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• Upcoming Carbon Tax in South Africa

  - by Evelyn Neumayr

  By Elena Avesani, Principal Product Strategy Manager, Oracle In 2012, the South Africa National Treasury announced the plan to impose a carbon tax to cut carbon emissions that are blamed for climate change. South Africa is ranked among the top 20 countries measured by absolute carbon dioxide emissions, with emissions per capita in the region of 10 metric tons per annum and over 90% of South Africa's energy produced by burning fossil fuels. The top 40 largest companies in the country are responsible for 207 million tons of carbon dioxide, directly emitting 20 percent of South Africa’s carbon output. The legislation, originally scheduled to be implemented from January 2015 to 31 December 2019, is now delayed to January 2016. It will levy a carbon tax of R120 (US$11) per ton of CO2, rising then by 10 percent a year until 2020, while all sectors bar electricity will be able to claim additional relief of at least 10 percent. The South African treasury proposed a 60 percent tax-free threshold on emissions for all sectors, including electricity, petroleum, iron, steel and aluminum. Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting (EA&R) supports these needs and guarantees consistency across organizations in how data is collected, retained, controlled, consolidated and used in calculating and reporting emissions inventory. EA&R also enables companies to develop an enterprise-wide data view that includes all 5 of the key sustainability categories: carbon emissions, energy, water, materials and waste. Thanks to its native integration with Oracle E-Business Suite and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP Financials and Inventory Systems and the capability of capturing environmental data across business silos, Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting is uniquely positioned to support a strategic approach to carbon management that drives business value. Sources: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} African Utility Week BDlive Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Gaming on Cloud

  - by technomad

  Sometimes I wonder the pundits of cloud computing are way to consumed with the enterprise applications. With all the CAPEX / OPEX, ROI-talk taking the center stage, an opportunity to affect masses directly is getting overlooked. I am a self proclaimed die hard gamer. I come from the generation of gamers who started their journey in DOS games like Wolfenstein 3D and Allan Border Cricket (the latter is still a favorite pastime). In the late 90s, a revolution called accelerated graphics started in DirectX and OpenGL. Games got more advanced. Likes of Quake III and Unreal Tournament became the crown jewels of the industry. But with all these advancements, there started a race. A race of GFX giants ATI and NVIDIA to beat each other for better frame and image quality. Revisions to the graphics chipsets became frequent. Games became eye candies but at the cost of more GPU power / memory. Every eagerly awaited title started demanding more muscle power in graphics and PC hardware. Latest games and all the liquid smooth frame rates became the territory of the once with deep pockets who could spend lavishly on latest hardware. Enthusiasts like yours truly, who couldn’t afford this route, started exploring over-clocking, optimized hardware cooling... etc. to pursue the passion. Ever rising cost of hardware requirements lead to rampant piracy of PC games. Gamers were willing to spend on the latest titles, but the ones with tight budget prefer hardware upgrades against a legal copy of the game. It was also fueled by emergence of the P2P file sharing networks. Then came the era of Xbox and PS3s. It solved the major issue of hardware standardization and provided an alternative to ever increasing hardware costs. I have always admired these consoles, but being born and brought up in a keyboard/mouse environment, I still find it difficult to play first person shooters with a gamepad. I leave the topic of PC v/s Consol gaming for another day, but the bottom line is… PC gamers deserve an equally democratized solution. This is where I think Cloud Computing can come to rescue. It can minimize hardware requirements. Virtually end the software piracy and rationalize costs for gamers. Subscription based models like pay-as-you-play. In game rewards, like extended subscription credits for exceptional gamers (oh yes, I have beaten Xaero on nightmare in Quake III, time and again!) Easy deployment for patches and fixes. Better game AI. The list goes on and on… Fortunately, companies like OnLive are thinking in the same direction. Their gaming service is all set to launch on 17th June 2010 in E3 2010 expo in L.A. I wish them all the luck. I hope they will start a trend which will bring the smiles back on the face of budget gamers with the help of cloud computing.

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• E-Business Suite : Role of CHUNK_SIZE in Oracle Payroll

  - by Giri Mandalika

  Different batch processes in Oracle Payroll flow have the ability to spawn multiple child processes (or threads) to complete the work in hand. The number of child processes to fork is controlled by the THREADS parameter in APPS.PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS view. THREADS parameter The default value for THREADS parameter is 1, which is fine for a single-processor system but not optimal for the modern multi-core multi-processor systems. Setting the THREADS parameter to a value equal to or less than the total number of [virtual] processors available on the system may improve the performance of payroll processing. However on the down side, since multiple child processes operate against the same set of payroll tables in HR schema, database may experience undesired consequences such as buffer busy waits and index contention, which results in giving up some of the gains achieved by using multiple child processes/threads to process the work. Couple of other action parameters, CHUNK_SIZE and CHUNK_SHUFFLE, help alleviate the database contention. eg., Set a value for THREADS parameter as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = DESIRED_VALUE WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'THREADS'; COMMIT; (I am not aware of any maximum value for THREADS parameter) CHUNK_SIZE parameter The size of each commit unit for the batch process is controlled by the CHUNK_SIZE action parameter. In other words, chunking is the act of splitting the assignment actions into commit groups of desired size represented by the CHUNK_SIZE parameter. The default value is 20, and each thread processes one chunk at a time -- which means each child process inserts or processes 20 assignment actions at any time. When multiple threads are configured, each thread picks up a chunk to process, completes the assignment actions and then picks up another chunk. This is repeated until all the chunks are exhausted. It is possible to use different chunk sizes in different batch processes. During the initial phase of processing, CHUNK_SIZE number of assignment actions are inserted into relevant table(s). When multiple child processes are inserting data at the same time into the same set of tables, as explained earlier, database may experience contention. The default value of 20 is mostly optimal in such a case. Experiment with different values for the initial phase by +/-10 for CHUNK_SIZE parameter and observe the performance impact. A larger value may make sense during the main processing phase. Again experimentation is the key in finding the suitable value for your environment. Start with a large value such as 2000 for the chunk size, then increment or decrement the size by 500 at a time until an optimal value is found. eg., Set a value for CHUNK_SIZE parameter as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = DESIRED_VALUE WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'CHUNK_SIZE'; COMMIT; CHUNK_SIZE action parameter accepts a value that is as low as 1 or as high as 16000. CHUNK SHUFFLE parameter By default, chunks of assignment actions are processed sequentially by all threads - which may not be a good thing especially given that all child processes/threads performing similar actions against the same set of tables almost at the same time. By saying not a good thing, I mean to say that the default behavior leads to contention in the database (in data blocks, for example). It is possible to relieve some of that database contention by randomizing the processing order of chunks of assignment actions. This behavior is controlled by the CHUNK SHUFFLE action parameter. Chunk processing is not randomized unless explicitly configured. eg., Set chunk shuffling as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = 'Y' WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'CHUNK SHUFFLE'; COMMIT; Finally I recommend checking the following document out for additional details and additional pay action tunable parameters that may speed up the processing of Oracle Payroll.     My Oracle Support Doc ID: 226987.1 Oracle 11i & R12 Human Resources (HRMS) & Benefits (BEN) Tuning & System Health Checks Also experiment with different combinations of parameters and values until the right set of action parameters and values are found for your deployment.

