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• Java JRE 7 Certified with Oracle E-Business Suite

  - by Steven Chan (Oracle Development)

  Java Runtime Environment 7u10 (a.k.a. JRE 1.7.0_10 build 18) and later updates on the JRE 7 codeline are now certified with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i and 12 Windows-based desktop clients. What's needed to enable EBS environments for JRE 7? EBS customers should ensure that they are running JRE 7u10, at minimum, on Windows desktop clients. Of the compatibility issues identified with JRE 7, the most critical is an issue that prevents E-Business Suite Forms-based products from launching on Windows desktops that are running JRE 7.  Customers can prevent this issue -- and all other JRE 7 compatibility issues -- by ensuring that they have applied the latest certified patches documented for JRE 7 configurations to their EBS application tier servers.  These are summarized here for convenience. If the requirements change over time, please check the Notes for the authoritative list of patches: Apply Forms patch 14615390 to EBS 11i environments (Note 125767.1) Apply Forms patch 14614795 to EBS 12.0 and 12.1 environments (Note 437878.1) These patches are compatible with JRE 6 and 7, production ready, and fully-tested with the E-Business Suite.  These patches may be applied immediately to all E-Business Suite environments. All other Forms prerequisites documented in the Notes above should also be applied.  Where are the official patch requirements documented? All patches required for ensuring full compatibility of the E-Business Suite with JRE 7 are documented in these Notes: For EBS 11i: Deploying Sun JRE (Native Plug-in) for Windows Clients in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i (Note 290807.1) Upgrading Developer 6i with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (Note 125767.1) For EBS 12 Deploying Sun JRE (Native Plug-in) for Windows Clients in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (Note 393931.1) Upgrading OracleAS 10g Forms and Reports in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (Note 437878.1) Prerequisites for 32-bit and 64-bit JRE certifications JRE 1.70_10 32-bit + EBS 11.5.10.2 Windows XP SP3 Windows Vista SP1 and SP2 Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1  Forms 6.0.8.28.x patch 14615390 (Note 125767.1) JRE 1.70_10 32-bit + EBS 12.0 & 12.1 Windows XP SP3 Windows Vista SP1 and SP2 Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 Forms 10g overlay patch 14614795 (Note 437878.1) SSL Users:  10.1.0.5 version of Patch 6370967 applied to AS 10.1.3 with OPatch. Note: This fix is already included in the April 2011 AS 10.1.3.5 CPU patch and later. JRE 1.7.0_10 64-bit + EBS 11.5.10.2 Windows 7 (64-bit) and Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit) Forms 6.0.8.28.x patch 14615390 (Note 125767.1) JRE 1.70_10 64-bit + EBS 12.0 & 12.1 Windows 7 (64-bit) and Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit) Forms 10g overlay patch 14614795 (Note 437878.1) SSL Users:  10.1.0.5 version of Patch 6370967 applied to AS 10.1.3 with OPatch. Note: This fix is already included in the April 2011 AS 10.1.3.5 CPU patch and later.  EBS + Discoverer 11g Users JRE 1.7.0_10 (7u10) is certified for Discoverer 11g in E-Business Suite environments with the following minimum requirements: Discoverer (11g) 11.1.1.6 plus Patch 13877486 and later  Reference: How To Find Oracle BI Discoverer 10g and 11g Certification Information (Document 233047.1) Worried about the 'mismanaged session cookie' issue? No need to worry -- it's fixed.  To recap: JRE releases 1.6.0_18 through 1.6.0_22 had issues with mismanaging session cookies that affected some users in some circumstances. The fix for those issues was first included in JRE 1.6.0_23. These fixes will carry forward and continue to be fixed in all future JRE releases on the JRE 6 and 7 codelines.  In other words, if you wish to avoid the mismanaged session cookie issue, you should apply any release after JRE 1.6.0_22 on the JRE 6 codeline, and JRE 7u10 and later JRE 7 codeline updates. All JRE 6 and 7 releases are certified with EBS upon release Our standard policy is that all E-Business Suite customers can apply all JRE updates to end-user desktops from JRE 1.6.0_03 and later updates on the 1.6 codeline, and from JRE 7u10 and later updates on the JRE 7 codeline.  We test all new JRE 1.6 and JRE 7 releases in parallel with the JRE development process, so all new JRE 1.6 and 7 releases are considered certified with the E-Business Suite on the same day that they're released by our Java team.  