracle employees, to successfully set a new world record for the World’s Largest Scrum to raise funds and awareness for the Irish Youth Foundation. Last year Oracle Employees supported the Irish Youth Foundation by donating funds from their payroll through the Giving Tree Appeal. We were the largest corporate donor to the IYF by raising €3075. To acknowledge our generosity the IYF asked Oracle Leadership in Society team members to participate in their most recent campaign which was to break the Guinness Book of Records by forming the World’s Largest Rugby Scrum. This was a wonderful opportunity for Oracle’s Leadership in Society to promote the charity, support education and to make a mark in the Corporate Social Responsibility field. The students who formed the scrum also gave up their lunch money and raised a total of €3000. This year we hope Oracle Employees will once again support the IYF with the challenge to match that amount. On the 24th of October the sun shone down on the streaming lines of students entering the field. 480 students were decked out in bright red Oracle T-Shirts against the other 480 in blue and white jerseys - all ready to form a striking scrum. Ryan Tubridy the host of the event made the opening announcement and with the blow of a whistle the Scum began. 960 students locked tight together with the Leinster players also at each side. Leinster Manager Matt O’Connor was there along with presenters Ryan Tubridy and George Hook to assist with getting the boys in line and keeping the shape of the scrum. In accordance with Guinness Book of Records rules, the ball was fed into the scrum properly by Ireland and Leinster scrum-half, Eoin Reddan, and was then passed out the line to his Leinster team mates including Ian Madigan, Brendan Macken and Jordi Murphy, also proudly sporting the Oracle T-Shirt. The new World Record was made, everyone gave a big cheer and thankfully nobody got injured! Thank you to everyone in Oracle who donated last year through the Giving Tree Appeal. Your generosity has gone a long way to support local groups both. Last year’s donation was so substantial that the IYF were able to spread it across two youth groups: The first being Ballybough Youth Project in Dublin. The funding gave them the chance to give 24 young people from their project the chance to get away from the inner city and the problems and issues they face in their daily life by taking a trip to the Cavan Centre to spend a weekend away in a safe and comfortable environment; a very rare holiday in these young people’s lives. The Rahoon Family Centre. Used the money to help secure the long term sustainability of their project. They act as an educational/social/fun project that has been working with disadvantaged children for the past 16 years. Their aim is to change young people’s future with fun /social education and supporting them so they can maximize their creativity and potential. We hope you can help support this worthy cause again this year, so keep an eye out for the Children’s Hour and Giving Tree Appeal! About the Irish Youth Foundation The IYF provides opportunities for marginalised children and young people facing difficult and extreme conditions to experience success in their lives. It passionately believes that achievement starts with opportunity. The IYF’s strategy is based on providing safe places where children can go after school; to grow, to learn and to play; and providing opportunities for teenagers from under-served communities to succeed and excel in their lives. The IYF supports innovative grassroots projects operated by dedicated professionals who understand young people and care about them. This allows the IYF to focus on supporting young people at risk of dropping out of school and, in particular, on the critical transition from primary to secondary school; and empowering teenagers from disadvantaged neighborhoods to become engaged in their local communities. Find out more here www.iyf.ie

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

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

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• SQL Server MVP Deep Dives 2. The Awesome Returns.

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  Two years ago 59 SQL Server MVP's came together and helped make one of the best book on SQL Server out there. Each chapter was written by an MVP about a part of SQL Server they loved working with. This resulted in superb quality content and excellent ratings from the readers. To top it off all earnings went to a good cause, the War Child International organization. That book was SQL Server MVP Deep Dives. This year 63 SQL Server MVPs, me included, decided it was time do repeat the success of the first book. Let me introduce you the: SQL Server MVP Deep Dives 2 The topics in 60 chapters are grouped in 5 groups: Architecture, Database Administration, Database Development, Performance Tuning and Optimization, Business Intelligence. They represent over 1000 years of daily experience in various areas of SQL Server. I have contributed chapter 28 in Database Development group titled Getting asynchronous with Service Broker. In it I show you the Service Broker template you can use for secure communication between two or more SQL server instances for whatever purpose you may have. If you haven't heard of Service Broker it's a part of the database engine that enables you to do completely async operations in the database itself or between databases and instances. The official release of the book will be next week at PASS where there will be 2 slots where most of the authors will be there signing the books you bring. This is also a great opportunity to meet everyone and ask about any problems you may have. So definitely come say hi. Again we decided on a charity that will be supported by this book. It's called Operation Smile. They provide free surgeries to repair cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities for children around the globe. You can also help them by donating. You can preorder it on at Manning Publications website or on Amazon. By having it you not only get to learn a lot, improve your skills and have fun but you also help a child have a normal life. If that's not a good cause then I don't know what it is.