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• BI&EPM in Focus Sep 2012

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Customers ·       Iluka Resources Improves Business Insight into Mining Operations Through Significantly Faster, Customized Analyses ·       Waikato Regional Council Consolidates Financial Reports up to 10 Times Faster  ·       Lojas Renner Shortens Budget Consolidation from Three Days to 15 Minutes; Improves Data Quality, and Supports Aggressive Expansion Plans  ·       Link to Complete Archive ·       Profit Magazine article featuring General Dynamics: RECONnomics: Integrate. Innovate. Grow (link) ·       Video: Goodhope Asia Unifies Financial Data with Oracle Hyperion (link)   Enterprise Performance Management ·       Oracle University Training on Demand: 1.     Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting 11.1.2 for Financial Management (link) 2.     Oracle Essbase Bootcamp: On Demand (link) 3.     Oracle Hyperion Planning 11.1.2: Create & Manage Applications On Demand (link)   Business Intelligence ·       Oracle University Training on Demand: 1.     Learn How to Create Analyses, Dashboards with OBI 11g (link) 2.     Build Repositories with Oracle Business Intelligence 11g (link) 3.     Oracle BI Publisher 11g Fundamentals (link) 4.     Oracle BI Applications Courses now available for 7.9.6  (link) 5.     Oracle BI 11g: New Features and Exalytics ·       Oracle Business Intelligence Release 11.1.1.6.2BP, updated information: 1.     Oracle BI Mobile at the Speed of Thought 2.     What's New in Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile 3.     What's New in Oracle Business Intelligence Visualizations 4.     Oracle Business Intelligence on Oracle.com 5.     Download the New Release ·       Discover How to Turn Data into Insight: Big Data Guide : Whitepaper and set of short Videos. ·       New OPN Specialisation Exam for OBI 11g Certification . ·       Lastest BIC2g and Exalytics Demonstration VMs for Partners . ·       New Version 2.3 Oracle Endeca Information Discovery and Server now available . ·       New Oracle BI Publisher 11.1.1.6 Trial Edition Now Available .

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• Meet Matthijs, Dutch Inside Sales Representative for Oracle Direct

  - by Maria Sandu

  Today we would like to share some information around the Dutch Core Technology team in Malaga. Matthijs is one of the team members who decided to relocate from the Netherlands to Malaga to join Oracle Direct two years ago. Matthijs: “For the past two years I have been working as an Oracle Direct Core Technology Inside Sales representative for Named Accounts in the Netherlands, based in Malaga, Spain. In my case, working for the Dutch OD Core Technology team means that I am responsible for the Account Management of Larger companies in the Travel & Transportation and the Manufacturing, Retail & Distribution sector. I work together with the Oracle Field Account Managers and our Field Sales Management in the Netherlands where I am often the main point of contact for customers. This means that I deal with their requests and I manage their various issues, provide solutions and suggestions based on the Oracle Core Technology portfolio. I work on interesting projects with end-customers, making financial proposals and building business cases. It is a very interesting sales environment and for the last two years I improved my skills substantially. This month I will finish my Inside Sales career in Malaga to move to a position within Field Sales in the Netherlands. Oracle Direct has proven to be a great stepping stone for my career. Boost your personal development One of the reasons for joining Oracle was to boost my personal & career development. You can choose from various different trainings to follow all over Europe which enable you to reach both your personal and professional goals. Furthermore, you can decide your own career path and plan the steps necessary to achieve your goal. Many people aim to grow into Field Sales in their native countries, Business Development or Sales Management, but there are many possibilities once you decide to join Oracle. Overall, working at Oracle means working for an international company and one of the worldwide leaders in Enterprise Hardware & Software. Here you get all the tools necessary to develop yourself personally & professionally. Another great advantage of working for Oracle Direct is working from our office in Malaga, Southern Spain where we have over 400 employees from many countries across EMEA. It is a truly international environment! Working and living in Spain gives you an excellent opportunity to learn Spanish and of course enjoy the Spanish lifestyle, cuisine, beaches and much, much more!” Interview day Utrecht If you are inspired by the story of Matthijs and would like to explore the opportunity to join the Technology Sales team for the Dutch market in Malaga, let us know! We will organise an Interview day in the Oracle office in Utrecht on the 18th and 19th of September. We currently have multiple openings in the Core Technology team that focus on selling our Database portfolio in the Dutch market. We are looking for native Dutch speakers with a Bachelors degree, 2-5 years sales experience (ideally in IT) who are willing to relocate to Malaga for at least 2 years! For more information please contact [email protected] or [email protected].

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• Windows Phone 7 and WS-Trust

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  A question that I often hear these days is: “Can I connect a Windows Phone 7 device to my existing enterprise services?”. Well – since most of my services are typically issued token based, this requires support for WS-Trust and WS-Security on the client. Let’s see what’s necessary to write a WP7 client for this scenario. First I converted the Silverlight library that comes with the Identity Training Kit to WP7. Some things are not supported in WP7 WCF (like message inspectors and some client runtime hooks) – but besides that this was a simple copy+paste job. Very nice! Next I used the WSTrustClient to request tokens from my STS: private WSTrustClient GetWSTrustClient() {     var client = new WSTrustClient(         new WSTrustBindingUsernameMixed(),         new EndpointAddress("https://identity.thinktecture.com/…/issue.svc/mixed/username"),         new UsernameCredentials(_txtUserName.Text, _txtPassword.Password));     return client; } private void _btnLogin_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     _client = GetWSTrustClient();       var rst = new RequestSecurityToken(WSTrust13Constants.KeyTypes.Bearer)     {         AppliesTo = new EndpointAddress("https://identity.thinktecture.com/rp/")     };       _client.IssueCompleted += client_IssueCompleted;     _client.IssueAsync(rst); } I then used the returned RSTR to talk to the WCF service. Due to a bug in the combination of the Silverlight library and the WP7 runtime – symmetric key tokens seem to have issues currently. Bearer tokens work fine. So I created the following binding for the WCF endpoint specifically for WP7. <customBinding>   <binding name="mixedNoSessionBearerBinary">     <security authenticationMode="IssuedTokenOverTransport"               messageSecurityVersion="WSSecurity11 WSTrust13 WSSecureConversation13 WSSecurityPolicy12 BasicSecurityProfile10">       <issuedTokenParameters keyType="BearerKey" />     </security>     <binaryMessageEncoding />     <httpsTransport/>   </binding> </customBinding> The binary encoding is not necessary, but will speed things up a little for mobile devices. I then call the service with the following code: private void _btnCallService_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     var binding = new CustomBinding(         new BinaryMessageEncodingBindingElement(),         new HttpsTransportBindingElement());       _proxy = new StarterServiceContractClient(         binding,         new EndpointAddress("…"));     using (var scope = new OperationContextScope(_proxy.InnerChannel))     {         OperationContext.Current.OutgoingMessageHeaders.Add(new IssuedTokenHeader(Globals.RSTR));         _proxy.GetClaimsAsync();     } } works. download

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• Perm SSIS Developer Urgently Required

