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• SQLAuthority News – SQLPASS Nov 8-11, 2010-Seattle – An Alternative Look at Experience

  - by pinaldave

  I recently attended most prestigious SQL Server event SQLPASS between Nov 8-11, 2010 at Seattle. I have only one expression for the event - Best Summit Ever This year the summit was at its best. Instead of writing about my usual routine or the event, I am going to write about the interesting things I did and how I felt about it! Best Summit Ever Trip to Seattle! This was my second trip to Seattle this year and the journey is always long. Here is the travel stats on how long it takes to get to Seattle: 24 hours official air time 36 hours total travel time (connection waits and airport commute) Every time I travel to USA I gain a day and when I travel back to home, I lose a day. However, the total traveling time is around 3 days. The journey is long and very exhausting. However, it is all worth it when you’re attending an event like SQLPASS. Here are few things I carry when I travel for a long journey: Dry Snack packs – I like to have some good Indian Dry Snacks along with me in my backpack so I can have my own snack when I want Amazon Kindle – Loaded with 80+ books A physical book – This is usually a very easy to read book I do not watch movies on the plane and usually spend my time reading something quick and easy. If I can go to sleep, I go for it. I prefer to not to spend time in conversation with the guy sitting next to me because usually I end up listening to their biography, which I cannot blog about. Sheraton Seattle SQLPASS In any case, I love to go to Seattle as the city is great and has everything a brilliant metropolis has to offer. The new Light Train is extremely convenient, and I can take it directly from the airport to the city center. My hotel, the Sheraton, was only few meters (in the USA people count in blocks – 3 blocks) away from the train station. This time I saved USD 40 each round trip due to the Light Train. Sessions I attended! Well, I really wanted to attend most of the sessions but there was great dilemma of which ones to choose. There were many, many sessions to be attended and at any given time there was more than one good session being presented. I had decided to attend sessions in area performance tuning and I attended quite a few sessions this year, compared to what I was able to do last year. Here are few names of the speakers whose sessions I attended (please note, following great speakers are not listed in any order. I loved them and I enjoyed their sessions): Conor Cunningham Rushabh Mehta Buck Woody Brent Ozar Jonathan Kehayias Chris Leonard Bob Ward Grant Fritchey I had great fun attending their sessions. The sessions were meaningful and enlightening. It is hard to rate any session but I have found that the insights learned in Conor Cunningham’s sessions are the highlight of the PASS Summit. Rushabh Mehta at Keynote SQLPASS   Bucky Woody and Brent Ozar I always like the sessions where the speaker is much closer to the audience and has real world experience. I think speakers who have worked in the real world deliver the best content and most useful information. Sessions I did not like! Indeed there were few sessions I did not like it and I am not going to name them here. However, there were strong reasons I did not like their sessions, and here is why: Sessions were all theory and had no real world connections. All technical questions ended with confusing answers (lots of “I will get back to you on it,” “it depends,” “let us take this offline” and many more…) “I am God” kind of attitude in the speakers For example, I attended a session of one very well known speaker who is a specialist for one particular area. I was bit late for the session and was surprised to see that in a room that could hold 350 people there were only 30 attendees. After sitting there for 15 minutes, I realized why lots of people left. Very soon I found I preferred to stare out the window instead of listening to that particular speaker. One on One Talk! Many times people ask me what I really like about PASS. I always say the experience of meeting SQL legends and spending time with them one on one and LEARNING! Here is the quick list of the people I met during this event and spent more than 30 minutes with each of them talking about various subjects: Pinal Dave and Brad Shulz Pinal Dave and Rushabh Mehta Michael Coles and Pinal Dave Rushabh Mehta – It is always pleasure to meet with him. He is a man with lots of energy and a passion for community. He recently told me that he really wanted to turn PASS into resource for learning for every SQL Server Developer and Administrator in the world. I had great in-depth discussion regarding how a single person can contribute to a community. Michael Coles – I consider him my best friend. It is always fun to meet him. He is funny and very knowledgeable. I think there are very few people who are as expert as he is in encryption and spatial databases. Worth meeting him every single time. Glenn Berry – A real friend of everybody. He is very a simple person and very true to his heart. I think there is not a single person in whole community who does not like him. He is a friends of all and everybody likes him very much. I once again had time to sit with him and learn so much from him. As he is known as Dr. DMV, I can be his nurse in the area of DMV. Brad Schulz – I always wanted to meet him but never got chance until today. I had great time meeting him in person and we have spent considerable amount of time together discussing various T-SQL tricks and tips. I do not know where he comes up with all the different ideas but I enjoy reading his blog and sharing his wisdom with me. Jonathan Kehayias – He is drill sergeant in US army. If you get the impression that he is a giant with very strong personality – you are wrong. He is very kind and soft spoken DBA with strong performance tuning skills. I asked him how he has kept his two jobs separate and I got very good answer – just work hard and have passion for what you do. I attended his sessions and his presentation style is very unique.  I feel like he is speaking in a language I understand. Louis Davidson – I had never had a chance to sit with him and talk about technology before. He has so much wisdom and he is very kind. During the dinner, I had talked with him for long time and without hesitation he started to draw a schema for me on the menu. It was a wonderful experience to learn from a master at the dinner table. He explained to me the real and practical differences between third normal form and forth normal form. Honestly I did not know earlier, but now I do. Erland Sommarskog – This man needs no introduction, he is very well known and very clear in conveying his ideas. I learned a lot from him during the course of year. Every time I meet him, I learn something new and this time was no exception. Joe Webb – Joey is all about community and people, we had interesting conversation about community, MVP and how one can be helpful to community without losing passion for long time. It is always pleasant to talk to him and of course, I had fun time. Ross Mistry – I call him my brother many times because he indeed looks like my cousin. He provided me lots of insight of how one can write book and how he keeps his books simple to appeal to all the readers. A wonderful person and great friend. Ola Hallgren - I did not know he was coming to the summit. I had great time meeting him and had a wonderful conversation with him regarding his scripts and future community activities. Blythe Morrow – She used to be integrated part of SQL Server Community and PASS HQ. It was wonderful to meet her again and re-connect. She is wonderful person and I had a great time talking to her. Solid Quality Mentors – It is difficult to decide who to mention here. Instead of writing all the names, I am going to include a photo of our meeting. I had great fun meeting various members of our global branches. This year I was sitting with my Spanish speaking friends and had great fun as Javier Loria from Solid Quality translated lots of things for me. Party, Party and Parties Every evening there were various parties. I did attend almost all of them. Every party had different theme but the goal of all the parties the same – networking. Here are the few parties where I had lots of fun: Dell Reception Party Exhibitor Party Solid Quality Fun Party Red Gate Friends Party MVP Dinner Microsoft Party MVP Dinner Quest Party Gameworks PASS Party Volunteer Party at Garage Solid Quality Mentors (10 Members out of 120) They were all great networking opportunities and lots of fun. I really had great time meeting people at the various parties. There were few people everywhere – well, I will say I am among them – who hopped parties. NDA – Not Decided Agenda During the event there were few meetings marked “NDA.” Someone asked me “why are these things NDA?”  My response was simple: because they are not sure themselves. NDA stands for Not Decided Agenda. Toys, Giveaways and Luggage I admit, I was like child in Gameworks and was playing to win soft toys. I was doing it for my daughter. I must thank all of the people who gave me their cards to try my luck. I won 4 soft-toys for my daughter and it was fun. Also, thanks to Angel who did a final toy swap with me to get the desired toy for my daughter. I also collected ducks from Idera, as my daughter really loves them. Solid Quality Booth Each of the exhibitors was giving away something and I got so much stuff that my luggage got quite a bit bigger when I returned. Best Exhibitor Idera had SQLDoctor (a real magician and fun guy) to promote their new tool SQLDoctor. I really had a great time participating in the magic myself. At one point, the magician made my watch disappear.  I have seen better magic before, but this time it caught me unexpectedly and I was taken by surprise. I won many ducks again. The Common Question I heard the following common questions: I have seen you somewhere – who are you? – I am Pinal Dave. I did not know that Pinal is your first name and Dave is your last name, how do you pronounce your last name again? – Da-way How old are you? – I am as old as I can be. Are you an Indian because you look like one? – I did not answer this one. Where are you from? This question was usually asked after looking at my badge which says India. So did you really fly from India? – Yes, because I have seasickness so I do not prefer the sea journey. How long was the journey? – 24/36/12 (air travel time/total travel time/time zone difference) Why do you write on SQLAuthority.com? – Because I want to. I remember your daughter looks like you. – Is this even a question? Of course, she is daddy’s little girl. There were so many other questions, I will have to write another blog post about it. SQLPASS Again, Best Summit Ever! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQLPASS

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• Is your team is a high-performing team?

  As a child I can remember looking out of the car window as my father drove along the Interstate in Florida while seeing prisoners wearing bright orange jump suits and prison guards keeping a watchful eye on them. The prisoners were taking part in a prison road gang. These road gangs were formed to help the state maintain the state highway infrastructure. The prisoner’s primary responsibilities are to pick up trash and debris from the roadway. This is a prime example of a work group or working group used by most prison systems in the United States. Work groups or working groups can be defined as a collection of individuals or entities working together to achieve a specific goal or accomplish a specific set of tasks. Typically these groups are only established for a short period of time and are dissolved once the desired outcome has been achieved. More often than not group members usually feel as though they are expendable to the group and some even dread that they are even in the group. "A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they are mutually accountable." (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993) So how do you determine that a team is a high-performing team?  This can be determined by three base line criteria that include: consistently high quality output, the promotion of personal growth and well being of all team members, and most importantly the ability to learn and grow as a unit. Initially, a team can successfully create high-performing output without meeting all three criteria, however this will erode over time because team members will feel detached from the group or that they are not growing then the quality of the output will decline. High performing teams are similar to work groups because they both utilize a collection of individuals or entities to accomplish tasks. What distinguish a high-performing team from a work group are its characteristics. High-performing teams contain five core characteristics. These characteristics are what separate a group from a team. The five characteristics of a high-performing team include: Purpose, Performance Measures, People with Tasks and Relationship Skills, Process, and Preparation and Practice. A high-performing team is much more than a work group, and typically has a life cycle that can vary from team to team. The standard team lifecycle consists of five states and is comparable to a human life cycle. The five states of a high-performing team lifecycle include: Formulating, Storming, Normalizing, Performing, and Adjourning. The Formulating State of a team is first realized when the team members are first defined and roles are assigned to all members. This initial stage is very important because it can set the tone for the team and can ultimately determine its success or failure. In addition, this stage requires the team to have a strong leader because team members are normally unclear about specific roles, specific obstacles and goals that my lay ahead of them.  Finally, this stage is where most team members initially meet one another prior to working as a team unless the team members already know each other. The Storming State normally arrives directly after the formulation of a new team because there are still a lot of unknowns amongst the newly formed assembly. As a general rule most of the parties involved in the team are still getting used to the workload, pace of work, deadlines and the validity of various tasks that need to be performed by the group.  In this state everything is questioned because there are so many unknowns. Items commonly questioned include the credentials of others on the team, the actual validity of a project, and the leadership abilities of the team leader.  This can be exemplified by looking at the interactions between animals when they first meet.  If we look at a scenario where two people are walking directly toward each other with their dogs. The dogs will automatically enter the Storming State because they do not know the other dog. Typically in this situation, they attempt to define which is more dominating via play or fighting depending on how the dogs interact with each other. Once dominance has been defined and accepted by both dogs then they will either want to play or leave depending on how the dogs interacted and other environmental variables. Once the Storming State has been realized then the Normalizing State takes over. This state is entered by a team once all the questions of the Storming State have been answered and the team has been tested by a few tasks or projects.  Typically, participants in the team are filled with energy, and comradery, and a strong alliance with team goals and objectives.  A high school football team is a perfect example of the Normalizing State when they start their season.  The player positions have been assigned, the depth chart has been filled and everyone is focused on winning each game. All of the players encourage and expect each other to perform at the best of their abilities and are united by competition from other teams. The Performing State is achieved by a team when its history, working habits, and culture solidify the team as one working unit. In this state team members can anticipate specific behaviors, attitudes, reactions, and challenges are seen as opportunities and not problems. Additionally, each team member knows their role in the team’s success, and the roles of others. This is the most productive state of a group and is where all the time invested working together really pays off. If you look at an Olympic figure skating team skate you can easily see how the time spent working together benefits their performance. They skate as one unit even though it is comprised of two skaters. Each skater has their routine completely memorized as well as their partners. This allows them to anticipate each other’s moves on the ice makes their skating look effortless. The final state of a team is the Adjourning State. This state is where accomplishments by the team and each individual team member are recognized. Additionally, this state also allows for reflection of the interactions between team members, work accomplished and challenges that were faced. Finally, the team celebrates the challenges they have faced and overcome as a unit. Currently in the workplace teams are divided into two different types: Co-located and Distributed Teams. Co-located teams defined as the traditional group of people working together in an office, according to Andy Singleton of Assembla. This traditional type of a team has dominated business in the past due to inadequate technology, which forced workers to primarily interact with one another via face to face meetings.  Team meetings are primarily lead by the person with the highest status in the company. Having personally, participated in meetings of this type, usually a select few of the team members dominate the flow of communication which reduces the input of others in group discussions. Since discussions are dominated by a select few individuals the discussions and group discussion are skewed in favor of the individuals who communicate the most in meetings. In addition, Team members might not give their full opinions on a topic of discussion in part not to offend or create controversy amongst the team and can alter decision made in meetings towards those of the opinions of the dominating team members. Distributed teams are by definition spread across an area or subdivided into separate sections. That is exactly what distributed teams when compared to a more traditional team. It is common place for distributed teams to have team members across town, in the next state, across the country and even with the advances in technology over the last 20 year across the world. These teams allow for more diversity compared to the other type of teams because they allow for more flexibility regarding location. A team could consist of a 30 year old male Italian project manager from New York, a 50 year old female Hispanic from California and a collection of programmers from India because technology allows them to communicate as if they were standing next to one another.  In addition, distributed team members consult with more team members prior to making decisions compared to traditional teams, and take longer to come to decisions due to the changes in time zones and cultural events. However, team members feel more empowered to speak out when they do not agree with the team and to notify others of potential issues regarding the work that the team is doing. Virtual teams which are a subset of the distributed team type is changing organizational strategies due to the fact that a team can now in essence be working 24 hrs a day because of utilizing employees in various time zones and locations.  A primary example of this is with customer services departments, a company can have multiple call centers spread across multiple time zones allowing them to appear to be open 24 hours a day while all a employees work from 9AM to 5 PM every day. Virtual teams also allow human resources departments to go after the best talent for the company regardless of where the potential employee works because they will be a part of a virtual team all that is need is the proper technology to be setup to allow everyone to communicate. In addition to allowing employees to work from home, the company can save space and resources by not having to provide a desk for every team member. In fact, those team members that randomly come into the office can actually share one desk amongst multiple people. This is definitely a cost cutting plus given the current state of the economy. One thing that can turn a team into a high-performing team is leadership. High-performing team leaders need to focus on investing in ongoing personal development, provide team members with direction, structure, and resources needed to accomplish their work, make the right interventions at the right time, and help the team manage boundaries between the team and various external parties involved in the teams work. A team leader needs to invest in ongoing personal development in order to effectively manage their team. People have said that attitude is everything; this is very true about leaders and leadership. A team takes on the attitudes and behaviors of its leaders. This can potentially harm the team and the team’s output. Leaders must concentrate on self-awareness, and understanding their team’s group dynamics to fully understand how to lead them. In addition, always learning new leadership techniques from other effective leaders is also very beneficial. Providing team members with direction, structure, and resources that they need to accomplish their work collectively sounds easy, but it is not.  Leaders need to be able to effectively communicate with their team on how their work helps the company reach for its organizational vision. Conversely, the leader needs to allow his team to work autonomously within specific guidelines to turn the company’s vision into a reality.  This being said the team must be appropriately staffed according to the size of the team’s tasks and their complexity. These tasks should be clear, and be meaningful to the company’s objectives and allow for feedback to be exchanged with the leader and the team member and the leader and upper management. Now if the team is properly staffed, and has a clear and full understanding of what is to be done; the company also must supply the workers with the proper tools to achieve the tasks that they are asked to do. No one should be asked to dig a hole without being given a shovel.  Finally, leaders must reward their team members for accomplishments that they achieve. Awards could range from just a simple congratulatory email, a party to close the completion of a large project, or other monetary rewards. Managing boundaries is very important for team leaders because it can alter attitudes of team members and can add undue stress to the team which will force them to loose focus on the tasks at hand for the group. Team leaders should promote communication between team members so that burdens are shared amongst the team and solutions can be derived from hearing the opinions of multiple sources. This also reinforces team camaraderie and working as a unit. Team leaders must manage the type and timing of interventions as to not create an even bigger mess within the team. Poorly timed interventions can really deflate team members and make them question themselves. This could really increase further and undue interventions by the team leader. Typically, the best time for interventions is when the team is just starting to form so that all unproductive behaviors are removed from the team and that it can retain focus on its agenda. If an intervention is effectively executed the team will feel energized about the work that they are doing, promote communication and interaction amongst the group and improve moral overall. High-performing teams are very import to organizations because they consistently produce high quality output and develop a collective purpose for their work. This drive to succeed allows team members to utilize specific talents allowing for growth in these areas.  In addition, these team members usually take on a sense of ownership with their projects and feel that the other team members are irreplaceable. References: http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/3127/Three-ways-to-organize-your-team-co-located-outsourced-or-global.aspx Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (1993). The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-performance Organization. Boston: Harvard Business School.

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• The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

  - by Rick Strahl

  High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Windows Azure: General Availability of Web Sites + Mobile Services, New AutoScale + Alerts Support, No Credit Card Needed for MSDN

  - by ScottGu

  This morning we released a major set of updates to Windows Azure.  These updates included: Web Sites: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Web Sites with SLA Mobile Services: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Mobile Services with SLA Auto-Scale: New automatic scaling support for Web Sites, Cloud Services and Virtual Machines Alerts/Notifications: New email alerting support for all Compute Services (Web Sites, Mobile Services, Cloud Services, and Virtual Machines) MSDN: No more credit card requirement for sign-up All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note: some are still in preview).  Below are more details about them. Web Sites: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Web Sites I’m incredibly excited to announce the General Availability release of Windows Azure Web Sites. The Windows Azure Web Sites service is perfect for hosting a web presence, building customer engagement solutions, and delivering business web apps.  Today’s General Availability release means we are taking off the “preview” tag from the Free and Standard (formerly called reserved) tiers of Windows Azure Web Sites.  This means we are providing: A 99.9% monthly SLA (Service Level Agreement) for the Standard tier Microsoft Support available on a 24x7 basis (with plans that range from developer plans to enterprise Premier support) The Free tier runs in a shared compute environment and supports up to 10 web sites. While the Free tier does not come with an SLA, it works great for rapid development and testing and enables you to quickly spike out ideas at no cost. The Standard tier, which was called “Reserved” during the preview, runs using dedicated per-customer VM instances for great performance, isolation and scalability, and enables you to host up to 500 different Web sites within them.  You can easily scale your Standard instances on-demand using the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You can adjust VM instance sizes from a Small instance size (1 core, 1.75GB of RAM), up to a Medium instance size (2 core, 3.5GB of RAM), or Large instance (4 cores and 7 GB RAM).  You can choose to run between 1 and 10 Standard instances, enabling you to easily scale up your web backend to 40 cores of CPU and 70GB of RAM: Today’s release also includes general availability support for custom domain SSL certificate bindings for web sites running using the Standard tier. Customers will be able to utilize certificates they purchase for their custom domains and use either SNI or IP based SSL encryption. SNI encryption is available for all modern browsers and does not require an IP address.  SSL certificates can be used for individual sites or wild-card mapped across multiple sites (we charge extra for the use of a SSL cert – but the fee is per-cert and not per site which means you pay once for it regardless of how many sites you use it with).  Today’s release also includes the following new features: Auto-Scale support Today’s Windows Azure release adds preview support for Auto-Scaling web sites.  This enables you to setup automatic scale rules based on the activity of your instances – allowing you to automatically scale down (and save money) when they are below a CPU threshold you define, and automatically scale up quickly when traffic increases.  See below for more details. 64-bit and 32-bit mode support You can now choose to run your standard tier instances in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode (previously they only ran in 32-bit mode).  This enables you to address even more memory within individual web applications. Memory dumps Memory dumps can be very useful for diagnosing issues and debugging apps. Using a REST API, you can now get a memory dump of your sites, which you can then use for investigating issues in Visual Studio Debugger, WinDbg, and other tools. Scaling Sites Independently Prior to today’s release, all sites scaled up/down together whenever you scaled any site in a sub-region. So you may have had to keep your proof-of-concept or testing sites in a separate sub-region if you wanted to keep them in the Free tier. This will no longer be necessary.  Windows Azure Web Sites can now mix different tier levels in the same geographic sub-region. This allows you, for example, to selectively move some of your sites in the West US sub-region up to Standard tier when they require the features, scalability, and SLA of the Standard tier. Full pricing details on Windows Azure Web Sites can be found here.  Note that the “Shared Tier” of Windows Azure Web Sites remains in preview mode (and continues to have discounted preview pricing).  Mobile Services: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Mobile Services I’m incredibly excited to announce the General Availability release of Windows Azure Mobile Services.  Mobile Services is perfect for building scalable cloud back-ends for Windows 8.x, Windows Phone, Apple iOS, Android, and HTML/JavaScript applications.  Customers We’ve seen tremendous adoption of Windows Azure Mobile Services since we first previewed it last September, and more than 20,000 customers are now running mobile back-ends in production using it.  These customers range from startups like Yatterbox, to university students using Mobile Services to complete apps like Sly Fox in their spare time, to media giants like Verdens Gang finding new ways to deliver content, and telcos like TalkTalk Business delivering the up-to-the-minute information their customers require.  In today’s Build keynote, we demonstrated how TalkTalk Business is using Windows Azure Mobile Services to deliver service, outage and billing information to its customers, wherever they might be. Partners When we unveiled the source control and Custom API features I blogged about two weeks ago, we enabled a range of new scenarios, one of which is a more flexible way to work with third party services.  The following blogs, samples and tutorials from our partners cover great ways you can extend Mobile Services to help you build rich modern apps: New Relic allows developers to monitor and manage the end-to-end performance of iOS and Android applications connected to Mobile Services. SendGrid eliminates the complexity of sending email from Mobile Services, saving time and money, while providing reliable delivery to the inbox. Twilio provides a telephony infrastructure web service in the cloud that you can use with Mobile Services to integrate phone calls, text messages and IP voice communications into your mobile apps. Xamarin provides a Mobile Services add on to make it easy building cross-platform connected mobile aps. Pusher allows quickly and securely add scalable real-time messaging functionality to Mobile Services-based web and mobile apps. Visual Studio 2013 and Windows 8.1 This week during //build/ keynote, we demonstrated how Visual Studio 2013, Mobile Services and Windows 8.1 make building connected apps easier than ever. Developers building Windows 8 applications in Visual Studio can now connect them to Windows Azure Mobile Services by simply right clicking then choosing Add Connected Service. You can either create a new Mobile Service or choose existing Mobile Service in the Add Connected Service dialog. Once completed, Visual Studio adds a reference to Mobile Services SDK to your project and generates a Mobile Services client initialization snippet automatically. Add Push Notifications Push Notifications and Live Tiles are a key to building engaging experiences. Visual Studio 2013 and Mobile Services make it super easy to add push notifications to your Windows 8.1 app, by clicking Add a Push Notification item: The Add Push Notification wizard will then guide you through the registration with the Windows Store as well as connecting your app to a new or existing mobile service. Upon completion of the wizard, Visual Studio will configure your mobile service with the WNS credentials, as well as add sample logic to your client project and your mobile service that demonstrates how to send push notifications to your app. Server Explorer Integration In Visual Studio 2013 you can also now view your Mobile Services in the the Server Explorer. You can add tables, edit, and save server side scripts without ever leaving Visual Studio, as shown on the image below: Pricing With today’s general availability release we are announcing that we will be offering Mobile Services in three tiers – Free, Standard, and Premium.  Each tier is metered using a simple pricing model based on the # of API calls (bandwidth is included at no extra charge), and the Standard and Premium tiers are backed by 99.9% monthly SLAs.  You can elastically scale up or down the number of instances you have of each tier to increase the # of API requests your service can support – allowing you to efficiently scale as your business grows. The following table summarizes the new pricing model (full pricing details here):   You can find the full details of the new pricing model here. Build Conference Talks The //BUILD/ conference will be packed with sessions covering every aspect of developing connected applications with Mobile Services. The best part is that, even if you can’t be with us in San Francisco, every session is being streamed live. Be sure not to miss these talks: Mobile Services – Soup to Nuts — Josh Twist Building Cross-Platform Apps with Windows Azure Mobile Services — Chris Risner Connected Windows Phone Apps made Easy with Mobile Services — Yavor Georgiev Build Connected Windows 8.1 Apps with Mobile Services — Nick Harris Who’s that user? Identity in Mobile Apps — Dinesh Kulkarni Building REST Services with JavaScript — Nathan Totten Going Live and Beyond with Windows Azure Mobile Services — Kirill Gavrylyuk , Paul Batum Protips for Windows Azure Mobile Services — Chris Risner AutoScale: Dynamically scale up/down your app based on real-world usage One of the key benefits of Windows Azure is that you can dynamically scale your application in response to changing demand. In the past, though, you have had to either manually change the scale of your application, or use additional tooling (such as WASABi or MetricsHub) to automatically scale your application. Today, we’re announcing that AutoScale will be built-into Windows Azure directly.  With today’s release it is now enabled for Cloud Services, Virtual Machines and Web Sites (Mobile Services support will come soon). Auto-scale enables you to configure Windows Azure to automatically scale your application dynamically on your behalf (without any manual intervention) so you can achieve the ideal performance and cost balance. Once configured it will regularly adjust the number of instances running in response to the load in your application. Currently, we support two different load metrics: CPU percentage Storage queue depth (Cloud Services and Virtual Machines only) We’ll enable automatic scaling on even more scale metrics in future updates. When to use Auto-Scale The following are good criteria for services/apps that will benefit from the use of auto-scale: The service/app can scale horizontally (e.g. it can be duplicated to multiple instances) The service/app load changes over time If your app meets these criteria, then you should look to leverage auto-scale. How to Enable Auto-Scale To enable auto-scale, simply navigate to the Scale tab in the Windows Azure Management Portal for the app/service you wish to enable.  Within the scale tab turn the Auto-Scale setting on to either CPU or Queue (for Cloud Services and VMs) to enable Auto-Scale.  Then change the instance count and target CPU settings to configure the Auto-Scale ranges you want to maintain. The image below demonstrates how to enable Auto-Scale on a Windows Azure Web-Site.  I’ve configured the web-site so that it will run using between 1 and 5 VM instances.  The exact # used will depend on the aggregate CPU of the VMs using the 40-70% range I’ve configured below.  If the aggregate CPU goes above 70%, then Windows Azure will automatically add new VMs to the pool (up to the maximum of 5 instances I’ve configured it to use).  If the aggregate CPU drops below 40% then Windows Azure will automatically start shutting down VMs to save me money: Once you’ve turned auto-scale on, you can return to the Scale tab at any point and select Off to manually set the number of instances. Using the Auto-Scale Preview With today’s update you can now, in just a few minutes, have Windows Azure automatically adjust the number of instances you have running  in your apps to keep your service performant at an even better cost. Auto-scale is being released today as a preview feature, and will be free until General Availability. During preview, each subscription is limited to 10 separate auto-scale rules across all of the resources they have (Web sites, Cloud services or Virtual Machines). If you hit the 10 limit, you can disable auto-scale for any resource to enable it for another. Alerts and Notifications Starting today we are now providing the ability to configure threshold based alerts on monitoring metrics. This feature is available for compute services (cloud services, VM, websites and mobiles services). Alerts provide you the ability to get proactively notified of active or impending issues within your application.  You can define alert rules for: Virtual machine monitoring metrics that are collected from the host operating system (CPU percentage, network in/out, disk read bytes/sec and disk write bytes/sec) and on monitoring metrics from monitoring web endpoint urls (response time and uptime) that you have configured. Cloud service monitoring metrics that are collected from the host operating system (same as VM), monitoring metrics from the guest VM (from performance counters within the VM) and on monitoring metrics from monitoring web endpoint urls (response time and uptime) that you have configured. For Web Sites and Mobile Services, alerting rules can be configured on monitoring metrics from monitoring endpoint urls (response time and uptime) that you have configured. Creating Alert Rules You can add an alert rule for a monitoring metric by navigating to the Setting -> Alerts tab in the Windows Azure Management Portal. Click on the Add Rule button to create an alert rule. Give the alert rule a name and optionally add a description. Then pick the service which you want to define the alert rule on: The next step in the alert creation wizard will then filter the monitoring metrics based on the service you selected:   Once created the rule will show up in your alerts list within the settings tab: The rule above is defined as “not activated” since it hasn’t tripped over the CPU threshold we set.  If the CPU on the above machine goes over the limit, though, I’ll get an email notifying me from an Windows Azure Alerts email address ([email protected]). And when I log into the portal and revisit the alerts tab I’ll see it highlighted in red.  Clicking it will then enable me to see what is causing it to fail, as well as view the history of when it has happened in the past. Alert Notifications With today’s initial preview you can now easily create alerting rules based on monitoring metrics and get notified on active or impending issues within your application that require attention. During preview, each subscription is limited to 10 alert rules across all of the services that support alert rules. No More Credit Card Requirement for MSDN Subscribers Earlier this month (during TechEd 2013), Windows Azure announced that MSDN users will get Windows Azure Credits every month that they can use for any Windows Azure services they want. You can read details about this in my previous Dev/Test blog post. Today we are making further updates to enable an easier Windows Azure signup for MSDN users. MSDN users will now not be required to provide payment information (e.g. no credit card) during sign-up, so long as they use the service within the included monetary credit for the billing period. For usage beyond the monetary credit, they can enable overages by providing the payment information and remove the spending limit. This enables a super easy, one page sign-up experience for MSDN users.  Simply sign-up for your Windows Azure trial using the same Microsoft ID that you use to manage your MSDN account, then complete the one page sign-up form below and you will be able to spend your free monthly MSDN credits (up to $150 each month) on any Windows Azure resource for dev/test:   This makes it trivially easy for every MDSN customer to start using Windows Azure today.  If you haven’t signed up yet, I definitely recommend checking it out. Summary Today’s release includes a ton of great features that enable you to build even better cloud solutions.  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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• Removing malware of a particular kind