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• Sharing configuration settings between Windows Azure roles

  - by theo.spears

  If you are working on a medium-large Windows Azure project it's likely it will involve more than one role, for example separate web and worker roles. Unfortunately although all the windows azure configuration settings are stored in a single cscfg file, there is no way to share configuration settings between multiple roles. This means you have to duplicate common settings like connection strings across all your roles. There is an open Connect issue about this topic, but Microsoft have not said when they will fix it. In the mean time I've put together a dirty dirty hack cunning workaround that creates a fake role containing your shared configuration settings, and copies it to all roles as part of the build process. Here's how you set it up: 1. Download the zip file attached to this post, and unzip it into the folder containing your Azure project (not your solution folder). 2. Edit your csdef and cscfg files to include the placeholder project ServiceDefinition.csdef<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="AzureSpendNotifier" http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition%22"http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="GLOBAL"> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="ExampleSetting" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </WorkerRole> <WorkerRole name="MyWorker"> <ConfigurationSettings> </ConfigurationSettings> </WorkerRole> <WebRole name="MyWeb"> <Sites> <Site name="Web"> <Bindings> <Binding name="WebEndpoint" endpointName="WebEndpoint" /> </Bindings> </Site> </Sites> <ConfigurationSettings> </ConfigurationSettings> </WebRole> </ServiceDefinition> ServiceConfiguration.cscfg<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="AzureSpendNotifier" xmlns=http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration osFamily="1" osVersion="*"> <Role name="GLOBAL"> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="ExampleSetting" value="Hello World" /> </ConfigurationSettings> <Instances count="1" /> </Role> <Role name="MyWorker"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> <Role name="MyWeb"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> It is important that all your roles contain a ConfigurationSettings entry in both cscfg and csdef files, even if it's empty- otherwise the shared configuration settings will not be inserted. 3. Open your azure deployment (.ccproj) project in notepad, and add the highlighted line below: ... <Import Project="$(CloudExtensionsDir)Microsoft.CloudService.targets" /> <Import Project="globalsettings/globalsettings.targets" /> </Project> It is important you add this below the Microsoft.CloudService.targets import line, as it replaces some of the rules defined in that file. Visual studio will prompt you to reload the project, say yes. At this point you will have a new Azure role called 'GLOBAL' with settings you can edit through the visual studio properties panel as normal. This role will never be deployed, but any settings you add to it will be copied to all your other roles when deployed or tested locally within visual studio.

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• MaxTotalSizeInBytes - Blind spots in Usage file and Web Analytics Reports

  - by Gino Abraham

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GinoAbraham/archive/2013/10/28/maxtotalsizeinbytes---blind-spots-in-usage-file-and-web-analytics.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint_strategery/archive/2012/04/16/usage-file-and-web-analytics-reports-with-blind-spots.aspx In my previous post (Troubleshooting SharePoint 2010 Web Analytics), I referenced a problem that can occur when exceeding the daily partition size for the LoggingDB, which generates the ULS message “[Partition] has exceeded the max bytes”. Below, I wanted to provide some additional info on this particular issue and help identify some options if this occurs. As an aside, this post only applies if you are missing portions of Usage data - think blind spots on intermittent days or user activity regularly sparse for the afternoon/evening. If this fits your scenario - read on. But if Usage logs are outright missing, go check out my Troubleshooting post first.  Background on the problem:The LoggingDB database has a default maximum size of ~6GB. However, SharePoint evenly splits this total size into fixed sized logical partitions – and the number of partitions is defined by the number of days to retain Usage data (by default 14 days). In this case, 14 partitions would be created to account for the 14 days of retention. If the retention were halved to 7 days, the LoggingDBwould be split into 7 corresponding partitions at twice the size. In other words, the partition size is generally defined as [max size for DB] / [number of retention days].Going back to the default scenario, the “max size” for the LoggingDB is 6200000000 bytes (~6GB) and the retention period is 14 days. Using our formula, this would be [~6GB] / [14 days], which equates to 444858368 bytes (~425MB) per partition per day. Again, if the retention were halved to 7 days (which halves the number of partitions), the resulting partition size becomes [~6GB] / [7 days], or ~850MB per partition.From my experience, when the partition size for any given day is exceeded, the usage logging for the remainder of the day is essentially thrown away because SharePoint won’t allow any more to be written to that day’s partition. The only clue that this is occurring (beyond truncated usage data) is an error such as the following that gets reported in the ULS:04/08/2012 09:30:04.78    OWSTIMER.EXE (0x1E24)    0x2C98    SharePoint Foundation    Health    i0m6     High    Table RequestUsage_Partition12 has 444858368 bytes that has exceeded the max bytes 444858368It’s also worth noting that the exact bytes reported (e.g. ‘444858368’ above) may slightly vary among farms. For example, you may instead see 445226812, 439123456, or something else in the ballpark. The exact number itself doesn't matter, but this error message intends to indicates that the reporting usage has exceeded the partition size for the given day.What it means:The error itself is easy to miss, which can lead to substantial gaps in the reporting data (your mileage may vary) if not identified. At this point, I can only advise to periodically check the ULS logs for this message. Down the road, I plan to explore if [Developing a Custom Health Rule] could be leveraged to identify the issue (If you've ever built Custom Health Rules, I'd be interested to hear about your experiences). Overcoming this issue also poses a challenge, with workaround options including:Lower the retentionBecause the partition size is generally defined as [max size] / [number of retention days], the first option is to lower the number of days to retain the data – the lower the retention, the lower the divisor and thus a bigger partition. For example, halving the retention from 14 to 7 days would halve the number of partitions, but double the partition size to ~850MB (e.g. [6200000000 bytes] / [7 days] = ~850GB partitions). Lowering it to 2 days would result in two ~3GB partitions… and so on.Recreate the LoggingDB with an increased sizeThe property MaxTotalSizeInBytes is exposed by OM code for the SPUsageDefinition object and can be updated with the example PowerShell snippet below. However, updating this value has no immediate impact because this size only applies when creating a LoggingDB. Therefore, you must create a newLoggingDB for the Usage Service Application. The gotcha: this effectively deletes all prior Usage databecause the Usage Service Application can only have a single LoggingDB.Here is an example snippet to update the "Page Requests" Usage Definition:$def=Get-SPUsageDefinition -Identity "page requests" $def.MaxTotalSizeInBytes=12400000000 $def.update()Create a new Logging database and attach to the Usage Service Application using the following command: Get-spusageapplication | Set-SPUsageApplication -DatabaseServer <dbServer> -DatabaseName <newDBname> Updated (5/10/2012): Once the new database has been created, you can confirm the setting has truly taken by running the following SQL Query (be sure to replace the database name in the following query with the name provided in the PowerShell above)SELECT * FROM [WSS_UsageApplication].[dbo].[Configuration] WITH (nolock) WHERE ConfigName LIKE 'Max Total Bytes - RequestUsage'