  - by blakmk

    Job Role To provide dedicated data services support to the company, by designing, creating, maintaining and enhancing database objects, ensuring data quality, consistency and integrity. Migrating data from various sources to central SQL 2008 data warehouse will be the primary function. Migration of data from bespoke legacy database’s to SQL 2008 data warehouse. Understand key business requirements, Liaising with various aspects of the company. Create advanced transformations of data, with focus on data cleansing, redundant data and duplication. Creating complex business rules regarding data services, migration, Integrity and support (Best Practices). Experience ·         Minimum 3 year SSIS experience, in a project or BI Development role and involvement in at least 3 full ETL project life cycles, using the following methodologies and tools o    Excellent knowledge of ETL concepts including data migration & integrity, focusing on SSIS. o    Extensive experience with SQL 2005 products, SQL 2008 desirable. o    Working knowledge of SSRS and its integration with other BI products. o    Extensive knowledge of T-SQL, stored procedures, triggers (Table/Database), views, functions in particular coding and querying. o    Data cleansing and harmonisation. o    Understanding and knowledge of indexes, statistics and table structure. o    SQL Agent – Scheduling jobs, optimisation, multiple jobs, DTS. o    Troubleshoot, diagnose and tune database and physical server performance. o    Knowledge and understanding of locking, blocks, table and index design and SQL configuration. ·         Demonstrable ability to understand and analyse business processes. ·         Experience in creating business rules on best practices for data services. ·         Experience in working with, supporting and troubleshooting MS SQL servers running enterprise applications ·         Proven ability to work well within a team and liaise with other technical support staff such as networking administrators, system administrators and support engineers. ·         Ability to create formal documentation, work procedures, and service level agreements. ·         Ability to communicate technical issues at all levels including to a non technical audience. ·         Good working knowledge of MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Project.   Location Based in Crawley with possibility of some remote working Contact me for more info: http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/blakmk/contact.aspx      

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• We have our standards, and we need them

  - by Tony Davis

  The presenter suddenly broke off. He was midway through his section on how to apply to the relational database the Continuous Delivery techniques that allowed for rapid-fire rounds of development and refactoring, while always retaining a “production-ready” state. He sighed deeply and then launched into an astonishing diatribe against Database Administrators, much of his frustration directed toward Oracle DBAs, in particular. In broad strokes, he painted the picture of a brave new deployment philosophy being frustratingly shackled by the relational database, and by especially by the attitudes of the guardians of these databases. DBAs, he said, shunned change and “still favored tools I’d have been embarrassed to use in the ’80′s“. DBAs, Oracle DBAs especially, were more attached to their vendor than to their employer, since the former was the primary source of their career longevity and spectacular remuneration. He contended that someone could produce the best IDE or tool in the world for Oracle DBAs and yet none of them would give a stuff, unless it happened to come from the “mother ship”. I sat blinking in astonishment at the speaker’s vehemence, and glanced around nervously. Nobody in the audience disagreed, and a few nodded in assent. Although the primary target of the outburst was the Oracle DBA, it made me wonder. Are we who work with SQL Server, database professionals or merely SQL Server fanbois? Do DBAs, in general, have an image problem? Is it a good career-move to be seen to be holding onto a particular product by the whites of our knuckles, to the exclusion of all else? If we seek a broad, open-minded, knowledge of our chosen technology, the database, and are blessed with merely mortal powers of learning, then we like standards. Vendors of RDBMSs generally don’t conform to standards by instinct, but by customer demand. Microsoft has made great strides to adopt the international SQL Standards, where possible, thanks to considerable lobbying by the community. The implementation of Window functions is a great example. There is still work to do, though. SQL Server, for example, has an unusable version of the Information Schema. One cast-iron rule of any RDBMS is that we must be able to query the metadata using the same language that we use to query the data, i.e. SQL, and we do this by running queries against the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views. Developers who’ve attempted to apply a standard query that works on MySQL, or some other database, but doesn’t produce the expected results on SQL Server are advised to shun the Standards-based approach in favor of the vendor-specific one, using the catalog views. The argument behind this is sound and well-documented, and of course we all use those catalog views, out of necessity. And yet, as database professionals, committed to supporting the best databases for the business, whatever they are now and in the future, surely our heart should sink somewhat when we advocate a vendor specific approach, to a developer struggling with something as simple as writing a guard clause. And when we read messages on the Microsoft documentation informing us that we shouldn’t rely on INFORMATION_SCHEMA to identify reliably the schema of an object, in SQL Server!

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• The five steps of business intelligence adoption: where are you?

  - by Red Gate Software BI Tools Team

  When I was in Orlando and New York last month, I spoke to a lot of business intelligence users. What they told me suggested a path of BI adoption. The user’s place on the path depends on the size and sophistication of their organisation. Step 1: A company with a database of customer transactions will often want to examine particular data, like revenue and unit sales over the last period for each product and territory. To do this, they probably use simple SQL queries or stored procedures to produce data on demand. Step 2: The results from step one are saved in an Excel document, so business users can analyse them with filters or pivot tables. Alternatively, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) might be used to generate a report of the SQL query for display on an intranet page. Step 3: If these queries are run frequently, or business users want to explore data from multiple sources more freely, it may become necessary to create a new database structured for analysis rather than CRUD (create, retrieve, update, and delete). For example, data from more than one system — plus external information — may be incorporated into a data warehouse. This can become ‘one source of truth’ for the business’s operational activities. The warehouse will probably have a simple ‘star’ schema, with fact tables representing the measures to be analysed (e.g. unit sales, revenue) and dimension tables defining how this data is aggregated (e.g. by time, region or product). Reports can be generated from the warehouse with Excel, SSRS or other tools. Step 4: Not too long ago, Microsoft introduced an Excel plug-in, PowerPivot, which allows users to bring larger volumes of data into Excel documents and create links between multiple tables.  These BISM Tabular documents can be created by the database owners or other expert Excel users and viewed by anyone with Excel PowerPivot. Sometimes, business users may use PowerPivot to create reports directly from the primary database, bypassing the need for a data warehouse. This can introduce problems when there are misunderstandings of the database structure or no single ‘source of truth’ for key data. Step 5: Steps three or four are often enough to satisfy business intelligence needs, especially if users are sophisticated enough to work with the warehouse in Excel or SSRS. However, sometimes the relationships between data are too complex or the queries which aggregate across periods, regions etc are too slow. In these cases, it can be necessary to formalise how the data is analysed and pre-build some of the aggregations. To do this, a business intelligence professional will typically use SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) to create a multidimensional model — or “cube” — that more simply represents key measures and aggregates them across specified dimensions. Step five is where our tool, SSAS Compare, becomes useful, as it helps review and deploy changes from development to production. For us at Red Gate, the primary value of SSAS Compare is to establish a dialog with BI users, so we can develop a portfolio of products that support creation and deployment across a range of report and model types. For example, PowerPivot and the new BISM Tabular model create a potential customer base for tools that extend beyond BI professionals. We’re interested in learning where people are in this story, so we’ve created a six-question survey to find out. Whether you’re at step one or step five, we’d love to know how you use BI so we can decide how to build tools that solve your problems. So if you have a sixty seconds to spare, tell us on the survey!