  - by Cyclone

  I need to remove some malware from my computer. It is a trojan, and very annoying. It blocks access to Google and search sites. The trojan, with its name spelled out on each line cause it seems to block sites when i reference it in a url, is a r t (some text to mess it up) e m (more text i s First off, what is it, what does it do? Second, why can't I access google or yahoo or any other search sites at all? Third, can it be removed via McAffee? It says it quarantined it when I scanned I found a suspicious process "c"s"r"s"s".exe and it will not let me terminate it, and this is what Mcaffee says it is. Why on earth isn't Mcaffee getting rid of it? I even blocked internet access for this program. Thanks so much, I get kinda freaked out with things like this... Here is my entire Hosts file: 127.0.0.1 go.mail.ru 127.0.0.1 nova.rambler.ru 127.0.0.1 google.ad 127.0.0.1 www.google.ad 127.0.0.1 google.ae 127.0.0.1 www.google.ae 127.0.0.1 google.am 127.0.0.1 www.google.am 127.0.0.1 google.com.ar 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.ar 127.0.0.1 google.as 127.0.0.1 www.google.as 127.0.0.1 google.at 127.0.0.1 www.google.at 127.0.0.1 google.com.au 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.au 127.0.0.1 google.az 127.0.0.1 www.google.az 127.0.0.1 google.ba 127.0.0.1 www.google.ba 127.0.0.1 google.be 127.0.0.1 www.google.be 127.0.0.1 google.bg 127.0.0.1 www.google.bg 127.0.0.1 google.bs 127.0.0.1 www.google.bs 127.0.0.1 google.com.by 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.by 127.0.0.1 google.ca 127.0.0.1 www.google.ca 127.0.0.1 google.ch 127.0.0.1 www.google.ch 127.0.0.1 google.cn 127.0.0.1 www.google.cn 127.0.0.1 google.cz 127.0.0.1 www.google.cz 127.0.0.1 google.de 127.0.0.1 www.google.de 127.0.0.1 google.dk 127.0.0.1 www.google.dk 127.0.0.1 google.ee 127.0.0.1 www.google.ee 127.0.0.1 google.es 127.0.0.1 www.google.es 127.0.0.1 google.fi 127.0.0.1 www.google.fi 127.0.0.1 google.fr 127.0.0.1 www.google.fr 127.0.0.1 google.gr 127.0.0.1 www.google.gr 127.0.0.1 google.com.hk 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.hk 127.0.0.1 google.hr 127.0.0.1 www.google.hr 127.0.0.1 google.hu 127.0.0.1 www.google.hu 127.0.0.1 google.ie 127.0.0.1 www.google.ie 127.0.0.1 google.co.il 127.0.0.1 www.google.co.il 127.0.0.1 google.co.in 127.0.0.1 www.google.co.in 127.0.0.1 google.is 127.0.0.1 www.google.is 127.0.0.1 google.it 127.0.0.1 www.google.it 127.0.0.1 google.co.jp 127.0.0.1 www.google.co.jp 127.0.0.1 google.kg 127.0.0.1 www.google.kg 127.0.0.1 google.co.kr 127.0.0.1 www.google.co.kr 127.0.0.1 google.li 127.0.0.1 www.google.li 127.0.0.1 google.lt 127.0.0.1 www.google.lt 127.0.0.1 google.lu 127.0.0.1 www.google.lu 127.0.0.1 google.lv 127.0.0.1 www.google.lv 127.0.0.1 google.md 127.0.0.1 www.google.md 127.0.0.1 google.com.mx 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.mx 127.0.0.1 google.nl 127.0.0.1 www.google.nl 127.0.0.1 google.no 127.0.0.1 www.google.no 127.0.0.1 google.co.nz 127.0.0.1 www.google.co.nz 127.0.0.1 google.com.pe 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.pe 127.0.0.1 google.com.ph 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.ph 127.0.0.1 google.pl 127.0.0.1 www.google.pl 127.0.0.1 google.pt 127.0.0.1 www.google.pt 127.0.0.1 google.ro 127.0.0.1 www.google.ro 127.0.0.1 google.ru 127.0.0.1 www.google.ru 127.0.0.1 google.com.ru 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.ru 127.0.0.1 google.com.sa 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.sa 127.0.0.1 google.se 127.0.0.1 www.google.se 127.0.0.1 google.com.sg 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.sg 127.0.0.1 google.si 127.0.0.1 www.google.si 127.0.0.1 google.sk 127.0.0.1 www.google.sk 127.0.0.1 google.co.th 127.0.0.1 www.google.co.th 127.0.0.1 google.com.tj 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.tj 127.0.0.1 google.tm 127.0.0.1 www.google.tm 127.0.0.1 google.com.tr 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.tr 127.0.0.1 google.com.tw 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.tw 127.0.0.1 google.com.ua 127.0.0.1 www.google.com.ua 127.0.0.1 google.co.uk 127.0.0.1 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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, December 06, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, December 06, 2010Popular ReleasesAura: Aura Preview 1: Rewritten from scratch. This release supports getting color only from icon of foreground window.myCollections: Version 1.2: New in version 1.2: Big performance improvement. New Design (Added Outlook style View, New detail view, New Groub By...) Added Sort by Media Added Manage Movie Studio Zoom preference is now saved. Media name are now editable. Added Portuguese version You can now Hide details panel Add support for FLAC tags You can now imports books from BibTex Xml file BugFixingmytrip.mvc (CMS & e-Commerce): mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta: mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta web Web for install hosting System Requirements: NET 4.0, MSSQL 2008 or MySql (auto creation table to database) if .\SQLEXPRESS auto creation database (App_Data folder) mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta src System Requirements: Visual Studio 2010 or Web Deweloper 2010 MSSQL 2008 or MySql (auto creation table to database) if .\SQLEXPRESS auto creation database (App_Data folder) Connector/Net 6.3.4, MVC3 RC WARNING For run and debug mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta src download and ...Menu and Context Menu for Silverlight 4.0: Silverlight Menu and Context Menu v2.3 Beta: - Added keyboard navigation support with access keys - Shortcuts like Ctrl-Alt-A are now supported(where the browser permits it) - The PopupMenuSeparator is now completely based on the PopupMenuItem class - Moved item manipulation code to a partial class in PopupMenuItemsControl.cs - Moved menu management and keyboard navigation code to the new PopupMenuManager class - Simplified the layout by removing the RootGrid element(all content is now placed in OverlayCanvas and is accessed by the new ...SubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.0: First public releaseMiniTwitter: 1.62: MiniTwitter 1.62 ???? ?? ??????????????????????????????????????? 140 ?????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????? ?? ??????????????????????????????????Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.0 (December 2010): The release is targetted for stable daily use. With improved performance and enhanced compatibility with several latest PHP open source applications; it makes this release perfect replacement of your old PHP runtime. Changes made within this release include following and much more: Performance improvements based on real-world applications experience. We determined biggest bottlenecks and we found and removed overheads causing performance problems in many PHP applications. Reimplemented nat...Chronos WPF: Chronos v2.0 Beta 3: Release notes: Updated introduction document. Updated Visual Studio 2010 Extension (vsix) package. Added horizontal scrolling to the main window TaskBar. Added new styles for ListView, ListViewItem, GridViewColumnHeader, ... Added a new WindowViewModel class (allowing to fetch data). Added a new Navigate method (with several overloads) to the NavigationViewModel class (protected). Reimplemented Task usage for the WorkspaceViewModel.OnDelete method. Removed the reflection effect...MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.26.7024: Fixed updater; Fixed MegauploadDJ - jQuery WebControls for ASP.NET: DJ 1.2: What is new? Update to support jQuery 1.4.2 Update to support jQuery ui 1.8.6 Update to Visual Studio 2010 New WebControls with samples added Autocomplete WebControl Button WebControl ToggleButt WebControl The example web site is including in source code project.LateBindingApi.Excel: LateBindingApi.Excel Release 0.7g: Unterschiede zur Vorgängerversion: - Zusätzliche Interior Properties - Group / Ungroup Methoden für Range - Bugfix COM Reference Handling für Application Objekt in einigen Klassen Release+Samples V0.7g: - Enthält Laufzeit DLL und Beispielprojekte Beispielprojekte: COMAddinExample - Demonstriert ein versionslos angebundenes COMAddin Example01 - Background Colors und Borders für Cells Example02 - Font Attributes undAlignment für Cells Example03 - Numberformats Example04 - Shapes, WordArts, P...ESRI ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit: November 2010 - v2.1: ESRI ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit v2.1 Added Windows Phone 7 build. New controls added: InfoWindow ChildPage (Windows Phone 7 only) See what's new here full details for : http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/silverlight/help/#/What_s_new_in_2_1/016600000025000000/ Note: Requires Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4.0 and Silverlight 4.0.ASP .NET MVC CMS (Content Management System): Atomic CMS 2.1.1: Atomic CMS 2.1.1 release notes Atomic CMS installation guide Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.6.5 beta Released: Hi, Today we are releasing Visifire 3.6.5 beta with the following new feature: New property AutoFitToPlotArea has been introduced in DataSeries. AutoFitToPlotArea will bring bubbles inside the PlotArea in order to avoid clipping of bubbles in bubble chart. Also this release includes few bug fixes: AxisXLabel label were getting clipped if angle was set for AxisLabels and ScrollingEnabled was not set in Chart. If LabelStyle property was set as 'Inside', size of the Pie was not proper. Yo...EnhSim: EnhSim 2.1.1: 2.1.1This release adds in the changes for 4.03a. To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Switched Searing Flames bac...AI: Initial 0.0.1: It’s simply just one code file; it simulates AI and machine in a simulated world. The AI has a little understanding of its body machine and parts, and able to use its feet to do actions just start and stop walking. The world is all of white with nothing but just the machine on a white planet. Colors, odors and position information make no sense. I’m previous C# programmer and I’m learning F# during this project, although I’m still not a good F# programmer, in this project I learning to prog...NKinect: NKinect Preview: Build features: Accelerometer reading Motor serial number property Realtime image update Realtime depth calculation Export to PLY (On demand) Control motor LED Control Kinect tiltMicrosoft - Domain Oriented N-Layered .NET 4.0 App Sample (Microsoft Spain): V1.0 - N-Layer DDD Sample App .NET 4.0: Required Software (Microsoft Base Software needed for Development environment) Visual Studio 2010 RTM & .NET 4.0 RTM (Final Versions) Expression Blend 4 SQL Server 2008 R2 Express/Standard/Enterprise Unity Application Block 2.0 - Published May 5th 2010 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2D24F179-E0A6-49D7-89C4-5B67D939F91B&displaylang=en http://unity.codeplex.com/releases/view/31277 PEX & MOLES 0.94.51023.0, 29/Oct/2010 - Visual Studio 2010 Power Tools http://re...Sense/Net Enterprise Portal & ECMS: SenseNet 6.0.1 Community Edition: Sense/Net 6.0.1 Community Edition This half year we have been working quite fiercely to bring you the long-awaited release of Sense/Net 6.0. Download this Community Edition to see what we have been up to. These months we have worked on getting the WebCMS capabilities of Sense/Net 6.0 up to par. New features include: New, powerful page and portlet editing experience. HTML and CSS cleanup, new, powerful site skinning system. Upgraded, lightning-fast indexing and query via Lucene. Limita...Minecraft GPS: Minecraft GPS 1.1.1: New Features Compass! New style. Set opacity on main window to allow overlay of Minecraft. Open World in any folder. Fixes Fixed style so listbox won't grow the window size. Fixed open file dialog issue on non-vista kernel machines.New ProjectsAboutTime: The AboutTime WPF controls project is aimed at developing custom controls that relate to time.aReader: aReader is a free software, it's used as an XPS document reader. It's developed in C# Language and use Windows Presentation Foundation technology with .NET Framework 3.5. Mixed with Ribbon Controls Library for GUI (Graphic User Interface) make this application user friendly.Battle Net Info: Battle Net Info provides information of the StarCraft2 player from his profile pageBencoder: Library for encode/decode bencode file or string. It's developing on C#.BiBongNet: BiBongNet Project.Binhnt: BinhntC++ Bloom Filter Library: C++ Bloom Filter LibraryChild Sponsorship Manager: Sponsorship Manager is developed for a NPO that provides child sponsorship in developing countries. It is possible to track sponsor child relations, gifts and payments. It is developed in visual basic . netDocBlogger: This is a tool for automatically converting existing XML comments from your project into MSDN style HTML for posting to the codeplex site. This will use the MetaBlog API to post code, but can be used in a copy paste fashion right away.Dynamic Rdlc WebControl: "Dynamic Rdlc WebControl" is an ASP .NET WebControl to generate dynamic reports in RDLC format without generate physical files. Suports groups and totalizers. It is developed with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, ASP .NET and C# 4.Fake Call for Windows Phone 7: Coding4Fun Windows Phone 7 fake call applicationFlow launcher: Flow is the worlds fastest application launcher, using an onscreen keyboard and mnemonics to achieve lightning fast shortcut launching.GaDotNet: GaDotNet is an open source library designed to make it easy to log page views, events and transactions, through c# code, without using JavaScript or even needing to have a browser.HackerNews for WP7: HackerNews is a WP7 client for the HackerNews website.How much is this meeting costing us?: Coding4Fun Windows Phone 7 "How much is this meeting costing us?" applicationKLAB: KLABMap Navigator: Map Navigator - it's a silverlight application intended to work with maps.MNRT: MNRT implements (demonstrates) several techniques to realize fast global illumination for dynamic scenes on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) using CUDA. A GPU-based kd-tree was implemented to accelerate both ray tracing and photon mapping.MVC Helpers: MVC Helper makes developing views easier. It contains extended helpers classes to render view content. It is developed in C#.Net Extended Helpers for Grid has been created so far. MVCPets: This is a projected dedicated to providing a free platform to be used by animal rescue organizations. The hope is that this project can fill the void for those rescue groups that can't afford to pay a professional web designer/developer.MyGraphicProgram: ???????????????NAI: This project is a step by step illustration of some Numerical Analysis methods.Nemono: Nemono is an application that runs in the background, and is activated by pressing a key combination like ALT+W. When activated, Nemono uses context awareness to present relevant shortcuts to the user, and mnemonics to execute shortcuts.opojo: opojoOxyPlot: OxyPlot is a .NET library for making XY line plots. The focus is on simplicity and performance. The library contains custom controls for WPF and Windows Forms. The plots can also be exported to SVG, PDF and PNG.PowerChumby: PowerChumby is a Perl CGI script and a PowerShell module that gives you a PowerShell way of controlling your Chumby.RHoK Berlin Visio Projekt: Random Hacks of Kindness - Berlin Projekt für die Senatsverwaltung für Gesundheit, Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz Query, integrate and display external data in Microsoft Visio. It's developed in C#.sc2md: starcraft.md news portalSlide Show: Coding4Fun Windows Phone 7 Slide Show applicationsmartcon: smart control centerTFS Fav source: Favourites for source location in VSTwitter Followers Monitor: Free and Open Source tool that will let you monitor any Twitter account for its new & lost followers even if it's not yours and you don't have its credentials. It allows you to add several Twitter accounts and be updated right from your desktop.

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• Enterprise Process Maps: A Process Picture worth a Million Words

  - by raul.goycoolea

  p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }h1 { margin-top: 0.33in; margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(54, 95, 145); page-break-inside: avoid; }h1.western { font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 14pt; }h1.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 14pt; }h1.ctl { font-size: 14pt; } Getting Started with Business Transformations A well-known proverb states that "A picture is worth a thousand words." In relation to Business Process Management (BPM), a credible analyst might have a few questions. What if the picture was taken from some particular angle, like directly overhead? What if it was taken from only an inch away or a mile away? What if the photographer did not focus the camera correctly? Does the value of the picture depend on who is looking at it? Enterprise Process Maps are analogous in this sense of relative value. Every BPM project (holistic BPM kick-off, enterprise system implementation, Service-oriented Architecture, business process transformation, corporate performance management, etc.) should be begin with a clear understanding of the business environment, from the biggest picture representations down to the lowest level required or desired for the particular project type, scope and objectives. The Enterprise Process Map serves as an entry point for the process architecture and is defined: the single highest level of process mapping for an organization. It is constructed and evaluated during the Strategy Phase of the Business Process Management Lifecycle. (see Figure 1) Fig. 1: Business Process Management Lifecycle Many organizations view such maps as visual abstractions, constructed for the single purpose of process categorization. This, in turn, results in a lesser focus on the inherent intricacies of the Enterprise Process view, which are explored in the course of this paper. With the main focus of a large scale process documentation effort usually underlying an ERP or other system implementation, it is common for the work to be driven by the desire to "get to the details," and to the type of modeling that will derive near-term tangible results. For instance, a project in American Pharmaceutical Company X is driven by the Director of IT. With 120+ systems in place, and a lack of standardized processes across the United States, he and the VP of IT have decided to embark on a long-term ERP implementation. At the forethought of both are questions, such as: How does my application architecture map to the business? What are each application's functionalities, and where do the business processes utilize them? Where can we retire legacy systems? Well-developed BPM methodologies prescribe numerous model types to capture such information and allow for thorough analysis in these areas. Process to application maps, Event Driven Process Chains, etc. provide this level of detail and facilitate the completion of such project-specific questions. These models and such analysis are appropriately carried out at a relatively low level of process detail. (see figure 2) Fig. 2: The Level Concept, Generic Process HierarchySome of the questions remaining are ones of documentation longevity, the continuation of BPM practice in the organization, process governance and ownership, process transparency and clarity in business process objectives and strategy. The Level Concept in Brief Figure 2 shows a generic, four-level process hierarchy depicting the breakdown of a "Process Area" into progressively more detailed process classifications. The number of levels and the names of these levels are flexible, and can be fit to the standards of the organization's chosen terminology or any other chosen reference model that makes logical sense for both short and long term process description. It is at Level 1 (in this case the Process Area level), that the Enterprise Process Map is created. This map and its contained objects become the foundation for a top-down approach to subsequent mapping, object relationship development, and analysis of the organization's processes and its supporting infrastructure. Additionally, this picture serves as a communication device, at an executive level, describing the design of the business in its service to a customer. It seems, then, imperative that the process development effort, and this map, start off on the right foot. Figuring out just what that right foot is, however, is critical and trend-setting in an evolving organization. Key Considerations Enterprise Process Maps are usually not as living and breathing as other process maps. Just as it would be an extremely difficult task to change the foundation of the Sears Tower or a city plan for the entire city of Chicago, the Enterprise Process view of an organization usually remains unchanged once developed (unless, of course, an organization is at a stage where it is capable of true, high-level process innovation). Regardless, the Enterprise Process map is a key first step, and one that must be taken in a precise way. What makes this groundwork solid depends on not only the materials used to construct it (process areas), but also the layout plan and knowledge base of what will be built (the entire process architecture). It seems reasonable that care and consideration are required to create this critical high level map... but what are the important factors? Does the process modeler need to worry about how many process areas there are? About who is looking at it? Should he only use the color pink because it's his boss' favorite color? Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, these are all valid considerations that may just require a bit of structure. Below are Three Key Factors to consider when building an Enterprise Process Map: Company Strategic Focus Process Categorization: Customer is Core End-to-end versus Functional Processes Company Strategic Focus As mentioned above, the Enterprise Process Map is created during the Strategy Phase of the Business Process Management Lifecycle. From Oracle Business Process Management methodology for business transformation, it is apparent that business processes exist for the purpose of achieving the strategic objectives of an organization. In a prescribed, top-down approach to process development, it must be ensured that each process fulfills its objectives, and in an aggregated manner, drives fulfillment of the strategic objectives of the company, whether for particular business segments or in a broader sense. This is a crucial point, as the strategic messages of the company must therefore resound in its process maps, in particular one that spans the processes of the complete business: the Enterprise Process Map. One simple example from Company X is shown below (see figure 3). Fig. 3: Company X Enterprise Process Map In reviewing Company X's Enterprise Process Map, one can immediately begin to understand the general strategic mindset of the organization. It shows that Company X is focused on its customers, defining 10 of its process areas belonging to customer-focused categories. Additionally, the organization views these end-customer-oriented process areas as part of customer-fulfilling value chains, while support process areas do not provide as much contiguous value. However, by including both support and strategic process categorizations, it becomes apparent that all processes are considered vital to the success of the customer-oriented focus processes. Below is an example from Company Y (see figure 4). Fig. 4: Company Y Enterprise Process Map Company Y, although also a customer-oriented company, sends a differently focused message with its depiction of the Enterprise Process Map. Along the top of the map is the company's product tree, overarching the process areas, which when executed deliver the products themselves. This indicates one strategic objective of excellence in product quality. Additionally, the view represents a less linear value chain, with strong overlaps of the various process areas. Marketing and quality management are seen as a key support processes, as they span the process lifecycle. Often, companies may incorporate graphics, logos and symbols representing customers and suppliers, and other objects to truly send the strategic message to the business. Other times, Enterprise Process Maps may show high level of responsibility to organizational units, or the application types that support the process areas. It is possible that hundreds of formats and focuses can be applied to an Enterprise Process Map. What is of vital importance, however, is which formats and focuses are chosen to truly represent the direction of the company, and serve as a driver for focusing the business on the strategic objectives set forth in that right. Process Categorization: Customer is Core In the previous two examples, processes were grouped using differing categories and techniques. Company X showed one support and three customer process categorizations using encompassing chevron objects; Customer Y achieved a less distinct categorization using a gradual color scheme. Either way, and in general, modeling of the process areas becomes even more valuable and easily understood within the context of business categorization, be it strategic or otherwise. But how one categorizes their processes is typically more complex than simply choosing object shapes and colors. Previously, it was stated that the ideal is a prescribed top-down approach to developing processes, to make certain linkages all the way back up to corporate strategy. But what about external influences? What forces push and pull corporate strategy? Industry maturity, product lifecycle, market profitability, competition, etc. can all drive the critical success factors of a particular business segment, or the company as a whole, in addition to previous corporate strategy. This may seem to be turning into a discussion of theory, but that is far from the case. In fact, in years of recent study and evolution of the way businesses operate, cross-industry and across the globe, one invariable has surfaced with such strength to make it undeniable in the game plan of any strategy fit for survival. That constant is the customer. Many of a company's critical success factors, in any business segment, relate to the customer: customer retention, satisfaction, loyalty, etc. Businesses serve customers, and so do a business's processes, mapped or unmapped. The most effective way to categorize processes is in a manner that visualizes convergence to what is core for a company. It is the value chain, beginning with the customer in mind, and ending with the fulfillment of that customer, that becomes the core or the centerpiece of the Enterprise Process Map. (See figure 5) Fig. 5: Company Z Enterprise Process Map Company Z has what may be viewed as several different perspectives or "cuts" baked into their Enterprise Process Map. It has divided its processes into three main categories (top, middle, and bottom) of Management Processes, the Core Value Chain and Supporting Processes. The Core category begins with Corporate Marketing (which contains the activities of beginning to engage customers) and ends with Customer Service Management. Within the value chain, this company has divided into the focus areas of their two primary business lines, Foods and Beverages. Does this mean that areas, such as Strategy, Information Management or Project Management are not as important as those in the Core category? No! In some cases, though, depending on the organization's understanding of high-level BPM concepts, use of category names, such as "Core," "Management" or "Support," can be a touchy subject. What is important to understand, is that no matter the nomenclature chosen, the Core processes are those that drive directly to customer value, Support processes are those which make the Core processes possible to execute, and Management Processes are those which steer and influence the Core. Some common terms for these three basic categorizations are Core, Customer Fulfillment, Customer Relationship Management, Governing, Controlling, Enabling, Support, etc. End-to-end versus Functional Processes Every high and low level of process: function, task, activity, process/work step (whatever an organization calls it), should add value to the flow of business in an organization. Suppose that within the process "Deliver package," there is a documented task titled "Stop for ice cream." It doesn't take a process expert to deduce the room for improvement. Though stopping for ice cream may create gain for the one person performing it, it likely benefits neither the organization nor, more importantly, the customer. In most cases, "Stop for ice cream" wouldn't make it past the first pass of To-Be process development. What would make the cut, however, would be a flow of tasks that, each having their own value add, build up to greater and greater levels of process objective. In this case, those tasks would combine to achieve a status of "package delivered." Figure 3 shows a simple example: Just as the package can only be delivered (outcome of the process) without first being retrieved, loaded, and the travel destination reached (outcomes of the process steps), some higher level of process "Play Practical Joke" (e.g., main process or process area) cannot be completed until a package is delivered. It seems that isolated or functionally separated processes, such as "Deliver Package" (shown in Figure 6), are necessary, but are always part of a bigger value chain. Each of these individual processes must be analyzed within the context of that value chain in order to ensure successful end-to-end process performance. For example, this company's "Create Joke Package" process could be operating flawlessly and efficiently, but if a joke is never developed, it cannot be created, so the end-to-end process breaks. Fig. 6: End to End Process Construction That being recognized, it is clear that processes must be viewed as end-to-end, customer-to-customer, and in the context of company strategy. But as can also be seen from the previous example, these vital end-to-end processes cannot be built without the functionally oriented building blocks. Without one, the other cannot be had, or at least not in a complete and organized fashion. As it turns out, but not discussed in depth here, the process modeling effort, BPM organizational development, and comprehensive coverage cannot be fully realized without a semi-functional, process-oriented approach. Then, an Enterprise Process Map should be concerned with both views, the building blocks, and access points to the business-critical end-to-end processes, which they construct. Without the functional building blocks, all streams of work needed for any business transformation would be lost mess of process disorganization. End-to-end views are essential for utilization in optimization in context, understanding customer impacts, base-lining all project phases and aligning objectives. Including both views on an Enterprise Process Map allows management to understand the functional orientation of the company's processes, while still providing access to end-to-end processes, which are most valuable to them. (See figures 7 and 8). Fig. 7: Simplified Enterprise Process Map with end-to-end Access Point The above examples show two unique ways to achieve a successful Enterprise Process Map. The first example is a simple map that shows a high level set of process areas and a separate section with the end-to-end processes of concern for the organization. This particular map is filtered to show just one vital end-to-end process for a project-specific focus. Fig. 8: Detailed Enterprise Process Map showing connected Functional Processes The second example shows a more complex arrangement and categorization of functional processes (the names of each process area has been removed). The end-to-end perspective is achieved at this level through the connections (interfaces at lower levels) between these functional process areas. An important point to note is that the organization of these two views of the Enterprise Process Map is dependent, in large part, on the orientation of its audience, and the complexity of the landscape at the highest level. If both are not apparent, the Enterprise Process Map is missing an opportunity to serve as a holistic, high-level view. Conclusion In the world of BPM, and specifically regarding Enterprise Process Maps, a picture can be worth as many words as the thought and effort that is put into it. Enterprise Process Maps alone cannot change an organization, but they serve more purposes than initially meet the eye, and therefore must be designed in a way that enables a BPM mindset, business process understanding and business transformation efforts. Every Enterprise Process Map will and should be different when looking across organizations. Its design will be driven by company strategy, a level of customer focus, and functional versus end-to-end orientations. This high-level description of the considerations of the Enterprise Process Maps is not a prescriptive "how to" guide. However, a company attempting to create one may not have the practical BPM experience to truly explore its options or impacts to the coming work of business process transformation. The biggest takeaway is that process modeling, at all levels, is a science and an art, and art is open to interpretation. It is critical that the modeler of the highest level of process mapping be a cognoscente of the message he is delivering and the factors at hand. Without sufficient focus on the design of the Enterprise Process Map, an entire BPM effort may suffer. For additional information please check: Oracle Business Process Management.