You do not need to wait for a certification announcement before applying new JRE 1.6 or JRE 7 releases to your EBS users' desktops. Implications of Java 6 End of Public Updates for EBS Users The Support Roadmap for Oracle Java is published here: Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap The latest updates to that page (as of Sept. 19, 2012) state (emphasis added): Java SE 6 End of Public Updates Notice After February 2013, Oracle will no longer post updates of Java SE 6 to its public download sites. Existing Java SE 6 downloads already posted as of February 2013 will remain accessible in the Java Archive on Oracle Technology Network. Developers and end-users are encouraged to update to more recent Java SE versions that remain available for public download. For enterprise customers, who need continued access to critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for Java SE 6 or older versions, long term support is available through Oracle Java SE Support . What does this mean for Oracle E-Business Suite users? EBS users fall under the category of "enterprise users" above.  Java is an integral part of the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack, so EBS users will continue to receive Java SE 6 updates after February 2013. In other words, nothing will change for EBS users after February 2013.  EBS users will continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for Java SE 6. These Java SE 6 updates will be made available to EBS users for the Extended Support periods documented in the Oracle Lifetime Support policy document for Oracle Applications (PDF): EBS 11i Extended Support ends November 2013 EBS 12.0 Extended Support ends January 2015 EBS 12.1 Extended Support ends December 2018 Will EBS users be forced to upgrade to JRE 7 for Windows desktop clients? No. This upgrade is highly recommended but currently remains optional. JRE 6 will be available to Windows users to run with EBS for the duration of your respective EBS Extended Support period.  Updates will be delivered via My Oracle Support, where you can continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for JRE 6 desktop clients.  Coexistence of JRE 6 and JRE 7 on Windows desktops The upgrade to JRE 7 is highly recommended for EBS users, but some users may need to run both JRE 6 and 7 on their Windows desktops for reasons unrelated to the E-Business Suite. Most EBS configurations with IE and Firefox use non-static versioning by default. JRE 7 will be invoked instead of JRE 6 if both are installed on a Windows desktop. For more details, see "Appendix B: Static vs. Non-static Versioning and Set Up Options" in Notes 290801.1 and 393931.1. Applying Updates to JRE 6 and JRE 7 to Windows desktops Auto-update will keep JRE 7 up-to-date for Windows users with JRE 7 installed. Auto-update will only keep JRE 7 up-to-date for Windows users with both JRE 6 and 7 installed.  JRE 6 users are strongly encouraged to apply the latest Critical Patch Updates as soon as possible after each release. The Jave SE CPUs will be available via My Oracle Support.  EBS users can find more information about JRE 6 and 7 updates here: Information Center: Installation & Configuration for Oracle Java SE (Note 1412103.2) The dates for future Java SE CPUs can be found on the Critical Patch Updates, Security Alerts and Third Party Bulletin.  An RSS feed is available on that site for those who would like to be kept up-to-date. What will Mac users need? Oracle will provide updates to JRE 7 for Mac OS X users. EBS users running Macs will need to upgrade to JRE 7 to receive JRE updates. The certification of Oracle E-Business Suite with JRE 7 for Mac-based desktop clients accessing EBS Forms-based content is underway. Mac users waiting for that certification may find this article useful: How to Reenable Apple Java 6 Plug-in for Mac EBS Users Will EBS users be forced to upgrade to JDK 7 for EBS application tier servers? No. This upgrade will be highly recommended but will be optional for EBS application tier servers running on Windows, Linux, and Solaris.  You can choose to remain on JDK 6 for the duration of your respective EBS Extended Support period.  If you remain on JDK 6, you will continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for JDK 6. The certification of Oracle E-Business Suite with JDK 7 for EBS application tier servers on Windows, Linux, and Solaris as well as other platforms such as IBM AIX and HP-UX is planned.  Customers running platforms other than Windows, Linux, and Solaris should refer to their Java vendors's sites for more information about their support policies. References Recommended Browsers for Oracle Applications 11i (Metalink Note 285218.1) Upgrading Sun JRE (Native Plug-in) with Oracle Applications 11i for Windows Clients (Metalink Note 290807.1) Recommended Browsers for Oracle Applications 12 (MetaLink Note 389422.1) Upgrading JRE Plugin with Oracle Applications R12 (MetaLink Note 393931.1) Related Articles Mismanaged Session Cookie Issue Fixed for EBS in JRE 1.6.0_23 Roundup: Oracle JInitiator 1.3 Desupported for EBS Customers in July 2009

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• How to mount a blu-ray drive?