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• How do you deal with poor management [closed]

  - by Sybiam

  I come from a company where during a project, we saw the client 3 time during the whole project. We were never informed when did the client came in office in order to discuss with him about his requirements. I did setup redmine and told them that if they have any request they can post an issue there. But they never really used redmine to publish anything. They would instead: harass a team member on the phone at any time of the day or night hand us over sheets of paper with new requests or changes hand us over new design (graphical) They requested how much time it would take us to finish the project, I gave them a date and a week to test everything and deployment. I calculated that time taking into account the current features we had to do. And then blamed us that our deadline was wrong and that we lied. But the truth is that one week before that deadline they added a couple of monster feature from nowhere and that week were we were supposed to test and deploy, my friends spent all day in the office changing all little things. After that project, my friend got some kind of depression and got scared everytime his phone rang. They kind of used him as a communication proxy. After that project of hell, (every body got pissed off on that project) as far as I know the designer who was working with us left work after that project and she had some kind of issue too with managers. My team also started looking for work somewhere else. At first I tried to get things straight with management, I tried to make a meeting to discuss about the communication issues and so on.. What really pissed me off and made me leave that job for good is the following. Me: "We have to discuss about what went wrong on the last project. It's quite important" Him: "Lets talk about it in a week or two. Just make a list of all the things you did wrong" Me: "We already have a new project and we want to prevent what happened on the last project to happen again" Him: "Just do it and well have our meeting in a week, make a list of all the thing you did wrong." It kind of ended there then he organized a meeting at a moment I wasn't unable to come. My friend discussed with him and tried to explained him that we really had to discuss about organization issue on how to manage a project. And his answer was pretty much: "During the meeting I don't want to ear how you want to us to manage a project but I want to know what you guys did wrong" After that I felt it wasn't even worth it discussing anything since they weren't even ready listening to us. Found a new job and I'm pretty happy with my choice. I'd like to know how you'd handle such situation. Is there anything to do to solve communication problem? After that project my friend got a depression and some other employee had their down too as far as I know. I wonder what else we can do other than leave these place as soon as possible. Feel sad for the people that are still there and get screamed at just because they need money in order to eat and finding an other job like that isn't that easy. note I died a little when our boss asked us to make a list of things we (programmers) did wrong. This is probably the stupidest request I ever got. If everybody thinks they did everything right, it doesn't mean that there is no problems. Individual problem are rarely the big issue. Colleagues help each others and solve theses issues to prevent problems.

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• Introduction to WebCenter Personalization: &ldquo;The Conductor&rdquo;

  - by Steve Pepper

  There are some new faces in the town of WebCenter with the latest 11g PS3 release.  A new component has introduced itself as "Oracle WebCenter Personalization", a.k.a WCP, to simplify delivery of a personalized experience and content to end users.  This posting reviews one of the primary components within WCP: "The Conductor". The Conductor: This ain't just an ordinary cloud... One of the founding principals behind WebCenter Personalization was to provide an open client-side API that remains independent of the technology invoking it, in addition to independence from the architecture running it.  The Conductor delivers this, and much, much more. The Conductor is the engine behind WebCenter Personalization that allows flow-based documents, called "Scenarios", to be managed and executed on the server-side through a well published and RESTful api.      The Conductor also supports an extensible model for custom provider integration that can be easily invoked within a Scenario to promote seamless integration with existing business assets. Introducing the Scenario Conductor Scenarios are declarative offline-authored documents using the custom Personalization JDeveloper bundle included with WebCenter.  A Scenario contains one (or more) statements that can: Create variables that are scoped to the current execution context Iterate over collections, or loop until a specific condition is met Execute one or more statements when a condition is met Invoke other scenarios that exist within the same namespace Invoke a data provider that integrates with custom applications Once a variable is assigned within the Scenario's execution context, it can be referenced anywhere within the same Scenario using the common Expression Language syntax used in J2EE web containers. Scenarios are then published and tested to the Integrated WebLogic Server domain, or published remotely to other domains running WebCenter Personalization. Various Client-side Models The Conductor server API is built upon RESTful services that support a wide variety of clients able to communicate over HTTP.  The Conductor supports the following client-side models: REST:  Popular browser-based languages can be used to manage and execute Conductor Scenarios.  There are other public methods to retrieve configured provider metadata that can be used by custom applications. The Conductor currently supports XML and JSON for it's API syntax. Java: WebCenter Personalization delivers a robust and light-weight java client with the popular Jersey framework as it's foundation.  It has never been easier to write a remote java client to manage remote RESTful services. Expression Language (EL): Allow the results of Scenario execution to control your user interface or embed personalized content using the session-scoped managed bean.  The EL client can also be used in straight JSP pages with minimal configuration. Extensible Provider Framework The Conductor supports a pluggable provider framework for integrating custom code with Scenario execution.  There are two types of providers supported by the Conductor: Function Provider: Function Providers are simple java annotated classes with static methods that are meant to be served as utilities.  Some common uses would include: object creation or instantiation, data transformation, and the like.  Function Providers can be invoked using the common EL syntax from variable assignments, conditions, and loops. For example:  ${myUtilityClass:doStuff(arg1,arg2))} If you are familiar with EL Functions, Function Providers are based on the same concept. Data Provider: Like Function Providers, Data Providers are annotated java classes, but they must adhere to a much more strict object model.  Data Providers have access to a wealth of Conductor services, such as: Access to namespace-scoped configuration API that can be managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager, Scenario execution context for expression resolution, and more.  Oracle ships with three out-of-the-box data providers that supports integration with: Standardized Content Servers(CMIS),  Federated Profile Properties through the Properties Service, and WebCenter Activity Graph. Useful References If you are looking to immediately get started writing your own application using WebCenter Personalization Services, you will find the following references helpful in getting you on your way: Personalizing WebCenter Applications Authoring Personalized Scenarios in JDeveloper Using Personalization APIs Externally Implementing and Calling Function Providers Implementing and Calling Data Providers

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• CFOs: Do You Have a Playbook for Growth?

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In most global markets, CFOs are optimistic about their company's growth opportunities. Deloitte's CFO Signals Report, "Time to Accelerate" found that: In the U.K. business optimism is at its highest level in three-and-a-half years Optimism in North America rose from a strong +42% last quarter (Q2 to Q3 2013) to an even stronger +54%. The inaugural Southeast Asia survey, 44% of CFOs reported a positive outlook despite worries over the Chinese economy and political uncertainty. Sustainable and profitable business growth doesn't usually happen by accident. Company's need a playbook for growth that's owned by the CFO. And today, that playbook must leverage the six enabling technologies--Social, Big Data, Mobile, Cloud, Analytics, and The Internet of Things (or, as Oracle president Mark Hurd explains, "The Internet of the People"). On Monday June 9 at  2:00 pm Eastern, CFO.com is hosting a webcast, "The CFO Playbook on Growth: How CFOs Can Boost Efficiency and Performance with Automation". Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} “Investing in technology begins with a business metric driven business case with clear tangible business results expected," says John Lieblang, Affiliate Partner with Waterstone Management Group. "The progressive CFO has learned how to forge a partnership with the CIO to align everyone in the 'result value chain' to be accountable for the business results not just for functional technology.” Click HERE to register  Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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• EMEA Analytics & Data Integration Oracle Partner Forum

  - by milomir.vojvodic

  MONDAY 12TH NOVEMBER, 2012 IN LONDON (UK) For Oracle Partners across Europe, Middle East and Africa: come to hear the latest news from Oracle OpenWorld about Oracle BI & Data Integration, and propel your business growth as an Oracle partner. This event should appeal to BI or Data Integration specialized partners, Executives, Sales, Pre-sales and Solution architects: with a choice of participation in the plenary day and then a set of special interest (technical) sessions. The follow on breakout sessions from the 13th November provide deeper dives and technical training for those of you who wish to stay for more detailed and hands-on workshops. Keynote: Andrew Sutherland, SVP Oracle Technology Hot agenda items will include: The Fusion Middleware Stack: Engineered to work together A complete Analytics and Data Integration Solution Architecture: Big Data and Little Data combined In-Memory Analytics for Extreme Insight Latest Product Development Roadmap for Data Integration and Analytics Venue: Oracles London CITY Moorgate Offices Places are limited, Register from this Link Note: Registration for the conference and the deeper dives and technical training is free of charge to OPN member Partners, but you will be responsible for your own travel and hotel expenses. Event Schedule During this event you can learn about partner success stories, participate in an array of break-out sessions, exchange information with other partners and enjoy a vibrant panel discussion. Nov. 12th  : Day 1 Main Plenary Session : Full day, starting 10.30 am.  Oracle Hosted Dinner in the Evening Nov. 13th  onwards Architecture Masterclass : IM Reference Architecture – Big Data and Little Data combined (1 day) BI-Apps Bootcamp  (4-days) Oracle GoldenGate workshop (1 day) Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle Enterprise Data Quality workshop (1 day) For further information and detail download the Agenda (pdf) or contact Michael Hallett at [email protected] and Milomir Vojvodic at [email protected] v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Changes in the Maven Embedded GlassFish plugin