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• The Art of Productivity

  - by dwahlin

  Getting things done has always been a challenge regardless of gender, age, race, skill, or job position. No matter how hard some people try, they end up procrastinating tasks until the last minute. Some people simply focus better when they know they’re out of time and can’t procrastinate any longer. How many times have you put off working on a term paper in school until the very last minute? With only a few hours left your mental energy and focus seem to kick in to high gear especially as you realize that you either get the paper done now or risk failing. It’s amazing how a little pressure can turn into a motivator and allow our minds to focus on a given task. Some people seem to specialize in procrastinating just about everything they do while others tend to be the “doers” who get a lot done and ultimately rise up the ladder at work. What’s the difference between these types of people? Is it pure laziness or are other factors at play? I think that some people are certainly more motivated than others, but I also think a lot of it is based on the process that “doers” tend to follow - whether knowingly or unknowingly. While I’ve certainly fought battles with procrastination, I’ve always had a knack for being able to get a lot done in a relatively short amount of time. I think a lot of my “get it done” attitude goes back to the the strong work ethic my parents instilled in me at a young age. I remember my dad saying, “You need to learn to work hard!” when I was around 5 years old. I remember that moment specifically because I was on a tractor with him the first time I heard it while he was trying to move some large rocks into a pile. The tractor was big but so were the rocks and my dad had to balance the tractor perfectly so that it didn’t tip forward too far. It was challenging work and somewhat tedious but my dad finished the task and taught me a few important lessons along the way including persistence, the importance of having a skill, and getting the job done right without skimping along the way. In this post I’m going to list a few of the techniques and processes I follow that I hope may be beneficial to others. I blogged about the general concept back in 2009 but thought I’d share some updated information and lessons learned since then. Most of the ideas that follow came from learning and refining my daily work process over the years. However, since most of the ideas are common sense (at least in my opinion), I suspect they can be found in other productivity processes that are out there. Let’s start off with one of the most important yet simple tips: Start Each Day with a List. Start Each Day with a List What are you planning to get done today? Do you keep track of everything in your head or rely on your calendar? While most of us think that we’re pretty good at managing “to do” lists strictly in our head you might be surprised at how affective writing out lists can be. By writing out tasks you’re forced to focus on the most important tasks to accomplish that day, commit yourself to those tasks, and have an easy way to track what was supposed to get done and what actually got done. Start every morning by making a list of specific tasks that you want to accomplish throughout the day. I’ll even go so far as to fill in times when I’d like to work on tasks if I have a lot of meetings or other events tying up my calendar on a given day. I’m not a big fan of using paper since I type a lot faster than I write (plus I write like a 3rd grader according to my wife), so I use the Sticky Notes feature available in Windows. Here’s an example of yesterday’s sticky note: What do you add to your list? That’s the subject of the next tip. Focus on Small Tasks It’s no secret that focusing on small, manageable tasks is more effective than trying to focus on large and more vague tasks. When you make your list each morning only add tasks that you can accomplish within a given time period. For example, if I only have 30 minutes blocked out to work on an article I don’t list “Write Article”. If I do that I’ll end up wasting 30 minutes stressing about how I’m going to get the article done in 30 minutes and ultimately get nothing done. Instead, I’ll list something like “Write Introductory Paragraphs for Article”. The next day I may add, “Write first section of article” or something that’s small and manageable – something I’m confident that I can get done. You’ll find that once you’ve knocked out several smaller tasks it’s easy to continue completing others since you want to keep the momentum going. In addition to keeping my tasks focused and small, I also make a conscious effort to limit my list to 4 or 5 tasks initially. I’ve found that if I list more than 5 tasks I feel a bit overwhelmed which hurts my productivity. It’s easy to add additional tasks as you complete others and you get the added benefit of that confidence boost of knowing that you’re being productive and getting things done as you remove tasks and add others. Getting Started is the Hardest (Yet Easiest) Part I’ve always found that getting started is the hardest part and one of the biggest contributors to procrastination. Getting started working on tasks is a lot like getting a large rock pushed to the bottom of a hill. It’s difficult to get the rock rolling at first, but once you manage to get it rocking some it’s really easy to get it rolling on its way to the bottom. As an example, I’ve written 100s of articles for technical magazines over the years and have really struggled with the initial introductory paragraphs. Keep in mind that these are the paragraphs that don’t really add that much value (in my opinion anyway). They introduce the reader to the subject matter and nothing more. What a waste of time for me to sit there stressing about how to start the article. On more than one occasion I’ve spent more than an hour trying to come up with 2-3 paragraphs of text.  Talk about a productivity killer! Whether you’re struggling with a writing task, some code for a project, an email, or other tasks, jumping in without thinking too much is the best way to get started I’ve found. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have an overall plan when jumping into a task, but on some occasions you’ll find that if you simply jump into the task and stop worrying about doing everything perfectly that things will flow more smoothly. For my introductory paragraph problem I give myself 5 minutes to write out some general concepts about what I know the article will cover and then spend another 10-15 minutes going back and refining that information. That way I actually have some ideas to work with rather than a blank sheet of paper. If I still find myself struggling I’ll write the rest of the article first and then circle back to the introductory paragraphs once I’m done. To sum this tip up: Jump into a task without thinking too hard about it. It’s better to to get the rock at the top of the hill rocking some than doing nothing at all. You can always go back and refine your work.   Learn a Productivity Technique and Stick to It There are a lot of different productivity programs and seminars out there being sold by companies. I’ve always laughed at how much money people spend on some of these motivational programs/seminars because I think that being productive isn’t that hard if you create a re-useable set of steps and processes to follow. That’s not to say that some of these programs/seminars aren’t worth the money of course because I know they’ve definitely benefited some people that have a hard time getting things done and staying focused. One of the best productivity techniques I’ve ever learned is called the “Pomodoro Technique” and it’s completely free. This technique is an extremely simple way to manage your time without having to remember a bunch of steps, color coding mechanisms, or other processes. The technique was originally developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 80s and can be implemented with a simple timer. In a nutshell here’s how the technique works: Pick a task to work on Set the timer to 25 minutes and work on the task Once the timer rings record your time Take a 5 minute break Repeat the process Here’s why the technique works well for me: It forces me to focus on a single task for 25 minutes. In the past I had no time goal in mind and just worked aimlessly on a task until I got interrupted or bored. 25 minutes is a small enough chunk of time for me to stay focused. Any distractions that may come up have to wait until after the timer goes off. If the distraction is really important then I stop the timer and record my time up to that point. When the timer is running I act as if I only have 25 minutes total for the task (like you’re down to the last 25 minutes before turning in your term paper….frantically working to get it done) which helps me stay focused and turns into a “beat the clock” type of game. It’s actually kind of fun if you treat it that way and really helps me focus on a the task at hand. I automatically know how much time I’m spending on a given task (more on this later) by using this technique. I know that I have 5 minutes after each pomodoro (the 25 minute sprint) to waste on anything I’d like including visiting a website, stepping away from the computer, etc. which also helps me stay focused when the 25 minute timer is counting down. I use this technique so much that I decided to build a program for Windows 8 called Pomodoro Focus (I plan to blog about how it was built in a later post). It’s a Windows Store application that allows people to track tasks, productive time spent on tasks, interruption time experienced while working on a given task, and the number of pomodoros completed. If a time estimate is given when the task is initially created, Pomodoro Focus will also show the task completion percentage. I like it because it allows me to track my tasks, time spent on tasks (very useful in the consulting world), and even how much time I wasted on tasks (pressing the pause button while working on a task starts the interruption timer). I recently added a new feature that charts productive and interruption time for tasks since I wanted to see how productive I was from week to week and month to month. A few screenshots from the Pomodoro Focus app are shown next, I had a lot of fun building it and use it myself to as I work on tasks.   There are certainly many other productivity techniques and processes out there (and a slew of books describing them), but the Pomodoro Technique has been the simplest and most effective technique I’ve ever come across for staying focused and getting things done.   Persistence is Key Getting things done is great but one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life is that persistence is key especially when you’re trying to get something done that at times seems insurmountable. Small tasks ultimately lead to larger tasks getting accomplished, however, it’s not all roses along the way as some of the smaller tasks may come with their own share of bumps and bruises that lead to discouragement about the end goal and whether or not it is worth achieving at all. I’ve been on several long-term projects over my career as a software developer (I have one personal project going right now that fits well here) and found that repeating, “Persistence is the key!” over and over to myself really helps. Not every project turns out to be successful, but if you don’t show persistence through the hard times you’ll never know if you succeeded or not. Likewise, if you don’t persistently stick to the process of creating a daily list, follow a productivity process, etc. then the odds of consistently staying productive aren’t good.   Track Your Time How much time do you actually spend working on various tasks? If you don’t currently track time spent answering emails, on phone calls, and working on various tasks then you might be surprised to find out that a task that you thought was going to take you 30 minutes ultimately ended up taking 2 hours. If you don’t track the time you spend working on tasks how can you expect to learn from your mistakes, optimize your time better, and become more productive? That’s another reason why I like the Pomodoro Technique – it makes it easy to stay focused on tasks while also tracking how much time I’m working on a given task.   Eliminate Distractions I blogged about this final tip several years ago but wanted to bring it up again. If you want to be productive (and ultimately successful at whatever you’re doing) then you can’t waste a lot of time playing games or on Twitter, Facebook, or other time sucking websites. If you see an article you’re interested in that has no relation at all to the tasks you’re trying to accomplish then bookmark it and read it when you have some spare time (such as during a pomodoro break). Fighting the temptation to check your friends’ status updates on Facebook? Resist the urge and realize how much those types of activities are hurting your productivity and taking away from your focus. I’ll admit that eliminating distractions is still tough for me personally and something I have to constantly battle. But, I’ve made a conscious decision to cut back on my visits and updates to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other sites. Sure, my Klout score has suffered as a result lately, but does anyone actually care about those types of scores aside from your online “friends” (few of whom you’ve actually met in person)? :-) Ultimately it comes down to self-discipline and how badly you want to be productive and successful in your career, life goals, hobbies, or whatever you’re working on. Rather than having your homepage take you to a time wasting news site, game site, social site, picture site, or others, how about adding something like the following as your homepage? Every time your browser opens you’ll see a personal message which helps keep you on the right track. You can download my ubber-sophisticated homepage here if interested. Summary Is there a single set of steps that if followed can ultimately lead to productivity? I don’t think so since one size has never fit all. Every person is different, works in their own unique way, and has their own set of motivators, distractions, and more. While I certainly don’t consider myself to be an expert on the subject of productivity, I do think that if you learn what steps work best for you and gradually refine them over time that you can come up with a personal productivity process that can serve you well. Productivity is definitely an “art” that anyone can learn with a little practice and persistence. You’ve seen some of the steps that I personally like to follow and I hope you find some of them useful in boosting your productivity. If you have others you use please leave a comment. I’m always looking for ways to improve.

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• Rounded Corners and Shadows &ndash; Dialogs with CSS

  - by Rick Strahl

  Well, it looks like we’ve finally arrived at a place where at least all of the latest versions of main stream browsers support rounded corners and box shadows. The two CSS properties that make this possible are box-shadow and box-radius. Both of these CSS Properties now supported in all the major browsers as shown in this chart from QuirksMode: In it’s simplest form you can use box-shadow and border radius like this: .boxshadow { -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; } .roundbox { -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px; -webkit-border-radius: 6px; border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px; } box-shadow: horizontal-shadow-pixels vertical-shadow-pixels blur-distance shadow-color box-shadow attributes specify the the horizontal and vertical offset of the shadow, the blur distance (to give the shadow a smooth soft look) and a shadow color. The spec also supports multiple shadows separated by commas using the attributes above but we’re not using that functionality here. box-radius: top-left-radius top-right-radius bottom-right-radius bottom-left-radius border-radius takes a pixel size for the radius for each corner going clockwise. CSS 3 also specifies each of the individual corner elements such as border-top-left-radius, but support for these is much less prevalent so I would recommend not using them for now until support improves. Instead use the single box-radius to specify all corners. Browser specific Support in older Browsers Notice that there are two variations: The actual CSS 3 properties (box-shadow and box-radius) and the browser specific ones (-moz, –webkit prefixes for FireFox and Chrome/Safari respectively) which work in slightly older versions of modern browsers before official CSS 3 support was added. The goal is to spread support as widely as possible and the prefix versions extend the range slightly more to those browsers that provided early support for these features. Notice that box-shadow and border-radius are used after the browser specific versions to ensure that the latter versions get precedence if the browser supports both (last assignment wins). Use the .boxshadow and .roundbox Styles in HTML To use these two styles create a simple rounded box with a shadow you can use HTML like this: <!-- Simple Box with rounded corners and shadow --> <div class="roundbox boxshadow" style="width: 550px; border: solid 2px steelblue"> <div class="boxcontenttext"> Simple Rounded Corner Box. </div> </div> which looks like this in the browser: This works across browsers and it’s pretty sweet and simple. Watch out for nested Elements! There are a couple of things to be aware of however when using rounded corners. Specifically, you need to be careful when you nest other non-transparent content into the rounded box. For example check out what happens when I change the inside <div> to have a colored background: <!-- Simple Box with rounded corners and shadow --> <div class="roundbox boxshadow" style="width: 550px; border: solid 2px steelblue"> <div class="boxcontenttext" style="background: khaki;"> Simple Rounded Corner Box. </div> </div> which renders like this:   If you look closely you’ll find that the inside <div>’s corners are not rounded and so ‘poke out’ slightly over the rounded corners. It looks like the rounded corners are ‘broken’ up instead of a solid rounded line around the corner, which his pretty ugly. The bigger the radius the more drastic this effect becomes . To fix this issue the inner <div> also has have rounded corners at the same or slightly smaller radius than the outer <div>. The simple fix for this is to simply also apply the roundbox style to the inner <div> in addition to the boxcontenttext style already applied: <div class="boxcontenttext roundbox" style="background: khaki;"> The fixed display now looks proper: Separate Top and Bottom Elements This gets even a little more tricky if you have an element at the top or bottom only of the rounded box. What if you need to add something like a header or footer <div> that have non-transparent backgrounds which is a pretty common scenario? In those cases you want only the top or bottom corners rounded and not both. To make this work a couple of additional styles to round only the top and bottom corners can be created: .roundbox-top { -moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0; -webkit-border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0; border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0; } .roundbox-bottom { -moz-border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px; -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px; border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px; } Notice that radius used for the ‘inside’ rounding is smaller (4px) than the outside radius (6px). This is so the inner radius fills into the outer border – if you use the same size you may have some white space showing between inner and out rounded corners. Experiment with values to see what works – in my experimenting the behavior across browsers here is consistent (thankfully). These styles can be applied in addition to other styles to make only the top or bottom portions of an element rounded. For example imagine I have styles like this: .gridheader, .gridheaderbig, .gridheaderleft, .gridheaderright { padding: 4px 4px 4px 4px; background: #003399 url(images/vertgradient.png) repeat-x; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; color: khaki; } .gridheaderleft { text-align: left; } .gridheaderright { text-align: right; } .gridheaderbig { font-size: 135%; } If I just apply say gridheader by itself in HTML like this: <div class="roundbox boxshadow" style="width: 550px; border: solid 2px steelblue"> <div class="gridheaderleft">Box with a Header</div> <div class="boxcontenttext" style="background: khaki;"> Simple Rounded Corner Box. </div> </div> This results in a pretty funky display – again due to the fact that the inner elements render square rather than rounded corners: If you look close again you can see that both the header and the main content have square edges which jumps out at the eye. To fix this you can now apply the roundbox-top and roundbox-bottom to the header and content respectively: <div class="roundbox boxshadow" style="width: 550px; border: solid 2px steelblue"> <div class="gridheaderleft roundbox-top">Box with a Header</div> <div class="boxcontenttext roundbox-bottom" style="background: khaki;"> Simple Rounded Corner Box. </div> </div> Which now gives the proper display with rounded corners both on the top and bottom: All of this is sweet to be supported – at least by the newest browser – without having to resort to images and nasty JavaScripts solutions. While this is still not a mainstream feature yet for the majority of actually installed browsers, the majority of browser users are very likely to have this support as most browsers other than IE are actively pushing users to upgrade to newer versions. Since this is a ‘visual display only feature it degrades reasonably well in non-supporting browsers: You get an uninteresting square and non-shadowed browser box, but the display is still overall functional. The main sticking point – as always is Internet Explorer versions 8.0 and down as well as older versions of other browsers. With those browsers you get a functional view that is a little less interesting to look at obviously: but at least it’s still functional. Maybe that’s just one more incentive for people using older browsers to upgrade to a  more modern browser :-) Creating Dialog Related Styles In a lot of my AJAX based applications I use pop up windows which effectively work like dialogs. Using the simple CSS behaviors above, it’s really easy to create some fairly nice looking overlaid windows with nothing but CSS. Here’s what a typical ‘dialog’ I use looks like: The beauty of this is that it’s plain CSS – no plug-ins or images (other than the gradients which are optional) required. Add jQuery-ui draggable (or ww.jquery.js as shown below) and you have a nice simple inline implementation of a dialog represented by a simple <div> tag. Here’s the HTML for this dialog: <div id="divDialog" class="dialog boxshadow" style="width: 450px;"> <div class="dialog-header"> <div class="closebox"></div> User Sign-in </div> <div class="dialog-content"> <label>Username:</label> <input type="text" name="txtUsername" value=" " /> <label>Password</label> <input type="text" name="txtPassword" value=" " /> <hr /> <input type="button" id="btnLogin" value="Login" /> </div> <div class="dialog-statusbar">Ready</div> </div> Most of this behavior is driven by the ‘dialog’ styles which are fairly basic and easy to understand. They do use a few support images for the gradients which are provided in the sample I’ve provided. Here’s what the CSS looks like: .dialog { background: White; overflow: hidden; border: solid 1px steelblue; -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 4px 4px; -webkit-border-radius: 6px 6px 4px 4px; border-radius: 6px 6px 3px 3px; } .dialog-header { background-image: url(images/dialogheader.png); background-repeat: repeat-x; text-align: left; color: cornsilk; padding: 5px; padding-left: 10px; font-size: 1.02em; font-weight: bold; position: relative; -moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; -webkit-border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; } .dialog-top { -moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; -webkit-border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; border-radius: 4px 4px 0px 0px; } .dialog-bottom { -moz-border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; } .dialog-content { padding: 15px; } .dialog-statusbar, .dialog-toolbar { background: #eeeeee; background-image: url(images/dialogstrip.png); background-repeat: repeat-x; padding: 5px; padding-left: 10px; border-top: solid 1px silver; border-bottom: solid 1px silver; font-size: 0.8em; } .dialog-statusbar { -moz-border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; border-radius: 0 0 3px 3px; padding-right: 10px; } .closebox { position: absolute; right: 2px; top: 2px; background-image: url(images/close.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 14px; height: 14px; cursor: pointer; opacity: 0.60; filter: alpha(opacity="80"); } .closebox:hover { opacity: 1; filter: alpha(opacity="100"); } The main style is the dialog class which is the outer box. It has the rounded border that serves as the outline. Note that I didn’t add the box-shadow to this style because in some situations I just want the rounded box in an inline display that doesn’t have a shadow so it’s still applied separately. dialog-header, then has the rounded top corners and displays a typical dialog heading format. dialog-bottom and dialog-top then provide the same functionality as roundbox-top and roundbox-bottom described earlier but are provided mainly in the stylesheet for consistency to match the dialog’s round edges and making it easier to  remember and find in Intellisense as it shows up in the same dialog- group. dialog-statusbar and dialog-toolbar are two elements I use a lot for floating windows – the toolbar serves for buttons and options and filters typically, while the status bar provides information specific to the floating window. Since the the status bar is always on the bottom of the dialog it automatically handles the rounding of the bottom corners. Finally there’s  closebox style which is to be applied to an empty <div> tag in the header typically. What this does is render a close image that is by default low-lighted with a low opacity value, and then highlights when hovered over. All you’d have to do handle the close operation is handle the onclick of the <div>. Note that the <div> right aligns so typically you should specify it before any other content in the header. Speaking of closable – some time ago I created a closable jQuery plug-in that basically automates this process and can be applied against ANY element in a page, automatically removing or closing the element with some simple script code. Using this you can leave out the <div> tag for closable and just do the following: To make the above dialog closable (and draggable) which makes it effectively and overlay window, you’d add jQuery.js and ww.jquery.js to the page: <script type="text/javascript" src="../../scripts/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../../scripts/ww.jquery.min.js"></script> and then simply call: <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function () { $("#divDialog") .draggable({ handle: ".dialog-header" }) .closable({ handle: ".dialog-header", closeHandler: function () { alert("Window about to be closed."); return true; // true closes - false leaves open } }); }); </script> * ww.jquery.js emulates base features in jQuery-ui’s draggable. If jQuery-ui is loaded its draggable version will be used instead and voila you have now have a draggable and closable window – here in mid-drag:   The dragging and closable behaviors are of course optional, but it’s the final touch that provides dialog like window behavior. Relief for older Internet Explorer Versions with CSS Pie If you want to get these features to work with older versions of Internet Explorer all the way back to version 6 you can check out CSS Pie. CSS Pie provides an Internet Explorer behavior file that attaches to specific CSS rules and simulates these behavior using script code in IE (mostly by implementing filters). You can simply add the behavior to each CSS style that uses box-shadow and border-radius like this: .boxshadow {     -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353;     -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353;           box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353;     behavior: url(scripts/PIE.htc);           } .roundbox {      -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;     -webkit-border-radius: 6px;      border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;     behavior: url(scripts/PIE.htc); } CSS Pie requires the PIE.htc on your server and referenced from each CSS style that needs it. Note that the url() for IE behaviors is NOT CSS file relative as other CSS resources, but rather PAGE relative , so if you have more than one folder you probably need to reference the HTC file with a fixed path like this: behavior: url(/MyApp/scripts/PIE.htc); in the style. Small price to pay, but a royal pain if you have a common CSS file you use in many applications. Once the PIE.htc file has been copied and you have applied the behavior to each style that uses these new features Internet Explorer will render rounded corners and box shadows! Yay! Hurray for box-shadow and border-radius All of this functionality is very welcome natively in the browser. If you think this is all frivolous visual candy, you might be right :-), but if you take a look on the Web and search for rounded corner solutions that predate these CSS attributes you’ll find a boatload of stuff from image files, to custom drawn content to Javascript solutions that play tricks with a few images. It’s sooooo much easier to have this functionality built in and I for one am glad to see that’s it’s finally becoming standard in the box. Still remember that when you use these new CSS features, they are not universal, and are not going to be really soon. Legacy browsers, especially old versions of Internet Explorer that can’t be updated will continue to be around and won’t work with this shiny new stuff. I say screw ‘em: Let them get a decent recent browser or see a degraded and ugly UI. We have the luxury with this functionality in that it doesn’t typically affect usability – it just doesn’t look as nice. Resources Download the Sample The sample includes the styles and images and sample page as well as ww.jquery.js for the draggable/closable example. Online Sample Check out the sample described in this post online. Closable and Draggable Documentation Documentation for the closeable and draggable plug-ins in ww.jquery.js. You can also check out the full documentation for all the plug-ins contained in ww.jquery.js here. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in HTML  CSS  

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• Setting up a local AI server - easy with Solaris 11