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• Webcast Q&A: Demystifying External Authorization

  - by B Shashikumar

  Thanks to everyone who joined us on our webcast with SANS Institute on "Demystifying External Authorization". Also a special thanks to Tanya Baccam from SANS for sharing her experiences reviewing Oracle Entitlements Server. If you missed the webcast, you can catch a replay of the webcast here.  Here is a compilation of the slides that were used on today's webcast.  SANS Institute Product Review: Oracle Entitlements Server We have captured the Q&A from the webcast for those who couldn't attend. Q: Is Oracle ADF integrated with Oracle Entitlements Server (OES) ? A:  In Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and later, Oracle ADF, Oracle WebCenter, Oracle SOA Suite and other middleware products are all built on Oracle Platform Security Services (OPSS). OPSS privodes many security functions like authentication, audit, credential stores, token validaiton, etc. OES is the authorization solution underlying OPSS. And OES 11g unifies different authorization mechanisms including Java2/ABAC/RBAC.  Q: Which portal frameworks support the use of OES policies for portal entitlement decisions? A:  Many portals including Oracle WebCenter 11g  run natively on top of OES. The authorization engine in WebCenter is OES. Besides, OES offers out of the box integration with Microsoft SharePoint. So SharePoint sites, sub sites, web parts, navigation items, document access control can all be secured with OES. Several other portals have also been secured with OES ex: IBM websphere portal Q:  How do we enforce Seperation of Duties (SoD) rules using OES (also how does that integrate with a product like OIA) ? A:  A product like OIM or OIA can be used to set up and govern SoD policies. OES enforces these policies at run time. Role mapping policies in OES can assign roles dynamically to users under certain conditions. So this makes it simple to enforce SoD policies inside an application at runtime. Q:  Our web application has objects like buttons, text fields, drop down lists etc. is there any ”autodiscovery” capability that allows me to use/see those web page objects so you can start building policies over those objects? or how does it work? A:  There ae few different options with OES. When you build an app, and make authorization calls with the app in the test environment, you can put OES in discovery mode and have OES register those authorization calls and decisions. Instead of doing  this after the fact, an application like Oracle iFlex has built-in UI controls where when the app is running, a script can intercept authorization calls and migrate those over to OES. And in Oracle ADF, a lot of resources are protected so pages, task flows and other resources be registered without OES knowing about them. Q: Does current Oracle Fusion application use OES ? The documentation does not seem to indicate it. A:  The current version of Fusion Apps is using a preview version of OES. Soon it will be repalced with OES 11g.  Q: Can OES secure mobile apps? A: Absolutely. Nowadays users are bringing their own devices such as a a smartphone or tablet to work. With the Oracle IDM platform, we can tie identity context into the access management stack. With OES we can make use of context to enforce authorization for users accessing apps from mobile devices. For example: we can take into account different elements like authentication scheme, location, device type etc and tie all that information into an authorization decision.  Q:  Does Oracle Entitlements Server (OES) have an ESAPI implementation? A:  OES is an authorization solution. ESAPI/OWASP is something we include in our platform security solution for all oracle products, not specifically in OES Q:  ESAPI has an authorization API. Can I use that API to access OES? A:  If the API supports an interface / sspi model that can be configured to invoke an external authz system through some mechanism then yes

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• Framework 4 Features: Login Id Support

  - by Anthony Shorten

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

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• How do I fix postfix TLS?

