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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for October 7-13, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The Top 10 items shared via the OTN ArchBeat Facebook page for the week of October 7-13, 2012. OOW12: Oracle Business Process Management/Oracle ADF Integration Best Practices | Andrejus Baranovskis The Oracle OpenWorld presentations keep coming! Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis shares the slides from "Oracle Business Process Management/Oracle ADF Integration Best Practices," co-presented with Danilo Schmiedel from Opitz Consulting. Oracle's Analytics, Engineered Systems, and Big Data Strategy | Mark Rittman Part 1 of 3 in Oracle ACE Director Mark Rittman's series on Oracle Exalytics, Oracle R Enterprise and Endeca. Adaptive ADF/WebCenter template for the iPad | Maiko Rocha Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Maiko Rocha responds to a a customer request for information about how to create an adaptive iPad template for their WebCenter Portal application, "a specific template to streamline their workflow on the iPad." Following the Thread in OSB | Antony Reynolds Antony Reynolds recently led an Oracle Service Bus POC in which his team needed to get high throughput from an OSB pipeline. "Imagine our surprise when, on stressing the system, we saw it lock up, with large numbers of blocked threads." He shares the details of the problem and the solution in this extensive technical post. WebCenter Sites Gadget Development Concepts Quickstart | John Brunswick What are Gadgets? "At their most basic level they can be thought of as lightweight portlets that run largely on the client side of an architecture," says John Brunswick. "Gadgets provide a cross-platform container to run reusable UI modules that generally expose dynamic information to an end user, allowing for some level of end user customization." Oracle Fusion Middleware Security: OAM and OIM 11g Academies Looking for technical how-to content covering Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Identity Manager? The people behind the Oracle Middleware Security blog have indexed relevant blog posts into what they call Academies. "These indexes contain the articles we've written that we believe provide long lasting guidance on OAM and OIM. Posts covered in these series include articles on key aspects of OAM and OIM 11g, best practice architectural guidance, integrations, and customizations." Fusion Applications Technical Tips | Naveen Nahata "Setting memory parameters for Admin and Managed servers of various domains in Fusion Applications can be, let us say, a little daunting," says Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Naveen Nahata. "While all this may look complicated and intimidating, it is actually relatively simple once you understand how it all works." Updated Agenda for OTN Architect Day Los Angeles (Oct 25) In less than two weeks Oracle Architect Day rolls into Los Angeles, with a full slate of sessions devoted to cloud computing, engineered systems, and SOA. Follow the link for the updated event agenda. ORCLville: OOW 2012 - A Not So Brief Recap Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter, an Applications & Apps Technology specialists, shares his personal, frank, and and extensive recap or Oracle OpenWorld 2012. SOA Suite create partition in Enterprise Manager | Peter Paul van de Beek "In Oracle SOA Suite 10g, or more specific BPEL 10g, one could group functionality in domains," says Peter Paul van de Beek. "This feature has been away in the early versions of SOA Suite 11g. They have returned in more recent version and can be used for all SCA composites (instead of BPEL only). Nowadays these 10g domains are called partitions." Thought for the Day "I strive for an architecture from which nothing can be taken away." — Helmut Jahn Source: BrainyQuote.com

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• Managing Operational Risk of Financial Services Processes – part 1/ 2

  - by Sanjeevio

  Financial institutions view compliance as a regulatory burden that incurs a high initial capital outlay and recurring costs. By its very nature regulation takes a prescriptive, common-for-all, approach to managing financial and non-financial risk. Needless to say, no longer does mere compliance with regulation will lead to sustainable differentiation.  Genuine competitive advantage will stem from being able to cope with innovation demands of the present economic environment while meeting compliance goals with regulatory mandates in a faster and cost-efficient manner. Let’s first take a look at the key factors that are limiting the pursuit of the above goal. Regulatory requirements are growing, driven in-part by revisions to existing mandates in line with cross-border, pan-geographic, nature of financial value chains today and more so by frequent systemic failures that have destabilized the financial markets and the global economy over the last decade.  In addition to the increase in regulation, financial institutions are faced with pressures of regulatory overlap and regulatory conflict. Regulatory overlap arises primarily from two things: firstly, due to the blurring of boundaries between lines-of-businesses with complex organizational structures and secondly, due to varying requirements of jurisdictional directives across geographic boundaries e.g. a securities firm with operations in US and EU would be subject different requirements of “Know-Your-Customer” (KYC) as per the PATRIOT ACT in US and MiFiD in EU. Another consequence and concomitance of regulatory change is regulatory conflict, which again, arises primarily from two things: firstly, due to diametrically opposite priorities of line-of-business and secondly, due to tension that regulatory requirements create between shareholders interests of tighter due-diligence and customer concerns of privacy. For instance, Customer Due Diligence (CDD) as per KYC requires eliciting detailed information from customers to prevent illegal activities such as money-laundering, terrorist financing or identity theft. While new customers are still more likely to comply with such stringent background checks at time of account opening, existing customers baulk at such practices as a breach of trust and privacy. As mentioned earlier regulatory compliance addresses both financial and non-financial risks. Operational risk is a non-financial risk that stems from business execution and spans people, processes, systems and information. Operational risk arising from financial processes in particular transcends other sources of such risk. Let’s look at the factors underpinning the operational risk of financial processes. The rapid pace of innovation and geographic expansion of financial institutions has resulted in proliferation and ad-hoc evolution of back-office, mid-office and front-office processes. This has had two serious implications on increasing the operational risk of financial processes: ·         Inconsistency of processes across lines-of-business, customer channels and product/service offerings. This makes it harder for the risk function to enforce a standardized risk methodology and in turn breaches harder to detect. ·         The proliferation of processes coupled with increasingly frequent change-cycles has resulted in accidental breaches and increased vulnerability to regulatory inadequacies. In summary, regulatory growth (including overlap and conflict) coupled with process proliferation and inconsistency is driving process compliance complexity In my next post I will address the implications of this process complexity on financial institutions and outline the role of BPM in lowering specific aspects of operational risk of financial processes.

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• Find Rules and Defaults using the PowerShell for SQL Server 2008 Provider

  - by BuckWoody

  I ran into an issue the other day where I couldn't set up some features in SQL Server 2008 because they ddon't support the use of Rules or Defaults. Let me explain a little more about that. In older versions of SQL Server, you could decalre a "Rule" or "Default" just like you do with a Table Constraint today. You would then "bind" these rules or defaults to the tables you wanted them to apply to. Sure, there are advantages and disadvantages to this approach, but it certainly isn't standard Data Definition Language (DDL), so they are deprecated and many features don't work with them any more. Honestly, it's been so long since I've seen them in use I had forgotten to even check for them. My suspicion is that this was a new database created with an older script. Nevertheless, the feature failed when it ran into one. Immediately I thought that I had better build some logic into my process to try and catch those - but how? Lots of choices here, but since I was using PowerShell to do the rest of the work, I thought I would investigate how easy it would be just to do it there. And using the SQL Server 2008 provider, this could not be simpler. I won't show all of the scrupt here, because I was testing for these as a condition and then bailing out of the script and sending a notification, but all it is using is the DIR command! Here's an example on my "UNIVAC" computer for the "pubs" database: Find Rules using PowerShell: dir SQLSERVER:\SQL\UNIVAC\DEFAULT\Databases\pubs\Rulesdir SQLSERVER:\SQL\UNIVAC\DEFAULT\Databases\pubs\Defaults And this one will look in all databases:  #All Databases:dir SQLSERVER:\SQL\UNIVAC\DEFAULT\Databases | select-object -property Name, Rules, Defaults Awesome. Love me some PowerShell. Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately.       Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Need WIF Training?