  - by Stefan Hinker

  Many things are new in Solaris 11, Autoinstall is one of them.  If, like me, you've known Jumpstart for the last 2 centuries or so, you'll have to start from scratch.  Well, almost, as the concepts are similar, and it's not all that difficult.  Just new. I wanted to have an AI server that I could use for demo purposes, on the train if need be.  That answers the question of hardware requirements: portable.  But let's start at the beginning. First, you need an OS image, of course.  In the new world of Solaris 11, it is now called a repository.  The original can be downloaded from the Solaris 11 page at Oracle.   What you want is the "Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Repository Image", which comes in two parts that can be combined using cat.  MD5 checksums for these (and all other downloads from that page) are available closer to the top of the page. With that, building the repository is quick and simple: # zfs create -o mountpoint=/export/repo rpool/ai/repo # zfs create rpool/ai/repo/s11 # mount -o ro -F hsfs /tmp/sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso /mnt # rsync -aP /mnt/repo /export/repo/s11 # umount /mnt # pkgrepo rebuild -s /export/repo/sol11/repo # zfs snapshot rpool/ai/repo/sol11@fcs # pkgrepo info -s /export/repo/sol11/repo PUBLISHER PACKAGES STATUS UPDATED solaris 4292 online 2012-03-12T20:47:15.378639Z That's all there's to it.  Let's make a snapshot, just to be on the safe side.  You never know when one will come in handy.  To use this repository, you could just add it as a file-based publisher: # pkg set-publisher -g file:///export/repo/sol11/repo solaris In case I'd want to access this repository through a (virtual) network, i'll now quickly activate the repository-service: # svccfg -s application/pkg/server \ setprop pkg/inst_root=/export/repo/sol11/repo # svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/readonly=true # svcadm refresh application/pkg/server # svcadm enable application/pkg/server That's all you need - now point your browser to http://localhost/ to view your beautiful repository-server. Step 1 is done.  All of this, by the way, is nicely documented in the README file that's contained in the repository image. Of course, we already have updates to the original release.  You can find them in MOS in the Oracle Solaris 11 Support Repository Updates (SRU) Index.  You can simply add these to your existing repository or create separate repositories for each SRU.  The individual SRUs are self-sufficient and incremental - SRU4 includes all updates from SRU2 and SRU3.  With ZFS, you can also get both: A full repository with all updates and at the same time incremental ones up to each of the updates: # mount -o ro -F hsfs /tmp/sol-11-1111-sru4-05-incr-repo.iso /mnt # pkgrecv -s /mnt/repo -d /export/repo/sol11/repo '*' # umount /mnt # pkgrepo rebuild -s /export/repo/sol11/repo # zfs snapshot rpool/ai/repo/sol11@sru4 # zfs set snapdir=visible rpool/ai/repo/sol11 # svcadm restart svc:/application/pkg/server:default The normal repository is now updated to SRU4.  Thanks to the ZFS snapshots, there is also a valid repository of Solaris 11 11/11 without the update located at /export/repo/sol11/.zfs/snapshot/fcs . If you like, you can also create another repository service for each update, running on a separate port. But now lets continue with the AI server.  Just a little bit of reading in the dokumentation makes it clear that we will need to run a DHCP server for this.  Since I already have one active (for my SunRay installation) and since it's a good idea to have these kinds of services separate anyway, I decided to create this in a Zone.  So, let's create one first: # zfs create -o mountpoint=/export/install rpool/ai/install # zfs create -o mountpoint=/zones rpool/zones # zonecfg -z ai-server zonecfg:ai-server> create create: Using system default template 'SYSdefault' zonecfg:ai-server> set zonepath=/zones/ai-server zonecfg:ai-server> add dataset zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> set name=rpool/ai/install zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> set alias=install zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> end zonecfg:ai-server> commit zonecfg:ai-server> exit # zoneadm -z ai-server install # zoneadm -z ai-server boot ; zlogin -C ai-server Give it a hostname and IP address at first boot, and there's the Zone.  For a publisher for Solaris packages, it will be bound to the "System Publisher" from the Global Zone.  The /export/install filesystem, of course, is intended to be used by the AI server.  Let's configure it now: #zlogin ai-server root@ai-server:~# pkg install install/installadm root@ai-server:~# installadm create-service -n x86-fcs -a i386 \ -s pkg://solaris/install-image/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.1482 \ -d /export/install/fcs -i 192.168.2.20 -c 3 With that, the core AI server is already done.  What happened here?  First, I installed the AI server software.  IPS makes that nice and easy.  If necessary, it'll also pull in the required DHCP-Server and anything else that might be missing.  Watch out for that DHCP server software.  In Solaris 11, there are two different versions.  There's the one you might know from Solaris 10 and earlier, and then there's a new one from ISC.  The latter is the one we need for AI.  The SMF service names of both are very similar.  The "old" one is "svc:/network/dhcp-server:default". The ISC-server comes with several SMF-services. We at least need "svc:/network/dhcp/server:ipv4".  The command "installadm create-service" creates the installation-service. It's called "x86-fcs", serves the "i386" architecture and gets its boot image from the repository of the system publisher, using version 5.11,5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.1482, which is Solaris 11 11/11.  (The option "-a i386" in this example is optional, since the installserver itself runs on a x86 machine.) The boot-environment for clients is created in /export/install/fcs and the DHCP-server is configured for 3 IP-addresses starting at 192.168.2.20.  This configuration is stored in a very human readable form in /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf.  An AI-service for SPARC systems could be created in the very same way, using "-a sparc" as the architecture option. Now we would be ready to register and install the first client.  It would be installed with the default "solaris-large-server" using the publisher "http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release" and would query it's configuration interactively at first boot.  This makes it very clear that an AI-server is really only a boot-server.  The true source of packets to install can be different.  Since I don't like these defaults for my demo setup, I did some extra config work for my clients. The configuration of a client is controlled by manifests and profiles.  The manifest controls which packets are installed and how the filesystems are layed out.  In that, it's very much like the old "rules.ok" file in Jumpstart.  Profiles contain additional configuration like root passwords, primary user account, IP addresses, keyboard layout etc.  Hence, profiles are very similar to the old sysid.cfg file. The easiest way to get your hands on a manifest is to ask the AI server we just created to give us it's default one.  Then modify that to our liking and give it back to the installserver to use: root@ai-server:~# mkdir -p /export/install/configs/manifests root@ai-server:~# cd /export/install/configs/manifests root@ai-server:~# installadm export -n x86-fcs -m orig_default \ -o orig_default.xml root@ai-server:~# cp orig_default.xml s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# vi s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# more s11-fcs.small.local.xml <!DOCTYPE auto_install SYSTEM "file:///usr/share/install/ai.dtd.1"> <auto_install> <ai_instance name="S11 Small fcs local"> <target> <logical> <zpool name="rpool" is_root="true"> <filesystem name="export" mountpoint="/export"/> <filesystem name="export/home"/> <be name="solaris"/> </zpool> </logical> </target> <software type="IPS"> <destination> <image> <!-- Specify locales to install --> <facet set="false">facet.locale.*</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.de</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.de_DE</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.en</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.en_US</facet> </image> </destination> <source> <publisher name="solaris"> <origin name="http://192.168.2.12/"/> </publisher> </source> <!-- By default the latest build available, in the specified IPS repository, is installed. If another build is required, the build number has to be appended to the 'entire' package in the following form: <name>pkg:/[email protected]#</name> --> <software_data action="install"> <name>pkg:/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.0</name> <name>pkg:/group/system/solaris-small-server</name> </software_data> </software> </ai_instance> </auto_install> root@ai-server:~# installadm create-manifest -n x86-fcs -d \ -f ./s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm list -m -n x86-fcs Manifest Status Criteria -------- ------ -------- S11 Small fcs local Default None orig_default Inactive None The major points in this new manifest are: Install "solaris-small-server" Install a few locales less than the default.  I'm not that fluid in French or Japanese... Use my own package service as publisher, running on IP address 192.168.2.12 Install the initial release of Solaris 11:  pkg:/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.0 Using a similar approach, I'll create a default profile interactively and use it as a template for a few customized building blocks, each defining a part of the overall system configuration.  The modular approach makes it easy to configure numerous clients later on: root@ai-server:~# mkdir -p /export/install/configs/profiles root@ai-server:~# cd /export/install/configs/profiles root@ai-server:~# sysconfig create-profile -o default.xml root@ai-server:~# cp default.xml general.xml; cp default.xml mars.xml root@ai-server:~# cp default.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# vi general.xml mars.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# more general.xml mars.xml user.xml :::::::::::::: general.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/timezone"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="timezone"> <propval type="astring" name="localtime" value="Europe/Berlin"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/environment"> <instance enabled="true" name="init"> <property_group type="application" name="environment"> <propval type="astring" name="LANG" value="C"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/keymap"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="system" name="keymap"> <propval type="astring" name="layout" value="US-English"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/console-login"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="ttymon"> <propval type="astring" name="terminal_type" value="vt100"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/physical"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="netcfg"> <propval type="astring" name="active_ncp" value="DefaultFixed"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/name-service/switch"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <propval type="astring" name="default" value="files"/> <propval type="astring" name="host" value="files dns"/> <propval type="astring" name="printer" value="user files"/> </property_group> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/name-service/cache"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/dns/client"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <property type="net_address" name="nameserver"> <net_address_list> <value_node value="192.168.2.1"/> </net_address_list> </property> </property_group> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> </service_bundle> :::::::::::::: mars.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/install"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="install_ipv4_interface"> <propval type="astring" name="address_type" value="static"/> <propval type="net_address_v4" name="static_address" value="192.168.2.100/24"/> <propval type="astring" name="name" value="net0/v4"/> <propval type="net_address_v4" name="default_route" value="192.168.2.1"/> </property_group> <property_group type="application" name="install_ipv6_interface"> <propval type="astring" name="stateful" value="yes"/> <propval type="astring" name="stateless" value="yes"/> <propval type="astring" name="address_type" value="addrconf"/> <propval type="astring" name="name" value="net0/v6"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/identity"> <instance enabled="true" name="node"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <propval type="astring" name="nodename" value="mars"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> </service_bundle> :::::::::::::: user.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/config-user"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="root_account"> <propval type="astring" name="login" value="root"/> <propval type="astring" name="password" value="noIWillNotTellYouMyPasswordNotEvenEncrypted"/> <propval type="astring" name="type" value="role"/> </property_group> <property_group type="application" name="user_account"> <propval type="astring" name="login" value="stefan"/> <propval type="astring" name="password" value="noIWillNotTellYouMyPasswordNotEvenEncrypted"/> <propval type="astring" name="type" value="normal"/> <propval type="astring" name="description" value="Stefan Hinker"/> <propval type="count" name="uid" value="12345"/> <propval type="count" name="gid" value="10"/> <propval type="astring" name="shell" value="/usr/bin/bash"/> <propval type="astring" name="roles" value="root"/> <propval type="astring" name="profiles" value="System Administrator"/> <propval type="astring" name="sudoers" value="ALL=(ALL) ALL"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> </service_bundle> root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f general.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f user.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f mars.xml \ -c ipv4=192.168.2.100 root@ai-server:~# installadm list -p Service Name Profile ------------ ------- x86-fcs general.xml mars.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm list -n x86-fcs -p Profile Criteria ------- -------- general.xml None mars.xml ipv4 = 192.168.2.100 user.xml None Here's the idea behind these files: "general.xml" contains settings valid for all my clients.  Stuff like DNS servers, for example, which in my case will always be the same. "user.xml" only contains user definitions.  That is, a root password and a primary user.Both of these profiles will be valid for all clients (for now). "mars.xml" defines network settings for an individual client.  This profile is associated with an IP-Address.  For this to work, I'll have to tweak the DHCP-settings in the next step: root@ai-server:~# installadm create-client -e 08:00:27:AA:3D:B1 -n x86-fcs root@ai-server:~# vi /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf root@ai-server:~# tail -5 /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf host 080027AA3DB1 { hardware ethernet 08:00:27:AA:3D:B1; fixed-address 192.168.2.100; filename "01080027AA3DB1"; } This completes the client preparations.  I manually added the IP-Address for mars to /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf.  This is needed for the "mars.xml" profile.  Disabling arbitrary DHCP-replies will shut up this DHCP server, making my life in a shared environment a lot more peaceful ;-)Now, I of course want this installation to be completely hands-off.  For this to work, I'll need to modify the grub boot menu for this client slightly.  You can find it in /etc/netboot.  "installadm create-client" will create a new boot menu for every client, identified by the client's MAC address.  The template for this can be found in a subdirectory with the name of the install service, /etc/netboot/x86-fcs in our case.  If you don't want to change this manually for every client, modify that template to your liking instead. root@ai-server:~# cd /etc/netboot root@ai-server:~# cp menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1.org root@ai-server:~# vi menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 root@ai-server:~# diff menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1.org 1,2c1,2 < default=1 < timeout=10 --- > default=0 > timeout=30 root@ai-server:~# more menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 default=1 timeout=10 min_mem64=0 title Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Text Installer and command line kernel$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B install_media=htt p://$serverIP:5555//export/install/fcs,install_service=x86-fcs,install_svc_addre ss=$serverIP:5555 module$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive title Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Automated Install kernel$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B install=true,inst all_media=http://$serverIP:5555//export/install/fcs,install_service=x86-fcs,inst all_svc_address=$serverIP:5555,livemode=text module$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive Now just boot the client off the network using PXE-boot.  For my demo purposes, that's a client from VirtualBox, of course.  That's all there's to it.  And despite the fact that this blog entry is a little longer - that wasn't that hard now, was it?

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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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• SQL Monitor’s data repository: Alerts

  - by Chris Lambrou

  In my previous post, I introduced the SQL Monitor data repository, and described how the monitored objects are stored in a hierarchy in the data schema, in a series of tables with a _Keys suffix. In this post I had planned to describe how the actual data for the monitored objects is stored in corresponding tables with _StableSamples and _UnstableSamples suffixes. However, I’m going to postpone that until my next post, as I’ve had a request from a SQL Monitor user to explain how alerts are stored. In the SQL Monitor data repository, alerts are stored in tables belonging to the alert schema, which contains the following five tables: alert.Alert alert.Alert_Cleared alert.Alert_Comment alert.Alert_Severity alert.Alert_Type In this post, I’m only going to cover the alert.Alert and alert.Alert_Type tables. I may cover the other three tables in a later post. The most important table in this schema is alert.Alert, as each row in this table corresponds to a single alert. So let’s have a look at it. SELECT TOP 100 AlertId, AlertType, TargetObject, [Read], SubType FROM alert.Alert ORDER BY AlertId DESC;  AlertIdAlertTypeTargetObjectReadSubType 165550397:Cluster,1,4:Name,s29:srp-mr03.testnet.red-gate.com,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,10 265549387:Cluster,1,4:Name,s29:srp-mr03.testnet.red-gate.com,7:Machine,1,4:Name,s0:,10 365548187:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s15:FavouriteThings,00 465547157:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s15:FavouriteThings,00 565546147:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s15:FavouriteThings,00 665545187:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData,00 765544157:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData,00 865543147:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData,00 965542187:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s4:msdb,00 1065541147:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s4:msdb,00 11…     So what are we seeing here, then? Well, AlertId is an auto-incrementing identity column, so ORDER BY AlertId DESC ensures that we see the most recent alerts first. AlertType indicates the type of each alert, such as Job failed (6), Backup overdue (14) or Long-running query (12). The TargetObject column indicates which monitored object the alert is associated with. The Read column acts as a flag to indicate whether or not the alert has been read. And finally the SubType column is used in the case of a Custom metric (40) alert, to indicate which custom metric the alert pertains to. Okay, now lets look at some of those columns in more detail. The AlertType column is an easy one to start with, and it brings use nicely to the next table, data.Alert_Type. Let’s have a look at what’s in this table: SELECT AlertType, Event, Monitoring, Name, Description FROM alert.Alert_Type ORDER BY AlertType;  AlertTypeEventMonitoringNameDescription 1100Processor utilizationProcessor utilization (CPU) on a host machine stays above a threshold percentage for longer than a specified duration 2210SQL Server error log entryAn error is written to the SQL Server error log with a severity level above a specified value. 3310Cluster failoverThe active cluster node fails, causing the SQL Server instance to switch nodes. 4410DeadlockSQL deadlock occurs. 5500Processor under-utilizationProcessor utilization (CPU) on a host machine remains below a threshold percentage for longer than a specified duration 6610Job failedA job does not complete successfully (the job returns an error code). 7700Machine unreachableHost machine (Windows server) cannot be contacted on the network. 8800SQL Server instance unreachableThe SQL Server instance is not running or cannot be contacted on the network. 9900Disk spaceDisk space used on a logical disk drive is above a defined threshold for longer than a specified duration. 101000Physical memoryPhysical memory (RAM) used on the host machine stays above a threshold percentage for longer than a specified duration. 111100Blocked processSQL process is blocked for longer than a specified duration. 121200Long-running queryA SQL query runs for longer than a specified duration. 131400Backup overdueNo full backup exists, or the last full backup is older than a specified time. 141500Log backup overdueNo log backup exists, or the last log backup is older than a specified time. 151600Database unavailableDatabase changes from Online to any other state. 161700Page verificationTorn Page Detection or Page Checksum is not enabled for a database. 171800Integrity check overdueNo entry for an integrity check (DBCC DBINFO returns no date for dbi_dbccLastKnownGood field), or the last check is older than a specified time. 181900Fragmented indexesFragmentation level of one or more indexes is above a threshold percentage. 192400Job duration unusualThe duration of a SQL job duration deviates from its baseline duration by more than a threshold percentage. 202501Clock skewSystem clock time on the Base Monitor computer differs from the system clock time on a monitored SQL Server host machine by a specified number of seconds. 212700SQL Server Agent Service statusThe SQL Server Agent Service status matches the status specified. 222800SQL Server Reporting Service statusThe SQL Server Reporting Service status matches the status specified. 232900SQL Server Full Text Search Service statusThe SQL Server Full Text Search Service status matches the status specified. 243000SQL Server Analysis Service statusThe SQL Server Analysis Service status matches the status specified. 253100SQL Server Integration Service statusThe SQL Server Integration Service status matches the status specified. 263300SQL Server Browser Service statusThe SQL Server Browser Service status matches the status specified. 273400SQL Server VSS Writer Service statusThe SQL Server VSS Writer status matches the status specified. 283501Deadlock trace flag disabledThe monitored SQL Server’s trace flag cannot be enabled. 293600Monitoring stopped (host machine credentials)SQL Monitor cannot contact the host machine because authentication failed. 303700Monitoring stopped (SQL Server credentials)SQL Monitor cannot contact the SQL Server instance because authentication failed. 313800Monitoring error (host machine data collection)SQL Monitor cannot collect data from the host machine. 323900Monitoring error (SQL Server data collection)SQL Monitor cannot collect data from the SQL Server instance. 334000Custom metricThe custom metric value has passed an alert threshold. 344100Custom metric collection errorSQL Monitor cannot collect custom metric data from the target object. Basically, alert.Alert_Type is just a big reference table containing information about the 34 different alert types supported by SQL Monitor (note that the largest id is 41, not 34 – some alert types have been retired since SQL Monitor was first developed). The Name and Description columns are self evident, and I’m going to skip over the Event and Monitoring columns as they’re not very interesting. The AlertId column is the primary key, and is referenced by AlertId in the alert.Alert table. As such, we can rewrite our earlier query to join these two tables, in order to provide a more readable view of the alerts: SELECT TOP 100 AlertId, Name, TargetObject, [Read], SubType FROM alert.Alert a JOIN alert.Alert_Type at ON a.AlertType = at.AlertType ORDER BY AlertId DESC;  AlertIdNameTargetObjectReadSubType 165550Monitoring error (SQL Server data collection)7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s29:srp-mr03.testnet.red-gate.com,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,00 265549Monitoring error (host machine data collection)7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s29:srp-mr03.testnet.red-gate.com,7:Machine,1,4:Name,s0:,00 365548Integrity check overdue7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s15:FavouriteThings,00 465547Log backup overdue7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s15:FavouriteThings,00 565546Backup overdue7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s15:FavouriteThings,00 665545Integrity check overdue7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData,00 765544Log backup overdue7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData,00 865543Backup overdue7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData,00 965542Integrity check overdue7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s4:msdb,00 1065541Backup overdue7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s4:msdb,00 Okay, the next column to discuss in the alert.Alert table is TargetObject. Oh boy, this one’s a bit tricky! The TargetObject of an alert is a serialized string representation of the position in the monitored object hierarchy of the object to which the alert pertains. The serialization format is somewhat convenient for parsing in the C# source code of SQL Monitor, and has some helpful characteristics, but it’s probably very awkward to manipulate in T-SQL. I could document the serialization format here, but it would be very dry reading, so perhaps it’s best to consider an example from the table above. Have a look at the alert with an AlertID of 65543. It’s a Backup overdue alert for the SqlMonitorData database running on the default instance of granger, my laptop. Each different alert type is associated with a specific type of monitored object in the object hierarchy (I described the hierarchy in my previous post). The Backup overdue alert is associated with databases, whose position in the object hierarchy is root → Cluster → SqlServer → Database. The TargetObject value identifies the target object by specifying the key properties at each level in the hierarchy, thus: Cluster: Name = "granger" SqlServer: Name = "" (an empty string, denoting the default instance) Database: Name = "SqlMonitorData" Well, look at the actual TargetObject value for this alert: "7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData,". It is indeed composed of three parts, one for each level in the hierarchy: Cluster: "7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger," SqlServer: "9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:," Database: "8:Database,1,4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData," Each part is handled in exactly the same way, so let’s concentrate on the first part, "7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,". It comprises the following: "7:Cluster," – This identifies the level in the hierarchy. "1," – This indicates how many different key properties there are to uniquely identify a cluster (we saw in my last post that each cluster is identified by a single property, its Name). "4:Name,s14:SqlMonitorData," – This represents the Name property, and its corresponding value, SqlMonitorData. It’s split up like this: "4:Name," – Indicates the name of the key property. "s" – Indicates the type of the key property, in this case, it’s a string. "14:SqlMonitorData," – Indicates the value of the property. At this point, you might be wondering about the format of some of these strings. Why is the string "Cluster" stored as "7:Cluster,"? Well an encoding scheme is used, which consists of the following: "7" – This is the length of the string "Cluster" ":" – This is a delimiter between the length of the string and the actual string’s contents. "Cluster" – This is the string itself. 7 characters. "," – This is a final terminating character that indicates the end of the encoded string. You can see that "4:Name,", "8:Database," and "14:SqlMonitorData," also conform to the same encoding scheme. In the example above, the "s" character is used to indicate that the value of the Name property is a string. If you explore the TargetObject property of alerts in your own SQL Monitor data repository, you might find other characters used for other non-string key property values. The different value types you might possibly encounter are as follows: "I" – Denotes a bigint value. For example, "I65432,". "g" – Denotes a GUID value. For example, "g32116732-63ae-4ab5-bd34-7dfdfb084c18,". "d" – Denotes a datetime value. For example, "d634815384796832438,". The value is stored as a bigint, rather than a native SQL datetime value. I’ll describe how datetime values are handled in the SQL Monitor data repostory in a future post. I suggest you have a look at the alerts in your own SQL Monitor data repository for further examples, so you can see how the TargetObject values are composed for each of the different types of alert. Let me give one further example, though, that represents a Custom metric alert, as this will help in describing the final column of interest in the alert.Alert table, SubType. Let me show you the alert I’m interested in: SELECT AlertId, a.AlertType, Name, TargetObject, [Read], SubType FROM alert.Alert a JOIN alert.Alert_Type at ON a.AlertType = at.AlertType WHERE AlertId = 65769;  AlertIdAlertTypeNameTargetObjectReadSubType 16576940Custom metric7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s6:master,12:CustomMetric,1,8:MetricId,I2,02 An AlertType value of 40 corresponds to the Custom metric alert type. The Name taken from the alert.Alert_Type table is simply Custom metric, but this doesn’t tell us anything about the specific custom metric that this alert pertains to. That’s where the SubType value comes in. For custom metric alerts, this provides us with the Id of the specific custom alert definition that can be found in the settings.CustomAlertDefinitions table. I don’t really want to delve into custom alert definitions yet (maybe in a later post), but an extra join in the previous query shows us that this alert pertains to the CPU pressure (avg runnable task count) custom metric alert. SELECT AlertId, a.AlertType, at.Name, cad.Name AS CustomAlertName, TargetObject, [Read], SubType FROM alert.Alert a JOIN alert.Alert_Type at ON a.AlertType = at.AlertType JOIN settings.CustomAlertDefinitions cad ON a.SubType = cad.Id WHERE AlertId = 65769;  AlertIdAlertTypeNameCustomAlertNameTargetObjectReadSubType 16576940Custom metricCPU pressure (avg runnable task count)7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger,9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:,8:Database,1,4:Name,s6:master,12:CustomMetric,1,8:MetricId,I2,02 The TargetObject value in this case breaks down like this: "7:Cluster,1,4:Name,s7:granger," – Cluster named "granger". "9:SqlServer,1,4:Name,s0:," – SqlServer named "" (the default instance). "8:Database,1,4:Name,s6:master," – Database named "master". "12:CustomMetric,1,8:MetricId,I2," – Custom metric with an Id of 2. Note that the hierarchy for a custom metric is slightly different compared to the earlier Backup overdue alert. It’s root → Cluster → SqlServer → Database → CustomMetric. Also notice that, unlike Cluster, SqlServer and Database, the key property for CustomMetric is called MetricId (not Name), and the value is a bigint (not a string). Finally, delving into the custom metric tables is beyond the scope of this post, but for the sake of avoiding any future confusion, I’d like to point out that whilst the SubType references a custom alert definition, the MetricID value embedded in the TargetObject value references a custom metric definition. Although in this case both the custom metric definition and custom alert definition share the same Id value of 2, this is not generally the case. Okay, that’s enough for now, not least because as I’m typing this, it’s almost 2am, I have to go to work tomorrow, and my alarm is set for 6am – eek! In my next post, I’ll either cover the remaining three tables in the alert schema, or I’ll delve into the way SQL Monitor stores its monitoring data, as I’d originally planned to cover in this post.

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• Diving into OpenStack Network Architecture - Part 1

  - by Ronen Kofman

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} rkofman Normal rkofman 83 3045 2014-05-23T21:11:00Z 2014-05-27T06:58:00Z 3 1883 10739 Oracle Corporation 89 25 12597 12.00 140 Clean Clean false false false false EN-US X-NONE HE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;} Before we begin OpenStack networking has very powerful capabilities but at the same time it is quite complicated. In this blog series we will review an existing OpenStack setup using the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview and explain the different network components through use cases and examples. The goal is to show how the different pieces come together and provide a bigger picture view of the network architecture in OpenStack. This can be very helpful to users making their first steps in OpenStack or anyone wishes to understand how networking works in this environment.  We will go through the basics first and build the examples as we go. According to the recent Icehouse user survey and the one before it, Neutron with Open vSwitch plug-in is the most widely used network setup both in production and in POCs (in terms of number of customers) and so in this blog series we will analyze this specific OpenStack networking setup. As we know there are many options to setup OpenStack networking and while Neturon + Open vSwitch is the most popular setup there is no claim that it is either best or the most efficient option. Neutron + Open vSwitch is an example, one which provides a good starting point for anyone interested in understanding OpenStack networking. Even if you are using different kind of network setup such as different Neutron plug-in or even not using Neutron at all this will still be a good starting point to understand the network architecture in OpenStack. The setup we are using for the examples is the one used in the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview. Installing it is simple and it would be helpful to have it as reference. In this setup we use eth2 on all servers for VM network, all VM traffic will be flowing through this interface.The Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview is using VLANs for L2 isolation to provide tenant and network isolation. The following diagram shows how we have configured our deployment: This first post is a bit long and will focus on some basic concepts in OpenStack networking. The components we will be discussing are Open vSwitch, network namespaces, Linux bridge and veth pairs. Note that this is not meant to be a comprehensive review of these components, it is meant to describe the component as much as needed to understand OpenStack network architecture. All the components described here can be further explored using other resources. Open vSwitch (OVS) In the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview OVS is used to connect virtual machines to the physical port (in our case eth2) as shown in the deployment diagram. OVS contains bridges and ports, the OVS bridges are different from the Linux bridge (controlled by the brctl command) which are also used in this setup. To get started let’s view the OVS structure, use the following command: # ovs-vsctl show 7ec51567-ab42-49e8-906d-b854309c9edf     Bridge br-int         Port br-int             Interface br-int type: internal         Port "int-br-eth2"             Interface "int-br-eth2"     Bridge "br-eth2"         Port "br-eth2"             Interface "br-eth2" type: internal         Port "eth2"             Interface "eth2"         Port "phy-br-eth2"             Interface "phy-br-eth2" ovs_version: "1.11.0" We see a standard post deployment OVS on a compute node with two bridges and several ports hanging off of each of them. The example above is a compute node without any VMs, we can see that the physical port eth2 is connected to a bridge called “br-eth2”. We also see two ports "int-br-eth2" and "phy-br-eth2" which are actually a veth pair and form virtual wire between the two bridges, veth pairs are discussed later in this post. When a virtual machine is created a port is created on one the br-int bridge and this port is eventually connected to the virtual machine (we will discuss the exact connectivity later in the series). Here is how OVS looks after a VM was launched: # ovs-vsctl show efd98c87-dc62-422d-8f73-a68c2a14e73d     Bridge br-int         Port "int-br-eth2"             Interface "int-br-eth2"         Port br-int             Interface br-int type: internal         Port "qvocb64ea96-9f" tag: 1             Interface "qvocb64ea96-9f"     Bridge "br-eth2"         Port "phy-br-eth2"             Interface "phy-br-eth2"         Port "br-eth2"             Interface "br-eth2" type: internal         Port "eth2"             Interface "eth2" ovs_version: "1.11.0" Bridge "br-int" now has a new port "qvocb64ea96-9f" which connects to the VM and tagged with VLAN 1. Every VM which will be launched will add a port on the “br-int” bridge for every network interface the VM has. Another useful command on OVS is dump-flows for example: # ovs-ofctl dump-flows br-int NXST_FLOW reply (xid=0x4): cookie=0x0, duration=735.544s, table=0, n_packets=70, n_bytes=9976, idle_age=17, priority=3,in_port=1,dl_vlan=1000 actions=mod_vlan_vid:1,NORMAL cookie=0x0, duration=76679.786s, table=0, n_packets=0, n_bytes=0, idle_age=65534, hard_age=65534, priority=2,in_port=1 actions=drop cookie=0x0, duration=76681.36s, table=0, n_packets=68, n_bytes=7950, idle_age=17, hard_age=65534, priority=1 actions=NORMAL As we see the port which is connected to the VM has the VLAN tag 1. However the port on the VM network (eth2) will be using tag 1000. OVS is modifying the vlan as the packet flow from the VM to the physical interface. In OpenStack the Open vSwitch agent takes care of programming the flows in Open vSwitch so the users do not have to deal with this at all. If you wish to learn more about how to program the Open vSwitch you can read more about it at http://openvswitch.org looking at the documentation describing the ovs-ofctl command. Network Namespaces (netns) Network namespaces is a very cool Linux feature can be used for many purposes and is heavily used in OpenStack networking. Network namespaces are isolated containers which can hold a network configuration and is not seen from outside of the namespace. A network namespace can be used to encapsulate specific network functionality or provide a network service in isolation as well as simply help to organize a complicated network setup. Using the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview we are using the latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel R3 (UEK3), this kernel provides a complete support for netns. Let's see how namespaces work through couple of examples to control network namespaces we use the ip netns command: Defining a new namespace: # ip netns add my-ns # ip netns list my-ns As mentioned the namespace is an isolated container, we can perform all the normal actions in the namespace context using the exec command for example running the ifconfig command: # ip netns exec my-ns ifconfig -a lo        Link encap:Local Loopback           LOOPBACK  MTU:16436 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) We can run every command in the namespace context, this is especially useful for debug using tcpdump command, we can ping or ssh or define iptables all within the namespace. Connecting the namespace to the outside world: There are various ways to connect into a namespaces and between namespaces we will focus on how this is done in OpenStack. OpenStack uses a combination of Open vSwitch and network namespaces. OVS defines the interfaces and then we can add those interfaces to namespace. So first let's add a bridge to OVS: # ovs-vsctl add-br my-bridge Now let's add a port on the OVS and make it internal: # ovs-vsctl add-port my-bridge my-port # ovs-vsctl set Interface my-port type=internal And let's connect it into the namespace: # ip link set my-port netns my-ns Looking inside the namespace: # ip netns exec my-ns ifconfig -a lo        Link encap:Local Loopback           LOOPBACK  MTU:65536 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) my-port   Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 22:04:45:E2:85:21           BROADCAST  MTU:1500 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) Now we can add more ports to the OVS bridge and connect it to other namespaces or other device like physical interfaces. Neutron is using network namespaces to implement network services such as DCHP, routing, gateway, firewall, load balance and more. In the next post we will go into this in further details. Linux Bridge and veth pairs Linux bridge is used to connect the port from OVS to the VM. Every port goes from the OVS bridge to a Linux bridge and from there to the VM. The reason for using regular Linux bridges is for security groups’ enforcement. Security groups are implemented using iptables and iptables can only be applied to Linux bridges and not to OVS bridges. Veth pairs are used extensively throughout the network setup in OpenStack and are also a good tool to debug a network problem. Veth pairs are simply a virtual wire and so veths always come in pairs. Typically one side of the veth pair will connect to a bridge and the other side to another bridge or simply left as a usable interface. In this example we will create some veth pairs, connect them to bridges and test connectivity. This example is using regular Linux server and not an OpenStack node: Creating a veth pair, note that we define names for both ends: # ip link add veth0 type veth peer name veth1 # ifconfig -a . . veth0     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 5E:2C:E6:03:D0:17           BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) veth1     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr E6:B6:E2:6D:42:B8           BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) . . To make the example more meaningful this we will create the following setup: veth0 => veth1 => br-eth3 => eth3 ======> eth2 on another Linux server br-eth3 – a regular Linux bridge which will be connected to veth1 and eth3 eth3 – a physical interface with no IP on it, connected to a private network eth2 – a physical interface on the remote Linux box connected to the private network and configured with the IP of 50.50.50.1 Once we create the setup we will ping 50.50.50.1 (the remote IP) through veth0 to test that the connection is up: # brctl addbr br-eth3 # brctl addif br-eth3 eth3 # brctl addif br-eth3 veth1 # brctl show bridge name     bridge id               STP enabled     interfaces br-eth3         8000.00505682e7f6       no              eth3                                                         veth1 # ifconfig veth0 50.50.50.50 # ping -I veth0 50.50.50.51 PING 50.50.50.51 (50.50.50.51) from 50.50.50.50 veth0: 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 50.50.50.51: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.454 ms 64 bytes from 50.50.50.51: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.298 ms When the naming is not as obvious as the previous example and we don't know who are the paired veth interfaces we can use the ethtool command to figure this out. The ethtool command returns an index we can look up using ip link command, for example: # ethtool -S veth1 NIC statistics: peer_ifindex: 12 # ip link . . 12: veth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000 Summary That’s all for now, we quickly reviewed OVS, network namespaces, Linux bridges and veth pairs. These components are heavily used in the OpenStack network architecture we are exploring and understanding them well will be very useful when reviewing the different use cases. In the next post we will look at how the OpenStack network is laid out connecting the virtual machines to each other and to the external world. @RonenKofman