  - by Stephan Schielke

  Maybe it is for the best to close this question. This has nothing to do with a bluray drive in general anymore. Probably a hardware defect. I will try to test it with a windows system and different cables again... Thx so far. I have a bluray/dvd/cdrom drive with SATA. Ubuntu wont find it under /dev/sd wodim --devices wodim: Overview of accessible drives (1 found) : ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 dev='/dev/sg2' rwrw-- : 'HL-DT-ST' 'BDDVDRW CH08LS10' ------------------------------------------------------------------------- cdrecord -scanbus scsibus2: 2,0,0 200) 'HL-DT-ST' 'BDDVDRW CH08LS10' '2.00' Removable CD-ROM fdisk dont even lists it. Ubuntu only automounts blank DVDs, but neither CDROM nor Blurays. I also changed the sata slot, sata cable and the power cable. The drive works with a windows system. This happens when I try to mount: sudo mount -t auto /dev/scd0 /media/bluray mount: you must specify the filesystem type I tried all filesystems there are. I also installed makemkv. It finds the drive but not the disc. Here is my /dev ls -al /dev total 12 drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4420 2011-11-25 19:36 . drwxr-xr-x 28 root root 4096 2011-11-25 07:12 .. crw------- 1 root root 10, 235 2011-11-25 19:28 autofs -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 630 2011-11-25 19:28 .blkid.tab -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 630 2011-11-25 19:28 .blkid.tab.old drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 700 2011-11-25 19:27 block drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 100 2011-11-25 19:27 bsg crw------- 1 root root 10, 234 2011-11-25 19:28 btrfs-control drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 2011-11-25 19:27 bus drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3820 2011-11-25 19:28 char crw------- 1 root root 5, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 console lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2011-11-25 19:28 core -> /proc/kcore drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 2011-11-25 19:28 cpu crw------- 1 root root 10, 60 2011-11-25 19:28 cpu_dma_latency drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 140 2011-11-25 19:27 disk crw------- 1 root root 10, 61 2011-11-25 19:28 ecryptfs crw-rw---- 1 root video 29, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 fb0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 2011-11-25 19:28 fd -> /proc/self/fd crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 7 2011-11-25 19:28 full crw-rw-rw- 1 root fuse 10, 229 2011-11-25 19:28 fuse crw------- 1 root root 251, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 hidraw0 crw------- 1 root root 251, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 hidraw1 crw------- 1 root root 10, 228 2011-11-25 19:28 hpet lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 2011-11-25 19:27 .initramfs -> /run/initramfs drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 220 2011-11-25 19:28 input crw------- 1 root root 1, 11 2011-11-25 19:28 kmsg srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 2011-11-25 19:28 log brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 loop0 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 loop1 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 2 2011-11-25 19:28 loop2 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 3 2011-11-25 19:28 loop3 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 4 2011-11-25 19:28 loop4 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 5 2011-11-25 19:28 loop5 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 6 2011-11-25 19:28 loop6 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 7 2011-11-25 19:28 loop7 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 2011-11-25 19:27 mapper crw------- 1 root root 10, 227 2011-11-25 19:28 mcelog crw-r----- 1 root kmem 1, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 mem drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 2011-11-25 19:27 net crw------- 1 root root 10, 59 2011-11-25 19:28 network_latency crw------- 1 root root 10, 58 2011-11-25 19:28 network_throughput crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 2011-11-25 19:28 null crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 195, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 nvidia0 crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 195, 255 2011-11-25 19:28 nvidiactl crw------- 1 root root 1, 12 2011-11-25 19:28 oldmem crw-r----- 1 root kmem 1, 4 2011-11-25 19:28 port crw------- 1 root root 108, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 ppp crw------- 1 root root 10, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 psaux crw-rw-rw- 1 root tty 5, 2 2011-11-25 20:00 ptmx drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2011-11-25 19:27 pts brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 ram0 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 ram1 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 10 2011-11-25 19:28 ram10 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 11 2011-11-25 19:28 ram11 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 12 2011-11-25 19:28 ram12 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 13 2011-11-25 19:28 ram13 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 14 2011-11-25 19:28 ram14 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 15 2011-11-25 19:28 ram15 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 2 2011-11-25 19:28 ram2 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 3 2011-11-25 19:28 ram3 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 4 2011-11-25 19:28 ram4 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 5 2011-11-25 19:28 ram5 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 6 2011-11-25 19:28 ram6 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 7 2011-11-25 19:28 ram7 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 8 2011-11-25 19:28 ram8 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 1, 9 2011-11-25 19:28 ram9 crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 8 2011-11-25 19:28 random crw-rw-r--+ 1 root root 10, 62 2011-11-25 19:28 rfkill lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2011-11-25 19:28 rtc -> rtc0 crw------- 1 root root 254, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 rtc0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 2011-11-25 19:38 scd0 -> sr0 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 sda brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 