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  I spend numerous hours every month answering questions about WIF and identity in general. This made me realize that this is still quite a complicated topic once you go beyond the standard fedutil stuff. My good friend Brock and I put together a two day training course about WIF that covers everything we think is important. The course includes extensive lab material where you take standard application and apply all kinds of claims and federation techniques and technologies like WS-Federation, WS-Trust, session management, delegation, home realm discovery, multiple identity providers, Access Control Service, REST, SWT and OAuth. The lab also includes the latest version of the thinktecture identityserver and you will learn how to use and customize it. If you are looking for an open enrollment style of training, have a look here. Or contact me directly! The course outline looks as follows: Day 1 Intro to Claims-based Identity & the Windows Identity Foundation WIF introduces important concepts like conversion of security tokens and credentials to claims, claims transformation and claims-based authorization. In this module you will learn the basics of the WIF programming model and how WIF integrates into existing .NET code. Externalizing Authentication for Web Applications WIF includes support for the WS-Federation protocol. This protocol allows separating business and authentication logic into separate (distributed) applications. The authentication part is called identity provider or in more general terms - a security token service. This module looks at this scenario both from an application and identity provider point of view and walks you through the necessary concepts to centralize application login logic both using a standard product like Active Directory Federation Services as well as a custom token service using WIF’s API support. Externalizing Authentication for SOAP Services One big benefit of WIF is that it unifies the security programming model for ASP.NET and WCF. In the spirit of the preceding modules, we will have a look at how WIF integrates into the (SOAP) web service world. You will learn how to separate authentication into a separate service using the WS-Trust protocol and how WIF can simplify the WCF security model and extensibility API. Day 2 Advanced Topics:  Security Token Service Architecture, Delegation and Federation The preceding modules covered the 80/20 cases of WIF in combination with ASP.NET and WCF. In many scenarios this is just the tip of the iceberg. Especially when two business partners decide to federate, you usually have to deal with multiple token services and their implications in application design. Identity delegation is a feature that allows transporting the client identity over a chain of service invocations to make authorization decisions over multiple hops. In addition you will learn about the principal architecture of a STS, how to customize the one that comes with this training course, as well as how to build your own. Outsourcing Authentication:  Windows Azure & the Azure AppFabric Access Control Service Microsoft provides a multi-tenant security token service as part of the Azure platform cloud offering. This is an interesting product because it allows to outsource vital infrastructure services to a managed environment that guarantees uptime and scalability. Another advantage of the Access Control Service is, that it allows easy integration of both the “enterprise” protocols like WS-* as well as “web identities” like LiveID, Google or Facebook into your applications. ACS acts as a protocol bridge in this case where the application developer doesn’t need to implement all these protocols, but simply uses a service to make it happen. Claims & Federation for the Web and Mobile World Also the web & mobile world moves to a token and claims-based model. While the mechanics are almost identical, other protocols and token types are used to achieve better HTTP (REST) and JavaScript integration for in-browser applications and small footprint devices. Also patterns like how to allow third party applications to work with your data without having to disclose your credentials are important concepts in these application types. The nice thing about WIF and its powerful base APIs and abstractions is that it can shield application logic from these details while you can focus on implementing the actual application. HTH

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• nvidia driver problems after upgrading to 3.2.0-26 on Ubuntu 12.04 64bit

  - by Lev Levitsky

  After installing latest updates I can't set screen resolution higher than 1024x768; every time after the boot I get a message Could not apply the stored configuration for the monitors (Note: removing ~/.config/monitors.xml stopped the message, but not the problem) I can boot with 3.2.0-25 and the graphics look normal. Here's what I have in /var/log/apt/term.log (excerpt): Setting up linux-image-3.2.0-26-generic (3.2.0-26.41) ... Running depmod. update-initramfs: deferring update (hook will be called later) Examining /etc/kernel/postinst.d. run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms 3.2.0-26-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-26-generic Error! Problems with depmod detected. Automatically uninstalling this module. DKMS: Install Failed (depmod problems). Module rolled back to built state. run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-26-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-26-generic update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-26-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/pm-utils 3.2.0-26-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-26-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/update-notifier 3.2.0-26-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-26-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-26-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-26-generic Generating grub.cfg ... Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-26-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-26-generic Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-25-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-25-generic Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-24-generic Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-17-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-17-generic Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin I went to "additional drivers" and saw some updates available there, but an attempt to install them failed, leaving the following in /var/log/jockey.log (long log, pasted here). The full log won't fit in the question, so I'm showing $ fgrep 'ERROR' /var/log/jockey.log 2012-06-30 17:29:57,897 WARNING: modinfo for module vmxnet failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vmxnet 2012-06-30 17:29:57,937 WARNING: modinfo for module wl failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module wl 2012-06-30 17:29:58,072 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_96 failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_96 2012-06-30 17:29:58,240 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_current failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_current 2012-06-30 17:29:58,293 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_current_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_current_updates 2012-06-30 17:29:58,351 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_173_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_173_updates 2012-06-30 17:29:58,385 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_173 failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_173 2012-06-30 17:29:58,420 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_96_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_96_updates 2012-06-30 17:29:58,455 WARNING: modinfo for module ath_pci failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module ath_pci 2012-06-30 17:29:58,478 WARNING: modinfo for module fglrx_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module fglrx_updates 2012-06-30 17:29:58,531 WARNING: modinfo for module fglrx failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module fglrx 2012-06-30 17:29:58,588 WARNING: modinfo for module omapdrm_pvr failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module omapdrm_pvr 2012-06-30 17:29:59,537 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_current failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_current 2012-06-30 17:29:59,613 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_173_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_173_updates 2012-06-30 17:29:59,686 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_173 failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_173 2012-06-30 17:29:59,764 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_current_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_current_updates 2012-06-30 17:30:29,544 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_current_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_current_updates 2012-06-30 17:30:29,545 ERROR: XorgDriverHandler.enable(): package or module not installed, aborting I'm not sure if it's a bug, as the first log shows some errors. What can I try?

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• Administer, manage, monitor, and fine tune the performance of your Oracle SOA Suite 11g Service Infrastructure and SOA composite applications.

  - by JuergenKress

  Key Features of the book If you are an Oracle SOA suite administrator, then this book is your bible. It gives you everything you need to know about all your tasks and help you to apply what you learn in your everyday life right from the first chapter. The book walks through promoting code across environments, performance tuning the service infrastructure, monitoring the environment, configuring security policies, managing the dehydration store, backing and restoring environments and so on. Packed with real-world examples from authors' own experiences, this books offers a unique insight into Oracle SOA Suite Administration. Detailed description The book begins with an introduction of SOA and quickly moves on to management of SOA composite applications. Readers will learn how to manage composite applications, their deployments and lifecycles. Equipped with this knowledge, readers will be introduced to monitoring and performance tuning SOA Suite, monitoring instances, messages, and composite applications, managing faults and exceptions, configuring audit levels of composite applications to include end-to-end monitoring through the use of extended logging as well as administering and configuring all SOA Suite components. A very important aspect of administration is tuning and optimizing the infrastructure for performance and book offers real work recommendations to monitor and performance tune service engines, the underlying WebLogic server, threads and timeouts, files systems, and composite applications. It also covers detailed administration of individual service components, configuring the infrastructure MBeans using both Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control and WLST based scripts, migrating worklist preferences and BAM data across environments, setting up Email, LDAP and custom XPath. An administrator is always trusted with troubleshooting and root causing problems in the infrastructure and this book will help you through the troubleshooting approaches as how to identify faults and exception through extended logging and thread dumps and find solutions to common startup problems and deployment issues. The advanced contents of this book explains OWSM security framework and how to secure components deployed to the infrastructure along with the details of all groundwork needed to ready the environment. Last few chapters help you to understand and deal with managing the metadata services repository and dehydration store, backup and recovery and concluding with advanced topics such as silent/scripted installations, cloning, upgrading, patching and high availability installations. Packed with real-world examples, and tips straight from the trench; this book offers insights into SOA Suite administration that you will not find elsewhere. Part of our writing style in this book draws heavily on the philosophy of reuse and as such the book provide an ample of executable SQL queries and WLST scripts that administrators can reuse and extend to perform most of the administration tasks such as monitoring instances, processing times, instance states and perform automatic deployments, tuning, migration, and installation. These scripts are spread over each of the chapters in the book and can also be downloaded from here. The book is available in different formats at the following websites: Paperback and eBook versions & Kindle version. It is available for order and signed copies are available through our web site. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA book,SOA Suite Adminsitration,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Incorrect lighting results with deferred rendering