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, January 01, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, January 01, 2011Popular ReleasesBloodSim: BloodSim - 1.3.0.0: - Added tally for number of boss swings and swing avoids - Removed a large number of options that were carried over from Beta and are no longer relevant - Changed stat entry to use Rating format for Dodge, Parry, Haste and Mastery - Rearranged Settings interface - BloodSim will now check for updates on startup and notify the user if a new version is available - Added option to Show/Hide the Simulation Log to increase speed during large simulationsEnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.8 ALPHA: 2.2.8 ALPHAThis release supports WoW patch 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 Rebuilt Feral Spir...CBM-Command: Version 2.0 Beta 2 - 2010-12-31: This version fixes three major bugs in Version 2.0 Beta 1 Changes(64, 128, Plus/4) Changed the timing code back to version 1.7 because the clock() function in cc65 does not reflect accurate timing. (VIC, PET) The time(NULL) function is not available on these targets and thus had to be removed. Help Hot-Key Fixed - Now when you press either F1 or H you get the help file (if the CBM-Command disk is in the drive you started CBM-Command from). Updated Help File - the new help file by popmi...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.6.6 Released: Hi, Today we are releasing final version of Visifire, v3.6.6 with the following new feature: * TextDecorations property is implemented in Title for Chart. * TitleTextDecorations property is implemented in Axis. * MinPointHeight property is now applicable for Column and Bar Charts. Also this release includes few bug fixes: * ToolTipText property of DataSeries was not getting applied from Style. * Chart threw exception if IndicatorEnabled property was set to true and Too...StyleCop Compliant Visual Studio Code Snippets: Visual Studio Code Snippets - January 2011: StyleCop Compliant Visual Studio Code Snippets Visual Studio 2010 provides C# developers with 38 code snippets, enhancing developer productivty and increasing the consistency of the code. Within this project the original code snippets have been refactored to provide StyleCop compliant versions of the original code snippets while also adding many new code snippets. Within the January 2011 release you'll find 82 code snippets to make you more productive and the code you write more consistent!...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.2: Version: 2.0.0.2 (Milestone 2): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...eCompany: eCompany v0.2.0 Build 63: Version 0.2.0 Build 63: Added Splash screen & about box Added downloading of currencies when eCompany launched for the first time (must close any bug caused by no currency rate existing) Added corp creation when eCompany launched for the first time (for now, you didn't need to edit the company.xml file manually) You just need to decompress file "eCompany v0.2.0.63.zip" into your current eCompany install directory.SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQL Monitor 3.0 alpha 8: 1. added truncate table/defrag index/check db functions 2. improved alert 3. fixed problem with alert causing config file corrupted(hopefully)Temporary Data Storage Folder: TDS Folder version 0.2 Beta: In this release following bugs are fixed: 'Send to' entry bug fixed Preferences bug fixedSilverlight File Upload and Download with Interlink: HSS Interlink v.2.1.300: Latest Release 2.1.300 - December 29th 2010 Change Log DownloadFileDialog Modified to support an absolute uri for the DownloadUri property, which is required for OOB support UploadFileDialog Modified to support an absolute uri for the UploadUri property, which is required for OOB support For existing users be sure to uninstall the older version prior to installing this version Note: The demo application is NOT included with the installer but can be reviewed here Stable release and ready...RDPAddins .NET: RDPAddins Alpha 2 (0.2.0.0): Second alpha release... Breaking changes (now this project has 0.2 version): now addin should implement RDPAddins.Common.IAddin and should me exported with RDPAddins.Common.AddinMetadataAtrribute !!!most of all old Addin base class method you can fide in IChannel or IUI interfeces see FileTransferAddin Now RDPAddins.Common.dll just provide interfaces for addin, channel, ui, and export metadata Whole implementation is in RDPAddins.exe RDPAddins.Common.dll has some documentation :) why all this...DocX: DocX v1.0.0.11: Building Examples projectTo build the Examples project, download DocX.dll and add it as a reference to the project. OverviewThis version of DocX contains many bug fixes, it is a serious step towards a stable release. Added1) Unit testing project, 2) Examples project, 3) To many bug fixes to list here, see the source code change list history.Cosmos (C# Open Source Managed Operating System): 71406: This is the second release supporting the full line of Visual Studio 2010 editions. Changes since release 71246 include: Debug info is now stored in a single .cpdb file (which is a Firebird database) Keyboard input works now (using Console.ReadLine) Console colors work (using Console.ForegroundColor and .BackgroundColor)AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.0: Added the all new Masteries Browser which replaces the Quick Open combobox AutoLoL will now attemt to create file associations for mastery (*.lolm) files Each Mastery Build can now contain keywords that the Masteries Browser will use for filtering Changed the way AutoLoL detects if another instance is already running Changed the format of the mastery files to allow more information stored in* Dialogs will now focus the Ok or Cancel button which allows the user to press Return to clo...Paint.NET PSD Plugin: 1.6.0: Handling of layer masks has been greatly improved. Improved reliability. Many PSD files that previously loaded in as garbage will now load in correctly. Parallelized loading. PSD files containing layer masks will load in a bit quicker thanks to the removal of the sequential bottleneck. Hidden layers are no longer made visible on save. Many thanks to the users who helped expose the layer masks problem: Rob Horowitz, M_Lyons10. Please keep sending in those bug reports and PSD repro files!Facebook C# SDK: 4.1.1: From 4.1.1 Release: Authentication bug fix caused by facebook change (error with redirects in Safari) Authenticator fix, always returning true From 4.1.0 Release Lots of bug fixes Removed Dynamic Runtime Language dependencies from non-dynamic platforms. Samples included in release for ASP.NET, MVC, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, WPF, WinForms, and one Visual Basic Sample Changed internal serialization to use Json.net BREAKING CHANGE: Canvas Session is no longer supported. Use Signed...Catel - WPF and Silverlight MVVM library: 1.0.0: And there it is, the final release of Catel, and it is no longer a beta version!Euro for Windows XP: ChangeRegionalSettings 1..0: *Rocket Framework (.Net 4.0): Rocket Framework for Windows V 1.0.0: Architecture is reviewed and adjusted in a way so that I can introduce the Web version and WPF version of this framework next. - Rocket.Core is introduced - Controller button functions revisited and updated - DB is renewed to suite the implemented features - Create New button functionality is changed - Add Question Handling featuresFlickr Wallpaper Rotator (for Windows desktop): Wallpaper Flickr 1.1: Some minor bugfixes (mostly covering when network connection is flakey, so I discovered them all while at my parents' house for Christmas).New Projects7-Up: PowerShell Scripts for Upgrading SharePoint 2007 to 2010: PowerShell scripts to automate the upgrade of SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 using a content database or hybrid upgrade approach.Apple Wireless Keyboard: Helper that Allows people use the Apple Wireless (or Wired possibly) Keyboard under Windows 7 without loosing the mac functionalityckTest: testtesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttestCrude - .Net Dependency Management: Crude is light dependency management for .net, there was no dependency management solution for .net as Maven or Ivy until now. DeepTime: Event tacking, management and plotting site.Dev/Test Cloud Platform: Dev/Test Cloud Platform is implemented by Beyondsoft and Microsoft. The platform is dedicated to software development and test scenarios. With Dev/Test Cloud you can save your cost, improve work efficiency, and improve product quality.Image Viewer (wpf version): Image viewer helps windows users to review images on their computer. It is written i Csharp and wpf.LNOne: All common code, framework code, utility code in one.LOGL::GLib: LOGL::GLib is an OpenGL game library written in C++ that allows new C++/OpenGL programmers to focus more on the game and less on the details.MAPI.GUI: Graphical program uses function from mcopyapi.codeplex.com and mdeleteapi.codeplex.com console programs. Program support longPath (above 259 chars and less 32000 chars)Movie Collection Manager: Gerenciador que ajuda a manusear coleção de filmes. Possui uma interface super atraente e simples de usar. Ferramentas e tecnologias usadas: - Visual C# 2010 Express - SQL Server 2008 R2 Express - Windows Forms - Entity Framework OBS: Projeto concorrente do Desafio .NETMyStudioServer.com: Source code for the DotNetNuke http://MyStudioServer.com websiteNusya Tester: A software to create and use various tests with right answers explanations to help one in self-education. It's developed in C#Project Zylaphon: Project Zylaphon is a C# GPL Open Source Computer Aided Music Composition System. Its design goals include highly interactive composition, music computation, and analysis; system control to be provided by an A.I. goal based agenda and quasi Blackboard for maximum flexibility.Remember The Task: RememberTheTask makes it easier to remember what you have been doing the last hour. It's developed in Visual Basic.Rent Payments Scheduling: Register rent schedules and keep track of them.Simple MVVM Toolkit for Silverlight: Simple MVVM Toolkit makes it easier to develop Silverlight applications using the Model-View-ViewModel design pattern.Sparrow.NET HtmlTemplate: Its a template engine for generating web pages.(?????HTML?????，??????html Tag???????html????。)SQLDiagUI: SQLDiagUI provides a GUI for Microsoft SQlDiag Utility which allows users to create a configuration file and start/stop/schedule SQLDiag against a SQL Server.Test Control: testing frameworkTwicko: Simple twitter client.Unity3D Utilities: Unity3D Utilities provides additional functionality to Unity3D (3.0+) via extensions, utilities, mini-frameworks, etc.VBA Composite Controls Object Model: VBA Composite Controls encapsulate complex event-driven interactions between ActiveX controls and other objects in Microsoft Office. It's uses are limited only by the imagination, from binding controls together for updating, to creating unique user interfaces!World of Warcraft Backit up(wow backit up): a project that helps you backup and restore your settings in wow easilyYamma: Yet Another Money Management Application. Build in .NET 4, SQLCE, LINQ and the Entity Framework.

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• Introducing Data Annotations Extensions

  - by srkirkland

  Validation of user input is integral to building a modern web application, and ASP.NET MVC offers us a way to enforce business rules on both the client and server using Model Validation.  The recent release of ASP.NET MVC 3 has improved these offerings on the client side by introducing an unobtrusive validation library built on top of jquery.validation.  Out of the box MVC comes with support for Data Annotations (that is, System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations) and can be extended to support other frameworks.  Data Annotations Validation is becoming more popular and is being baked in to many other Microsoft offerings, including Entity Framework, though with MVC it only contains four validators: Range, Required, StringLength and Regular Expression.  The Data Annotations Extensions project attempts to augment these validators with additional attributes while maintaining the clean integration Data Annotations provides. A Quick Word About Data Annotations Extensions The Data Annotations Extensions project can be found at http://dataannotationsextensions.org/, and currently provides 11 additional validation attributes (ex: Email, EqualTo, Min/Max) on top of Data Annotations’ original 4.  You can find a current list of the validation attributes on the afore mentioned website. The core library provides server-side validation attributes that can be used in any .NET 4.0 project (no MVC dependency). There is also an easily pluggable client-side validation library which can be used in ASP.NET MVC 3 projects using unobtrusive jquery validation (only MVC3 included javascript files are required). On to the Preview Let’s say you had the following “Customer” domain model (or view model, depending on your project structure) in an MVC 3 project: public class Customer { public string Email { get; set; } public int Age { get; set; } public string ProfilePictureLocation { get; set; } } .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; } When it comes time to create/edit this Customer, you will probably have a CustomerController and a simple form that just uses one of the Html.EditorFor() methods that the ASP.NET MVC tooling generates for you (or you can write yourself).  It should look something like this: With no validation, the customer can enter nonsense for an email address, and then can even report their age as a negative number!  With the built-in Data Annotations validation, I could do a bit better by adding a Range to the age, adding a RegularExpression for email (yuck!), and adding some required attributes.  However, I’d still be able to report my age as 10.75 years old, and my profile picture could still be any string.  Let’s use Data Annotations along with this project, Data Annotations Extensions, and see what we can get: public class Customer { [Email] [Required] public string Email { get; set; }   [Integer] [Min(1, ErrorMessage="Unless you are benjamin button you are lying.")] [Required] public int Age { get; set; }   [FileExtensions("png|jpg|jpeg|gif")] public string ProfilePictureLocation { get; set; } } .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 let’s try to put in some invalid values and see what happens: That is very nice validation, all done on the client side (will also be validated on the server).  Also, the Customer class validation attributes are very easy to read and understand. Another bonus: Since Data Annotations Extensions can integrate with MVC 3’s unobtrusive validation, no additional scripts are required! Now that we’ve seen our target, let’s take a look at how to get there within a new MVC 3 project. Adding Data Annotations Extensions To Your Project First we will File->New Project and create an ASP.NET MVC 3 project.  I am going to use Razor for these examples, but any view engine can be used in practice.  Now go into the NuGet Extension Manager (right click on references and select add Library Package Reference) and search for “DataAnnotationsExtensions.”  You should see the following two packages: The first package is for server-side validation scenarios, but since we are using MVC 3 and would like comprehensive sever and client validation support, click on the DataAnnotationsExtensions.MVC3 project and then click Install.  This will install the Data Annotations Extensions server and client validation DLLs along with David Ebbo’s web activator (which enables the validation attributes to be registered with MVC 3). Now that Data Annotations Extensions is installed you have all you need to start doing advanced model validation.  If you are already using Data Annotations in your project, just making use of the additional validation attributes will provide client and server validation automatically.  However, assuming you are starting with a blank project I’ll walk you through setting up a controller and model to test with. Creating Your Model In the Models folder, create a new User.cs file with a User class that you can use as a model.  To start with, I’ll use the following class: public class User { public string Email { get; set; } public string Password { get; set; } public string PasswordConfirm { get; set; } public string HomePage { get; set; } public int Age { get; set; } } Next, create a simple controller with at least a Create method, and then a matching Create view (note, you can do all of this via the MVC built-in tooling).  Your files will look something like this: UserController.cs: public class UserController : Controller { public ActionResult Create() { return View(new User()); }   [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(User user) { if (!ModelState.IsValid) { return View(user); }   return Content("User valid!"); } } .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; } Create.cshtml: @model NuGetValidationTester.Models.User   @{ ViewBag.Title = "Create"; }   <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>User</legend> @Html.EditorForModel() <p> <input type="submit" value="Create" /> </p> </fieldset> } .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; } In the Create.cshtml view, note that we are referencing jquery validation and jquery unobtrusive (jquery is referenced in the layout page).  These MVC 3 included scripts are the only ones you need to enjoy both the basic Data Annotations validation as well as the validation additions available in Data Annotations Extensions.  These references are added by default when you use the MVC 3 “Add View” dialog on a modification template type. Now when we go to /User/Create we should see a form for editing a User Since we haven’t yet added any validation attributes, this form is valid as shown (including no password, email and an age of 0).  With the built-in Data Annotations attributes we can make some of the fields required, and we could use a range validator of maybe 1 to 110 on Age (of course we don’t want to leave out supercentenarians) but let’s go further and validate our input comprehensively using Data Annotations Extensions.  The new and improved User.cs model class. { [Required] [Email] public string Email { get; set; }   [Required] public string Password { get; set; }   [Required] [EqualTo("Password")] public string PasswordConfirm { get; set; }   [Url] public string HomePage { get; set; }   [Integer] [Min(1)] public int Age { get; set; } } .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 let’s re-run our form and try to use some invalid values: All of the validation errors you see above occurred on the client, without ever even hitting submit.  The validation is also checked on the server, which is a good practice since client validation is easily bypassed. That’s all you need to do to start a new project and include Data Annotations Extensions, and of course you can integrate it into an existing project just as easily. Nitpickers Corner ASP.NET MVC 3 futures defines four new data annotations attributes which this project has as well: CreditCard, Email, Url and EqualTo.  Unfortunately referencing MVC 3 futures necessitates taking an dependency on MVC 3 in your model layer, which may be unadvisable in a multi-tiered project.  Data Annotations Extensions keeps the server and client side libraries separate so using the project’s validation attributes don’t require you to take any additional dependencies in your model layer which still allowing for the rich client validation experience if you are using MVC 3. Custom Error Message and Globalization: Since the Data Annotations Extensions are build on top of Data Annotations, you have the ability to define your own static error messages and even to use resource files for very customizable error messages. Available Validators: Please see the project site at http://dataannotationsextensions.org/ for an up-to-date list of the new validators included in this project.  As of this post, the following validators are available: CreditCard Date Digits Email EqualTo FileExtensions Integer Max Min Numeric Url Conclusion Hopefully I’ve illustrated how easy it is to add server and client validation to your MVC 3 projects, and how to easily you can extend the available validation options to meet real world needs. The Data Annotations Extensions project is fully open source under the BSD license.  Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.  More information than you require, along with links to the source code, is available at http://dataannotationsextensions.org/. Enjoy!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 05, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 05, 2012Popular ReleasesSimple Injector: Simple Injector v1.4.1: This release adds two small improvements to the SimpleInjector.Extensions.dll. No changes have been made to the core library. New features and improvements in this release for the SimpleInjector.Extensions.dll The RegisterManyForOpenGeneric extension methods now accept non-generic decorator, as long as they implement the given open generic service type. GetTypesToRegister methods added to the OpenGenericBatchRegistrationExtensions class which allows to customize the behavior. Note that the...SQL Scriptz Runner: Application: Scriptz Runner source code and applicationCommonLibrary: Code: CodePowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.5.2: Added support for PowerGUI 3.2.Path Copy Copy: 10.0: New version with the following biggest new features: Regular expression support in custom commands (see this work item) Import/export feature for custom commands (see this work item) This version also addresses the following work items: 11353 11348 This version is a recommended upgrade for all users. Note: new custom commands that user regular expressions won't be compatible with earlier versions (if installed by registry manipulation or via network installation), but everything else is ...VidCoder: 1.3.1: Updated HandBrake core to 0.9.6 release (svn 4472). Removed erroneous "None" container choice. Change some logic and help text to stop assuming you have to pick the VIDEO_TS folder for a DVD scan. This should make previewing DVD titles on the Queue Multiple Titles window possible when you've picked the root DVD directory.ASP.NET MVC Framework - Abstracting Data Annotations, HTML5, Knockout JS techs: Version 1.0: Please download the source code. I am not associating any dll for release.ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.0: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-03-04 v3.1.0 -??Hidden???????（〓?〓）。 -?PageManager??...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.9.1: ?? ●AcDown??????????、??、??????，????1M，????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDo...Windows Phone Commands for VS2010: Version 1.0: Initial Release Version 1.0 Connect from device or emulator (Monitors the connection) Show Device information (Plataform, build , version, avaliable memory, total memory, architeture Manager installed applications (Launch, uninstall and explorer isolate storage files) Manager core applications (Launch blocked applications from emulator (Office, Calculator, alarm, calendar , etc) Manager blocked settings from emulator (Airplane Mode, Celullar Network, Wifi, etc) Deploy and update ap...DNN Metro7 style Skin package: Metro7 style Skin for DotNetNuke 06.01.00: Changes on Version 06.01.00 Fixed issue on GraySmallTitle container, that breaks the layout Fixed issue on Blue Metro7 Skin where the Search, Login, Register, Date is missing Fixed issue with the Version numbers on the target file Fixed issue where the jQuery and jQuery-UI files not deleted on upgrade from Version 01.00.00 Added a internal page where the Image Slider would be replaces with a BannerPaneMedia Companion: MC 3.433b Release: General More GUI tweaks (mostly imperceptible!) Updates for mc_com.exe TV The 'Watched' button has been re-instigated Added TV Menu sub-option to search ALL for new Episodes (includes locked shows) Movies Added 'Source' field (eg DVD, Bluray, HDTV), customisable in Advanced Preferences (try it out, let us know how it works!) Added HTML <<format>> tag with optional parameters for video container, source, and resolution (updated HTML tags to be added to Documentation shortly) Known Issu...Picturethrill: Version 2.3.2.0: Release includes Self-Update feature for Picturethrill. What that means for users is that they are always guaranteed to have a fresh copy of Picturethrill on their computers with all latest fixes. When Picturethrill adds a new website to get pictures from, you will get it too!Simple MVVM Toolkit for Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone: Simple MVVM Toolkit v3.0.0.0: Added support for Silverlight 5.0 and Windows Phone 7.1. Upgraded project templates and samples. Upgraded installer. There are some new prerequisites required for this version, namely Silverlight 5 Tools, Expression Blend Preview for Silverlight 5 (until the SDK is released), Windows Phone 7.1 SDK. Because it is in the experimental band, I have also removed the dependency on the Silverlight Testing Framework. You can use it if you wish, but the Ria Services project template no longer uses ...CODE Framework: 4.0.20301: The latest version adds a number of new features to the WPF system (such as stylable and testable messagebox support) as well as various new features throughout the system (especially in the Utilities namespace).MyRouter (Virtual WiFi Router): MyRouter 1.0.2 (Beta): A friendlier User Interface. A logger file to catch exceptions so you may send it to use to improve and fix any bugs that may occur. A feedback form because we always love hearing what you guy's think of MyRouter. Check for update menu item for you to stay up to date will the latest changes. Facebook fan page so you may spread the word and share MyRouter with friends and family And Many other exciting features were sure your going to love!WPF Sound Visualization Library: WPF SVL 0.3 (Source, Binaries, Examples, Help): Version 0.3 of WPFSVL. This includes three new controls: an equalizer, a digital clock, and a time editor.Orchard Project: Orchard 1.4: Please read our release notes for Orchard 1.4: http://docs.orchardproject.net/Documentation/Orchard-1-4-Release-NotesNetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.15: 3.6.0.15 28-Feb-2012 • Fix: The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state. Work Item 10435: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10435 • Fix: Made StorageCache thread safe. Thanks to tangrl. • Fix: Members property of SqlAzManApplicationGroup is not functioning. Thanks to tangrl. Work Item 10267: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10267 • Fix: Indexer are making database calls. Thanks to t...SCCM Client Actions Tool: Client Actions Tool v1.1: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.1 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Added stop button to stop the ongoing process. Added action "Query update status". Added option "saveOnlineComputers" in config.ini to enable saving list of online computers from last session. Default value for "LatestClientVersion" set to SP2 R3 (4.00.6487.2157). Wuauserv service manual startup mode is considered healthy on Windows 7. Errors are now suppressed in checkReleases...New ProjectsAbsolute Risk Game: Risk Game is a classic "World Domination Risk" game where you try to conquer the world.Architecture Document Catalog: The Architecture Document Catalog is a catalog for various documentation used by software solution architects. The initial architecture framework supported is from Rozanski and Woods, also called Viewpoints and Perspectives. It's in C#, Silverlight, WCF RIA Services.Background Worker Job Execution & Job Scheduler: Background worker is a multi-threaded job execution and scheduling engine. Very similar to Quartz, but with a slightly different focus.BWOS: preparing a new operating system. and name BWOS. CommonLibrary: Common modules and componentesCustomizeTool: CustomizeToolData Foundry: Data Foundry is a Swiss army knife for database administrator. With capabilities to cross reference check data between tables to find orphaned data and table relations.Data Grid Extensions: Modular extensions for the DataGrid control. Attach filtering capabilities to your existing DataGrid.dk.Helper: dk.Helper makes it easier for tribal wars game players (divoke-kmene.sk) to manage common activities in game. It's developed in C#.ExEn: ExEn is a high-performance implementation of a subset of the XNA API that runs on Silverlight, iOS and Android.Extended Methods for .NET: Developed in VB.NET, this DLL includes some functions I came across over the internet. Originally they were functions. I made some changes to suit my work and recreated them as Extended methods. Currently includes two extended methods for the Image class and one extended method for the String class. I will update it with new methods as I go along.GestionarComenzi: Gestioneaza Comenzi - Firma transporturiGIS Library Management: GIS Library Management System.iFinity Cache Master for DotNetNuke: The iFinity DotNetNuke Cache Master is an Administration module for DotNetNuke. This module allows administrators to inspect the current contents of the ASP.NET Cache in their running DotNetNuke installation. A very useful tool for developers working with the DotNetNuke cache.intelliEssay Document Format Checker: This is a product that tries to check a document's format to see if it conforms to certain given standard.Just T[he]IP: "Just The IP" leverages the Bing API v2 and the ip: Bing Advanced Operator to list the other web sites hosted at this IP Address (that are indexed by Bing).KTool: Ktool is a tool for learning japanese kanji. This program is still in developed. Current version can only display and find a kanji word (Press ctrl-F on main screen for search). Developed in WPF, .NET 4.0Lab Checker: Lab Checker makes it easy for teacher to check students' programs. It allows a student to test his program on a set of test cases which eliminates the need to run the program manually.MeoBox Vera Control Plugin: This is my project for creating a plugin to control my MeoBox ( Scientific Atlanta ) using Vera ( www.micasaverde.com ) Should work with other TV2Client boxesNUnitTestHelper: NUnitTestHelper is a helper class for developing unit tests for C# applications with NUnit framework. This helper library provides set of classes and method which can be used for accomplishing faster unit test development for any kind of project. NUnitTestBase – Supports basic functionality for writing a unit test with NUnit framework. This base class provides built in support for mocking framework. This version provides support for Rhino mocking framework.OnlineExam: Common online examination system based on Asp.net MVC3 can used for knowledge test, I/Q test, college test or most other test project.Orchard Code Generation Extensions: Code Generation Extensions module for Orchard.OrchardTranstion_CN: Orchar?? OsAvatar: to next step showOwnTools: About my toolsPhone Finder App: PhoneFinder will be a Windows Phone platform app alternative for finding a lost or stolen phone. Our plan is to have additional functionality the Windows software does not include. It will be developed using ASP.NET MVC, SQL Server, C#, etc.PoshChat: PoshChat is a client/server chat program written in PowerShell. Supports multiple client connections to a single server to chat.Process Attachment And Secure Text: ProcessAttachmentAndSecureText is an Exchange Transport Agent DLL and associated ASPX page. It is used to 1) strip out attachments and send them to an upload portal, and 2) to strip out text from emails and send it to an upload portal. It is currently coded for Exchange 2010Resource Viewer - Visual Studio Extension: Simply put the “resource viewer extension” enables you to visually view your ResourceDictionary. To open it go to: View – Other Windows – Resource Viewer. When working with WPF/Silverlight you put your reusable resources in a common ResourceDictionary, those resources might be of type Style, SolidColorBrush, DrawingBrush, BitmapImage and more. The problems starts when you have that ResourceDictionary you have no way to see how your resources look like, making the work process (of both t...Scumm XNA: Scumm XNA is an engine that runs old school LucasArts graphical adventure games. It is written completely in C# and will run on PC, Xbox 360 and Windows phone. The code is inspired by ScummVM but this project is not a port, it is a complete rewrite in order to optimize the engine for the CLR. Of course, you will need to own the orinigal games in order to use it. Currently, I will focus my work on the great "Day of Tentacle" game specifically the CD version.SDX DataGrid: SDXDataGrid is a comprehensive data grid component for Microsoft .NET 3.5 web application developers. It is designed to ease the exhausting process of implementing the necessary code for sorting, navigation, grouping, searching and data editing in a data representation object.SQL Scriptz Runner: Features are : Drag And Drop script files Run a directory of script files Sql Script out put messages during execution Script passed or failed that are colored green and red (yellow for running) Stop on error option Open script on error option Run report with time taken for each uComponents Demo: A demo for the code of running uComponents in Umbraco siteUnixTable: UnixTable makes it easier to realize application to access database, with no code but only with visual instrument at runtime. You'll no longer have to write query or code to read table from database. It's developed in Visual Basic for .NET 4. VOA Player.NET: VOA Player is a lightweight windows client for listening VOA Special English. Because of GFW blocking it fetch RSS data via rss2proxy.appspot.com indirectly. User can view article page and listen MP3 stream. The project is a C# implementation of voaplayer.sinaapp.com.Windows Metafile Library: The library supports reading and writing WMF files. Source code is written in pure .NET from scratch following the Windows Metafile Format Specification.Windows Phone 7.1 + MicroFramework (a phone device as remote control): Windows Phone 7.1 + .Net MicroFramework (How use a windows phone device as remote control of a Fez Panda II/MicroFramework board). A windows phone device can be connected to a wifi network (for example a wifi router). If you have also a MicroFramework board connected to the wifi network; you can send some http rest commands from the windows phone device to the MicroFramework board. The microframework board, it must support the tcp/ip protocol through a connect shield. In this exaple it will...XBMC Cache Manager: A Windows Service to manage a shared XBMC MySQL database and shared cache folder.