sda1 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 2 2011-11-25 19:28 sda2 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 3 2011-11-25 19:28 sda3 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 5 2011-11-25 19:28 sda5 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 6 2011-11-25 19:28 sda6 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 2011-11-25 19:28 sdb brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 17 2011-11-25 19:28 sdb1 crw-rw---- 1 root disk 21, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 sg0 crw-rw---- 1 root disk 21, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 sg1 crw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 21, 2 2011-11-25 19:28 sg2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 2011-11-25 19:28 shm -> /run/shm crw------- 1 root root 10, 231 2011-11-25 19:28 snapshot drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 280 2011-11-25 19:28 snd brw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 11, 0 2011-11-25 19:38 sr0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 2011-11-25 19:28 stderr -> /proc/self/fd/2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 2011-11-25 19:28 stdin -> /proc/self/fd/0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 2011-11-25 19:28 stdout -> /proc/self/fd/1 crw-rw-rw- 1 root tty 5, 0 2011-11-25 19:35 tty crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 tty0 crw------- 1 root root 4, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 tty1 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 10 2011-11-25 19:28 tty10 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 11 2011-11-25 19:28 tty11 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 12 2011-11-25 19:28 tty12 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 13 2011-11-25 19:28 tty13 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 14 2011-11-25 19:28 tty14 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 15 2011-11-25 19:28 tty15 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 16 2011-11-25 19:28 tty16 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 17 2011-11-25 19:28 tty17 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 18 2011-11-25 19:28 tty18 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 19 2011-11-25 19:28 tty19 crw------- 1 root root 4, 2 2011-11-25 19:28 tty2 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 20 2011-11-25 19:28 tty20 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 21 2011-11-25 19:28 tty21 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 22 2011-11-25 19:28 tty22 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 23 2011-11-25 19:28 tty23 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 24 2011-11-25 19:28 tty24 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 25 2011-11-25 19:28 tty25 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 26 2011-11-25 19:28 tty26 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 27 2011-11-25 19:28 tty27 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 28 2011-11-25 19:28 tty28 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 29 2011-11-25 19:28 tty29 crw------- 1 root root 4, 3 2011-11-25 19:28 tty3 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 30 2011-11-25 19:28 tty30 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 31 2011-11-25 19:28 tty31 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 32 2011-11-25 19:28 tty32 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 33 2011-11-25 19:28 tty33 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 34 2011-11-25 19:28 tty34 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 35 2011-11-25 19:28 tty35 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 36 2011-11-25 19:28 tty36 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 37 2011-11-25 19:28 tty37 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 38 2011-11-25 19:28 tty38 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 39 2011-11-25 19:28 tty39 crw------- 1 root root 4, 4 2011-11-25 19:28 tty4 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 40 2011-11-25 19:28 tty40 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 41 2011-11-25 19:28 tty41 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 42 2011-11-25 19:28 tty42 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 43 2011-11-25 19:28 tty43 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 44 2011-11-25 19:28 tty44 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 45 2011-11-25 19:28 tty45 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 46 2011-11-25 19:28 tty46 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 47 2011-11-25 19:28 tty47 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 48 2011-11-25 19:28 tty48 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 49 2011-11-25 19:28 tty49 crw------- 1 root root 4, 5 2011-11-25 19:28 tty5 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 50 2011-11-25 19:28 tty50 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 51 2011-11-25 19:28 tty51 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 52 2011-11-25 19:28 tty52 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 53 2011-11-25 19:28 tty53 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 54 2011-11-25 19:28 tty54 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 55 2011-11-25 19:28 tty55 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 56 2011-11-25 19:28 tty56 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 57 2011-11-25 19:28 tty57 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 58 2011-11-25 19:28 tty58 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 59 2011-11-25 19:28 tty59 crw------- 1 root root 4, 6 2011-11-25 19:28 tty6 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 60 2011-11-25 19:28 tty60 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 61 2011-11-25 19:28 tty61 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 62 2011-11-25 19:28 tty62 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 63 2011-11-25 19:28 tty63 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 7 2011-11-25 19:28 tty7 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 8 2011-11-25 19:28 tty8 crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 9 2011-11-25 19:28 tty9 crw------- 1 root root 5, 3 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyprintk crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 64 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS0 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 65 