  - by Lasse

  I am trying to render a light-pass to a texture which I will later apply on the scene. But I seem to calculate the light position wrong. I am working on view-space. In the image above, I am outputting the attenuation of a point light which is currently covering the whole screen. The light is at 0,10,0 position, and I transform it to view-space first: Vector4 pos; Vector4 tmp = new Vector4 (light.Position, 1); // Transform light position for shader Vector4.Transform (ref tmp, ref Camera.ViewMatrix, out pos); shader.SendUniform ("LightViewPosition", ref pos); Now to me that does not look as it should. What I think it should look like is that the white area should be on the center of the scene. The camera is at the corner of the scene, and it seems as if the light would move along with the camera. Here's the fragment shader code: void main(){ // default black color vec3 color = vec3(0); // Pixel coordinates on screen without depth vec2 PixelCoordinates = gl_FragCoord.xy / ScreenSize; // Get pixel position using depth from texture vec4 depthtexel = texture( DepthTexture, PixelCoordinates ); float depthSample = unpack_depth(depthtexel); // Get pixel coordinates on camera-space by multiplying the // coordinate on screen-space by inverse projection matrix vec4 world = (ImP * RemapMatrix * vec4(PixelCoordinates, depthSample, 1.0)); // Undo the perspective calculations vec3 pixelPosition = (world.xyz / world.w) * 3; // How far the light should reach from it's point of origin float lightReach = LightColor.a / 2; // Vector in between light and pixel vec3 lightDir = (LightViewPosition.xyz - pixelPosition); float lightDistance = length(lightDir); vec3 lightDirN = normalize(lightDir); // Discard pixels too far from light source //if(lightReach < lightDistance) discard; // Get normal from texture vec3 normal = normalize((texture( NormalTexture, PixelCoordinates ).xyz * 2) - 1); // Half vector between the light direction and eye, used for specular component vec3 halfVector = normalize(lightDirN + normalize(-pixelPosition)); // Dot product of normal and light direction float NdotL = dot(normal, lightDirN); float attenuation = pow(lightReach / lightDistance, LightFalloff); // If pixel is lit by the light if(NdotL > 0) { // I have moved stuff from here to above so I can debug them. // Diffuse light color color += LightColor.rgb * NdotL * attenuation; // Specular light color color += LightColor.xyz * pow(max(dot(halfVector, normal), 0.0), 4.0) * attenuation; } RT0 = vec4(color, 1); //RT0 = vec4(pixelPosition, 1); //RT0 = vec4(depthSample, depthSample, depthSample, 1); //RT0 = vec4(NdotL, NdotL, NdotL, 1); RT0 = vec4(attenuation, attenuation, attenuation, 1); //RT0 = vec4(lightReach, lightReach, lightReach, 1); //RT0 = depthtexel; //RT0 = 100 / vec4(lightDistance, lightDistance, lightDistance, 1); //RT0 = vec4(lightDirN, 1); //RT0 = vec4(halfVector, 1); //RT0 = vec4(LightColor.xyz,1); //RT0 = vec4(LightViewPosition.xyz/100, 1); //RT0 = vec4(LightPosition.xyz, 1); //RT0 = vec4(normal,1); } What am I doing wrong here?

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• Controlling soft errors and false alarms in SSIS

  - by Jim Giercyk

  If you are like me, you dread the 3AM wake-up call.  I would say that the majority of the pages I get are false alarms.  The alerts that require action often require me to open an SSIS package, see where the trouble is and try to identify the offending data.  That can be very time-consuming and can take quite a chunk out of my beauty sleep.  For those reasons, I have developed a simple error handling scenario for SSIS which allows me to rest a little easier.  Let me first say, this is a high level discussion; getting into the nuts and bolts of creating each shape is outside the scope of this document, but if you have an average understanding of SSIS, you should have no problem following along. In the Data Flow above you can see that there is a caution triangle.  For the purpose of this discussion I am creating a truncation error to demonstrate the process, so this is to be expected.  The first thing we need to do is to redirect the error output.  Double-clicking on the Query shape presents us with the properties window for the input.  Simply set the columns that you want to redirect to Redirect Row in the dropdown box and hit Apply. Without going into a dissertation on error handling, I will just note that you can decide which errors you want to redirect on Error and on Truncation.  Therefore, to override this process for a column or condition, simply do not redirect that column or condition. The next thing we want to do is to add some information about the error; specifically, the name of the package which encountered the error and which step in the package wrote the record to the error table.  REMEMBER: If you redirect the error output, your package will not fail, so you will not know where the error record was created without some additional information.    I added 3 columns to my error record; Severity, Package Name and Step Name.  Severity is just a free-form column that you can use to note whether an error is fatal, whether the package is part of a test job and should be ignored, etc.  Package Name and Step Name are system variables. In my package I have created a truncation situation, where the firstname column is 50 characters in the input, but only 4 characters in the output.  Some records will pass without truncation, others will be sent to the error output.  However, the package will not fail. We can see that of the 14 input rows, 8 were redirected to the error table. This information can be used by another step or another scheduled process or triggered to determine whether an error should be sent.  It can also be used as a historical record of the errors that are encountered over time.  There are other system variables that might make more sense in your infrastructure, so try different things.  Date and time seem like something you would want in your output for example.  In summary, we have redirected the error output from an input, added derived columns with information about the errors, and inserted the information and the offending data into an error table.  The error table information can be used by another step or process to determine, based on the error information, what level alert must be sent.  This will eliminate false alarms, and give you a head start when a genuine error occurs.

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• Merging Social Accounts: What We Learned This Weekend

  - by Mike Stiles

  Guest Post by Erika BrookesWe learned that it’s not always as easy as you think it’s going to be. While it’s widely accepted that merging multiple owned Facebook Pages that are duplicating communities and putting out the same type of content is a best practice, actually pulling it off without rattling fans is a trickier proposition. Facebook is nice and clear about how to merge Facebook Pages. Although content is not carried over, Likes from the pages you’re merging are. So you can imagine the surprise when such fans start seeing posts in their News Feed from a page they don’t believe they ever Liked. One community member accurately likened it to having your bank come under another bank’s brand name. The Facebook Page changes to the new brand, just like your debit card, emails, signs and other communication. This weekend we did our merge. The Facebook communities of Vitrue, Involver and Collective Intellect were pulled into one community, Oracle Social. Could we have handled it better? Oh yeah. Our intent was to make sure, to the fullest extent possible, that the fans of the Vitrue, Involver, and Collective Intellect brand pages were well-informed about the pending page merges in ADVANCE of the merge. While many were aware that Oracle acquired the three companies, many were not. We learned from fan feedback that we should have sent notifications MUCH earlier to make the brand Page merge crystal clear and to answer any questions. That was our bad, our responsibility and we apologize for Oracle Social showing up in your News Feed if you were not aware that it was a result of your fandom of Vitrue, Involver or Collective Intellect. It was our job to make you aware well in advance. Some felt they had never Liked the fan Pages of Vitrue, Involver or Collective Intellect, so they were understandably upset (some cultures may call it “fit to be tied”) when they found themselves fans of Oracle Social. One thing to consider is that since 2009, brands and developers have used and enjoyed free Involver tab apps like Twitter, RSS and YouTube (1.2 million of which are currently active), which included an opt-in Liking the Involver Page. Often, when Liking happens in a manner outside of the traditional clicking of a Like button on a brand Page, it’s easy to forget a Page was indeed Liked. Lastly, a few felt that their Like of the Page had been “bought.” It was not. No fans or Likes were separately purchased. Yes, the companies and the social properties of Vitrue, Involver and Collective Intellect were acquired by Oracle. Those brands are now being coordinated into the larger Oracle brand. In social media, that means those brands are being integrated into the Oracle Social community. So what now? We apologize and apply lessons learned. We learned that you not only have to communicate thoroughly and clearly, but you have to communicate well in advance of any actionable items that will affect fans. We’re more than willing to walk straight to the woodshed when we deserve it. Going forward, the social team here is dedicated to facilitating content, discussion and sharing around social for marketers, agencies, IT stakeholders and social staffs, including community managers. We anticipate Oracle Social being the premier gathering place for true social innovators as we move into social’s exciting next phase of development. Inevitably, some will still feel they are fans of the Page in error. While we hate to see you go, you may unlike the Page if it’s not relevant or useful to you. Let’s continue to contribute, participate, foster our desire to learn, and move forward together positively and constructively - both for current fans of the community and the many fans to come.