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• Silverlight Tree View with Multiple Levels

  - by psheriff

  There are many examples of the Silverlight Tree View that you will find on the web, however, most of them only show you how to go to two levels. What if you have more than two levels? This is where understanding exactly how the Hierarchical Data Templates works is vital. In this blog post, I am going to break down how these templates work so you can really understand what is going on underneath the hood. To start, let’s look at the typical two-level Silverlight Tree View that has been hard coded with the values shown below: <sdk:TreeView>  <sdk:TreeViewItem Header="Managers">    <TextBlock Text="Michael" />    <TextBlock Text="Paul" />  </sdk:TreeViewItem>  <sdk:TreeViewItem Header="Supervisors">    <TextBlock Text="John" />    <TextBlock Text="Tim" />    <TextBlock Text="David" />  </sdk:TreeViewItem></sdk:TreeView> Figure 1 shows you how this tree view looks when you run the Silverlight application. Figure 1: A hard-coded, two level Tree View. Next, let’s create three classes to mimic the hard-coded Tree View shown above. First, you need an Employee class and an EmployeeType class. The Employee class simply has one property called Name. The constructor is created to accept a “name” argument that you can use to set the Name property when you create an Employee object. public class Employee{  public Employee(string name)  {    Name = name;  }   public string Name { get; set; }} Finally you create an EmployeeType class. This class has one property called EmpType and contains a generic List<> collection of Employee objects. The property that holds the collection is called Employees. public class EmployeeType{  public EmployeeType(string empType)  {    EmpType = empType;    Employees = new List<Employee>();  }   public string EmpType { get; set; }  public List<Employee> Employees { get; set; }} Finally we have a collection class called EmployeeTypes created using the generic List<> class. It is in the constructor for this class where you will build the collection of EmployeeTypes and fill it with Employee objects: public class EmployeeTypes : List<EmployeeType>{  public EmployeeTypes()  {    EmployeeType type;            type = new EmployeeType("Manager");    type.Employees.Add(new Employee("Michael"));    type.Employees.Add(new Employee("Paul"));    this.Add(type);     type = new EmployeeType("Project Managers");    type.Employees.Add(new Employee("Tim"));    type.Employees.Add(new Employee("John"));    type.Employees.Add(new Employee("David"));    this.Add(type);  }} You now have a data hierarchy in memory (Figure 2) which is what the Tree View control expects to receive as its data source. Figure 2: A hierachial data structure of Employee Types containing a collection of Employee objects. To connect up this hierarchy of data to your Tree View you create an instance of the EmployeeTypes class in XAML as shown in line 13 of Figure 3. The key assigned to this object is “empTypes”. This key is used as the source of data to the entire Tree View by setting the ItemsSource property as shown in Figure 3, Callout #1. Figure 3: You need to start from the bottom up when laying out your templates for a Tree View. The ItemsSource property of the Tree View control is used as the data source in the Hierarchical Data Template with the key of employeeTypeTemplate. In this case there is only one Hierarchical Data Template, so any data you wish to display within that template comes from the collection of Employee Types. The TextBlock control in line 20 uses the EmpType property of the EmployeeType class. You specify the name of the Hierarchical Data Template to use in the ItemTemplate property of the Tree View (Callout #2). For the second (and last) level of the Tree View control you use a normal <DataTemplate> with the name of employeeTemplate (line 14). The Hierarchical Data Template in lines 17-21 sets its ItemTemplate property to the key name of employeeTemplate (Line 19 connects to Line 14). The source of the data for the <DataTemplate> needs to be a property of the EmployeeTypes collection used in the Hierarchical Data Template. In this case that is the Employees property. In the Employees property there is a “Name” property of the Employee class that is used to display the employee name in the second level of the Tree View (Line 15). What is important here is that your lowest level in your Tree View is expressed in a <DataTemplate> and should be listed first in your Resources section. The next level up in your Tree View should be a <HierarchicalDataTemplate> which has its ItemTemplate property set to the key name of the <DataTemplate> and the ItemsSource property set to the data you wish to display in the <DataTemplate>. The Tree View control should have its ItemsSource property set to the data you wish to display in the <HierarchicalDataTemplate> and its ItemTemplate property set to the key name of the <HierarchicalDataTemplate> object. It is in this way that you get the Tree View to display all levels of your hierarchical data structure. Three Levels in a Tree View Now let’s expand upon this concept and use three levels in our Tree View (Figure 4). This Tree View shows that you now have EmployeeTypes at the top of the tree, followed by a small set of employees that themselves manage employees. This means that the EmployeeType class has a collection of Employee objects. Each Employee class has a collection of Employee objects as well. Figure 4: When using 3 levels in your TreeView you will have 2 Hierarchical Data Templates and 1 Data Template. The EmployeeType class has not changed at all from our previous example. However, the Employee class now has one additional property as shown below: public class Employee{  public Employee(string name)  {    Name = name;    ManagedEmployees = new List<Employee>();  }   public string Name { get; set; }  public List<Employee> ManagedEmployees { get; set; }} The next thing that changes in our code is the EmployeeTypes class. The constructor now needs additional code to create a list of managed employees. Below is the new code. public class EmployeeTypes : List<EmployeeType>{  public EmployeeTypes()  {    EmployeeType type;    Employee emp;    Employee managed;     type = new EmployeeType("Manager");    emp = new Employee("Michael");    managed = new Employee("John");    emp.ManagedEmployees.Add(managed);    managed = new Employee("Tim");    emp.ManagedEmployees.Add(managed);    type.Employees.Add(emp);     emp = new Employee("Paul");    managed = new Employee("Michael");    emp.ManagedEmployees.Add(managed);    managed = new Employee("Sara");    emp.ManagedEmployees.Add(managed);    type.Employees.Add(emp);    this.Add(type);     type = new EmployeeType("Project Managers");    type.Employees.Add(new Employee("Tim"));    type.Employees.Add(new Employee("John"));    type.Employees.Add(new Employee("David"));    this.Add(type);  }} Now that you have all of the data built in your classes, you are now ready to hook up this three-level structure to your Tree View. Figure 5 shows the complete XAML needed to hook up your three-level Tree View. You can see in the XAML that there are now two Hierarchical Data Templates and one Data Template. Again you list the Data Template first since that is the lowest level in your Tree View. The next Hierarchical Data Template listed is the next level up from the lowest level, and finally you have a Hierarchical Data Template for the first level in your tree. You need to work your way from the bottom up when creating your Tree View hierarchy. XAML is processed from the top down, so if you attempt to reference a XAML key name that is below where you are referencing it from, you will get a runtime error. Figure 5: For three levels in a Tree View you will need two Hierarchical Data Templates and one Data Template. Each Hierarchical Data Template uses the previous template as its ItemTemplate. The ItemsSource of each Hierarchical Data Template is used to feed the data to the previous template. This is probably the most confusing part about working with the Tree View control. You are expecting the content of the current Hierarchical Data Template to use the properties set in the ItemsSource property of that template. But you need to look to the template lower down in the XAML to see the source of the data as shown in Figure 6. Figure 6: The properties you use within the Content of a template come from the ItemsSource of the next template in the resources section. Summary Understanding how to put together your hierarchy in a Tree View is simple once you understand that you need to work from the bottom up. Start with the bottom node in your Tree View and determine what that will look like and where the data will come from. You then build the next Hierarchical Data Template to feed the data to the previous template you created. You keep doing this for each level in your Tree View until you get to the last level. The data for that last Hierarchical Data Template comes from the ItemsSource in the Tree View itself. NOTE: You can download the sample code for this article by visiting my website at http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Select “Tips & Tricks”, then select “Silverlight TreeView with Multiple Levels” from the drop down list.

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• Basic Spatial Data with SQL Server and Entity Framework 5.0

  - by Rick Strahl

  In my most recent project we needed to do a bit of geo-spatial referencing. While spatial features have been in SQL Server for a while using those features inside of .NET applications hasn't been as straight forward as could be, because .NET natively doesn't support spatial types. There are workarounds for this with a few custom project like SharpMap or a hack using the Sql Server specific Geo types found in the Microsoft.SqlTypes assembly that ships with SQL server. While these approaches work for manipulating spatial data from .NET code, they didn't work with database access if you're using Entity Framework. Other ORM vendors have been rolling their own versions of spatial integration. In Entity Framework 5.0 running on .NET 4.5 the Microsoft ORM finally adds support for spatial types as well. In this post I'll describe basic geography features that deal with single location and distance calculations which is probably the most common usage scenario. SQL Server Transact-SQL Syntax for Spatial Data Before we look at how things work with Entity framework, lets take a look at how SQL Server allows you to use spatial data to get an understanding of the underlying semantics. The following SQL examples should work with SQL 2008 and forward. Let's start by creating a test table that includes a Geography field and also a pair of Long/Lat fields that demonstrate how you can work with the geography functions even if you don't have geography/geometry fields in the database. Here's the CREATE command:CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Geo]( [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [Location] [geography] NULL, [Long] [float] NOT NULL, [Lat] [float] NOT NULL ) Now using plain SQL you can insert data into the table using geography::STGeoFromText SQL CLR function:insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.527200 45.712113)', 4326), -121.527200, 45.712113 ) insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.517265 45.714240)', 4326), -121.517265, 45.714240 ) insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.511536 45.714825)', 4326), -121.511536, 45.714825) The STGeomFromText function accepts a string that points to a geometric item (a point here but can also be a line or path or polygon and many others). You also need to provide an SRID (Spatial Reference System Identifier) which is an integer value that determines the rules for how geography/geometry values are calculated and returned. For mapping/distance functionality you typically want to use 4326 as this is the format used by most mapping software and geo-location libraries like Google and Bing. The spatial data in the Location field is stored in binary format which looks something like this: Once the location data is in the database you can query the data and do simple distance computations very easily. For example to calculate the distance of each of the values in the database to another spatial point is very easy to calculate. Distance calculations compare two points in space using a direct line calculation. For our example I'll compare a new point to all the points in the database. Using the Location field the SQL looks like this:-- create a source point DECLARE @s geography SET @s = geography:: STGeomFromText('POINT(-121.527200 45.712113)' , 4326); --- return the ids select ID, Location as Geo , Location .ToString() as Point , @s.STDistance( Location) as distance from Geo order by distance The code defines a new point which is the base point to compare each of the values to. You can also compare values from the database directly, but typically you'll want to match a location to another location and determine the difference for which you can use the geography::STDistance function. This query produces the following output: The STDistance function returns the straight line distance between the passed in point and the point in the database field. The result for SRID 4326 is always in meters. Notice that the first value passed was the same point so the difference is 0. The other two points are two points here in town in Hood River a little ways away - 808 and 1256 meters respectively. Notice also that you can order the result by the resulting distance, which effectively gives you results that are ordered radially out from closer to further away. This is great for searches of points of interest near a central location (YOU typically!). These geolocation functions are also available to you if you don't use the Geography/Geometry types, but plain float values. It's a little more work, as each point has to be created in the query using the string syntax, but the following code doesn't use a geography field but produces the same result as the previous query.--- using float fields select ID, geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR (long, 15,7 ) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326), geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR (long, 15,7 ) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326). ToString(), @s.STDistance( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR(long ,15, 7) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326)) as distance from geo order by distance Spatial Data in the Entity Framework Prior to Entity Framework 5.0 on .NET 4.5 consuming of the data above required using stored procedures or raw SQL commands to access the spatial data. In Entity Framework 5 however, Microsoft introduced the new DbGeometry and DbGeography types. These immutable location types provide a bunch of functionality for manipulating spatial points using geometry functions which in turn can be used to do common spatial queries like I described in the SQL syntax above. The DbGeography/DbGeometry types are immutable, meaning that you can't write to them once they've been created. They are a bit odd in that you need to use factory methods in order to instantiate them - they have no constructor() and you can't assign to properties like Latitude and Longitude. Creating a Model with Spatial Data Let's start by creating a simple Entity Framework model that includes a Location property of type DbGeography: public class GeoLocationContext : DbContext { public DbSet<GeoLocation> Locations { get; set; } } public class GeoLocation { public int Id { get; set; } public DbGeography Location { get; set; } public string Address { get; set; } } That's all there's to it. When you run this now against SQL Server, you get a Geography field for the Location property, which looks the same as the Location field in the SQL examples earlier. Adding Spatial Data to the Database Next let's add some data to the table that includes some latitude and longitude data. An easy way to find lat/long locations is to use Google Maps to pinpoint your location, then right click and click on What's Here. Click on the green marker to get the GPS coordinates. To add the actual geolocation data create an instance of the GeoLocation type and use the DbGeography.PointFromText() factory method to create a new point to assign to the Location property:[TestMethod] public void AddLocationsToDataBase() { var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // remove all context.Locations.ToList().ForEach( loc => context.Locations.Remove(loc)); context.SaveChanges(); var location = new GeoLocation() { // Create a point using native DbGeography Factory method Location = DbGeography.PointFromText( string.Format("POINT({0} {1})", -121.527200,45.712113) ,4326), Address = "301 15th Street, Hood River" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { Location = CreatePoint(45.714240, -121.517265), Address = "The Hatchery, Bingen" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { // Create a point using a helper function (lat/long) Location = CreatePoint(45.708457, -121.514432), Address = "Kaze Sushi, Hood River" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { Location = CreatePoint(45.722780, -120.209227), Address = "Arlington, OR" }; context.Locations.Add(location); context.SaveChanges(); } As promised, a DbGeography object has to be created with one of the static factory methods provided on the type as the Location.Longitude and Location.Latitude properties are read only. Here I'm using PointFromText() which uses a "Well Known Text" format to specify spatial data. In the first example I'm specifying to create a Point from a longitude and latitude value, using an SRID of 4326 (just like earlier in the SQL examples). You'll probably want to create a helper method to make the creation of Points easier to avoid that string format and instead just pass in a couple of double values. Here's my helper called CreatePoint that's used for all but the first point creation in the sample above:public static DbGeography CreatePoint(double latitude, double longitude) { var text = string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.NumberFormat, "POINT({0} {1})", longitude, latitude); // 4326 is most common coordinate system used by GPS/Maps return DbGeography.PointFromText(text, 4326); } Using the helper the syntax becomes a bit cleaner, requiring only a latitude and longitude respectively. Note that my method intentionally swaps the parameters around because Latitude and Longitude is the common format I've seen with mapping libraries (especially Google Mapping/Geolocation APIs with their LatLng type). When the context is changed the data is written into the database using the SQL Geography type which looks the same as in the earlier SQL examples shown. Querying Once you have some location data in the database it's now super easy to query the data and find out the distance between locations. A common query is to ask for a number of locations that are near a fixed point - typically your current location and order it by distance. Using LINQ to Entities a query like this is easy to construct:[TestMethod] public void QueryLocationsTest() { var sourcePoint = CreatePoint(45.712113, -121.527200); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // find any locations within 5 kilometers ordered by distance var matches = context.Locations .Where(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) < 5000) .OrderBy( loc=> loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) ) .Select( loc=> new { Address = loc.Address, Distance = loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) }); Assert.IsTrue(matches.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in matches) { Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1:n0} meters)", location.Address, location.Distance); } } This example produces: 301 15th Street, Hood River (0 meters)The Hatchery, Bingen (809 meters)Kaze Sushi, Hood River (1,074 meters)   The first point in the database is the same as my source point I'm comparing against so the distance is 0. The other two are within the 5 mile radius, while the Arlington location which is 65 miles or so out is not returned. The result is ordered by distance from closest to furthest away. In the code, I first create a source point that is the basis for comparison. The LINQ query then selects all locations that are within 5km of the source point using the Location.Distance() function, which takes a source point as a parameter. You can either use a pre-defined value as I'm doing here, or compare against another database DbGeography property (say when you have to points in the same database for things like routes). What's nice about this query syntax is that it's very clean and easy to read and understand. You can calculate the distance and also easily order by the distance to provide a result that shows locations from closest to furthest away which is a common scenario for any application that places a user in the context of several locations. It's now super easy to accomplish this. Meters vs. Miles As with the SQL Server functions, the Distance() method returns data in meters, so if you need to work with miles or feet you need to do some conversion. Here are a couple of helpers that might be useful (can be found in GeoUtils.cs of the sample project):/// <summary> /// Convert meters to miles /// </summary> /// <param name="meters"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static double MetersToMiles(double? meters) { if (meters == null) return 0F; return meters.Value * 0.000621371192; } /// <summary> /// Convert miles to meters /// </summary> /// <param name="miles"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static double MilesToMeters(double? miles) { if (miles == null) return 0; return miles.Value * 1609.344; } Using these two helpers you can query on miles like this:[TestMethod] public void QueryLocationsMilesTest() { var sourcePoint = CreatePoint(45.712113, -121.527200); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // find any locations within 5 miles ordered by distance var fiveMiles = GeoUtils.MilesToMeters(5); var matches = context.Locations .Where(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) <= fiveMiles) .OrderBy(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint)) .Select(loc => new { Address = loc.Address, Distance = loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) }); Assert.IsTrue(matches.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in matches) { Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1:n1} miles)", location.Address, GeoUtils.MetersToMiles(location.Distance)); } } which produces: 301 15th Street, Hood River (0.0 miles)The Hatchery, Bingen (0.5 miles)Kaze Sushi, Hood River (0.7 miles) Nice 'n simple. .NET 4.5 Only Note that DbGeography and DbGeometry are exclusive to Entity Framework 5.0 (not 4.4 which ships in the same NuGet package or installer) and requires .NET 4.5. That's because the new DbGeometry and DbGeography (and related) types are defined in the 4.5 version of System.Data.Entity which is a CLR assembly and is only updated by major versions of .NET. Why this decision was made to add these types to System.Data.Entity rather than to the frequently updated EntityFramework assembly that would have possibly made this work in .NET 4.0 is beyond me, especially given that there are no native .NET framework spatial types to begin with. I find it also odd that there is no native CLR spatial type. The DbGeography and DbGeometry types are specific to Entity Framework and live on those assemblies. They will also work for general purpose, non-database spatial data manipulation, but then you are forced into having a dependency on System.Data.Entity, which seems a bit silly. There's also a System.Spatial assembly that's apparently part of WCF Data Services which in turn don't work with Entity framework. Another example of multiple teams at Microsoft not communicating and implementing the same functionality (differently) in several different places. Perplexed as a I may be, for EF specific code the Entity framework specific types are easy to use and work well. Working with pre-.NET 4.5 Entity Framework and Spatial Data If you can't go to .NET 4.5 just yet you can also still use spatial features in Entity Framework, but it's a lot more work as you can't use the DbContext directly to manipulate the location data. You can still run raw SQL statements to write data into the database and retrieve results using the same TSQL syntax I showed earlier using Context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(). Here's code that you can use to add location data into the database:[TestMethod] public void RawSqlEfAddTest() { string sqlFormat = @"insert into GeoLocations( Location, Address) values ( geography::STGeomFromText('POINT({0} {1})', 4326),@p0 )"; var sql = string.Format(sqlFormat,-121.527200, 45.712113); Console.WriteLine(sql); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); Assert.IsTrue(context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sql,"301 N. 15th Street") > 0); } Here I'm using the STGeomFromText() function to add the location data. Note that I'm using string.Format here, which usually would be a bad practice but is required here. I was unable to use ExecuteSqlCommand() and its named parameter syntax as the longitude and latitude parameters are embedded into a string. Rest assured it's required as the following does not work:string sqlFormat = @"insert into GeoLocations( Location, Address) values ( geography::STGeomFromText('POINT(@p0 @p1)', 4326),@p2 )";context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sql, -121.527200, 45.712113, "301 N. 15th Street") Explicitly assigning the point value with string.format works however. There are a number of ways to query location data. You can't get the location data directly, but you can retrieve the point string (which can then be parsed to get Latitude and Longitude) and you can return calculated values like distance. Here's an example of how to retrieve some geo data into a resultset using EF's and SqlQuery method:[TestMethod] public void RawSqlEfQueryTest() { var sqlFormat = @" DECLARE @s geography SET @s = geography:: STGeomFromText('POINT({0} {1})' , 4326); SELECT Address, Location.ToString() as GeoString, @s.STDistance( Location) as Distance FROM GeoLocations ORDER BY Distance"; var sql = string.Format(sqlFormat, -121.527200, 45.712113); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); var locations = context.Database.SqlQuery<ResultData>(sql); Assert.IsTrue(locations.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in locations) { Console.WriteLine(location.Address + " " + location.GeoString + " " + location.Distance); } } public class ResultData { public string GeoString { get; set; } public double Distance { get; set; } public string Address { get; set; } } Hopefully you don't have to resort to this approach as it's fairly limited. Using the new DbGeography/DbGeometry types makes this sort of thing so much easier. When I had to use code like this before I typically ended up retrieving data pks only and then running another query with just the PKs to retrieve the actual underlying DbContext entities. This was very inefficient and tedious but it did work. Summary For the current project I'm working on we actually made the switch to .NET 4.5 purely for the spatial features in EF 5.0. This app heavily relies on spatial queries and it was worth taking a chance with pre-release code to get this ease of integration as opposed to manually falling back to stored procedures or raw SQL string queries to return spatial specific queries. Using native Entity Framework code makes life a lot easier than the alternatives. It might be a late addition to Entity Framework, but it sure makes location calculations and storage easy. Where do you want to go today? ;-) Resources Download Sample Project© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ADO.NET  Sql Server  .NET   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• lxc containers hangs after upgrade to 13.10

  - by doug123

  I have 3 lxc containers. They were all working fine on 12.10 and I upgraded the containers with do-release-upgrade on the containers to 13.04 and 13.10 and that worked great. Then I upgraded the host to 13.04 and then 13.10 and now the 3 containers hang with this: >lxc-start -n as1 -l DEBUG -o $(tty) lxc-start 1383145786.513 INFO lxc_start_ui - using rcfile /var/lib/lxc/as1/config lxc-start 1383145786.513 WARN lxc_log - lxc_log_init called with log already initialized lxc-start 1383145786.513 INFO lxc_apparmor - aa_enabled set to 1 lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_conf - allocated pty '/dev/pts/2' (5/6) lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_conf - allocated pty '/dev/pts/13' (7/8) lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_conf - allocated pty '/dev/pts/14' (9/10) lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_conf - allocated pty '/dev/pts/15' (11/12) lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_conf - allocated pty '/dev/pts/17' (13/14) lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_conf - allocated pty '/dev/pts/18' (15/16) lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_conf - allocated pty '/dev/pts/19' (17/18) lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_conf - allocated pty '/dev/pts/20' (19/20) lxc-start 1383145786.514 INFO lxc_conf - tty's configured lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_start - sigchild handler set lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_console - opening /dev/tty for console peer lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_console - using '/dev/tty' as console lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_console - 6242 got SIGWINCH fd 25 lxc-start 1383145786.514 DEBUG lxc_console - set winsz dstfd:22 cols:177 rows:53 lxc-start 1383145786.514 INFO lxc_start - 'as1' is initialized lxc-start 1383145786.522 DEBUG lxc_start - Not dropping cap_sys_boot or watching utmp lxc-start 1383145786.524 DEBUG lxc_conf - mac address of host interface 'vethB4L35W' changed to private fe:7c:96:a0:ae:29 lxc-start 1383145786.525 DEBUG lxc_conf - instanciated veth 'vethB4L35W/vethVC61K2', index is '26' lxc-start 1383145786.529 DEBUG lxc_cgroup - cgroup 'memory.limit_in_bytes' set to '20G' lxc-start 1383145786.529 DEBUG lxc_cgroup - cgroup 'cpuset.cpus' set to '12-23' lxc-start 1383145786.529 INFO lxc_cgroup - cgroup has been setup lxc-start 1383145786.555 DEBUG lxc_conf - move 'eth0' to '6249' lxc-start 1383145786.555 INFO lxc_conf - 'as1' hostname has been setup lxc-start 1383145786.575 DEBUG lxc_conf - 'eth0' has been setup lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - network has been setup lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .44 42 252:0 / / rw,relatime - ext4 /dev/mapper/limitorderbook1-root rw,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .52 44 0:5 / /dev rw,relatime - devtmpfs udev rw,size=32961632k,nr_inodes=8240408,mode=755 . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /dev. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .61 52 0:11 / /dev/pts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime - devpts devpts rw,mode=600,ptmxmode=000 . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /dev/pts. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .68 44 0:15 / /run rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime - tmpfs tmpfs rw,size=6594456k,mode=755 . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /run. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .69 68 0:18 / /run/lock rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - tmpfs none rw,size=5120k . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /run/lock. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .72 68 0:19 / /run/shm rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime - tmpfs none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /run/shm. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .73 68 0:21 / /run/user rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - tmpfs none rw,size=102400k,mode=755 . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /run/user. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .76 44 0:14 / /sys rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - sysfs sysfs rw . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .77 76 0:16 / /sys/fs/cgroup rw,relatime - tmpfs none rw,size=4k,mode=755 . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .78 77 0:20 / /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,cpuset,clone_children . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .79 77 0:23 / /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,cpu . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .80 77 0:24 / /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuacct rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,cpuacct . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuacct. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .81 77 0:25 / /sys/fs/cgroup/memory rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,memory . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/memory. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .82 77 0:26 / /sys/fs/cgroup/devices rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,devices . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/devices. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .83 77 0:27 / /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,freezer . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .84 77 0:28 / /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,blkio . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .85 77 0:29 / /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,perf_event . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .94 77 0:30 / /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,hugetlb . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .95 77 0:31 / /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - cgroup systemd rw,name=systemd . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .96 76 0:17 / /sys/fs/fuse/connections rw,relatime - fusectl none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/fuse/connections. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .98 76 0:6 / /sys/kernel/debug rw,relatime - debugfs none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/kernel/debug. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .101 76 0:10 / /sys/kernel/security rw,relatime - securityfs none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/kernel/security. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .102 76 0:22 / /sys/fs/pstore rw,relatime - pstore none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/pstore. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .103 44 0:3 / /proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - proc proc rw . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /proc. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .104 44 9:2 / /data rw,relatime - ext4 /dev/md2 rw,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /data. lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .105 44 8:1 / /boot rw,relatime - ext2 /dev/sda1 rw,errors=continue . lxc-start 1383145786.575 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /boot. lxc-start 1383145786.576 DEBUG lxc_conf - mounted '/data/srv/lxc/as1' on '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc' lxc-start 1383145786.576 DEBUG lxc_conf - mounted 'none' on '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc//dev/pts', type 'devpts' lxc-start 1383145786.576 DEBUG lxc_conf - mounted 'none' on '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc//proc', type 'proc' lxc-start 1383145786.576 DEBUG lxc_conf - mounted 'none' on '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc//sys', type 'sysfs' lxc-start 1383145786.576 DEBUG lxc_conf - mounted 'none' on '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc//run', type 'tmpfs' lxc-start 1383145786.576 INFO lxc_conf - mount points have been setup lxc-start 1383145786.577 INFO lxc_conf - console has been setup lxc-start 1383145786.577 INFO lxc_conf - 8 tty(s) has been setup lxc-start 1383145786.577 INFO lxc_conf - rootfs path is ./data/srv/lxc/as1., mount is ./usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc. lxc-start 1383145786.577 INFO lxc_apparmor - I am 1, /proc/self points to 1 lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - created '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc/lxc_putold' directory lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - mountpoint for old rootfs is '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc/lxc_putold' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - pivot_root syscall to '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lxc' successful lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/dev/pts' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/run/lock' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/run/shm' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/run/user' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/cpu' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/cpuacct' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/memory' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/devices' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/freezer' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup/systemd' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/fuse/connections' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/kernel/debug' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/kernel/security' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/pstore' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/proc' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/data' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/boot' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/dev' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/run' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys/fs/cgroup' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold/sys' lxc-start 1383145786.577 DEBUG lxc_conf - umounted '/lxc_putold' lxc-start 1383145786.577 INFO lxc_conf - created new pts instance lxc-start 1383145786.578 DEBUG lxc_conf - drop capability 'sys_boot' (22) lxc-start 1383145786.578 DEBUG lxc_conf - capabilities have been setup lxc-start 1383145786.578 NOTICE lxc_conf - 'as1' is setup. lxc-start 1383145786.578 DEBUG lxc_cgroup - cgroup 'memory.limit_in_bytes' set to '20G' lxc-start 1383145786.578 DEBUG lxc_cgroup - cgroup 'cpuset.cpus' set to '12-23' lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_cgroup - cgroup has been setup lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_apparmor - setting up apparmor lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_apparmor - changed apparmor profile to lxc-container-default lxc-start 1383145786.578 NOTICE lxc_start - exec'ing '/sbin/init' lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .15 20 0:14 / /sys rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - sysfs sysfs rw . lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys. lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .16 20 0:3 / /proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - proc proc rw . lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /proc. lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .17 20 0:5 / /dev rw,relatime - devtmpfs udev rw,size=32961632k,nr_inodes=8240408,mode=755 . lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /dev. lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .18 17 0:11 / /dev/pts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime - devpts devpts rw,mode=600,ptmxmode=000 . lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /dev/pts. lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .19 20 0:15 / /run rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime - tmpfs tmpfs rw,size=6594456k,mode=755 . lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /run. lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .20 1 252:0 / / rw,relatime - ext4 /dev/mapper/limitorderbook1-root rw,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered . lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /. lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .22 15 0:16 / /sys/fs/cgroup rw,relatime - tmpfs none rw,size=4k,mode=755 . lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup. lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .23 15 0:17 / /sys/fs/fuse/connections rw,relatime - fusectl none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/fuse/connections. lxc-start 1383145786.578 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .24 15 0:6 / /sys/kernel/debug rw,relatime - debugfs none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/kernel/debug. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .25 15 0:10 / /sys/kernel/security rw,relatime - securityfs none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/kernel/security. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .26 19 0:18 / /run/lock rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - tmpfs none rw,size=5120k . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /run/lock. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .27 19 0:19 / /run/shm rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime - tmpfs none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /run/shm. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .28 22 0:20 / /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,cpuset,clone_children . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .29 19 0:21 / /run/user rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - tmpfs none rw,size=102400k,mode=755 . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /run/user. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .30 15 0:22 / /sys/fs/pstore rw,relatime - pstore none rw . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/pstore. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .31 22 0:23 / /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,cpu . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .32 22 0:24 / /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuacct rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,cpuacct . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuacct. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .33 22 0:25 / /sys/fs/cgroup/memory rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,memory . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/memory. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .34 22 0:26 / /sys/fs/cgroup/devices rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,devices . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/devices. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .35 22 0:27 / /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,freezer . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .36 22 0:28 / /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,blkio . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .37 22 0:29 / /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,perf_event . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .38 22 0:30 / /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb rw,relatime - cgroup cgroup rw,hugetlb . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .39 20 9:2 / /data rw,relatime - ext4 /dev/md2 rw,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /data. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .40 20 8:1 / /boot rw,relatime - ext2 /dev/sda1 rw,errors=continue . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /boot. lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - looking at .41 22 0:31 / /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime - cgroup systemd rw,name=systemd . lxc-start 1383145786.579 INFO lxc_conf - now p is . /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd. lxc-start 1383145786.579 NOTICE lxc_start - '/sbin/init' started with pid '6249' lxc-start 1383145786.579 WARN lxc_start - invalid pid for SIGCHLD <4>init: ureadahead main process (7) terminated with status 5 <4>init: console-font main process (94) terminated with status 1 And it will just sit there like that for hours at least. The container becomes pingable but I can't ssh and if I try lxc-console -n as1 I get a blank screen. If I do lxc-stop -n as1 or ^C in the window where it has hung I get: ^CTERM environment variable not set. <4>init: plymouth-upstart-bridge main process (192) terminated with status 1 <4>init: hwclock-save main process (187) terminated with status 70 * Asking all remaining processes to terminate... ...done. * All processes ended within 1 seconds... ...done. * Deactivating swap... ...fail! mount: cannot mount block device /dev/md2 read-only * Will now restart But after 20 minutes it hasn't restarted. Any ideas why these containers are hanging?