  - by Savanni D'Gerinel

  STARTTLS was working with my system earlier today. Without me altering the system in any way, it spontaneously broke. I've now been trying to fix it for a couple of hours, to no success. When I connect to the server, this is what I get: savanni@Orolo:~$ telnet apps.savannidgerinel.com 25 Trying 129.121.182.135... Connected to apps.sasavanni@Orolo:~$ telnet apps.savannidgerinel.com 25 Trying 129.121.182.135... Connected to apps.savannidgerinel.com. Escape character is '^]'. 220 *********************************************** ehlo dude 250-apps.savannidgerinel.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-XXXXXXXA 250-AUTH PLAIN 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES 250-8BITMIME 250 DSN ^]close telnet> close Connection closed. Okay, obviously STARTTLS isn't present in this list. So I've been digging through my configuration files and working through the tutorials again, and that has done me no good at all. Here's my tls-related configuration: smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/savannidgerinel_com_CA.pem smtp_tls_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/apps.savannidgerinel.com.pem smtp_tls_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/apps.savannidgerinel.com.key.pem smtp_tls_security_level = may smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/savannidgerinel_com_CA.pem smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/apps.savannidgerinel.com.pem smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/apps.savannidgerinel.com.key.pem smtpd_tls_loglevel = 3 smtpd_tls_received_header = yes smtpd_tls_security_level = may smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom All of the certificate files are present, the server private key is present, the server CA is present, and the smtpd_scache.db and smtp_scache.db files are both present. All are accessible to the postfix user. Speaking of which, here are the processes running: savanni@apps:/var/lib/postfix$ ps aux | grep postfix root 3525 0.0 0.1 25112 1680 ? Ss 20:19 0:00 /usr/lib/postfix/master postfix 3526 0.0 0.1 27176 1524 ? S 20:19 0:00 pickup -l -t fifo -u -c -o content_filter= -o receive_override_options=no_header_body_checks postfix 3527 0.0 0.1 27228 1552 ? S 20:19 0:00 qmgr -l -t fifo -u postfix 3528 0.0 0.4 46948 4144 ? S 20:19 0:00 smtpd -n smtp -t inet -u -c -o stress= -s 2 postfix 3529 0.0 0.1 27176 1628 ? S 20:19 0:00 proxymap -t unix -u postfix 3530 0.0 0.3 38212 3176 ? S 20:19 0:00 tlsmgr -l -t unix -u -c postfix 3531 0.0 0.1 27176 1516 ? S 20:19 0:00 anvil -l -t unix -u -c postfix 3535 0.0 0.1 27188 1544 ? S 20:20 0:00 trivial-rewrite -n rewrite -t unix -u -c The log files say absolutely nothing related to TLS except for this: Nov 6 02:19:45 apps postfix/master[3525]: daemon started -- version 2.9.6, configuration /etc/postfix Nov 6 02:19:49 apps postfix/smtpd[3528]: initializing the server-side TLS engine Nov 6 02:19:49 apps postfix/tlsmgr[3530]: open smtpd TLS cache btree:/var/lib/postfix/smtpd_scache Nov 6 02:19:49 apps postfix/tlsmgr[3530]: tlsmgr_cache_run_event: start TLS smtpd session cache cleanup Nov 6 02:19:49 apps postfix/smtpd[3528]: connect from unknown[204.16.68.108] Neither syslog nor mail.err shows any indication of a problem. As far as the whole system is concerned, all is well. But there is no STARTTLS and so I suddenly can't send any email at all. Help???

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• Cellbi Silverlight Controls Giveaway (5 License to give away)

  - by mbcrump

  Cellbi recently updated their new Silverlight Controls to version 4 and to support Visual Studio 2010. I played with a couple of demos on their site and had to take a look. I headed over to their website and downloaded the controls. The first thing that I noticed was all of the special text effects and animations included. I emailed them asking if I could give away their controls in my January 2011 giveaway and they said yes. They also volunteered to give away 5 total license so the changes for you to win would increase.  I am very thankful they were willing to help the Silverlight community with this giveaway. So some quick rules below: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Win a FREE developer’s license of Cellbi Silverlight Controls! (5 License to give away) Random winner will be announced on February 1st, 2011! To be entered into the contest do the following things: Subscribe to my feed. Leave a comment below with a valid email account (I WILL NOT share this info with anyone.) Retweet the following : I just entered to win free #Silverlight controls from @mbcrump and @cellbi http://mcrump.me/cscfree ! Don’t change the URL because this will allow me to track the users that Tweet this page. Don’t forget to visit Cellbi because they made this possible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before we get started with the Silverlight Controls, here is a couple of links to bookmark: The What's new in this release page is here. You can also check out the live demos here. Don’t worry about the Samples/Help Documentation. That is installed to your local HDD during the installation process. Begin by downloading the trial version and running the program. After everything is installed then you will see the following screen: After it is installed, you may want to take a look at your Toolbox in Visual Studio 2010. After you add the controls from the “Choose Items” in Silverlight and you will see that you now have access to all of these controls. At this point, to use the controls it’s as simple as drag/drop onto your Silverlight container. It will create the proper Namespaces for you. It’s hard to show with a static screenshot just how powerful the controls actually are so I will refer you to the demo page to learn more about them. Since all of these are animations/effects it just doesn’t work with a static screenshot. It is worth noting that the Sfx pack really focuses on the following core effects: I will show you the best route to get started building a new project with them below. The best page to start is the sample browser which you can access by going to SvFx Launcher. In my case, I want to build a new Carousel. I simple navigate to the Carousel that I want to build and hit the “Cs” code at the top. This launches Visual Studio 2010 and now I can copy/paste the XAML into my project. That is all there is to it. Hopefully this post was helpful and don’t forget to leave a comment below in order to win a set of the controls!  Subscribe to my feed