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• Guaranteed Restore Points as Fallback Method

  - by Mike Dietrich

  Thanks to the great audience yesterday in the Upgrade & Migration Workshop in Utrecht. That was really fun and I was amazed by our new facilities (and the  "wellness" lights surrounding the plenum room's walls). And another reason why I like to do these workshops is that often I learn new things from you So credits here to Rick van  Ek who has highlighted the following topic to me. Yesterday (and in some previous workshops) I did mention during the discussion about Fallback Strategies that you'll have to switch on Flashback Database beforehand to create a guaranteed restore point in case you'll encounter an issue during the database upgrade. I knew that we've made it possible since Oracle Database 11.2 to switch Flashback Database on without taking the database into MOUNT status (you could switch it off anyway while the database is open before in all releases). But before Oracle Database 11.2 that did require MOUNT status. SQL> create restore point rp1 guarantee flashback database ; create restore point rp1 guarantee flashback database * ERROR at line 1: ORA-38784: Cannot create restore point 'RP1'. ORA-38787: Creating the first guaranteed restore point requires mount mode when flashback database is off. But Rick did mention that I won't need to switch Flashback Database On to create a guaranteed restore point. And he's right - in older releases I would have had to go into MOUNT state to define the restore point which meant to restart the database. But in 11.2 that's no necessary anymore. And the same will apply when you upgrade your pre-11.2 database (e.g. an Oracle Database 10.2.0.4) to Oracle Database 11.2. As soon as you start your "old" not-yet-upgraded database in your 11.2 environment with STARTUP UPGRADE you can define a guaranteed restore point. If you tail the alert.log you'll see that the database will start the RVWR (Recovery Writer) background process - you'll just have to make sure that you'd define the values for db_recovery_file_dest_size and db_recovery_file_dest. SQL> startup upgrade ORACLE instance started. Total System Global Area  417546240 bytes Fixed Size                  2228944 bytes Variable Size             134221104 bytes Database Buffers          272629760 bytes Redo Buffers                8466432 bytes Database mounted. Database opened. SQL> create restore point grpt guarantee flashback database; Restore point created.SQL> drop restore point grpt; And don't forget to drop that restore point the sooner or later as it is guaranteed - and will fill up your Fast Recovery Area pretty quickly Just on the side: in any case archivelog mode is required if you'd like to work with restore points. - Mike

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• ORE graphics using Remote Desktop Protocol

  - by Sherry LaMonica

  Oracle R Enterprise graphics are returned as raster, or bitmap graphics. Raster images consist of tiny squares of color information referred to as pixels that form points of color to create a complete image. Plots that contain raster images render quickly in R and create small, high-quality exported image files in a wide variety of formats. However, it is a known issue that the rendering of raster images can be problematic when creating graphics using a Remote Desktop connection. Raster images do not display in the windows device using Remote Desktop under the default settings. This happens because Remote Desktop restricts the number of colors when connecting to a Windows machine to 16 bits per pixel, and interpolating raster graphics requires many colors, at least 32 bits per pixel.. For example, this simple embedded R image plot will be returned in a raster-based format using a standalone Windows machine:  R> library(ORE) R> ore.connect(user="rquser", sid="orcl", host="localhost", password="rquser", all=TRUE)  R> ore.doEval(function() image(volcano, col=terrain.colors(30))) Here, we first load the ORE packages and connect to the database instance using database login credentials. The ore.doEval function executes the R code within the database embedded R engine and returns the image back to the client R session. Over a Remote Desktop connection under the default settings, this graph will appear blank due to the restricted number of colors. Users who encounter this issue have two options to display ORE graphics over Remote Desktop: either raise Remote Desktop's Color Depth or direct the plot output to an alternate device. Option #1: Raise Remote Desktop Color Depth setting In a Remote Desktop session, all environment variables, including display variables determining Color Depth, are determined by the RCP-Tcp connection settings. For example, users can reduce the Color Depth when connecting over a slow connection. The different settings are 15 bits, 16 bits, 24 bits, or 32 bits per pixel. To raise the Remote Desktop color depth: On the Windows server, launch Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration from the Accessories menu.Under Connections, right click on RDP-Tcp and select Properties.On the Client Settings tab either uncheck LimitMaximum Color Depth or set it to 32 bits per pixel. Click Apply, then OK, log out of the remote session and reconnect.After reconnecting, the Color Depth on the Display tab will be set to 32 bits per pixel.  Raster graphics will now display as expected. For ORE users, the increased color depth results in slightly reduced performance during plot creation, but the graph will be created instead of displaying an empty plot. Option #2: Direct plot output to alternate device Plotting to a non-windows device is a good option if it's not possible to increase Remote Desktop Color Depth, or if performance is degraded when creating the graph. Several device drivers are available for off-screen graphics in R, such as postscript, pdf, and png. On-screen devices include windows, X11 and Cairo. Here we output to the Cairo device to render an on-screen raster graphic.  The grid.raster function in the grid package is analogous to other grid graphical primitives - it draws a raster image within the current plot's grid.  R> options(device = "CairoWin") # use Cairo device for plotting during the session R> library(Cairo) # load Cairo, grid and png libraries  R> library(grid) R> library(png)  R> res <- ore.doEval(function()image(volcano,col=terrain.colors(30))) # create embedded R plot  R> img <- ore.pull(res, graphics = TRUE)$img[[1]] # extract image  R> grid.raster(as.raster(readPNG(img)), interpolate = FALSE) # generate raster graph R> dev.off() # turn off first device   By default, the interpolate argument to grid.raster is TRUE, which means that what is actually drawn by R is a linear interpolation of the pixels in the original image. Setting interpolate to FALSE uses a sample from the pixels in the original image.A list of graphics devices available in R can be found in the Devices help file from the grDevices package: R> help(Devices)

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• Projective texture and deferred lighting

  - by Vodácek

  In my previous question, I asked whether it is possible to do projective texturing with deferred lighting. Now (more than half a year later) I have a problem with my implementation of the same thing. I am trying to apply this technique in light pass. (my projector doesn't affect albedo). I have this projector View a Projection matrix: Matrix projection = Matrix.CreateOrthographicOffCenter(-halfWidth * Scale, halfWidth * Scale, -halfHeight * Scale, halfHeight * Scale, 1, 100000); Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(Position, Target, Vector3.Up); Where halfWidth and halfHeight is are half of the texture's width and height, Position is the Projector's position and target is the projector's target. This seems to be ok. I am drawing full screen quad with this shader: float4x4 InvViewProjection; texture2D DepthTexture; texture2D NormalTexture; texture2D ProjectorTexture; float4x4 ProjectorViewProjection; sampler2D depthSampler = sampler_state { texture = <DepthTexture>; minfilter = point; magfilter = point; mipfilter = point; }; sampler2D normalSampler = sampler_state { texture = <NormalTexture>; minfilter = point; magfilter = point; mipfilter = point; }; sampler2D projectorSampler = sampler_state { texture = <ProjectorTexture>; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; }; float viewportWidth; float viewportHeight; // Calculate the 2D screen position of a 3D position float2 postProjToScreen(float4 position) { float2 screenPos = position.xy / position.w; return 0.5f * (float2(screenPos.x, -screenPos.y) + 1); } // Calculate the size of one half of a pixel, to convert // between texels and pixels float2 halfPixel() { return 0.5f / float2(viewportWidth, viewportHeight); } struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position :POSITION0; float4 PositionCopy : TEXCOORD1; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; output.Position = input.Position; output.PositionCopy=output.Position; return output; } float4 PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0 { float2 texCoord =postProjToScreen(input.PositionCopy) + halfPixel(); // Extract the depth for this pixel from the depth map float4 depth = tex2D(depthSampler, texCoord); //return float4(depth.r,0,0,1); // Recreate the position with the UV coordinates and depth value float4 position; position.x = texCoord.x * 2 - 1; position.y = (1 - texCoord.y) * 2 - 1; position.z = depth.r; position.w = 1.0f; // Transform position from screen space to world space position = mul(position, InvViewProjection); position.xyz /= position.w; //compute projection float3 projection=tex2D(projectorSampler,postProjToScreen(mul(position,ProjectorViewProjection)) + halfPixel()); return float4(projection,1); } In first part of pixel shader is recovered position from G-buffer (this code I am using in other shaders without any problem) and then is tranformed to projector viewprojection space. Problem is that projection doesn't appear. Here is an image of my situation: The green lines are the rendered projector frustum. Where is my mistake hidden? I am using XNA 4. Thanks for advice and sorry for my English. EDIT: Shader above is working but projection was too small. When I changed the Scale property to a large value (e.g. 100), the projection appears. But when the camera moves toward the projection, the projection expands, as can bee seen on this YouTube video.