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• Ancillary Objects: Separate Debug ELF Files For Solaris

  - by Ali Bahrami

  We introduced a new object ELF object type in Solaris 11 Update 1 called the Ancillary Object. This posting describes them, using material originally written during their development, the PSARC arc case, and the Solaris Linker and Libraries Manual. ELF objects contain allocable sections, which are mapped into memory at runtime, and non-allocable sections, which are present in the file for use by debuggers and observability tools, but which are not mapped or used at runtime. Typically, all of these sections exist within a single object file. Ancillary objects allow them to instead go into a separate file. There are different reasons given for wanting such a feature. One can debate whether the added complexity is worth the benefit, and in most cases it is not. However, one important case stands out — customers with very large 32-bit objects who are not ready or able to make the transition to 64-bits. We have customers who build extremely large 32-bit objects. Historically, the debug sections in these objects have used the stabs format, which is limited, but relatively compact. In recent years, the industry has transitioned to the powerful but verbose DWARF standard. In some cases, the size of these debug sections is large enough to push the total object file size past the fundamental 4GB limit for 32-bit ELF object files. The best, and ultimately only, solution to overly large objects is to transition to 64-bits. However, consider environments where: Hundreds of users may be executing the code on large shared systems. (32-bits use less memory and bus bandwidth, and on sparc runs just as fast as 64-bit code otherwise). Complex finely tuned code, where the original authors may no longer be available. Critical production code, that was expensive to qualify and bring online, and which is otherwise serving its intended purpose without issue. Users in these risk adverse and/or high scale categories have good reasons to push 32-bits objects to the limit before moving on. Ancillary objects offer these users a longer runway. Design The design of ancillary objects is intended to be simple, both to help human understanding when examining elfdump output, and to lower the bar for debuggers such as dbx to support them. The primary and ancillary objects have the same set of section headers, with the same names, in the same order (i.e. each section has the same index in both files). A single added section of type SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY is added to both objects, containing information that allows a debugger to identify and validate both files relative to each other. Given one of these files, the ancillary section allows you to identify the other. Allocable sections go in the primary object, and non-allocable ones go into the ancillary object. A small set of non-allocable objects, notably the symbol table, are copied into both objects. As noted above, most sections are only written to one of the two objects, but both objects have the same section header array. The section header in the file that does not contain the section data is tagged with the SHF_SUNW_ABSENT section header flag to indicate its placeholder status. Compiler writers and others who produce objects can set the SUNW_SHF_PRIMARY section header flag to mark non-allocable sections that should go to the primary object rather than the ancillary. If you don't request an ancillary object, the Solaris ELF format is unchanged. Users who don't use ancillary objects do not pay for the feature. This is important, because they exist to serve a small subset of our users, and must not complicate the common case. If you do request an ancillary object, the runtime behavior of the primary object will be the same as that of a normal object. There is no added runtime cost. The primary and ancillary object together represent a logical single object. This is facilitated by the use of a single set of section headers. One can easily imagine a tool that can merge a primary and ancillary object into a single file, or the reverse. (Note that although this is an interesting intellectual exercise, we don't actually supply such a tool because there's little practical benefit above and beyond using ld to create the files). Among the benefits of this approach are: There is no need for per-file symbol tables to reflect the contents of each file. The same symbol table that would be produced for a standard object can be used. The section contents are identical in either case — there is no need to alter data to accommodate multiple files. It is very easy for a debugger to adapt to these new files, and the processing involved can be encapsulated in input/output routines. Most of the existing debugger implementation applies without modification. The limit of a 4GB 32-bit output object is now raised to 4GB of code, and 4GB of debug data. There is also the future possibility (not currently supported) to support multiple ancillary objects, each of which could contain up to 4GB of additional debug data. It must be noted however that the 32-bit DWARF debug format is itself inherently 32-bit limited, as it uses 32-bit offsets between debug sections, so the ability to employ multiple ancillary object files may not turn out to be useful. Using Ancillary Objects (From the Solaris Linker and Libraries Guide) By default, objects contain both allocable and non-allocable sections. Allocable sections are the sections that contain executable code and the data needed by that code at runtime. Non-allocable sections contain supplemental information that is not required to execute an object at runtime. These sections support the operation of debuggers and other observability tools. The non-allocable sections in an object are not loaded into memory at runtime by the operating system, and so, they have no impact on memory use or other aspects of runtime performance no matter their size. For convenience, both allocable and non-allocable sections are normally maintained in the same file. However, there are situations in which it can be useful to separate these sections. To reduce the size of objects in order to improve the speed at which they can be copied across wide area networks. To support fine grained debugging of highly optimized code requires considerable debug data. In modern systems, the debugging data can easily be larger than the code it describes. The size of a 32-bit object is limited to 4 Gbytes. In very large 32-bit objects, the debug data can cause this limit to be exceeded and prevent the creation of the object. To limit the exposure of internal implementation details. Traditionally, objects have been stripped of non-allocable sections in order to address these issues. Stripping is effective, but destroys data that might be needed later. The Solaris link-editor can instead write non-allocable sections to an ancillary object. This feature is enabled with the -z ancillary command line option. $ ld ... -z ancillary[=outfile] ...By default, the ancillary file is given the same name as the primary output object, with a .anc file extension. However, a different name can be provided by providing an outfile value to the -z ancillary option. When -z ancillary is specified, the link-editor performs the following actions. All allocable sections are written to the primary object. In addition, all non-allocable sections containing one or more input sections that have the SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY section header flag set are written to the primary object. All remaining non-allocable sections are written to the ancillary object. The following non-allocable sections are written to both the primary object and ancillary object. .shstrtab The section name string table. .symtab The full non-dynamic symbol table. .symtab_shndx The symbol table extended index section associated with .symtab. .strtab The non-dynamic string table associated with .symtab. .SUNW_ancillary Contains the information required to identify the primary and ancillary objects, and to identify the object being examined. The primary object and all ancillary objects contain the same array of sections headers. Each section has the same section index in every file. Although the primary and ancillary objects all define the same section headers, the data for most sections will be written to a single file as described above. If the data for a section is not present in a given file, the SHF_SUNW_ABSENT section header flag is set, and the sh_size field is 0. This organization makes it possible to acquire a full list of section headers, a complete symbol table, and a complete list of the primary and ancillary objects from either of the primary or ancillary objects. The following example illustrates the underlying implementation of ancillary objects. An ancillary object is created by adding the -z ancillary command line option to an otherwise normal compilation. The file utility shows that the result is an executable named a.out, and an associated ancillary object named a.out.anc. $ cat hello.c #include <stdio.h> int main(int argc, char **argv) { (void) printf("hello, world\n"); return (0); } $ cc -g -zancillary hello.c $ file a.out a.out.anc a.out: ELF 32-bit LSB executable 80386 Version 1 [FPU], dynamically linked, not stripped, ancillary object a.out.anc a.out.anc: ELF 32-bit LSB ancillary 80386 Version 1, primary object a.out $ ./a.out hello worldThe resulting primary object is an ordinary executable that can be executed in the usual manner. It is no different at runtime than an executable built without the use of ancillary objects, and then stripped of non-allocable content using the strip or mcs commands. As previously described, the primary object and ancillary objects contain the same section headers. To see how this works, it is helpful to use the elfdump utility to display these section headers and compare them. The following table shows the section header information for a selection of headers from the previous link-edit example. Index Section Name Type Primary Flags Ancillary Flags Primary Size Ancillary Size 13 .text PROGBITS ALLOC EXECINSTR ALLOC EXECINSTR SUNW_ABSENT 0x131 0 20 .data PROGBITS WRITE ALLOC WRITE ALLOC SUNW_ABSENT 0x4c 0 21 .symtab SYMTAB 0 0 0x450 0x450 22 .strtab STRTAB STRINGS STRINGS 0x1ad 0x1ad 24 .debug_info PROGBITS SUNW_ABSENT 0 0 0x1a7 28 .shstrtab STRTAB STRINGS STRINGS 0x118 0x118 29 .SUNW_ancillary SUNW_ancillary 0 0 0x30 0x30 The data for most sections is only present in one of the two files, and absent from the other file. The SHF_SUNW_ABSENT section header flag is set when the data is absent. The data for allocable sections needed at runtime are found in the primary object. The data for non-allocable sections used for debugging but not needed at runtime are placed in the ancillary file. A small set of non-allocable sections are fully present in both files. These are the .SUNW_ancillary section used to relate the primary and ancillary objects together, the section name string table .shstrtab, as well as the symbol table.symtab, and its associated string table .strtab. It is possible to strip the symbol table from the primary object. A debugger that encounters an object without a symbol table can use the .SUNW_ancillary section to locate the ancillary object, and access the symbol contained within. The primary object, and all associated ancillary objects, contain a .SUNW_ancillary section that allows all the objects to be identified and related together. $ elfdump -T SUNW_ancillary a.out a.out.anc a.out: Ancillary Section: .SUNW_ancillary index tag value [0] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0x8724 [1] ANC_SUNW_MEMBER 0x1 a.out [2] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0x8724 [3] ANC_SUNW_MEMBER 0x1a3 a.out.anc [4] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0xfbe2 [5] ANC_SUNW_NULL 0 a.out.anc: Ancillary Section: .SUNW_ancillary index tag value [0] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0xfbe2 [1] ANC_SUNW_MEMBER 0x1 a.out [2] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0x8724 [3] ANC_SUNW_MEMBER 0x1a3 a.out.anc [4] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0xfbe2 [5] ANC_SUNW_NULL 0 The ancillary sections for both objects contain the same number of elements, and are identical except for the first element. Each object, starting with the primary object, is introduced with a MEMBER element that gives the file name, followed by a CHECKSUM that identifies the object. In this example, the primary object is a.out, and has a checksum of 0x8724. The ancillary object is a.out.anc, and has a checksum of 0xfbe2. The first element in a .SUNW_ancillary section, preceding the MEMBER element for the primary object, is always a CHECKSUM element, containing the checksum for the file being examined. The presence of a .SUNW_ancillary section in an object indicates that the object has associated ancillary objects. The names of the primary and all associated ancillary objects can be obtained from the ancillary section from any one of the files. It is possible to determine which file is being examined from the larger set of files by comparing the first checksum value to the checksum of each member that follows. Debugger Access and Use of Ancillary Objects Debuggers and other observability tools must merge the information found in the primary and ancillary object files in order to build a complete view of the object. This is equivalent to processing the information from a single file. This merging is simplified by the primary object and ancillary objects containing the same section headers, and a single symbol table. The following steps can be used by a debugger to assemble the information contained in these files. Starting with the primary object, or any of the ancillary objects, locate the .SUNW_ancillary section. The presence of this section identifies the object as part of an ancillary group, contains information that can be used to obtain a complete list of the files and determine which of those files is the one currently being examined. Create a section header array in memory, using the section header array from the object being examined as an initial template. Open and read each file identified by the .SUNW_ancillary section in turn. For each file, fill in the in-memory section header array with the information for each section that does not have the SHF_SUNW_ABSENT flag set. The result will be a complete in-memory copy of the section headers with pointers to the data for all sections. Once this information has been acquired, the debugger can proceed as it would in the single file case, to access and control the running program. Note - The ELF definition of ancillary objects provides for a single primary object, and an arbitrary number of ancillary objects. At this time, the Oracle Solaris link-editor only produces a single ancillary object containing all non-allocable sections. This may change in the future. Debuggers and other observability tools should be written to handle the general case of multiple ancillary objects. ELF Implementation Details (From the Solaris Linker and Libraries Guide) To implement ancillary objects, it was necessary to extend the ELF format to add a new object type (ET_SUNW_ANCILLARY), a new section type (SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY), and 2 new section header flags (SHF_SUNW_ABSENT, SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY). In this section, I will detail these changes, in the form of diffs to the Solaris Linker and Libraries manual. Part IV ELF Application Binary Interface Chapter 13: Object File Format Object File Format Edit Note: This existing section at the beginning of the chapter describes the ELF header. There's a table of object file types, which now includes the new ET_SUNW_ANCILLARY type. e_type Identifies the object file type, as listed in the following table. NameValueMeaning ET_NONE0No file type ET_REL1Relocatable file ET_EXEC2Executable file ET_DYN3Shared object file ET_CORE4Core file ET_LOSUNW0xfefeStart operating system specific range ET_SUNW_ANCILLARY0xfefeAncillary object file ET_HISUNW0xfefdEnd operating system specific range ET_LOPROC0xff00Start processor-specific range ET_HIPROC0xffffEnd processor-specific range Sections Edit Note: This overview section defines the section header structure, and provides a high level description of known sections. It was updated to define the new SHF_SUNW_ABSENT and SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY flags and the new SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY section. ... sh_type Categorizes the section's contents and semantics. Section types and their descriptions are listed in Table 13-5. sh_flags Sections support 1-bit flags that describe miscellaneous attributes. Flag definitions are listed in Table 13-8. ... Table 13-5 ELF Section Types, sh_type NameValue . . . SHT_LOSUNW0x6fffffee SHT_SUNW_ancillary0x6fffffee . . . ... SHT_LOSUNW - SHT_HISUNW Values in this inclusive range are reserved for Oracle Solaris OS semantics. SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY Present when a given object is part of a group of ancillary objects. Contains information required to identify all the files that make up the group. See Ancillary Section. ... Table 13-8 ELF Section Attribute Flags NameValue . . . SHF_MASKOS0x0ff00000 SHF_SUNW_NODISCARD0x00100000 SHF_SUNW_ABSENT0x00200000 SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY0x00400000 SHF_MASKPROC0xf0000000 . . . ... SHF_SUNW_ABSENT Indicates that the data for this section is not present in this file. When ancillary objects are created, the primary object and any ancillary objects, will all have the same section header array, to facilitate merging them to form a complete view of the object, and to allow them to use the same symbol tables. Each file contains a subset of the section data. The data for allocable sections is written to the primary object while the data for non-allocable sections is written to an ancillary file. The SHF_SUNW_ABSENT flag is used to indicate that the data for the section is not present in the object being examined. When the SHF_SUNW_ABSENT flag is set, the sh_size field of the section header must be 0. An application encountering an SHF_SUNW_ABSENT section can choose to ignore the section, or to search for the section data within one of the related ancillary files. SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY The default behavior when ancillary objects are created is to write all allocable sections to the primary object and all non-allocable sections to the ancillary objects. The SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY flag overrides this behavior. Any output section containing one more input section with the SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY flag set is written to the primary object without regard for its allocable status. ... Two members in the section header, sh_link, and sh_info, hold special information, depending on section type. Table 13-9 ELF sh_link and sh_info Interpretation sh_typesh_linksh_info . . . SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY The section header index of the associated string table. 0 . . . Special Sections Edit Note: This section describes the sections used in Solaris ELF objects, using the types defined in the previous description of section types. It was updated to define the new .SUNW_ancillary (SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY) section. Various sections hold program and control information. Sections in the following table are used by the system and have the indicated types and attributes. Table 13-10 ELF Special Sections NameTypeAttribute . . . .SUNW_ancillarySHT_SUNW_ancillaryNone . . . ... .SUNW_ancillary Present when a given object is part of a group of ancillary objects. Contains information required to identify all the files that make up the group. See Ancillary Section for details. ... Ancillary Section Edit Note: This new section provides the format reference describing the layout of a .SUNW_ancillary section and the meaning of the various tags. Note that these sections use the same tag/value concept used for dynamic and capabilities sections, and will be familiar to anyone used to working with ELF. In addition to the primary output object, the Solaris link-editor can produce one or more ancillary objects. Ancillary objects contain non-allocable sections that would normally be written to the primary object. When ancillary objects are produced, the primary object and all of the associated ancillary objects contain a SHT_SUNW_ancillary section, containing information that identifies these related objects. Given any one object from such a group, the ancillary section provides the information needed to identify and interpret the others. This section contains an array of the following structures. See sys/elf.h. typedef struct { Elf32_Word a_tag; union { Elf32_Word a_val; Elf32_Addr a_ptr; } a_un; } Elf32_Ancillary; typedef struct { Elf64_Xword a_tag; union { Elf64_Xword a_val; Elf64_Addr a_ptr; } a_un; } Elf64_Ancillary; For each object with this type, a_tag controls the interpretation of a_un. a_val These objects represent integer values with various interpretations. a_ptr These objects represent file offsets or addresses. The following ancillary tags exist. Table 13-NEW1 ELF Ancillary Array Tags NameValuea_un ANC_SUNW_NULL0Ignored ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM1a_val ANC_SUNW_MEMBER2a_ptr ANC_SUNW_NULL Marks the end of the ancillary section. ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM Provides the checksum for a file in the c_val element. When ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM precedes the first instance of ANC_SUNW_MEMBER, it provides the checksum for the object from which the ancillary section is being read. When it follows an ANC_SUNW_MEMBER tag, it provides the checksum for that member. ANC_SUNW_MEMBER Specifies an object name. The a_ptr element contains the string table offset of a null-terminated string, that provides the file name. An ancillary section must always contain an ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM before the first instance of ANC_SUNW_MEMBER, identifying the current object. Following that, there should be an ANC_SUNW_MEMBER for each object that makes up the complete set of objects. Each ANC_SUNW_MEMBER should be followed by an ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM for that object. A typical ancillary section will therefore be structured as: TagMeaning ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUMChecksum of this object ANC_SUNW_MEMBERName of object #1 ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUMChecksum for object #1 . . . ANC_SUNW_MEMBERName of object N ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUMChecksum for object N ANC_SUNW_NULL An object can therefore identify itself by comparing the initial ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM to each of the ones that follow, until it finds a match. Related Other Work The GNU developers have also encountered the need/desire to support separate debug information files, and use the solution detailed at http://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/Separate-Debug-Files.html. At the current time, the separate debug file is constructed by building the standard object first, and then copying the debug data out of it in a separate post processing step, Hence, it is limited to a total of 4GB of code and debug data, just as a single object file would be. They are aware of this, and I have seen online comments indicating that they may add direct support for generating these separate files to their link-editor. It is worth noting that the GNU objcopy utility is available on Solaris, and that the Studio dbx debugger is able to use these GNU style separate debug files even on Solaris. Although this is interesting in terms giving Linux users a familiar environment on Solaris, the 4GB limit means it is not an answer to the problem of very large 32-bit objects. We have also encountered issues with objcopy not understanding Solaris-specific ELF sections, when using this approach. The GNU community also has a current effort to adapt their DWARF debug sections in order to move them to separate files before passing the relocatable objects to the linker. The details of Project Fission can be found at http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission. The goal of this project appears to be to reduce the amount of data seen by the link-editor. The primary effort revolves around moving DWARF data to separate .dwo files so that the link-editor never encounters them. The details of modifying the DWARF data to be usable in this form are involved — please see the above URL for details.

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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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• Developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part 2

  - by shiju

  In my previous post Developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part 1, we have discussed on how to work with ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First for developing web apps. We have created generic repository and unit of work with EF Code First for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application and did basic CRUD operations against a simple domain entity. In this post, I will demonstrate on working with domain entity with deep object graph, Service Layer and View Models and will also complete the rest of the demo application. In the previous post, we have done CRUD operations against Category entity and this post will be focus on Expense entity those have an association with Category entity. You can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com . The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial.    1. ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM    2. EF Code First CTP 5    3. Unity 2.0 Domain Model Category Entity 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 Entity 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. Repository class for Expense Transaction Let’s create repository class for handling CRUD operations for Expense entity public class ExpenseRepository : RepositoryBase<Expense>, IExpenseRepository     {     public ExpenseRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface IExpenseRepository : IRepository<Expense> { } Service Layer If you are new to Service Layer, checkout Martin Fowler's article Service Layer . According to Martin Fowler, Service Layer defines an application's boundary and its set of available operations from the perspective of interfacing client layers. It encapsulates the application's business logic, controlling transactions and coordinating responses in the implementation of its operations. Controller classes should be lightweight and do not put much of business logic onto it. We can use the service layer as the business logic layer and can encapsulate the rules of the application. Let’s create a Service class for coordinates the transaction for Expense public interface IExpenseService {     IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenses(DateTime startDate, DateTime ednDate);     Expense GetExpense(int id);             void CreateExpense(Expense expense);     void DeleteExpense(int id);     void SaveExpense(); } public class ExpenseService : IExpenseService {     private readonly IExpenseRepository expenseRepository;            private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;     public ExpenseService(IExpenseRepository expenseRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {                  this.expenseRepository = expenseRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }     public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenses(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate)     {         var expenses = expenseRepository.GetMany(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate);         return expenses;     }     public void CreateExpense(Expense expense)     {         expenseRepository.Add(expense);         unitOfWork.Commit();     }     public Expense GetExpense(int id)     {         var expense = expenseRepository.GetById(id);         return expense;     }     public void DeleteExpense(int id)     {         var expense = expenseRepository.GetById(id);         expenseRepository.Delete(expense);         unitOfWork.Commit();     }     public void SaveExpense()     {         unitOfWork.Commit();     } }   View Model for Expense Transactions In real world ASP.NET MVC applications, we need to design model objects especially for our views. Our domain objects are mainly designed for the needs for domain model and it is representing the domain of our applications. On the other hand, View Model objects are designed for our needs for views. We have an Expense domain entity that has an association with Category. While we are creating a new Expense, we have to specify that in which Category belongs with the new Expense transaction. The user interface for Expense transaction will have form fields for representing the Expense entity and a CategoryId for representing the Category. So let's create view model for representing the need for Expense transactions. public class ExpenseViewModel {     public int ExpenseId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Category Required")]     public int CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Transaction Required")]     public string Transaction { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Date Required")]     public DateTime Date { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Amount Required")]     public double Amount { get; set; }       public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Category { get; set; } } The ExpenseViewModel is designed for the purpose of View template and contains the all validation rules. It has properties for mapping values to Expense entity and a property Category for binding values to a drop-down for list values of Category. Create Expense transaction Let’s create action methods in the ExpenseController for creating expense transactions public ActionResult Create() {     var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();     var categories = categoryService.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(-1);     expenseModel.Date = DateTime.Today;     return View(expenseModel); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(ExpenseViewModel expenseViewModel) {                      if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             var categories = categoryService.GetCategories();             expenseViewModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expenseViewModel.CategoryId);             return View("Save", expenseViewModel);         }         Expense expense=new Expense();         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expenseViewModel,expense);         expenseService.CreateExpense(expense);         return RedirectToAction("Index");              } In the Create action method for HttpGet request, we have created an instance of our View Model ExpenseViewModel with Category information for the drop-down list and passing the Model object to View template. The extension method ToSelectListItems is shown below   public static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ToSelectListItems(         this IEnumerable<Category> categories, int  selectedId) {     return           categories.OrderBy(category => category.Name)                 .Select(category =>                     new SelectListItem                     {                         Selected = (category.CategoryId == selectedId),                         Text = category.Name,                         Value = category.CategoryId.ToString()                     }); } In the Create action method for HttpPost, our view model object ExpenseViewModel will map with posted form input values. We need to create an instance of Expense for the persistence purpose. So we need to copy values from ExpenseViewModel object to Expense object. ASP.NET MVC futures assembly provides a static class ModelCopier that can use for copying values between Model objects. ModelCopier class has two static methods - CopyCollection and CopyModel.CopyCollection method will copy values between two collection objects and CopyModel will copy values between two model objects. We have used CopyModel method of ModelCopier class for copying values from expenseViewModel object to expense object. Finally we did a call to CreateExpense method of ExpenseService class for persisting new expense transaction. List Expense Transactions We want to list expense transactions based on a date range. So let’s create action method for filtering expense transactions with a specified date range. public ActionResult Index(DateTime? startDate, DateTime? endDate) {     //If date is not passed, take current month's first and last dte     DateTime dtNow;     dtNow = DateTime.Today;     if (!startDate.HasValue)     {         startDate = new DateTime(dtNow.Year, dtNow.Month, 1);         endDate = startDate.Value.AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     //take last date of start date's month, if end date is not passed     if (startDate.HasValue && !endDate.HasValue)     {         endDate = (new DateTime(startDate.Value.Year, startDate.Value.Month, 1)).AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     var expenses = expenseService.GetExpenses(startDate.Value ,endDate.Value);     //if request is Ajax will return partial view     if (Request.IsAjaxRequest())     {         return PartialView("ExpenseList", expenses);     }     //set start date and end date to ViewBag dictionary     ViewBag.StartDate = startDate.Value.ToShortDateString();     ViewBag.EndDate = endDate.Value.ToShortDateString();     //if request is not ajax     return View(expenses); } We are using the above Index Action method for both Ajax requests and normal requests. If there is a request for Ajax, we will call the PartialView ExpenseList. Razor Views for listing Expense information Let’s create view templates in Razor for showing list of Expense information ExpenseList.cshtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Expense>   <table>         <tr>             <th>Actions</th>             <th>Category</th>             <th>                 Transaction             </th>             <th>                 Date             </th>             <th>                 Amount             </th>         </tr>       @foreach (var item in Model) {              <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.ExpenseId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.ExpenseId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divExpenseList" })             </td>              <td>                 @item.Category.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Transaction             </td>             <td>                 @String.Format("{0:d}", item.Date)             </td>             <td>                 @String.Format("{0:F}", item.Amount)             </td>         </tr>          }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New Expense", "Create") |         @Html.ActionLink("Create New Category", "Create","Category")     </p> Index.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Expense> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Expense List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-ui.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.ui.datepicker.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <link href="@Url.Content("~/Content/jquery-ui-1.8.6.custom.css")" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />      @using (Ajax.BeginForm(new AjaxOptions{ UpdateTargetId="divExpenseList", HttpMethod="Get"})) {     <table>         <tr>         <td>         <div>           Start Date: @Html.TextBox("StartDate", Html.Encode(String.Format("{0:mm/dd/yyyy}", ViewData["StartDate"].ToString())), new { @class = "ui-datepicker" })         </div>         </td>         <td><div>            End Date: @Html.TextBox("EndDate", Html.Encode(String.Format("{0:mm/dd/yyyy}", ViewData["EndDate"].ToString())), new { @class = "ui-datepicker" })          </div></td>          <td> <input type="submit" value="Search By TransactionDate" /></td>         </tr>     </table>         }   <div id="divExpenseList">             @Html.Partial("ExpenseList", Model)     </div> <script type="text/javascript">     $().ready(function () {         $('.ui-datepicker').datepicker({             dateFormat: 'mm/dd/yy',             buttonImage: '@Url.Content("~/Content/calendar.gif")',             buttonImageOnly: true,             showOn: "button"         });     }); </script> Ajax search functionality using Ajax.BeginForm The search functionality of Index view is providing Ajax functionality using Ajax.BeginForm. The Ajax.BeginForm() method writes an opening <form> tag to the response. You can use this method in a using block. In that case, the method renders the closing </form> tag at the end of the using block and the form is submitted asynchronously by using JavaScript. The search functionality will call the Index Action method and this will return partial view ExpenseList for updating the search result. We want to update the response UI for the Ajax request onto divExpenseList element. So we have specified the UpdateTargetId as "divExpenseList" in the Ajax.BeginForm method. Add jQuery DatePicker Our search functionality is using a date range so we are providing two date pickers using jQuery datepicker. You need to add reference to the following JavaScript files to working with jQuery datepicker. jquery-ui.js jquery.ui.datepicker.js For theme support for datepicker, we can use a customized CSS class. In our example we have used a CSS file “jquery-ui-1.8.6.custom.css”. For more details about the datepicker component, visit jquery UI website at http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker . In the jQuery ready event, we have used following JavaScript function to initialize the UI element to show date picker. <script type="text/javascript">     $().ready(function () {         $('.ui-datepicker').datepicker({             dateFormat: 'mm/dd/yy',             buttonImage: '@Url.Content("~/Content/calendar.gif")',             buttonImageOnly: true,             showOn: "button"         });     }); </script>   Source Code You can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com/ . Summary In this two-part series, we have created a simple web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM, Razor and EF Code First CTP 5. I have demonstrated patterns and practices  such as Dependency Injection, Repository pattern, Unit of Work, ViewModel and Service Layer. My primary objective was to demonstrate different practices and options for developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First. You can implement these approaches in your own way for building web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3. I will refactor this demo app on later time.