  - by Romain Grecourt

  The plugin changed its Maven coordinates (a.k.a GAV) over time:  version <= 3.1.1 available under org.glassfish:maven-glassfish-embedded-plugin version >= 3.1.2 available under org.glassfish.embedded:maven-glassfish-embedded-plugin The goal “glassfish-embedded:run” has changed its way of reading the deployment configuration in the latest version: 4.0.Projects using previous versions of the plugin will stop working with this goal. Here is an example of the “old behavior”: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 <plugin> <groupId>org.glassfish.embedded</groupId> <artifactId>maven-embedded-glassfish-plugin</artifactId> <version>3.1.2.2</version> <configuration> <app>target/${project.build.finalName}.war</app> <contextRoot>/</contextRoot> <goalPrefix>embedded-glassfish</goalPrefix> <autoDelete>true</autoDelete> <port>8080</port> </configuration> </plugin> The new behavior is as follow: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 <plugin> <groupId>org.glassfish.embedded</groupId> <artifactId>maven-embedded-glassfish-plugin</artifactId> <version>4.0</version> <configuration> <goalPrefix>embedded-glassfish</goalPrefix> <autoDelete>true</autoDelete> <port>8080</port> </configuration> <executions> <execution> <goals> <goal>deploy</goal> </goals> <configuration> <app>target/${project.build.finalName}.war</app> <contextRoot>/</contextRoot> </configuration> </execution> </executions> </plugin> The new version looks for execution of the deploy goal and the associated configuration, when running the goal ‘run’. Both would allow you to run the latest version of the glassfish-embedded jar, you’d only need to add it as a plugin dependency: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 <plugin> [...] <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>org.glassfish.main.extras</groupId> <artifactId>glassfish-embedded-all</artifactId> <version>4.0</version> </dependency> </dependencies> </plugin>

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• Consolidation in a Database Cloud

  - by B R Clouse

  Consolidation of multiple databases onto a shared infrastructure is the next step after Standardization.  The potential consolidation density is a function of the extent to which the infrastructure is shared.  The three models provide increasing degrees of sharing: Server: each database is deployed in a dedicated VM. Hardware is shared, but most of the software infrastructure is not. Standardization is often applied incompletely since operating environments can be moved as-is onto the shared platform. The potential for VM sprawl is an additional downside. Database: multiple database instances are deployed on a shared software / hardware infrastructure. This model is very efficient and easily implemented with the features in the Oracle Database and supporting products. Many customers have moved to this model and achieved significant, measurable benefits. Schema: multiple schemas are deployed within a single database instance. The most efficient model, it places constraints on the environment. Usually this model will be implemented only by customers deploying their own applications.  (Note that a single deployment can combine Database and Schema consolidations.) Customer value: lower costs, better system utilization In this phase of the maturity model, under-utilized hardware can be used to host more workloads, or retired and those workloads migrated to consolidation platforms. Customers benefit from higher utilization of the hardware resources, resulting in reduced data center floor space, and lower power and cooling costs. And, the OpEx savings from Standardization are multiplied, since there are fewer physical components (both hardware and software) to manage. Customer value: higher productivity The OpEx benefits from Standardization are compounded since not only are there fewer types of things to manage, now there are fewer entities to manage. In this phase, customers discover that their IT staff has time to move away from "day-to-day" tasks and start investing in higher value activities. Database users benefit from consolidating onto shared infrastructures by relieving themselves of the requirement to maintain their own dedicated servers. Also, if the shared infrastructure offers capabilities such as High Availability / Disaster Recovery, which are often beyond the budget and skillset of a standalone database environment, then moving to the consolidation platform can provide access to those capabilities, resulting in less downtime. Capabilities / Characteristics In this phase, customers will typically deploy fixed-size clusters and consolidate on a cluster until that cluster is deemed "full," at which point a new cluster is built. Customers will define one or a few cluster architectures that are used wherever possible; occasionally there may be deployments which must be handled as exceptions. The "full" policy may be based on number of databases deployed on the cluster, or observed peak workload, etc. IT will own the provisioning of new databases on a cluster, making the decision of when and where to place new workloads. Resources may be managed dynamically, e.g., as a priority workload increases, it may be given more CPU and memory to handle the spike. Users will be charged at a fixed, relatively coarse level; or in some cases, no charging will be applied. Activities / Tasks Oracle offers several tools to plan a successful consolidation. Real Application Testing (RAT) has a feature to help plan and validate database consolidations. Enterprise Manager 12c's Cloud Management Pack for Database includes a planning module. Looking ahead, customers should start planning for the Services phase by defining the Service Catalog that will be made available for database services.

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• Moving abroad - Relocation advice

  - by Tim Koekkoek

  Oracle offers graduates from different European countries the opportunity to start their career abroad. Some already have experience with living abroad as they have done an exchange semester or internship in another county, for others it is the first time they will move abroad. Rui started in October 2011 as a Business Development Consultant in Dublin and moved from Portugal to Dublin, Ireland to start his career. For those planning to leave their home country and who desire to work abroad, he will share some tips and tricks in this article. When you’re faced with an opportunity like this, there are lots of things that will come to your mind. Sometimes it can be either very exciting, or even stressful. 1. First of all, try to relax. If you are certain you are moving abroad, all you need to do is some research about the country where you’re going to live, get to know its culture (gastronomy, important dates and events, its economy and effective ways to keep you in touch with your family and friends – such as mobile companies and Internet services), and start to understand the best locations (with good access) you could/should live in are. Don’t forget that initially you can be limited by transport and therefore it is important to explore the ideal places for you. During this time, Oracle provides everything you’ll need (papers, documents, etc.) to cross borders. 2. When you arrive, you understand that you are in a new country, in a new place, where all things (or most) are unknown to you. Before you panic, try to see it as a new challenge where new opportunities will come. Sometimes, it’s not easy I know, but the very best a new place has to give to you, is the opportunity to understand a new culture, get to know other people, other ways of working, and grow both as a person and professionally. So, you have nothing to lose in this kind of experiment. 3. When you arrive at Oracle, there’s a fantastic team that will help you with settling in, HR, Payroll, Relocation, IT. In my case, Oracle helped me with the relocation, they supported me to arrange everything such as helping out with all the paperwork and finding a new apartment. As you can see they will do their best to help you to be successful! 4. Engage with your new co-workers. Going to a place where you don’t know anyone can be tough sometimes but see it as an opportunity to meet people from all over the world and share experiences. Embrace it. 5. Plan ahead, try to get the most information possible and use it. Oracle is a multinational enterprise that will allow you to get to know a new labour market and give you the flexibility you need to understand your view of employment and occupation, giving you the very best opportunities to join different teams and working areas, so that you can work where you fit best. Good luck! If you’re thinking about starting a career abroad, read the following article: http://www.overseasdigest.com/movingtips.htm it can be very useful to you. Interested in starting your career at Oracle like Rui has? Please have a look at https://campus.oracle.com for all of our latest vacancies.