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• CRM vs VRM

  - by David Dorf

  In a previous post, I discussed the potential power of combining social, interest, and location graphs in order to personalize marketing and shopping experiences for consumers.  Marketing companies have been trying to collect detailed information for that very purpose, a large majority of which comes from tracking people on the internet.  But their approaches stem from the one-way nature of traditional advertising.  With TV, radio, and magazines there is no opportunity to truly connect to customers, which has trained marketing companies to [covertly] collect data and segment customers into easily identifiable groups.  To a large extent, we think of this as CRM. But what if we turned this viewpoint upside-down to accommodate for the two-way nature of social media?  The notion of marketing as conversations was the basis for the Cluetrain, an early attempt at drawing attention to the fact that customers are actually unique humans.  A more practical implementation is Project VRM, which is a reverse CRM of sorts.  Instead of vendors managing their relationships with customers, customers manage their relationships with vendors. Your shopping experience is not really controlled by you; rather, its controlled by the retailer and advertisers.  And unfortunately, they typically don't give you a say in the matter.  Yes, they might tailor the content for "female age 25-35 interested in shoes" but that's not really the essence of you, is it?  A better approach is to the let consumers volunteer information about themselves.  And why wouldn't they if it means a better, more relevant shopping experience?  I'd gladly list out my likes and dislikes in exchange for getting rid of all those annoying cookies on my harddrive. I really like this diagram from Beyond SocialCRM as it captures the differences between CRM and VRM. The closest thing to VRM I can find is Buyosphere, a start-up that allows consumers to track their shopping history across many vendors, then share it appropriately.  Also, Amazon does a pretty good job allowing its customers to edit their profile, which includes everything you've ever purchased from Amazon.  You can mark items as gifts, or explicitly exclude them from their recommendation engine.  This is a win-win for both the consumer and retailer. So here is my plea to retailers: Instead of trying to infer my interests from snapshots of my day, please just ask me.  We'll both have a better experience in the long-run.

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• Web Application Integration Steps in OAM 11gR2 (High Level)

  - by Venkata Srikanth

  Install OAM, Webtier (OHS) and WebGate as per the standard installation steps. Create a WebGate instance (i.e deploy WebGate) A WebGate instance must be created that will copy required bits of agent from WEBGATE_HOME to WebGate instance location that shares the same INSTANCE_HOME with OHS ./deployWebGateInstance.sh –w /Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_WT1/instances/instance1/config/ohs1 –oh /Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_OAMWebGate1 Note: Here –w flag indicates OHS instance folder and –oh indicates the WebGate Oracle home Configure WebGate In the webgate configuration the EditHttpdConf utility will copy OUI instantiated apache_webgate.template from WEBGATE_HOME to webgate instance location (renamed to webgate.conf), and update httpd.conf with one additional line to include webgate.conf. export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_WT1/lib Navigate to /Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_OAMWebGate1/webgate/ohs/tools/setup/InstallTools ./EditHttpdConf –w /Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_WT1/instances/instace1/config/OHS/ohs1 –oh /Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_OAMWebGate1 –o webgate.conf Register WebGate Use RREG tool to register the OAM 11G WebGate Navigate to /Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_IDM1/oam/server/rreg/input Edit OAM11Grequest.xml. Change the specific xml content to include the weblogic admin URL, agentBaseURL, host identifier etc.. Navigate to /Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_IDM1/oam/server/rreg/bin Set permissions to oamreg.sh à chmod 777 oamreg.sh Edit oamreg.sh and set OAM_REG_HOME=/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_IDM1/oam/server/rreg ./oamreg.sh inband input/OAM11Grequest.xml Enter the WebLogic admin credentials when prompted. After performing the above steps, there will be two artifcats created under Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_IDM1/oam/server/rreg/output, namely ObAccessClient.xml (Stroing webgate config parameters) and cwallet.sso (storing the agent key). These files must be copied to WebGate instance config folder (/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_WT1/instances/instance1/config/ohs1/webgate/config) Restart OHS Deploy the web application (myApp) in WebLogic application server Proxy Configuration in OHS The mod_wl_ohs module enables requests to be proxied from Oracle HTTP Server 11g to Oracle WebLogic Server. Navigate to /Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_WT1/instances/instance1/config/OHS/ohs1 Edit mod_wl_ohs.conf file to include the following: <IfModule weblogic_module> WebLogicHost <WEBLOGIC_HOST> WebLogicPort <WEBLOGIC_PORT> # Debug ON # WLLogFile /tmp/weblogic.log MatchExpression *.jsp </IfModule> <Location /myApp> SetHandler weblogic-handler # PathTrim /weblogic # ErrorPage http:/WEBLOGIC_HOME:WEBLOGIC_PORT/ </Location> Note: Here WEBLOGIC_HOST and WEBLOGIC_PORT are the WebLogic admin server host and port respectively Restart OHS. Now if we access the web application URL with OHS host and port (Ex: http://OHS_HOST:<OHS_PORT>/myApp) so that the requests will be proxied to WebLogic server. Create a new application domain Login to OAM Admin Console Navigate to Shared Componentsà Authentication Schemesà Create Authentication Scheme (Ex: LDAP Auth Scheme. Here the scheme is assoicated with LDAP Authentication Module) Navigate to Policy Configuration à Application Domain à Create Application Domain Enter the Application Domain Name and Click Apply. Navigate to Resources tab and add the resource urls (Web Application URLs that needs to be protected) Navigate to Authentication Policy tab à Create a new authentication ploicy by providing the Resource URLs (The sample Web Application URLs) and Authentication Scheme. Navigate to Authorization Policy tab à Create a new authorization policy à Enter authorization policy name and navigate to Resource Tab à Attach the Reource URL, Host Identifiers here. Navigate to Conditions tab à Add the conditions like whom to allow and whom to deny access. Navigate to Rules tab à Crate the Allow Rule and Deny Rule with the available conditions from the previous step so that the Authorization Policy may authorize the logins. Navigate to Resources tab and attach the Authentication and Authorization plocies created in the above steps. Test the Web Application Integration.