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• Apps UX Launches Blueprints for Mobile User Experiences

  - by mvaughan

  By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User ExperienceAt Oracle OpenWorld 2012 this year, the Oracle Applications User Experience (Apps UX) team announced the release of Mobile User Experience Functional Design Patterns. These patterns are designed to work directly with Oracle’s Fusion Middleware, specifically, ADF Mobile.  The Oracle Application Development Framework for mobile users enables developers to build one application that can be deployed to multiple mobile device platforms. These same mobile design patterns provide the guidance for Oracle teams to develop Fusion Mobile expenses. Application developers can use Oracle’s mobile design patterns to design iPhone, Android, or browser-based smartphone applications. We are sharing our mobile design patterns and their baked-in, scientifically proven usability to enable Oracle customers and partners to build mobile applications quickly.A different way of thinking and designing. Lynn Rampoldi-Hnilo, Senior Manager of Mobile User Experiences for Apps UX, says mobile design has to be compelling. “It needs to be optimized for the device, and be visually rich and simple,” she said. “What is really key is that you are designing for a user’s most personal device, the device that they will have with them at all times of the day.”Katy Massucco, director of the overall design patterns site, said: “You need to start with a simplified task flow. Everything should be a natural interaction. The action should be relevant and leveraging the device. It should be seamless.”She suggests that developers identify the essential tasks that a user would want to do while mobile. “They need to understand the user and the context,” she added. ?A sample inline action design patternWhat people are sayingReactions to the release of the design patterns have been positive. Debra Lilley, Oracle ACE Director and Fusion User Experience Advocate (FXA), has already demo’ed Fusion Mobile Expenses widely.  Fellow Oracle Ace Director Ronald van Luttikhuizen, called it a “cool demo by @debralilley of the new mobile expenses app.” FXA member Floyd Teter says he is already cooking up some plans for using mobile design patterns.  We hope to see those ideas at Collaborate or ODTUG in 2013. For another perspective on why user experience is such an important focus for mobile applications, check out this video by John King, Director, and Monty Latiolais, President, both from ODTUG, or the Oracle Development Tools User Group.In a separate interview by e-mail, Latiolais wrote: “I enjoy the fact we can take something that, in the past, has been largely subjective, and now apply to it a scientifically proven look and feel. Trusting Oracle’s UX Design Patterns, the presentation really can become one less thing to worry about. As someone with limited ADF experience, that is extremely beneficial.”?King, who was also interviewed by e-mail, wrote: “User Experience is about making the task at hand as easy and error-free as possible. Oracle's UX labs worked hard to make the User Experience in the new Fusion Applications as good as possible; ADF makes adding tested, consistent, user experiences a declarative exercise by leveraging that work. As we move applications onto mobile platforms, user experience is the driving factor. Customers are "spoiled" by a bevy of fantastic applications, and ours cannot disappoint them. Creating applications that enable users to quickly and effectively accomplish whatever task is at hand takes thought and practice. Developers must become ’power users’ and then create applications that they and their users will love.”

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• How change LOD in geometry?

  - by ChaosDev

  Im looking for simple algorithm of LOD, for change geometry vertexes and decrease frame time. Im created octree, but now I want model or terrain vertex modify algorithm,not for increase(looking on tessellation later) but for decrease. I want something like this Questions: Is same algorithm can apply either to model and terrain correctly? Indexes need to be modified ? I must use octree or simple check distance between camera and object for desired effect ? New value of indexcount for DrawIndexed function needed ? Code: //m_LOD == 10 in the beginning //m_RawVerts - array of 3d Vector filled with values from vertex buffer. void DecreaseLOD() { m_LOD--; if(m_LOD<1)m_LOD=1; RebuildGeometry(); } void IncreaseLOD() { m_LOD++; if(m_LOD>10)m_LOD=10; RebuildGeometry(); } void RebuildGeometry() { void* vertexRawData = new byte[m_VertexBufferSize]; void* indexRawData = new DWORD[m_IndexCount]; auto context = mp_D3D->mp_Context; D3D11_MAPPED_SUBRESOURCE data; ZeroMemory(&data,sizeof(D3D11_MAPPED_SUBRESOURCE)); context->Map(mp_VertexBuffer->mp_buffer,0,D3D11_MAP_READ,0,&data); memcpy(vertexRawData,data.pData,m_VertexBufferSize); context->Unmap(mp_VertexBuffer->mp_buffer,0); context->Map(mp_IndexBuffer->mp_buffer,0,D3D11_MAP_READ,0,&data); memcpy(indexRawData,data.pData,m_IndexBufferSize); context->Unmap(mp_IndexBuffer->mp_buffer,0); DWORD* dwI = (DWORD*)indexRawData; int sz = (m_VertexStride/sizeof(float));//size of vertex element //algorithm must be here. std::vector<Vector3d> vertices; int i = 0; for(int j = 0; j < m_VertexCount; j++) { float x1 = (((float*)vertexRawData)[0+i]); float y1 = (((float*)vertexRawData)[1+i]); float z1 = (((float*)vertexRawData)[2+i]); Vector3d lv = Vector3d(x1,y1,z1); //my useless attempts if(j+m_LOD+1<m_RawVerts.size()) { float v1 = VECTORHELPER::Distance(m_RawVerts[dwI[j]],m_RawVerts[dwI[j+m_LOD]]); float v2 = VECTORHELPER::Distance(m_RawVerts[dwI[j]],m_RawVerts[dwI[j+m_LOD+1]]); if(v1>v2) lv = m_RawVerts[dwI[j+1]]; else if(v2<v1) lv = m_RawVerts[dwI[j+2]]; } (((float*)vertexRawData)[0+i]) = lv.x; (((float*)vertexRawData)[1+i]) = lv.y; (((float*)vertexRawData)[2+i]) = lv.z; i+=sz;//pass others vertex format values without change } for(int j = 0; j < m_IndexCount; j++) { //indices ? } //set vertexes to device UpdateVertexes(vertexRawData,mp_VertexBuffer->getSize()); delete[] vertexRawData; delete[] indexRawData; }

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• Heterogeneous Datacenter Management with Enterprise Manager 12c

  - by Joe Diemer

  The following is a Guest Blog, contributed by Bryce Kaiser, Product Manager at Blue MedoraWhen I envision a perfect datacenter, it would consist of technologies acquired from a single vendor across the entire server, middleware, application, network, and storage stack - Apps to Disk - that meets your organization’s every IT requirement with absolute best-of-breed solutions in every category.   To quote a familiar motto, your datacenter would consist of "Hardware and Software, Engineered to Work Together".  In almost all cases, practical realities dictate something far less than the IT Utopia mentioned above.   You may wish to leverage multiple vendors to keep licensing costs down, a single vendor may not have an offering in the IT category you need, or your preferred vendor may quite simply not have the solution that meets your needs.    In other words, your IT needs dictate a heterogeneous IT environment.  Heterogeneity, however, comes with additional complexity. The following are two pretty typical challenges:1) No End-to-End Visibility into the Enterprise Wide Application Deployment. Each vendor solution which is added to an infrastructure may bring its own tooling creating different consoles for different vendor applications and platforms.2) No Visibility into Performance Bottlenecks. When multiple management tools operate independently, you lose diagnostic capabilities including identifying cross-tier issues with database, hung-requests, slowness, memory leaks and hardware errors/failures causing DB/MW issues. As adoption of Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) has increased, especially since the release of Enterprise Manager 12c, Oracle has seen an increase in the number of customers who want to leverage their investments in EM to manage non-Oracle workloads.  Enterprise Manager provides a single pane of glass view into their entire datacenter.  By creating a highly extensible framework via the Oracle EM Extensibility Development Kit (EDK), Oracle has provided the tooling for business partners such as my company Blue Medora as well as customers to easily fill gaps in the ecosystem and enhance existing solutions.  As mentioned in the previous post on the Enterprise Manager Extensibility Exchange, customers have access to an assortment of Oracle and Partner provided solutions through this Exchange, which is accessed at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emextensibility.  Currently, there are over 80 Oracle and partner provided plug-ins across the EM 11g and EM 12c versions.  Blue Medora is one of those contributing partners, for which you will find 3 of our solutions including our flagship plugin for VMware.  Let's look at Blue Medora’s VMware plug-in as an example to what I'm trying to convey.  Here is a common situation solved by true visibility into your entire stack:Symptoms•    My database is bogging down, however the database appears okay internally.  Maybe it’s starved for resources?•    My OS tooling is showing everything is “OK”.  Something doesn’t add up. Root cause•    Through the VMware plugin we can see the problem is actually on the virtualization layer Solution•    From within Enterprise Manager  -- the same tool you use for all of your database tuning -- we can overlay the data of the database target, host target, and virtual machine target for a true picture of the true root cause. Here is the console view: Perhaps your monitoring conditions are more specific to your environment.  No worries, Enterprise Manager still has you covered.  With Metric Extensions you have the “Next Generation” of User-Defined Metrics, which easily bring the power of your existing management scripts into a single console while leveraging the proven Enterprise Manager framework. Simply put, Oracle Enterprise manager boasts a growing ecosystem that provides the single pane of glass for your entire datacenter from the database and beyond.  Bryce can be contacted at [email protected]