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• Beware Sneaky Reads with Unique Indexes

  - by Paul White NZ

  A few days ago, Sandra Mueller (twitter | blog) asked a question using twitter’s #sqlhelp hash tag: “Might SQL Server retrieve (out-of-row) LOB data from a table, even if the column isn’t referenced in the query?” Leaving aside trivial cases (like selecting a computed column that does reference the LOB data), one might be tempted to say that no, SQL Server does not read data you haven’t asked for.  In general, that’s quite correct; however there are cases where SQL Server might sneakily retrieve a LOB column… Example Table Here’s a T-SQL script to create that table and populate it with 1,000 rows: CREATE TABLE dbo.LOBtest ( pk INTEGER IDENTITY NOT NULL, some_value INTEGER NULL, lob_data VARCHAR(MAX) NULL, another_column CHAR(5) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.LOBtest pk] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (pk ASC) ); GO DECLARE @Data VARCHAR(MAX); SET @Data = REPLICATE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), 'x'), 65540);   WITH Numbers (n) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2 ) INSERT LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) ( some_value, lob_data ) SELECT TOP (1000) N.n, @Data FROM Numbers N WHERE N.n <= 1000; Test 1: A Simple Update Let’s run a query to subtract one from every value in the some_value column: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; As you might expect, modifying this integer column in 1,000 rows doesn’t take very long, or use many resources.  The STATITICS IO and TIME output shows a total of 9 logical reads, and 25ms elapsed time.  The query plan is also very simple: Looking at the Clustered Index Scan, we can see that SQL Server only retrieves the pk and some_value columns during the scan: The pk column is needed by the Clustered Index Update operator to uniquely identify the row that is being changed.  The some_value column is used by the Compute Scalar to calculate the new value.  (In case you are wondering what the Top operator is for, it is used to enforce SET ROWCOUNT). Test 2: Simple Update with an Index Now let’s create a nonclustered index keyed on the some_value column, with lob_data as an included column: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest (some_value) INCLUDE ( lob_data ) WITH ( FILLFACTOR = 100, MAXDOP = 1, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON ); This is not a useful index for our simple update query; imagine that someone else created it for a different purpose.  Let’s run our update query again: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; We find that it now requires 4,014 logical reads and the elapsed query time has increased to around 100ms.  The extra logical reads (4 per row) are an expected consequence of maintaining the nonclustered index. The query plan is very similar to before (click to enlarge): The Clustered Index Update operator picks up the extra work of maintaining the nonclustered index. The new Compute Scalar operators detect whether the value in the some_value column has actually been changed by the update.  SQL Server may be able to skip maintaining the nonclustered index if the value hasn’t changed (see my previous post on non-updating updates for details).  Our simple query does change the value of some_data in every row, so this optimization doesn’t add any value in this specific case. The output list of columns from the Clustered Index Scan hasn’t changed from the one shown previously: SQL Server still just reads the pk and some_data columns.  Cool. Overall then, adding the nonclustered index hasn’t had any startling effects, and the LOB column data still isn’t being read from the table.  Let’s see what happens if we make the nonclustered index unique. Test 3: Simple Update with a Unique Index Here’s the script to create a new unique index, and drop the old one: CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [UQ dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest (some_value) INCLUDE ( lob_data ) WITH ( FILLFACTOR = 100, MAXDOP = 1, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON ); GO DROP INDEX [IX dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest; Remember that SQL Server only enforces uniqueness on index keys (the some_data column).  The lob_data column is simply stored at the leaf-level of the non-clustered index.  With that in mind, we might expect this change to make very little difference.  Let’s see: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; Whoa!  Now look at the elapsed time and logical reads: Scan count 1, logical reads 2016, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 36015, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 15992.   CPU time = 172 ms, elapsed time = 16172 ms. Even with all the data and index pages in memory, the query took over 16 seconds to update just 1,000 rows, performing over 52,000 LOB logical reads (nearly 16,000 of those using read-ahead). Why on earth is SQL Server reading LOB data in a query that only updates a single integer column? The Query Plan The query plan for test 3 looks a bit more complex than before: In fact, the bottom level is exactly the same as we saw with the non-unique index.  The top level has heaps of new stuff though, which I’ll come to in a moment. You might be expecting to find that the Clustered Index Scan is now reading the lob_data column (for some reason).  After all, we need to explain where all the LOB logical reads are coming from.  Sadly, when we look at the properties of the Clustered Index Scan, we see exactly the same as before: SQL Server is still only reading the pk and some_value columns – so what’s doing the LOB reads? Updates that Sneakily Read Data We have to go as far as the Clustered Index Update operator before we see LOB data in the output list: [Expr1020] is a bit flag added by an earlier Compute Scalar.  It is set true if the some_value column has not been changed (part of the non-updating updates optimization I mentioned earlier). The Clustered Index Update operator adds two new columns: the lob_data column, and some_value_OLD.  The some_value_OLD column, as the name suggests, is the pre-update value of the some_value column.  At this point, the clustered index has already been updated with the new value, but we haven’t touched the nonclustered index yet. An interesting observation here is that the Clustered Index Update operator can read a column into the data flow as part of its update operation.  SQL Server could have read the LOB data as part of the initial Clustered Index Scan, but that would mean carrying the data through all the operations that occur prior to the Clustered Index Update.  The server knows it will have to go back to the clustered index row to update it, so it delays reading the LOB data until then.  Sneaky! Why the LOB Data Is Needed This is all very interesting (I hope), but why is SQL Server reading the LOB data?  For that matter, why does it need to pass the pre-update value of the some_value column out of the Clustered Index Update? The answer relates to the top row of the query plan for test 3.  I’ll reproduce it here for convenience: Notice that this is a wide (per-index) update plan.  SQL Server used a narrow (per-row) update plan in test 2, where the Clustered Index Update took care of maintaining the nonclustered index too.  I’ll talk more about this difference shortly. The Split/Sort/Collapse combination is an optimization, which aims to make per-index update plans more efficient.  It does this by breaking each update into a delete/insert pair, reordering the operations, removing any redundant operations, and finally applying the net effect of all the changes to the nonclustered index. Imagine we had a unique index which currently holds three rows with the values 1, 2, and 3.  If we run a query that adds 1 to each row value, we would end up with values 2, 3, and 4.  The net effect of all the changes is the same as if we simply deleted the value 1, and added a new value 4. By applying net changes, SQL Server can also avoid false unique-key violations.  If we tried to immediately update the value 1 to a 2, it would conflict with the existing value 2 (which would soon be updated to 3 of course) and the query would fail.  You might argue that SQL Server could avoid the uniqueness violation by starting with the highest value (3) and working down.  That’s fine, but it’s not possible to generalize this logic to work with every possible update query. SQL Server has to use a wide update plan if it sees any risk of false uniqueness violations.  It’s worth noting that the logic SQL Server uses to detect whether these violations are possible has definite limits.  As a result, you will often receive a wide update plan, even when you can see that no violations are possible. Another benefit of this optimization is that it includes a sort on the index key as part of its work.  Processing the index changes in index key order promotes sequential I/O against the nonclustered index. A side-effect of all this is that the net changes might include one or more inserts.  In order to insert a new row in the index, SQL Server obviously needs all the columns – the key column and the included LOB column.  This is the reason SQL Server reads the LOB data as part of the Clustered Index Update. In addition, the some_value_OLD column is required by the Split operator (it turns updates into delete/insert pairs).  In order to generate the correct index key delete operation, it needs the old key value. The irony is that in this case the Split/Sort/Collapse optimization is anything but.  Reading all that LOB data is extremely expensive, so it is sad that the current version of SQL Server has no way to avoid it. Finally, for completeness, I should mention that the Filter operator is there to filter out the non-updating updates. Beating the Set-Based Update with a Cursor One situation where SQL Server can see that false unique-key violations aren’t possible is where it can guarantee that only one row is being updated.  Armed with this knowledge, we can write a cursor (or the WHILE-loop equivalent) that updates one row at a time, and so avoids reading the LOB data: SET NOCOUNT ON; SET STATISTICS XML, IO, TIME OFF;   DECLARE @PK INTEGER, @StartTime DATETIME; SET @StartTime = GETUTCDATE();   DECLARE curUpdate CURSOR LOCAL FORWARD_ONLY KEYSET SCROLL_LOCKS FOR SELECT L.pk FROM LOBtest L ORDER BY L.pk ASC;   OPEN curUpdate;   WHILE (1 = 1) BEGIN FETCH NEXT FROM curUpdate INTO @PK;   IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -1 BREAK; IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -2 CONTINUE;   UPDATE dbo.LOBtest SET some_value = some_value - 1 WHERE CURRENT OF curUpdate; END;   CLOSE curUpdate; DEALLOCATE curUpdate;   SELECT DATEDIFF(MILLISECOND, @StartTime, GETUTCDATE()); That completes the update in 1280 milliseconds (remember test 3 took over 16 seconds!) I used the WHERE CURRENT OF syntax there and a KEYSET cursor, just for the fun of it.  One could just as well use a WHERE clause that specified the primary key value instead. Clustered Indexes A clustered index is the ultimate index with included columns: all non-key columns are included columns in a clustered index.  Let’s re-create the test table and data with an updatable primary key, and without any non-clustered indexes: IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.LOBtest', N'U') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE dbo.LOBtest; GO CREATE TABLE dbo.LOBtest ( pk INTEGER NOT NULL, some_value INTEGER NULL, lob_data VARCHAR(MAX) NULL, another_column CHAR(5) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.LOBtest pk] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (pk ASC) ); GO DECLARE @Data VARCHAR(MAX); SET @Data = REPLICATE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), 'x'), 65540);   WITH Numbers (n) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2 ) INSERT LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) ( pk, some_value, lob_data ) SELECT TOP (1000) N.n, N.n, @Data FROM Numbers N WHERE N.n <= 1000; Now here’s a query to modify the cluster keys: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest SET pk = pk + 1; The query plan is: As you can see, the Split/Sort/Collapse optimization is present, and we also gain an Eager Table Spool, for Halloween protection.  In addition, SQL Server now has no choice but to read the LOB data in the Clustered Index Scan: The performance is not great, as you might expect (even though there is no non-clustered index to maintain): Table 'LOBtest'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2011, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 36015, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 15992.   Table 'Worktable'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2040, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 34000, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 8000.   SQL Server Execution Times: CPU time = 483 ms, elapsed time = 17884 ms. Notice how the LOB data is read twice: once from the Clustered Index Scan, and again from the work table in tempdb used by the Eager Spool. If you try the same test with a non-unique clustered index (rather than a primary key), you’ll get a much more efficient plan that just passes the cluster key (including uniqueifier) around (no LOB data or other non-key columns): A unique non-clustered index (on a heap) works well too: Both those queries complete in a few tens of milliseconds, with no LOB reads, and just a few thousand logical reads.  (In fact the heap is rather more efficient). There are lots more fun combinations to try that I don’t have space for here. Final Thoughts The behaviour shown in this post is not limited to LOB data by any means.  If the conditions are met, any unique index that has included columns can produce similar behaviour – something to bear in mind when adding large INCLUDE columns to achieve covering queries, perhaps. Paul White Email: [email protected] Twitter: @PaulWhiteNZ

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, June 30, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, June 30, 2011Popular ReleasesASP.NET Comet Ajax Library (Reverse Ajax - Server Push): Reverse Ajax Samples v1.53: 16 Comprehensive ASP.NET Ajax / Reverse Ajax / WCF / MVC / Mono samplesReactive Extensions - Extensions (Rxx): Rxx 1.1: What's NewRelated Work Items Please read the latest release notes for details about what's new. About LabsAll "Labs" downloads include the Rxx.dll assembly, so only a single download is required. To start RxxLabs.exe, right-mouse click and select Run as Administrator; otherwise, do not run the Reactive WebClient lab because it will crash the program. RxxLabs.exe requires administrator privileges for the Reactive WebClient lab to register a local HTTP port. To launch the Silverlight labs...CommonLibrary.NET: CommonLibrary.NET - 0.9.7 Final: A collection of very reusable code and components in C# 4.0 ranging from ActiveRecord, Csv, Command Line Parsing, Configuration, Holiday Calendars, Logging, Authentication, and much more. Samples in <root>\src\Lib\CommonLibrary.NET\Samples CommonLibrary.NET 0.9.7Documentation 6738 6503 New 6535 Enhancements 6759 6748 6583 6737datajs - JavaScript Library for data-centric web applications: datajs version 1.0.0: datajs is a cross-browser and UI agnostic JavaScript library that enables data-centric web applications with the following features: OData client that enables CRUD operations including batching and metadata support using both ATOM and JSON payloads. Single store abstraction that provides a common API on top of HTML5 local storage technologies. Data cache component that allows reading data ranges from a collection and storing them locally to reduce the number of network requests. Changes...Coding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.4.4: Fix for http://coding4fun.codeplex.com/workitem/6869 was incomplete. Back button wouldn't return app bar. Corrected now. High impact bugSiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.0.528.279): Added keyboard shortcuts: - Cut (CTRL+X) - Copy (CTRL+C) - Paste (CTRL+V) - Delete (CTRL+D) - Move up (CTRL+UP ARROW) - Move down (CTRL+DOWN ARROW) Added ability to save/load SiteMap from/to a Xml file on disk Bug fix: - Connect to a server through the status bar was throwing error "Object Reference not set to an instance of an object" - Rename TreeNode.Name after changing TreeNode.TextMicrosoft - Domain Oriented N-Layered .NET 4.0 App Sample: V2.01 ALPHA N-Layered SampleApp .NET 4.0 and EF4.1: V2.0.01 - ALPHARequired Software (Microsoft Base Software needed for Development environment) Visual Studio 2010 RTM & .NET 4.0 RTM (Final Versions) Expression Blend 4 SQL Server 2008 R2 Express/Standard/Enterprise Unity Application Block 2.0 - Published May 5th 2010 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2D24F179-E0A6-49D7-89C4-5B67D939F91B&displaylang=en http://unity.codeplex.com/releases/view/31277 PEX & MOLES 0.94.51023.0, 29/Oct/2010 - Visual Studio 2010 Power ...Mosaic Project: Mosaic Alpha build 261: - Fixed crash when pinning applications in x64 OS - Added Hub to video widget. It shows videos from Video library (only .wmv and .avi). Can work slow if there are too much files. - Fixed some issues with scrolling - Fixed bug with html widgets - Fixed bug in Gmail widget - Added html today widget missed in previous release - Now Mosaic saves running widgets if you restarting from optionsEnhSim: EnhSim 2.4.9 BETA: 2.4.9 BETAThis release supports WoW patch 4.2 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Added in some of th....NET Reflector Add-Ins: Reflector V7 Add-Ins: All the add-ins compiled for Reflector V7TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v4.1 [4.0 Bug Fixes]: Version 4.1 ChangelogChanged how users will Open Player files (This change makes it much easier) This allowed me to remove the "Current player file" labels that were present Changed file control icons Added submit bug button Various Bug Fixes Fixed crashes related to clicking on buffs before a character is loaded Fixed crashes related to selecting "No Buff" when choosing a new buff Fixed crashes related to clicking on a "Max" button on the buff tab before a character is loaded Cor...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta8: ??AcDown???????????????，?????????????????????。????????????????????，??Acfun、Bilibili、???、???、?????，???????????、???????。 AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 AcDown???????C#??，?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ??v3.0 Beta8 ?? ??????????????? ???????????????(??????????) ???????...BlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.5: Get DotNetBlogEngine for 3 Months Free! Click Here for More Info 3 Months FREE – BlogEngine.NET Hosting – Click Here! If you want to set up and start using BlogEngine.NET right away, you should download the Web project. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. If you are upgrading from a previous version of BlogEngine.NET, please take a look at the Upgrading to BlogEngine.NET 2.5 instructions. To get started, be sure to check out our installatio...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.2 for IIS 7: This release contains all the functionality available in 62183 plus the following additions: Command Line Support via PowerShell - now it is possible to manage and script PHP installations on IIS by using Windows PowerShell. More information is available at Managing PHP installations with PHP Manager command line. Detection and alert when using local PHP handler - if a web site or a directory has a local copy of PHP handler mapping then the configuration changes made on upper configuration ...MiniTwitter: 1.71: MiniTwitter 1.71 ???? ?? OAuth ???????????? ????????、??????????????????? ???????????????????????SizeOnDisk: 1.0.10.0: Fix: issue 327: size format error when save settings Fix: some UI bindings trouble (sorting, refresh) Fix: user settings file deletion when corrupted Feature: TreeView virtualization (better speed with many folders) Feature: New file type DataGrid column Feature: In KByte view, show size of file < 1024B and > 0 with 3 decimal Feature: New language: Italian Task: Cleanup for speedRawr: Rawr 4.2.0: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...N2 CMS: 2.2: * Web platform installer support available ** Nuget support available What's newDinamico Templates (beta) - an MVC3 & Razor based template pack using the template-first! development paradigm Boilerplate CSS & HTML5 Advanced theming with css comipilation (concrete, dark, roadwork, terracotta) Template-first! development style Content, news, listing, slider, image sizes, search, sitemap, globalization, youtube, google map Display Tokens - replaces text tokens with rendered content (usag...KinectNUI: Jun 25 Alpha Release: Initial public version. No installer needed, just run the EXE.Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.5: Update June 24th Made compatible with the new tiles found in Terraria 1.0.5New Projects{Adjunct} functionality for the .NET framework: A project to provide Ingots for the .NET framework.3Webee.net: 3Webee.net is the First Navigator dedicated to Web.3.0 by P2P. Developped in C# for DotNet-3.5 or Mono.net, compatible with Linux ready. Website.fr : http://3webee.net/ Download Win32 : http://3webee.net/Download/3Webee.net.beta.0.0.Win32.exe AB Donor Choose Planner: The goal of this doantion planner is to allow you to coordinate the completion of one or more Donors Choose projects. The tool gives you a portfolio view of the donations you would like to invest in by targeting your investments in a location/regional focused manner.appperu1: asdasdsaddas: ColinTestingasdfFindClone: Find clone files, find duplicate files, remove duplicate filesfirstcpapp: This is my appForecast Parser: The NOAA hosts forecast data accessible over the web. These libraries download and parse seven day hourly forecast data and encapsulates the data in an easy to use class.Future Apple Osx: Future Apple Osx, Is a free operating system to use. It was built from the ground up with the help of Cosmos. It is free to use and download. So please check it out today.Glimpse: Glimpse is a web debugger and diagnostics tool for ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC. You can find out more at getGlimpse.comiAdm: ?? iToday ??? wince 6 R2 ?????ImagineCup Worldwide Finals Tracker: An open-source Windows Phone application that is used to track the events going on at the ImagineCup Worldwide Finals.John Owl: John OwlLAM - Local Area Messaging: A VB.NET local area chat application. Finds the lan clients and communicates through the lan with old Ms-Winsock Interop.MessyBrain: Organize your tasks in an efficient way. Assign tasks to members of your team. Create workflows for your team. Written in C# and ASP.NET MVC. Why did I start this project? Making mistakes is part of the learning process. They can be painful especially when they are made at work; there’s a cost attached to it. Why not start a project on my own? Mistakes will be less painful (only my ego will be damaged), I learn something new and there isn’t a cost attached to it. I can share the code ...Navigation Light Toolkit: Navigation Light add support for View Navigation in WPF and SilverlightRight Click Calculator: a mini calculator with numpad that opens in a dialogbox. it can combined with a textbox. bir textbox üzerinde sag tus ile açabileceginiz ufak bir hesap makinesi örnegi.Shaaps & Ladders: It's a modern software implementation of the popular classic board game Snakes & Ladders. The Bengali translation of "Snakes" pronounces "Shaaps" and thus the name of the game is such. The game is being developed on top of the Shaaps & Ladders GDK. Source for both are released.SharePoint PowerShell Scripts: Usefull PowerShell scripts written for SharePoint that helps organizations with governance.Smith Web Tools: Smith Web Tools are some useful controls to help to build web application. They are written in pure JavaScript and CSS without introducing any other JavaScript framework. At present, the Smith Calendar, Smith Editor, and Smith Dialog are available.SSAS Query Log Decoder & Analyzer: The Crisp description for the project will be "CUBE FOR CUBE". This is an end-to-end BI solution for analyzing the Query log created by SSAS Server. The Query Log data is loaded into a dimensional model and a cube is built on top of it for analysis of cube usage.takcandmansys: takcandmansysTestHG1: TestHG1TESTProjHG: TESTProjHGTestTFS1: TestTFS1TESTTFSAAA: TESTTFSAAATower: tower showTransit Feed Generator: Library for help the integration with Google Transit. This library generates the zipped file with data for Google Transit Feed, in the GTFS formatVRE Collaborator Search Kit for SharePoint 2010: VRE Collaborator Search Kit for SharePoint 2010VRE Content Archiving Kit for SharePoint 2010: VRE Content Archiving Kit for SharePoint 2010VRE Document Review Workflow Kit for SharePoint 2010: VRE Document Review Workflow Kit for SharePoint 2010 VRE Literature Review Kit for SharePoint 2010: VRE Literature Review Kit for SharePoint 2010 VRE Researcher and Project Templates for SharePoint 2010: VRE Researcher and Project Templates for SharePoint 2010 VRE RSS Feeds Kit for SharePoint 2010: VRE RSS Feeds Kit for SharePoint 2010 VRE User Administration (FBA) Kit for SharePoint 2010: VRE User Administration (FBA) Kit for SharePoint 2010 WebPart Collapser: WebPart Collapser is a lightweight, customizable jQuery plugin for SharePoint 2007 that allows visitors to expand/collapse WebParts. Through the use of cookies, the collapsed state of any webparts will be saved and collapsed each time a user visits a page. WPF Hex Editor: hex editor which is created with WPF with a xaml designed UI.Xoorscript: A proprietary scripting language created by Jared Thomson for the purpose of script defining an easy to use make system. The plans for this project are minimal for now, but if things go well I may expand it. This is low priority for me.

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• SQL Server 08 Express error when connecting to localhost - "Timeout expired". Works with ::1 or 127

  - by Adam A

  EDIT New info: Navigating to localhost:1434 in Chrome gives me an "ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE", while other ports give me an "Oops! This link appears to be broken". So it seems to binding ok there? So here's my setup so far: I've configured Windows Firewall to allow TCP on 1433 and UDP on 1434. I've set up SQL Server to use any IP on Port 1433 (using the SQL Server Configuration Manager). My hosts file contains the default entries ("127.0.0.1 localhost" and "::1 localhost"). I sometimes have a debug session of Visual Web Developer running a webserver, but it's on a specific port (localhost:5XXXX). What I've tried: I CAN ping localhost in a cmd prompt. I CAN connect to the database through SSMS if I specify 127.0.0.1 or ::1 as the server name. I CAN'T connect to the database through SSMS (or ADO.NET) if I specify localhost as the server name. I've tried both Windows and SQL Authentication The error I get is the standard Can't connect to localhost. Additional Information -- Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding. (Microsoft Sql Server) Other considerations: Stopping the Visual Web Developer web server from the taskbar doesn't affect the sql problem. The SQL error log says that it's listening on some piped name url at start up (I don't see how this would affect localhost but not 127.0.0.1 though). I could probably just use 127.0.0.1 everywhere, but it scares me that localhost isn't working and I'd like to figure out why. I'm not much of a networking or sql server guy so I'm stuck. If you want me to try anything to help diagnose just put it in a comment and I'll give it a go. Netstat results: Setting SDK environment relative to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1 Targeting Windows Server 2008 x86 DEBUG C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1netstat -ano | findstr 1434 UDP 0.0.0.0:1434 *:* 6868 UDP [::]:1434 *:* 6868 C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1netstat -ano | findstr 1433 TCP 0.0.0.0:1433 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 2268 TCP 127.0.0.1:1433 127.0.0.1:50758 ESTABLISHED 2268 TCP 127.0.0.1:50758 127.0.0.1:1433 ESTABLISHED 5008 TCP [::]:1433 [::]:0 LISTENING 2268 TCP [::1]:1433 [::1]:51202 ESTABLISHED 2268 TCP [::1]:1433 [::1]:51616 ESTABLISHED 2268 TCP [::1]:51202 [::1]:1433 ESTABLISHED 5008 TCP [::1]:51616 [::1]:1433 ESTABLISHED 5008 C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1 SQL Server Log File: In case it helps 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (SP1) - 10.0.2531.0 (Intel X86) Mar 29 2009 10:27:29 Copyright (c) 1988-2008 Microsoft Corporation Express Edition on Windows NT 6.0 (Build 6002: Service Pack 2) 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server (c) 2005 Microsoft Corporation. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server All rights reserved. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server Server process ID is 2268. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server System Manufacturer: 'Dell Inc.', System Model: 'Inspiron 1545'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server Authentication mode is MIXED. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server Logging SQL Server messages in file 'c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server This instance of SQL Server last reported using a process ID of 7396 at 1/30/2010 12:57:38 PM (local) 1/30/2010 5:57:38 PM (UTC). This is an informational message only; no user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server Registry startup parameters: -d c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA\master.mdf -e c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG -l c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA\mastlog.ldf 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server SQL Server is starting at normal priority base (=7). This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server Detected 2 CPUs. This is an informational message; no user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.08 Server Using dynamic lock allocation. Initial allocation of 2500 Lock blocks and 5000 Lock Owner blocks per node. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.17 Server Node configuration: node 0: CPU mask: 0x00000003 Active CPU mask: 0x00000003. This message provides a description of the NUMA configuration for this computer. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.30 spid7s Starting up database 'master'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.41 spid7s Recovery is writing a checkpoint in database 'master' (1). This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.67 spid7s FILESTREAM: effective level = 0, configured level = 0, file system access share name = 'SQLEXPRESS'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.92 spid7s SQL Trace ID 1 was started by login "sa". 2010-01-30 12:58:59.94 spid7s Starting up database 'mssqlsystemresource'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.95 spid7s The resource database build version is 10.00.2531. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.82 spid7s Server name is 'DELL\SQLEXPRESS'. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.83 Server A self-generated certificate was successfully loaded for encryption. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.84 Server Server is listening on [ 'any' 1433]. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.84 Server Server is listening on [ 'any' 1433]. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.84 spid10s Starting up database 'model'. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.85 Server Server local connection provider is ready to accept connection on [ \\.\pipe\SQLLocal\SQLEXPRESS ]. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.86 Server Server local connection provider is ready to accept connection on [ \\.\pipe\MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS\sql\query ]. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.86 Server Dedicated administrator connection support was not started because it is disabled on this edition of SQL Server. If you want to use a dedicated administrator connection, restart SQL Server using the trace flag 7806. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.87 Server The SQL Server Network Interface library could not register the Service Principal Name (SPN) for the SQL Server service. Error: 0x54b, state: 3. Failure to register an SPN may cause integrated authentication to fall back to NTLM instead of Kerberos. This is an informational message. Further action is only required if Kerberos authentication is required by authentication policies. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.87 spid7s Informational: No full-text supported languages found. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.87 Server SQL Server is now ready for client connections. This is an informational message; no user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.91 spid7s Starting up database 'msdb'. 2010-01-30 12:59:01.21 spid10s Clearing tempdb database. 2010-01-30 12:59:02.78 spid10s Starting up database 'tempdb'. 2010-01-30 12:59:03.30 spid13s The Service Broker protocol transport is disabled or not configured. 2010-01-30 12:59:03.30 spid13s The Database Mirroring protocol transport is disabled or not configured. 2010-01-30 12:59:03.31 spid7s Recovery is complete. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:03.31 spid13s Service Broker manager has started.

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