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• Getting Started with Cloud Computing

  - by juanlarios

  You’ve likely heard about how Office 365 and Windows Intune are great applications to get you started with Cloud Computing. Many of you emailed me asking for more info on what Cloud Computing is, including the distinction between "Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud". I want to address these questions and help you get started. Let's begin with a brief set of definitions and some places to find more info; however, an excellent place where you can always learn more about Cloud Computing is the Microsoft Virtual Academy. Public Cloud computing means that the infrastructure to run and manage the applications users are taking advantage of is run by someone else and not you. In other words, you do not buy the hardware or software to run your email or other services being used in your organization – that is done by someone else. Users simply connect to these services from their computers and you pay a monthly subscription fee for each user that is taking advantage of the service. Examples of Public Cloud services include Office 365, Windows Intune, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Hotmail, and others. Private Cloud computing generally means that the hardware and software to run services used by your organization is run on your premises, with the ability for business groups to self-provision the services they need based on rules established by the IT department. Generally, Private Cloud implementations today are found in larger organizations but they are also viable for small and medium-sized businesses since they generally allow an automation of services and reduction in IT workloads when properly implemented. Having the right management tools, like System Center 2012, to implement and operate Private Cloud is important in order to be successful. So – how do you get started? The first step is to determine what makes the most sense to your organization. The nice thing is that you do not need to pick Public or Private Cloud – you can use elements of both where it makes sense for your business – the choice is yours. When you are ready to try and purchase Public Cloud technologies, the Microsoft Volume Licensing web site is a good place to find links to each of the online services. In particular, if you are interested in a trial for each service, you can visit the following pages: Office 365, CRM Online, Windows Intune, and Windows Azure. For Private Cloud technologies, start with some of the courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy and then download and install the Microsoft Private Cloud technologies including Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and System Center 2012 in your own environment and take it for a spin. Also, keep up to date with the Canadian IT Pro blog to learn about events Microsoft is delivering such as the IT Virtualization Boot Camps and more to get you started with these technologies hands on. Finally, I want to ask for your help to allow the team at Microsoft to continue to provide you what you need. Twice a year through something we call "The Global Relationship Study" – they reach out and contact you to see how they're doing and what Microsoft could do better. If you get an email from "Microsoft Feedback" with the subject line "Help Microsoft Focus on Customers and Partners" between March 5th and April 13th, please take a little time to tell them what you think. Cloud Computing Resources: Microsoft Server and Cloud Computing site – information on Microsoft's overall cloud strategy and products. Microsoft Virtual Academy – for free online training to help improve your IT skillset. Office 365 Trial/Info page – get more information or try it out for yourself. Office 365 Videos – see how businesses like yours have used Office 365 to transition to the cloud. Windows Intune Trial/Info – get more information or try it out for yourself. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online page – information on trying and licensing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Additional Resources You May Find Useful: Springboard Series Your destination for technical resources, free tools and expert guidance to ease the deployment and management of your Windows-based client infrastructure. TechNet Evaluation Center Try some of our latest Microsoft products for free, Like System Center 2012 Pre-Release Products, and evaluate them before you buy. AlignIT Manager Tech Talk Series A monthly streamed video series with a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers. Ask questions and participate real-time or watch the on-demand recording. Tech·Days Online Discover what's next in technology and innovation with Tech·Days session recordings, hands-on labs and Tech·Days TV.

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• Using WKA in Large Coherence Clusters (Disabling Multicast)

  - by jpurdy

  Disabling hardware multicast (by configuring well-known addresses aka WKA) will place significant stress on the network. For messages that must be sent to multiple servers, rather than having a server send a single packet to the switch and having the switch broadcast that packet to the rest of the cluster, the server must send a packet to each of the other servers. While hardware varies significantly, consider that a server with a single gigabit connection can send at most ~70,000 packets per second. To continue with some concrete numbers, in a cluster with 500 members, that means that each server can send at most 140 cluster-wide messages per second. And if there are 10 cluster members on each physical machine, that number shrinks to 14 cluster-wide messages per second (or with only mild hyperbole, roughly zero). It is also important to keep in mind that network I/O is not only expensive in terms of the network itself, but also the consumption of CPU required to send (or receive) a message (due to things like copying the packet bytes, processing a interrupt, etc). Fortunately, Coherence is designed to rely primarily on point-to-point messages, but there are some features that are inherently one-to-many: Announcing the arrival or departure of a member Updating partition assignment maps across the cluster Creating or destroying a NamedCache Invalidating a cache entry from a large number of client-side near caches Distributing a filter-based request across the full set of cache servers (e.g. queries, aggregators and entry processors) Invoking clear() on a NamedCache The first few of these are operations that are primarily routed through a single senior member, and also occur infrequently, so they usually are not a primary consideration. There are cases, however, where the load from introducing new members can be substantial (to the point of destabilizing the cluster). Consider the case where cluster in the first paragraph grows from 500 members to 1000 members (holding the number of physical machines constant). During this period, there will be 500 new member introductions, each of which may consist of several cluster-wide operations (for the cluster membership itself as well as the partitioned cache services, replicated cache services, invocation services, management services, etc). Note that all of these introductions will route through that one senior member, which is sharing its network bandwidth with several other members (which will be communicating to a lesser degree with other members throughout this process). While each service may have a distinct senior member, there's a good chance during initial startup that a single member will be the senior for all services (if those services start on the senior before the second member joins the cluster). It's obvious that this could cause CPU and/or network starvation. In the current release of Coherence (3.7.1.3 as of this writing), the pure unicast code path also has less sophisticated flow-control for cluster-wide messages (compared to the multicast-enabled code path), which may also result in significant heap consumption on the senior member's JVM (from the message backlog). This is almost never a problem in practice, but with sufficient CPU or network starvation, it could become critical. For the non-operational concerns (near caches, queries, etc), the application itself will determine how much load is placed on the cluster. Applications intended for deployment in a pure unicast environment should be careful to avoid excessive dependence on these features. Even in an environment with multicast support, these operations may scale poorly since even with a constant request rate, the underlying workload will increase at roughly the same rate as the underlying resources are added. Unless there is an infrastructural requirement to the contrary, multicast should be enabled. If it can't be enabled, care should be taken to ensure the added overhead doesn't lead to performance or stability issues. This is particularly crucial in large clusters.

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• Monitoring Windows Azure Service Bus Endpoint with BizTalk 360?