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• WiX, MSDeploy and an appealing configuration/deployment paradigm

  - by alexhildyard

  I do a lot of application and server configuration; I've done this for many years and have tended to view the complexity of this strictly in terms of the complexity of the ultimate configuration to be deployed. For example, specific APIs aside, I would tend to regard installing a server certificate as a more complex activity than, say, copying a file or adding a Registry entry.My prejudice revolved around the idea of a sequential deployment script that not only had the explicit prescription to apply a specific server configuration, but also made the implicit presumption that the server in question was in a good known state. Scripts like this fail for hundreds of reasons -- the Default Website didn't exist; the application had already been deployed; the application had already been partially deployed and failed to rollback fully, and so on. And so the problem is that the more complex the configuration activity, the more scope for error in any individual part of that activity, and therefore the greater the chance the server in question will not end up at exactly the desired configuration level.Recently I was introduced to a completely different mindset, which, for want of a better turn of phrase, I will call the "make it so" mindset. It's extremely simple both to explain and to implement. In place of the head-down, imperative script you used to use, you substitute a set of checks -- much like exception handlers -- around each configuration activity, starting with a check of the current system state. Thus the configuration logic becomes: "IF these services aren't started then start them, and IF XYZ website doesn't exist then create it, and IF these shares don't exist then create them, and IF these shares aren't permissioned in some particular way, then permission them so." This works. Really well, in my experience. Scenario 1: You want to get a system into a good known state; it's already in a good known state; you quickly realise there is nothing to do.Scenario 2: You want to get the system into a good known state; your script is flawed or the system is bust; it cannot be put into that state. You know exactly where (at least part of) the problem is and why.Scenario 3: You want to get the system into a good known state; people are fiddling around with the system just now. That's fine. You do what you can, and later you come back and try it againScenario 4: No one wants to deploy anything; they want you to prove that the previous deployment was successful. So you re-run the deployment script with the "-WhatIf" flag. It reports that there was nothing to change. There's your proof.I mentioned two technologies in the title -- MSI and MSDeploy. I am thinking specifically of the conversation that took place here. Having worked with both technologies, I think Rob Mensching's response is appropriately nuanced, and in essence the difference is this: sometimes your target is either to achieve a specific new server state, or to rollback to a known good one. Then again, your target may be to configure what you can, and to understand what you can't. Implicitly MSDeploy's "rollback" is simply to redeploy the previous version, whereas a well-crafted MSI will actively put your system into that state without further intervention. Either way, if all goes well it will leave you with a system in one of two states, whereas MSDeploy could leave your system in one of many states. The key is that MSDeploy and MSI are complementary technologies; which suits you best depends as much on Operational guidance as your Configuration remit.What I wanted to say was that I have always been for atomic, transactional-based configuration, but having worked with the "make it so" paradigm, I have been favourably impressed by the actual results. I'm tempted to put a more technical post up on this in due course.

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• My shiny new gadget

  - by TechTwaddle

  About 3 months ago when I had tweeted (or twit?) that the HD7 could be my next phone I wasn’t a 100 percent sure, and when the HTC Mozart came out it was switch at first sight. I wanted to buy the Mozart mainly for three reasons; its unibody construction, smaller screen and the SLCD display. But now, holding a HD7 in my hand, I reminisce and think about how fate had its own plan. Too dramatic for a piece of gadget? Well, sort of, but seriously, this has been most exciting. So in short, I bought myself a HTC HD7 and am really loving it so far. Here are some pics (taken from my HD2 which now lies in a corner, crying),     Most of my day was spent setting up the device. Email accounts, Facebook, Marketplace etc. Since marketplace isn’t officially launched in India yet, my primary live id did not work. Whenever I tried launching marketplace it would say ‘marketplace is not currently supported in your country’. Searching the forums I found an easy work around. Just create a dummy live id with the country set to UK or US and log in to the device using this id. I was worried if the contacts and feeds from my primary live account would not be updated but that was not a problem. Adding another live account into the device does import your contacts, calendar and feeds from it. And that’s it, marketplace now works perfectly. I installed a few trial and free applications; haven’t checked if I can purchase apps though, will check that later and update this post. There is one issue I am still facing with the device, I can’t access the internet over GPRS. Windows Phone 7 only gives you the option to add an ‘APN’ and nothing else. Checking the connection settings on my HD2, I found out that there is also a proxy server I need to add to access GPRS, but so far I haven’t found a way to do that on WP7. Ideally HTC should have taken care of this, detect the operator and apply that operators settings on the device, but looks like that’s not happening. I also tried the ‘Connection Settings’ application that HTC bundled with the device, but it did nothing magical. If you’re reading this and know how to fix this problem please leave a comment. The next thing I did is install apps, a lot of apps. Read Engadget’s guide to essential apps for WP7. The apps and games I installed so far include Beezz (twitter app with push notifications), twitter (the official twitter app), Facebook, Youtube, NFS Undercover, Rocket Riot, Krashlander, Unite and the list goes on. All the apps run super smooth. The display looks fine indoors but I know it’s going to suck in bright sunlight. Anyhow, I am really impressed with what I’ve seen so far. I leave you with a few more photos. Have a great year ahead. Ciao!

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• My collection of favourite TFS utilities

  - by Aaron Kowall

  So, you’re in charge of your company or team’s Team Foundation Server.  Wish it was easier to manage, administer, extend?  Well, here are a few utilities that I highly recommend looking at. I’ve recently had need to rebuild my laptop and upgrade my local TFS environment to TFS 2012 Update 1.  This gave me cause to enumerate some of the utilities I like to have on hand. One of the reasons I love to use TFS on projects is that it’s basically a complete ALM toolkit.  Everything from Task Management, Version Control, Build Management, Test Management, Metrics and Reporting are all there ‘in the box’.  However, no matter how complete a product set it, there are always ways to make it better.  Here are a list of utilities and libraries that are pretty generally useful.  this is not intended to be an exhaustive list of TFS extensions but rather a set that I recommend you look at.  There are many more out there that may be applicable in one scenario or another.  This set of tools should work with TFS 2012 or 2010 if you grab the right version. Most of these tools (and more) are available from the Visual Studio Gallery or CodePlex. General TFS Power Tools – This is ‘the’ collection of utilities and extensions delivered by the Product Group.  Highly recommended from here are the Best Practice Analyzer for ensuring your TFS implementation is healthy and the Team Foundation Server Backups to ensure your TFS databases are backed up correctly. TFS Administrators Toolkit – helps make updates to work item types and reports across many team projects.  Also provides visibility of disk usage by finding large files in version control or test attachments to assist in managing storage utilization. Version Control Git-TF - a set of cross-platform, command line tools that facilitate sharing of changes between TFS and Git. These tools allow a developer to use a local Git repository, and configure it to share changes with a TFS server.  Great for all Git lovers who must integrate into a TFS repository. Testing TFS 2012 Tester Power Tool – A utility for bulk copying test cases which assists in an approach for managing test cases across multiple releases.  A little plug that this utility was written and maintained by Anna Russo of Imaginet where I also work. Test Scribe - A documentation power tool designed to construct documents directly from the TFS for test plan and test run artifacts for the purpose of discussion, reporting etc. Reporting Community TFS Report Extensions - a single repository of SQL Server Reporting Services report for Team Foundation 2010 (and above).  Check out the Test Plan Status report by Imaginet’s Steve St. Jean.  Very valuable for your test managers. Builds TFS Build Manager – A great utility if you are build manager over a complex build environment with many TFS build definitions. Community TFS Build Extensions – contains many custom build activities.  Current release binaries are for TFS 2010 but many of the activities can be recompiled for use with TFS 2012. While compiling this list, I was surprised by the number of TFS utilities and extensions I no longer use/need in TFS 2012 because of the great work by the TFS team addressing many gaps since the 2010 release. Are there any utilities you depend on that I’ve missed?  I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