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• NRF Big Show 2011 -- Part 2

  - by David Dorf

  One of the things I love about attending NRF is visiting the smaller booths to see what new innovative ideas have sprung up. After all, by watching emerging technologies we can get a sense of how the retail experience might change. After NRF I'm hoping to write a post on what I found, if anything, so be sure to check back. At the Oracle Retail booth we'll be demonstrating some of the aspects of the changing retail experience. These demos use a mix of GA and experimental components. Here are some highlights: 1. Checkin We wrote a consumer iPhone app we call Store Gateway that lets consumers access information from the store. They'll start by doing a checkin when they arrive that will alert the store manager via another iPhone app we wrote called Mobile Manager. Additionally, we display a welcome messaging using Starmount's digital sign. 2. Receive Offers There are three interaction points where a store can easily make an offer to a consumer: checkin, product scans, and checkout. For this demo we're calling our Universal Offer Engine at checkin to determine the best offer for this particular consumer. This offer is then displayed on the consumer's phone as well as on the digital sign. 3. Scan Products To thwart consumers from scanning product barcodes, we used Store Inventory Management to print QRCodes on shelf label then provided access to a scanner in the Store Gateway iphone app. When the consumer scans the shelf label they are shown product information provided by the retailer. 4. Checkout While we don't have a NFC-enabled mobile phone, we have a NFC chip that can attach to a phone. We're using this to checkout using a reader provided by ViVOTech. Tap the phone on the reader, and the POS accesses the customer#, coupons, and payment information. This really speeds the checkout process. 5. Digital Receipt After the transaction is complete, a digital copy of the receipt is sent to Intuit's QuickReceipts where consumers to store all their digital receipts. There's even an iPhone app that provides easy access to the receipts. This covers about half of what what we'll be showing, so be sure to stop by. I'll also be talking about how mobile is impacting the retail experience at the Wednesday morning session NRF Mobile Retail Initiative: a Blueprint for Action. See you at the Big Show!

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• Tuning Default WorkManager - Advantages and Disadvantages

  - by Murali Veligeti

  Before discussing on Tuning Default WorkManager, lets have a brief introduction on What is Default WorkManger Before Weblogic Server 9.0 release, we had the concept of Execute Queues. WebLogic Server (before WLS 9.0), processing was performed in multiple execute queues. Different classes of work were executed in different queues, based on priority and ordering requirements, and to avoid deadlocks. In addition to the default execute queue, weblogic.kernel.default, there were pre-configured queues dedicated to internal administrative traffic, such as weblogic.admin.HTTP and weblogic.admin.RMI.Users could control thread usage by altering the number of threads in the default queue, or configure custom execute queues to ensure that particular applications had access to a fixed number of execute threads, regardless of overall system load. From WLS 9.0 release onwards WebLogic Server uses is a single thread pool (single thread pool which is called Default WorkManager), in which all types of work are executed. WebLogic Server prioritizes work based on rules you define, and run-time metrics, including the actual time it takes to execute a request and the rate at which requests are entering and leaving the pool.The common thread pool changes its size automatically to maximize throughput. The queue monitors throughput over time and based on history, determines whether to adjust the thread count. For example, if historical throughput statistics indicate that a higher thread count increased throughput, WebLogic increases the thread count. Similarly, if statistics indicate that fewer threads did not reduce throughput, WebLogic decreases the thread count. This new strategy makes it easier for administrators to allocate processing resources and manage performance, avoiding the effort and complexity involved in configuring, monitoring, and tuning custom executes queues. The Default WorkManager is used to handle thread management and perform self-tuning.This Work Manager is used by an application when no other Work Managers are specified in the application’s deployment descriptors. In many situations, the default Work Manager may be sufficient for most application requirements. WebLogic Server’s thread-handling algorithms assign each application its own fair share by default. Applications are given equal priority for threads and are prevented from monopolizing them. The default work-manager, as its name tells, is the work-manager defined by default.Thus, all applications deployed on WLS will use it. But sometimes, when your application is already in production, it's obvious you can't take your EAR / WAR, update the deployment descriptor(s) and redeploy it.The default work-manager belongs to a thread-pool, as initial thread-pool comes with only five threads, that's not much. If your application has to face a large number of hits, you may want to start with more than that.Well, that's quite easy. You have  two option to do so.1) Modify the config.xmlJust add the following line(s) in your server definition : <server> <name>AdminServer</name> <self-tuning-thread-pool-size-min>100</self-tuning-thread-pool-size-min> <self-tuning-thread-pool-size-max>200</self-tuning-thread-pool-size-max> [...] </server> 2) Adding some JVM parameters Add the following system property in setDomainEnv.sh/setDomainEnv.cmd or startWebLogic.sh/startWebLogic.cmd : -Dweblogic.threadpool.MinPoolSize=100 -Dweblogic.threadpool.MaxPoolSize=100 Reboot WLS and see the option has been taken into account . Disadvantage: So far its fine. But here there is an disadvantage in tuning Default WorkManager. Internally Weblogic Server has many work managers configured for different types of work.  if we run out of threads in the self-tuning pool(because of system property -Dweblogic.threadpool.MaxPoolSize) due to being undersized, then important work that WLS might need to do could be starved.  So, while limiting the self-tuning would limit the default WorkManager and internally it also limits all other internal WorkManagers which WLS uses.So the best alternative is to override the default WorkManager that means creating a WorkManager for the Application and assign the WorkManager for the application instead of tuning the Default WorkManager.