  - by Michael Stephenson

  I'm currently working with a customer who is undergoing an initiative to expose some of their line of business applications to external partners and SAAS applications and as part of this we have been looking at using the Windows Azure Service Bus. For the first part of the project we were focused on some synchronous request response scenarios where an external application would use the Service Bus relay functionality to get data from some internal applications. When we were looking at the operational monitoring side of the solution it was obvious that although most of the normal server monitoring capabilities would be required for the on premise components we would have to look at new approaches to validate that the operation of the service from outside of the organization was working as expected. A number of months ago one of my colleagues Elton Stoneman wrote about an approach I have introduced with a number of clients in the past where we implement a diagnostics service in each service component we build. This service would allow us to make a call which would flex some of the working parts of the system to prove it was working within any SLA. This approach is discussed on the following article: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2011/12/12/the-value-of-a-diagnostics-service.aspx In our solution we wanted to take the same approach but we had to consider that the service clients were external to the service. We also had to consider that by going through Windows Azure Service Bus it's not that easy to make most of your standard monitoring solutions just give you an easy way to do this. In a previous article I have described how you can use BizTalk 360 to monitor things using a custom extension to the Web Endpoint Manager and I felt that we could use this approach to provide an excellent way to monitor our service bus endpoint. The previous article is available on the following link: http://geekswithblogs.net/michaelstephenson/archive/2012/09/12/150696.aspx   The Monitoring Solution BizTalk 360 currently has an easy way to hook up the endpoint manager to a url which it will then call and if a successful response is returned it then considers the endpoint to be in a healthy state. We would take advantage of this by creating an ASP.net web page which would be called by BizTalk 360 and behind this page we would implement the functionality to call the diagnostics service on our Service Bus endpoint. The ASP.net page could include logic to work out how to handle the response from the diagnostics service. For example if the overall result of the diagnostics service was successful but the call to the diagnostics service was longer than a certain amount of time then we could return an error and indicate the service is taking too long. The following diagram illustrates the monitoring pattern.   The diagnostics service which is hosted in the line of business application allows us to ping a simple message through the Azure Service Bus relay to the WCF services in the LOB application and we they get a response back indicating that the service is working fine. To implement this I used the exact same approach I described in my previous post to create a custom web page which calls the diagnostics service and then it would return an HTTP response code which would depend on the error condition returned or a 200 if it was successful. One of the limitations of this approach is that the competing consumer pattern for listening to messages from service bus means that you cannot guarantee which server would process your diagnostics check message but with BizTalk 360 you could simply add multiple endpoint checks so that it could access the individual on-premise web servers directly to ensure that each server is working fine and then check that messages can also be processed through the cloud. Conclusion It took me about 15 minutes to get a proof of concept of this up and running which was able to monitor our web services which had been exposed via Windows Azure Service Bus. I was then able to inherit all of the monitoring benefits of BizTalk 360 to provide an enterprise class monitoring solution for our cloud enabled API.

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• The Future of M2M in a Connected World

  - by Kristin Rose

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} There is no denying that the technological landscape as we know it is drastically changing all thanks to three little words – Machine to Machine. The M2M platform has taken over as one of the industry’s main buzz words and there is no question as to why! Just 5 months ago we had a guest post on “Machine to Machine – The Internet of Things – It’s about the Data.” Now companies are extending the use of M2M data to increase opportunity and intelligence across the Enterprise. Just this week, Oracle announced the results of its “Designing an M2M Platform for the Connected World” research, examining the evolving drivers behind ‘Machine to Machine’ (M2M) projects and how those changes are impacting solution requirements. Be sure to read this exciting report here! To Infinity and Beyond, The OPN Communications Team Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• “Apparently, you signed a software services agreement without fully understanding it.”

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  I am not a lawyer. Let me say that again, I am not a lawyer. Todays Dilbert has prompted me to post about my recent experience with SqlServer licensing. I'm in the technical realm and rarely have much to do with purchasing and licensing.  I say “I need” , budget realities will state weather I actually get.  However, I do keep my ear to the ground and due to my community involvement, I know, or at least have an understanding of, some licensing restrictions. Due to a misunderstanding, Microsoft Licensing stated that we needed licenses for our standby servers.  I knew that that was not the case,  and a quick tweet confirmed this. So after composing an email stating exactly what the machines in question were used for ie Log shipped to and used in a disaster recover scenario only,  and posting several Technet articles to back this up, we saved 2 enterprise edition licences, a not inconsiderable cost. However during this discussion, I was made aware of another ‘legalese’ document that could completely override the referenced articles, and anything I knew, or thought i knew, about SqlServer licensing. Personally, I had no knowledge of this.  The “Purchase Use Rights” agreement would appear to be the volume licensing equivalent of the “End User License Agreement” , click throughs we all know and ignore.  Here is a direct quote from Microsoft licensing, when asked for clarification. “Thanks for your email. Just to give some background on the Product Use Rights (PUR), licenses acquired through volume licensing are bound by the most recent PUR at the time of license acquisition. The link for the current PUR and PUR archive is http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/product-licensing.aspx. Further to this, products acquired through boxed product or pre-installed on hardware (OEM) are bound by the End User License Agreement (EULA). The PUR will explain limitations, license requirements and rulings on areas like multiplexing, virtualization, processor licensing, etc. When an article will appear on a Microsoft site or blog describing the licensing of a product, it will be using the PUR as a base. Due to the writing style or language used by the person writing areas of the website or technical blogs, the PUR is what you should use as a rule and not any of the other media. The PUR is updated quarterly and will reference every product available at that time working on the latest version unless otherwise stated. The crux of this is that the PUR is written after extensive discussions between the different branches of Microsoft (legal, technical, etc) and the wording is then approved. This is not always the case for some pages explaining licensing as they are merely intended to advise and not subject to the intense scrutiny as the PUR.” So, exactly what does that mean ? My take :  This is a living document, “updated quarterly” , though presumably this could be done on a whim and a fancy.  It could state , you are only licensed if ,that during install you stand in a corner juggling and that photographic evidence is required. A plainly ridiculous demand but,  what else could it override or new requirements could it state that change your existing understanding of the product or your legal usage of it. As i say, im not a lawyer, but are you checking the PURA prior to purchase ?

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• Oracle Excellence Award

  - by Hartmut Wiese

  CALL FOR NOMINATIONS 2014 Oracle Excellence Award: Sustainability Innovation Is your organization using an Oracle product to help with a sustainability initiative while reducing costs? Saving energy? Saving gas? Saving paper? For example, you may use Oracle’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management to design more eco-friendly products, Oracle Transportation Management to reduce fleet emissions, Oracle Exadata Database Machine to decrease power and cooling needs while increasing database performance, Oracle Business Intelligence to measure environmental impacts, or one of many other Oracle products. Your organization may be eligible for the 2014 Oracle Excellence Award: Sustainability Innovation. Submit a nomination form located here by Friday June 20 if your company is using any Oracle product to take an environmental lead as well as to reduce costs and improve business efficiencies by using green business practices. These awards will be presented during Oracle OpenWorld 2014 (September 28-October 2) in San Francisco.  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 About the Award • Winners will be selected from the customer and/or partner nominations. Either a customer, their partner, or Oracle representative can submit the nomination form on behalf of the customer.• There is a nomination form here to discuss your use of Oracle products and how they have helped your sustainability efforts and reduced costs. • Winners will be selected based on the extent of the environmental impact they have had as well as the business efficiencies they have achieved through their combined use of Oracle products. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Nomination Eligibility • Your company uses at least one component of Oracle products, whether it's the Oracle database, business applications, Fusion Middleware, or Sun servers/storage. • This solution should be in production or in active development. • Nomination deadline: Friday June 20, 2014. Benefits to Award Winners • Award presented to winners during Oracle OpenWorld by Jeff Henley, Oracle Chairman of the Board • Free Oracle OpenWorld registration pass for each winning customer • 2014 Oracle Excellence Award: Sustainability Innovation award logo for inclusion on your own website &/or press release • Possible placement in Oracle Profit Magazine &/or Oracle Magazine • ‘Enable the Eco-Enterprise’ podcast opportunity See last year's winners here Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ______________________________________________________________________________________ Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Questions? Send an email to: [email protected] Follow Oracle’s Sustainability Solutions on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the Sustainability Matters blog Web page with award details:  http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/green/call-for-nominations-185050.html  

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• Using Private Extension Galleries in Visual Studio 2012