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• Stepping outside Visual Studio IDE [Part 2 of 2] with Mono 2.6.4

  - by mbcrump

  Continuing part 2 of my Stepping outside the Visual Studio IDE, is the open-source Mono Project. Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications. Sponsored by Novell (http://www.novell.com/), Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. A growing family of solutions and an active and enthusiastic contributing community is helping position Mono to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications. So, to clarify. You can use Mono to develop .NET applications that will run on Linux, Windows or Mac. It’s basically a IDE that has roots in Linux. Let’s first look at the compatibility: Compatibility If you already have an application written in .Net, you can scan your application with the Mono Migration Analyzer (MoMA) to determine if your application uses anything not supported by Mono. The current release version of Mono is 2.6. (Released December 2009) The easiest way to describe what Mono currently supports is: Everything in .NET 3.5 except WPF and WF, limited WCF. Here is a slightly more detailed view, by .NET framework version: Implemented C# 3.0 System.Core LINQ ASP.Net 3.5 ASP.Net MVC C# 2.0 (generics) Core Libraries 2.0: mscorlib, System, System.Xml ASP.Net 2.0 - except WebParts ADO.Net 2.0 Winforms/System.Drawing 2.0 - does not support right-to-left C# 1.0 Core Libraries 1.1: mscorlib, System, System.Xml ASP.Net 1.1 ADO.Net 1.1 Winforms/System.Drawing 1.1 Partially Implemented LINQ to SQL - Mostly done, but a few features missing WCF - silverlight 2.0 subset completed Not Implemented WPF - no plans to implement WF - Will implement WF 4 instead on future versions of Mono. System.Management - does not map to Linux System.EnterpriseServices - deprecated Links to documentation. The Official Mono FAQ’s Links to binaries. Mono IDE Latest Version is 2.6.4 That's it, nothing more is required except to compile and run .net code in Linux. Installation After landing on the mono project home page, you can select which platform you want to download. I typically pick the Virtual PC image since I spend all of my day using Windows 7. Go ahead and pick whatever version is best for you. The Virtual PC image comes with Suse Linux. Once the image is launch, you will see the following: I’m not going to go through each option but its best to start with “Start Here” icon. It will provide you with information on new projects or existing VS projects. After you get Mono installed, it's probably a good idea to run a quick Hello World program to make sure everything is setup properly. This allows you to know that your Mono is working before you try writing or running a more complex application. To write a "Hello World" program follow these steps: Start Mono Development Environment. Create a new Project: File->New->Solution Select "Console Project" in the category list. Enter a project name into the Project name field, for example, "HW Project". Click "Forward" Click “Packaging” then OK. You should have a screen very simular to a VS Console App. Click the "Run" button in the toolbar (Ctrl-F5). Look in the Application Output and you should have the “Hello World!” Your screen should look like the screen below. That should do it for a simple console app in mono. To test out an ASP.NET application, simply copy your code to a new directory in /srv/www/htdocs, then visit the following URL: http://localhost/directoryname/page.aspx where directoryname is the directory where you deployed your application and page.aspx is the initial page for your software. Databases You can continue to use SQL server database or use MySQL, Postgress, Sybase, Oracle, IBM’s DB2 or SQLite db. Conclusion I hope this brief look at the Mono IDE helps someone get acquainted with development outside of VS. As always, I welcome any suggestions or comments.

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• Arcball Problems with UDK

  - by opdude

  I'm trying to re-create an arcball example from a Nehe, where an object can be rotated in a more realistic way while floating in the air (in my game the object is attached to the player at a distance like for example the Physics Gun) however I'm having trouble getting this to work with UDK. I have created an LGArcBall which follows the example from Nehe and I've compared outputs from this with the example code. I think where my problem lies is what I do to the Quaternion that is returned from the LGArcBall. Currently I am taking the returned Quaternion converting it to a rotation matrix. Getting the product of the last rotation (set when the object is first clicked) and then returning that into a Rotator and setting that to the objects rotation. If you could point me in the right direction that would be great, my code can be found below. class LGArcBall extends Object; var Quat StartRotation; var Vector StartVector; var float AdjustWidth, AdjustHeight, Epsilon; function SetBounds(float NewWidth, float NewHeight) { AdjustWidth = 1.0f / ((NewWidth - 1.0f) * 0.5f); AdjustHeight = 1.0f / ((NewHeight - 1.0f) * 0.5f); } function StartDrag(Vector2D startPoint, Quat rotation) { StartVector = MapToSphere(startPoint); } function Quat Update(Vector2D currentPoint) { local Vector currentVector, perp; local Quat newRot; //Map the new point to the sphere currentVector = MapToSphere(currentPoint); //Compute the vector perpendicular to the start and current perp = startVector cross currentVector; //Make sure our length is larger than Epsilon if (VSize(perp) > Epsilon) { //Return the perpendicular vector as the transform newRot.X = perp.X; newRot.Y = perp.Y; newRot.Z = perp.Z; //In the quaternion values, w is cosine (theta / 2), where //theta is the rotation angle newRot.W = startVector dot currentVector; } else { //The two vectors coincide, so return an identity transform newRot.X = 0.0f; newRot.Y = 0.0f; newRot.Z = 0.0f; newRot.W = 0.0f; } return newRot; } function Vector MapToSphere(Vector2D point) { local float x, y, length, norm; local Vector result; //Transform the mouse coords to [-1..1] //and inverse the Y coord x = (point.X * AdjustWidth) - 1.0f; y = 1.0f - (point.Y * AdjustHeight); length = (x * x) + (y * y); //If the point is mapped outside of the sphere //( length > radius squared) if (length > 1.0f) { norm = 1.0f / Sqrt(length); //Return the "normalized" vector, a point on the sphere result.X = x * norm; result.Y = y * norm; result.Z = 0.0f; } else //It's inside of the sphere { //Return a vector to the point mapped inside the sphere //sqrt(radius squared - length) result.X = x; result.Y = y; result.Z = Sqrt(1.0f - length); } return result; } DefaultProperties { Epsilon = 0.000001f } I'm then attempting to rotate that object when the mouse is dragged, with the following update code in my PlayerController. //Get Mouse Position MousePosition.X = LGMouseInterfacePlayerInput(PlayerInput).MousePosition.X; MousePosition.Y = LGMouseInterfacePlayerInput(PlayerInput).MousePosition.Y; newQuat = ArcBall.Update(MousePosition); rotMatrix = MakeRotationMatrix(QuatToRotator(newQuat)); rotMatrix = rotMatrix * LastRot; LGMoveableActor(movingPawn.CurrentUseableObject).SetPhysics(EPhysics.PHYS_Rotating); LGMoveableActor(movingPawn.CurrentUseableObject).SetRotation(MatrixGetRotator(rotMatrix));

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• XNA Multiplayer Games and Networking