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• SOA Community Newsletter May 2014

  - by JuergenKress

  Registration for the Fusion Middleware Summer Camps 2014 is open – Register asap for one of our bootcamps August 4th – 8th 2014 in Lisbon. Please read details and pre-requisitions careful before you register. We expect that like in the past, the conference will be booked out soon! If you can’t make it to Lisbon attend our SOA Suite 11c free on-demand Bootcamp or  Managing the Complexity of IoT online trainings. With more than 5000 customers, SOA Suite Achieves Significant Customer Adoption and Industry Recognition.Thanks to all our SOA Specialized partners for making our joins SOA customers successful! As a summary of the Industrial SOA series we published the Podcast Show Notes: SOA and Cloud - Where's This Relationship Going? Make sure you use the Oracle Demo Systems for your customer presentations. The demo systems are hosted by Oracle and include complete scenarios based on the latest Middleware version like the new B2B SOA Suite Demo System! For local presentations without fast internet use the SOA/BPM 11.1.1.7.1 Virtual Machine and Case Management Sample. At our SOA Community Workspace (SOA Community membership required) you can get new IoT presentations for Location Based Offers for Banking & Whitepaper and online Webcast & Utility presentation. In this newsletter you will find many articles about OSB: OSB 11g – A Hands-on Tutorial & Using Split-Joins in OSB Services for parallel processing of messages & OSB, Service Callouts and OQL & Working with Oracle Security Token Service. Thanks for sharing all the additional SOA articles within the community: How to configure Oracle SOA/BPM task auto release & Controlling BPEL process flow at runtime & Upgrading to Oracle SOA Suite 11g PS6 (11.1.1.7)? Do this. & BPEL and BPM's performance monitoring using DMS & SOA 11g - Create RESTful Service In Oracle SOA & Wrong timezone causes TopLink warning in SOA suite. Highlight of the BPM and ACM section is the IDC BPM vendor report. The new bundle Patch including the ACM UI is now available. If you want to learn more about ACM, get the ACM training material at our SOA Community Workspace (SOA Community membership required). A great demo for your next BPM presentation is the BPM iPad app. It’s simpleMobile BPM is Not An Option. It’s a Necessity. Thanks for sharing all the additional BPM articles within the community: BPM update adds Case Management Web Interface and REST APIs & Implementing deadline functionality with Oracle Adaptive Case Management & BPM 11g Timeout Heuristics & Humantask Assignment: Names and Expressions Assignment via Rules. In our last section Architecture, it is all about design. Usability is a key factor for customer satisfaction, worth to spend some time and read the Simplified User Experience Design Patterns eBook. Great blueprint for your project! See you in Lisbon! To read the newsletter please visit www.tinyurl.com/soaNewsMay2014 (OPN Account required) To become a member of the SOA Partner Community please register at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: newsletter,SOA Community newsletter,SOA Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Time passage arithmetic explanation

  - by Cyber Axe

  I ported this from http://www.effectgames.com/effect/article.psp.html/joe/Old_School_Color_Cycling_with_HTML5 some time ago. However i'm now wanting to modify it for the purpose of changing it from floating point to fixed point maths for enhanced efficiency (for those who are going to talk about premature optimization and what not, i want to have my entire engine in fixed point both as a learning process for me and so i can port code more easily to systems in the future that dont have native floating points such as arm cpus) My initial conversion to fixed points just resulted in the cycling stuck on either the first or last frame of cycling. Plus it would be nice to understand better how it works so i can add more options and so forth in the future, my maths however sucks and the comments are limited so i don't really know how the maths work for determining the frame it shoud use (cycleAmount) I was also a beginner when i ported it as i had no idea between floating points and integers and what not. So in summary my question is, can anyone give an explination of the arithmatic used for determining the cycleAmount (which determings the "frame" of the cycle) This is the working floating point maths version of the code: public final void cycle(Colour[] sourceColours, double timeNow, double speedAdjust) { // Cycle all animated colour ranges in palette based on timestamp. sourceColours = sourceColours.clone(); int cycleSize; double cycleRate; double cycleAmount; Cycle cycle; for (int i = 0, len = cycles.length; i < len; ++i) { cycle = cycles[i]; cycleSize = (cycle.HIGH - cycle.LOW) + 1; cycleRate = cycle.RATE / (int) (CYCLE_SPEED / speedAdjust); cycleAmount = 0; if (cycle.REVERSE < 3) { // Standard Cycle cycleAmount = DFLOAT_MOD((timeNow / (1000 / cycleRate)), cycleSize); if (cycle.REVERSE < 1) { cycleAmount = cycleSize - cycleAmount; // If below 1 make sure its not reversed. } } else if (cycle.REVERSE == 3) { // Ping-Pong cycleAmount = DFLOAT_MOD((timeNow / (1000 / cycleRate)), cycleSize << 1); if (cycleAmount >= cycleSize) { cycleAmount = (cycleSize * 2) - cycleAmount; } } else if (cycle.REVERSE < 6) { // Sine Wave cycleAmount = DFLOAT_MOD((timeNow / (1000 / cycleRate)), cycleSize); cycleAmount = Math.sin((cycleAmount * 3.1415926 * 2) / cycleSize) + 1; if (cycle.REVERSE == 4) { cycleAmount *= (cycleSize / 4); } else if (cycle.REVERSE == 5) { cycleAmount *= (cycleSize >> 1); } } if (cycle.REVERSE == 2) { reverseColours(sourceColours, cycle); } if (USE_BLEND_SHIFT) { blendShiftColours(sourceColours, cycle, cycleAmount); } else { shiftColours(sourceColours, cycle, cycleAmount); } if (cycle.REVERSE == 2) { reverseColours(sourceColours, cycle); } } colours = sourceColours; } // This utility function allows for variable precision floating point modulus. private double DFLOAT_MOD(final double d, final double b) { return (Math.floor(d * PRECISION) % Math.floor(b * PRECISION)) / PRECISION; }