  - by Jakob Ehn

  Note: The installer and the complete source code is available over at CodePlex at the following location: http://inmetavsgallery.codeplex.com   Extensions and addins are everywhere in the Visual Studio ALM ecosystem! Microsoft releases new cool features in the form of extensions and the list of 3rd party extensions that plug into Visual Studio just keeps growing. One of the nice things about the VSIX extensions is how they are deployed. Microsoft hosts a public Visual Studio Gallery where you can upload extensions and make them available to the rest of the community. Visual Studio checks for updates to the installed extensions when you start Visual Studio, and installing/updating the extensions is fast since it is only a matter of extracting the files within the VSIX package to the local extension folder. But for custom, enterprise-specific extensions, you don’t want to publish them online to the whole world, but you still want an easy way to distribute them to your developers and partners. This is where Private Extension Galleries come into play. In Visual Studio 2012, it is now possible to add custom extensions galleries that can point to any URL, as long as that URL returns the expected content of course (see below).Registering a new gallery in Visual Studio is easy, but there is very little documentation on how to actually host the gallery. Visual Studio galleries uses Atom Feed XML as the protocol for delivering new and updated versions of the extensions. This MSDN page describes how to create a static XML file that returns the information about your extensions. This approach works, but require manual updates of that file every time you want to deploy an update of the extension. Wouldn’t it be nice with a web service that takes care of this for you, that just lets you drop a new version of your VSIX file and have it automatically detect the new version and produce the correct Atom Feed XML? Well search no more, this is exactly what the Inmeta Visual Studio Gallery Service does for you :-) Here you can see that in addition to the standard Online galleries there is an Inmeta Gallery that contains two extensions (our WIX templates and our custom TFS Checkin Policies). These can be installed/updated i the same way as extensions from the public Visual Studio Gallery. Installing the Service Download the installler (Inmeta.VSGalleryService.Install.msi) for the service and run it. The installation is straight forward, just select web site, application pool and (optional) a virtual directory where you want to install the service.   Note: If you want to run it in the web site root, just leave the application name blank Press Next and finish the installer. Open web.config in a text editor and locate the the <applicationSettings> element Edit the following setting values: FeedTitle This is the name that is shown if you browse to the service using a browser. Not used by Visual Studio BaseURI When Visual Studio downloads the extension, it will be given this URI + the name of the extension that you selected. This value should be on the following format: http://SERVER/[VDIR]/gallery/extension/ VSIXAbsolutePath This is the path where you will deploy your extensions. This can be a local folder or a remote share. You just need to make sure that the application pool identity account has read permissions in this folder Save web.config to finish the installation Open a browser and enter the URL to the service. It should show an empty Feed page:   Adding the Private Gallery in Visual Studio 2012 Now you need to add the gallery in Visual Studio. This is very easy and is done as follows: Go to Tools –> Options and select Environment –> Extensions and Updates Press Add to add a new gallery Enter a descriptive name, and add the URL that points to the web site/virtual directory where you installed the service in the previous step   Press OK to save the settings. Deploying an Extension This one is easy: Just drop the file in the designated folder! :-)  If it is a new version of an existing extension, the developers will be notified in the same way as for extensions from the public Visual Studio gallery: I hope that you will find this sever useful, please contact me if you have questions or suggestions for improvements!

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• Cloud Fact for Business Managers #3: Where You Data Is, and Who Has Access to It Might Surprise You

  - by yaldahhakim

  Written by: David Krauss While data security and operational risk conversations usually happen around the desk of a CCO/CSO (chief compliance and/or security officer), or perhaps the CFO, since business managers are now selecting cloud providers, they need to be able to at least ask some high-level questions on the topic of risk and compliance.  While the report found that 76% of adopters were motivated to adopt cloud apps because of quick access to software, most of these managers found that after they made a purchase decision their access to exciting new capabilities in the cloud could be hindered due to performance and scalability constraints put forth  by their cloud provider.  If you are going to let your business consume their mission critical business applications as a service, then it’s important to understand who is providing those cloud services and what kind of performance you are going to get.  Different types of departments, companies and industries will all have unique requirements so it’s key to take this also into consideration.   Nothing puts a CEO in a bad mood like a public data breach or finding out the company lost money when customers couldn’t buy a product or service because your cloud service provider had a problem.  With 42% of business managers having seen a data security breach in their department associated directly with the use of cloud applications, this is happening more than you think.   We’ve talked about the importance of being able to avoid information silos through a unified cloud approach and platform.  This is also important when keeping your data safe and secure, and a key conversation to have with your cloud provider.  Your customers want to know that their information is protected when they do business with you, just like you want your own company information protected.   This is really hard to do when each line of business is running different cloud application services managed by different cloud providers, all with different processes and controls.   It only adds to the complexity, and the more complex, the more risky and the chance that something will go wrong. What about compliance? Depending on the cloud provider, it can be difficult at best to understand who has access to your data, and were your data is actually stored.  Add to this multiple cloud providers spanning multiple departments and it becomes very problematic when trying to comply with certain industry and country data security regulations.  With 73% of business managers complaining that having cloud data handled externally by one or more cloud vendors makes it hard for their department to be compliant, this is a big time suck for executives and it puts the organization at risk. Is There A Complete, Integrated, Modern Cloud Out there for Business Executives?If you are a business manager looking to drive faster innovation for your business and want a cloud application that your CIO would approve of, I would encourage you take a look at Oracle Cloud.  It’s everything you want from a SaaS based application, but without compromising on functionality and other modern capabilities like embedded business intelligence, social relationship management (for your entire business), and advanced mobile.  And because Oracle Cloud is built and managed by Oracle, you can be confident that your cloud application services are enterprise-grade.  Over 25 Million users and 10 thousands companies around the globe rely on Oracle Cloud application services everyday – maybe your business should too.  For more information, visit cloud.oracle.com. Additional Resources •    Try it: cloud.oracle.com•    Learn more: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/complete-cloud/index.html•    Research Report: Cloud for Business Managers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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• EPPM Is a Must-Have Capability as Global Energy and Power Industries Eye US$38 Trillion in New Investments

  - by Melissa Centurio Lopes

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} “The process manufacturing industry is facing an unprecedented challenge: from now until 2035, cumulative worldwide investments of US$38 trillion will be required for drilling, power generation, and other energy projects,” Iain Graham, director of energy and process manufacturing for Oracle’s Primavera, said in a recent webcast. He adds that process manufacturing organizations such as oil and gas, utilities, and chemicals must manage this level of investment in an environment of constrained capital markets, erratic supply and demand, aging infrastructure, heightened regulations, and declining global skills. In the following interview, Graham explains how the right enterprise project portfolio management (EPPM) technology can help the industry meet these imperatives. Q: Why is EPPM so important for today’s process manufacturers? A: If the industry invests US$38 trillion without proper cost controls in place, a huge amount of resources will be put at risk, especially when it comes to cost overruns that may occur in large capital projects. Process manufacturing companies must not only control costs, but also monitor all the various contractors that will be involved in each project. If you’re not managing your own workers and all the interdependencies among the different contractors, then you’ve got problems. Q: What else should process manufacturers look for? A: It’s also important that an EPPM solution has the ability to manage more than just capital projects. For example, it’s best to manage maintenance and capital projects in the same system. Say you’re due to install a new transformer in a power station as part of a capital project, but routine maintenance in that area of the facility is scheduled for that morning. The lack of coordination could lead to unforeseen delays. There are also IT considerations that impact capital projects, such as adding servers and network cable for a control system in a power station. What organizations need is a true EPPM system that’s not just for capital projects, maintenance, or IT activities, but instead an enterprisewide solution that provides visibility into all types of projects. Read the complete Q&A here and discover the practical framework for successfully managing this massive capital spending.

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