  - by JoshReuben

  ·        XNA communication must by default be lightweight – if you are syncing game state between players from the Game.Update method, you must minimize traffic. That game loop may be firing 60 times a second and player 5 needs to know if his tank has collided with any player 3 and the angle of that gun turret. There are no WCF ServiceContract / DataContract niceties here, but at the same time the XNA networking stack simplifies the details. The payload must be simplistic - just an ordered set of numbers that you would map to meaningful enum values upon deserialization.   Overview ·        XNA allows you to create and join multiplayer game sessions, to manage game state across clients, and to interact with the friends list ·        Dependency on Gamer Services - to receive notifications such as sign-in status changes and game invitations ·        two types of online multiplayer games: system link game sessions (LAN) and LIVE sessions (WAN). ·        Minimum dev requirements: 1 Xbox 360 console + Creators Club membership to test network code - run 1 instance of game on Xbox 360, and 1 on a Windows-based computer   Network Sessions ·        A network session is made up of players in a game + up to 8 arbitrary integer properties describing the session ·        create custom enums – (e.g. GameMode, SkillLevel) as keys in NetworkSessionProperties collection ·        Player state: lobby, in-play   Session Types ·        local session - for split-screen gaming - requires no network traffic. ·        system link session - connects multiple gaming machines over a local subnet. ·        Xbox LIVE multiplayer session - occurs on the Internet. Ranked or unranked   Session Updates ·        NetworkSession class Update method - must be called once per frame. ·        performs the following actions: o   Sends the network packets. o   Changes the session state. o   Raises the managed events for any significant state changes. o   Returns the incoming packet data. ·        synchronize the session à packet-received and state-change events à no threading issues   Session Config ·        Session host - gaming machine that creates the session. XNA handles host migration ·        NetworkSession properties: AllowJoinInProgress , AllowHostMigration ·        NetworkSession groups: AllGamers, LocalGamers, RemoteGamers   Subscribe to NetworkSession events ·        GamerJoined ·        GamerLeft ·        GameStarted ·        GameEnded – use to return to lobby ·        SessionEnded – use to return to title screen   Create a Session session = NetworkSession.Create(         NetworkSessionType.SystemLink,         maximumLocalPlayers,         maximumGamers,         privateGamerSlots,         sessionProperties );   Start a Session if (session.IsHost) {     if (session.IsEveryoneReady)     {        session.StartGame();        foreach (var gamer in SignedInGamer.SignedInGamers)        {             gamer.Presence.PresenceMode =                 GamerPresenceMode.InCombat;   Find a Network Session AvailableNetworkSessionCollection availableSessions = NetworkSession.Find(     NetworkSessionType.SystemLink,       maximumLocalPlayers,     networkSessionProperties); availableSessions.AllowJoinInProgress = true;   Join a Network Session NetworkSession session = NetworkSession.Join(     availableSessions[selectedSessionIndex]);   Sending Network Data var packetWriter = new PacketWriter(); foreach (LocalNetworkGamer gamer in session.LocalGamers) {     // Get the tank associated with this player.     Tank myTank = gamer.Tag as Tank;     // Write the data.     packetWriter.Write(myTank.Position);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.TankRotation);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.TurretRotation);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.IsFiring);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.Health);       // Send it to everyone.     gamer.SendData(packetWriter, SendDataOptions.None);     }   Receiving Network Data foreach (LocalNetworkGamer gamer in session.LocalGamers) {     // Keep reading while packets are available.     while (gamer.IsDataAvailable)     {         NetworkGamer sender;          // Read a single packet.         gamer.ReceiveData(packetReader, out sender);          if (!sender.IsLocal)         {             // Get the tank associated with this packet.             Tank remoteTank = sender.Tag as Tank;              // Read the data and apply it to the tank.             remoteTank.Position = packetReader.ReadVector2();             …   End a Session if (session.AllGamers.Count == 1)         {             session.EndGame();             session.Update();         }   Performance •        Aim to minimize payload, reliable in order messages •        Send Data Options: o   Unreliable, out of order -(SendDataOptions.None) o   Unreliable, in order (SendDataOptions.InOrder) o   Reliable, out of order (SendDataOptions.Reliable) o   Reliable, in order (SendDataOptions.ReliableInOrder) o   Chat data (SendDataOptions.Chat) •        Simulate: NetworkSession.SimulatedLatency , NetworkSession.SimulatedPacketLoss •        Voice support – NetworkGamer properties: HasVoice ,IsTalking , IsMutedByLocalUser

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• PASS: The Legal Stuff

  - by Bill Graziano

  I wanted to give a little background on the legal status of PASS.  The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) is an American corporation chartered in the state of Illinois.  In America a corporation has to be chartered in a particular state.  It has to abide by the laws of that state and potentially pay taxes to that state.  Our bylaws and actions have to comply with Illinois state law and United States law.  We maintain a mailing address in Chicago, Illinois but our headquarters is currently in Vancouver, Canada. We have roughly a dozen people that work in our Vancouver headquarters and 4-5 more that work remotely on various projects.  These aren’t employees of PASS.  They are employed by a management company that we hire to run the day to day operations of the organization.  I’ll have more on this arrangement in a future post. PASS is a non-profit corporation.  The term non-profit and not-for-profit are used interchangeably.  In a for-profit corporation (or LLC) there are owners that are entitled to the profits of a company.  In a non-profit there are no owners.  As a non-profit, all the money earned by the organization must be retained or spent.  There is no money that flows out to shareholders, owners or the board of directors.  Any money not spent in furtherance of our mission is retained as financial reserves. Many non-profits apply for tax exempt status.  Being tax exempt means that an organization doesn’t pay taxes on its profits.  There are a variety of laws governing who can be tax exempt in the United States.  There are many professional associations that are tax exempt however PASS isn’t tax exempt.  Because our mission revolves around the software of a single company we aren’t eligible for tax exempt status. PASS was founded in the late 1990’s by Microsoft and Platinum Technologies.  Platinum was later purchased by Computer Associates. As the founding partners Microsoft and CA each have two seats on the Board of Directors.  The other six directors and three officers are elected as specified in our bylaws. As a non-profit, our bylaws layout our governing practices.  They must conform to Illinois and United States law.  These bylaws specify that PASS is governed by a Board of Directors elected by the membership with two members each from Microsoft and CA.  You can find our bylaws as well as a proposed update to them on the governance page of the PASS web site. The last point that I’d like to make is that PASS is completely self-funded.  All of our $4 million in revenue comes from conference registrations, sponsorships and advertising.  We don’t receive any money from anyone outside those channels.  While we work closely with Microsoft we are independent of them and only derive a very small percentage of our revenue from them.

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• Minimum team development sizes

  - by MarkPearl

  Disclaimer - these are observations that I have had, I am not sure if this follows the philosophy of scrum, agile or whatever, but most of these insights were gained while implementing a scrum scenario. Two is a partnership, three starts a team For a while I thought that a team was anything more than one and that scrum could be effective methodology with even two people. I have recently adjusted my thinking to a scrum team being a minimum of three, so what happened to two and what do you call it? For me I consider a group of two people working together a partnership - there is value in having a partnership, but some of the dynamics and value that you get from having a team is lost with a partnership. Avoidance of a one on one confrontation The first dynamic I see missing in a partnership is the team motivation to do better and how this is delivered to individuals that are not performing. Take two highly motivated individuals and put them together and you will typically see them continue to perform. Now take a situation where you have two individuals, one performing and one not and the behaviour is totally different compared to a team of three or more individuals. With two people, if one feels the other is not performing it becomes a one on one confrontation. Most people avoid confrontations and so nothing changes. Compare this to a situation where you have three people in a team, 2 performing and 1 not the dynamic is totally different, it is no longer a personal one on one confrontation but a team concern and people seem more willing to encourage the individual not performing and express their dissatisfaction as a team if they do not improve. Avoiding the effects of Tuckman’s Group Development Theory If you are not familiar with Tuckman’s group development theory give it a read (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman's_stages_of_group_development) In a nutshell with Tuckman’s theory teams go through these stages of Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing. You want your team to reach and remain in the Performing stage for as long as possible - this is where you get the most value. When you have a partnership of two and you change the individuals in the partnership you basically do a hard reset on the partnership and go back to the beginning of Tuckman’s model each time. This has a major effect on the performance of a team and what they can deliver. What I have seen is that you reduce the effects of Tuckman's theory the more individuals you have in the team (until you hit the maximum team size in which other problems kick in). While you will still experience Tuckman's theory with a team of three, the impact will be greatly reduced compared to two where it is guaranteed every time a change occurs. It's not just in the numbers, it's in the people One final comment - while the actual numbers of a team do play a role, the individuals in the team are even more important - ideally you want to keep individuals working together for an extended period. That doesn't mean that you never change the individuals in a team, or that once someone joins a team they are stuck there - there is value in an individual moving from team to team and getting cross pollination, but the period of time that an individual moves should be in month's or years, not days or weeks. Why? So why is it important to know this? Why is it important to know how a team works and what motivates them? I have been asking myself this question for a while and where I am at right now is this… the aim is to achieve the stage where the sum of the total (team) is greater than the sum of the parts (team members). This is why we form teams and why understanding how they work is a challenge and also extremely stimulating.

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