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• Data Security Through Structure, Procedures, Policies, and Governance

  Security Structure and Procedures One of the easiest ways to implement security is through the use of structure, in particular the structure in which data is stored. The preferred method for this through the use of User Roles, these Roles allow for specific access to be granted based on what role a user plays in relation to the data that they are manipulating. Typical data access actions are defined by the CRUD Principle. CRUD Principle: Create New Data Read Existing Data Update Existing Data Delete Existing Data Based on the actions assigned to a role assigned, User can manipulate data as they need to preform daily business operations.  An example of this can be seen in a hospital where doctors have been assigned Create, Read, Update, and Delete access to their patient’s prescriptions so that a doctor can prescribe and adjust any existing prescriptions as necessary. However, a nurse will only have Read access on the patient’s prescriptions so that they will know what medicines to give to the patients. If you notice, they do not have access to prescribe new prescriptions, update or delete existing prescriptions because only the patient’s doctor has access to preform those actions. With User Roles comes responsibility, companies need to constantly monitor data access to ensure that the proper roles have the most appropriate access levels to ensure users are not exposed to inappropriate data.  In addition this also protects rouge employees from gaining access to critical business information that could be destroyed, altered or stolen. It is important that all data access is monitored because of this threat. Security Governance Current Data Governance laws regarding security Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Sarbanes-Oxley Act Database Breach Notification Act The US Department of Health and Human Services defines HIIPAA as a Privacy Rule. This legislation protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information. Currently, HIPAA   sets the national standards for securing electronically protected health records. Additionally, its confidentiality provisions protect identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety. In 2002 after the wake of the Enron and World Com Financial scandals Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley lead the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This act administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dramatically altered corporate financial practices and data governance. In addition, it also set specific deadlines for compliance. The Sarbanes-Oxley is not a set of standard business rules and does not specify how a company should retain its records; In fact, this act outlines which pieces of data are to be stored as well as the storage duration. The Database Breach Notification Act requires companies, in the event of a data breach containing personally identifiable information, to notify all California residents whose information was stored on the compromised system at the time of the event, according to Gregory Manter. He further explains that this act is only California legislation. However, it does affect “any person or business that conducts business in California, and that owns or licenses computerized data that includes personal information,” regardless of where the compromised data is located.  This will force any business that maintains at least limited interactions with California residents will find themselves subject to the Act’s provisions. Security Policies All companies must work in accordance with the appropriate city, county, state, and federal laws. One way to ensure that a company is legally compliant is to enforce security policies that adhere to the appropriate legislation in their area or areas that they service. These types of polices need to be mandated by a company’s Security Officer. For smaller companies, these policies need to come from executives, Directors, and Owners.

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• links for 2011-01-04

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Webcasts (tags: ping.fm) Five Key Trends in Enterprise 2.0 for 2011 (Oracle Enterprise 2.0 Blog) Kellsey Ruppel shares insight from Oracle's Andy MacMillan. (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0) Victor Bax: Lost in Service Oriented Architecture? "SOA is a concept, no more, no less. SOA is not a technology, or a piece of software. It is an architecture, a model." - Victor Bax (tags: oracle soa) Jan-Leendert: Oracle 11g SOA Suite read multi record data from csv file with the file adapter (master-detail) "The file adapter is a very powerlful tool to read files with structured data. Most of the time you will read simple csv files with one record per row. But what if your csv file contains multiple records with different types?" - Jan-Leendert (tags: oracle soa soasuite) @myfear: Five ways to know how your data looked in the past. Entity Auditing. "Whatever requirements you have. I can promise you, that it will never be a simple solution. In general it's best to evaluate your purpose for auditing in detail." - Oracle ACE Director Markus Eisele (tags: oracle otn oracleace java) @fteter: Buffing Up The Crystal Ball "While I'm already tired of seeing these types of posts (I'm writing on New Year's Day), I'm also feeling guilty about not making my own set of predictions." - Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter (tags: oracle otn oracleace ec2 cloud fusionmiddleware) @bex: ECM New Year's Resolutions "Happy new year! Most people use the first post of the year to go over their own blog statistics of popular posts... but since my blog's fiscal year ends in April, I decided to do new years resolutions instead." - Oracle ACE Director Bex Huff (tags: oracle otn oracleace ecm enterprise2.0) Izaak de Hullu: Embedded Java in a 11g BPEL process "In an earlier blog my colleague Peter Ebell explained how you can create an extension of com.collaxa.cube.engine.ext.BPELXExecLet to do your coding in a regular Java environment so you have code completion and validation..." - Izaak de Hullu (tags: oracle otn bpel java soa) @gschmutz: Cannot access EM console after installing SOA Suite 11g PS2 Oracle ACE Director Guido Schmutz encounters a problem and shares the solution. (tags: oracle otn oracleace soa soasuite)

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