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS1 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 74 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS10 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 75 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS11 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 76 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS12 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 77 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS13 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 78 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS14 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 79 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS15 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 80 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS16 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 81 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS17 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 82 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS18 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 83 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS19 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 66 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS2 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 84 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS20 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 85 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS21 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 86 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS22 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 87 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS23 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 88 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS24 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 89 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS25 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 90 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS26 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 91 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS27 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 92 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS28 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 93 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS29 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 67 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS3 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 94 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS30 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 95 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS31 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 68 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS4 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 69 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS5 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 70 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS6 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 71 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS7 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 72 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS8 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 73 2011-11-25 19:28 ttyS9 d rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 2011-11-25 19:28 .udev crw-r----- 1 root root 10, 223 2011-11-25 19:28 uinput crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 9 2011-11-25 19:28 urandom drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 2011-11-25 19:27 usb crw------- 1 root root 252, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon0 crw------- 1 root root 252, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon1 crw------- 1 root root 252, 2 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon2 crw------- 1 root root 252, 3 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon3 crw------- 1 root root 252, 4 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon4 crw------- 1 root root 252, 5 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon5 crw------- 1 root root 252, 6 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon6 crw------- 1 root root 252, 7 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon7 crw------- 1 root root 252, 8 2011-11-25 19:28 usbmon8 drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 80 2011-11-25 19:28 v4l crw------- 1 root root 10, 57 2011-11-25 19:28 vboxdrv crw------- 1 root root 10, 56 2011-11-25 19:28 vboxnetctl drwxr-x--- 4 root vboxusers 80 2011-11-25 19:28 vboxusb crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 vcs crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 1 2011-11-25 19:28 vcs1 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 2 2011-11-25 19:28 vcs2 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 3 2011-11-25 19:28 vcs3 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 4 2011-11-25 19:28 vcs4 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 5 2011-11-25 19:28 vcs5 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 6 2011-11-25 19:28 vcs6 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 128 2011-11-25 19:28 vcsa crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 129 2011-11-25 19:28 vcsa1 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 130 2011-11-25 19:28 vcsa2 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 131 2011-11-25 19:28 vcsa3 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 132 2011-11-25 19:28 vcsa4 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 133 2011-11-25 19:28 vcsa5 crw-rw---- 1 root tty 7, 134 2011-11-25 19:28 vcsa6 crw------- 1 root root 10, 63 2011-11-25 19:28 vga_arbiter crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 0 2011-11-25 19:28 video0 crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 5 2011-11-25 19:28 zero sg_scan -i gives me: sudo sg_scan -i /dev/sg0: scsi0 channel=0 id=0 lun=0 [em] ATA ST31000524NS SN12 [rmb=0 cmdq=0 pqual=0 pdev=0x0] /dev/sg1: scsi0 channel=0 id=1 lun=0 [em] ATA WDC WD15EADS-00S 01.0 [rmb=0 cmdq=0 pqual=0 pdev=0x0] /dev/sg2: scsi2 channel=0 id=0 lun=0 [em] HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH08LS10 2.00 [rmb=1 cmdq=0 pqual=0 pdev=0x5] sg_map gives me: /dev/sg0 /dev/sda /dev/sg1 /dev/sdb /dev/sg2 /dev/scd0 lsscsi -l gives me: [0:0:0:0] disk ATA ST31000524NS SN12 /dev/sda state=running queue_depth=1 scsi_level=6 type=0 device_blocked=0 timeout=30 [0:0:1:0] disk ATA WDC WD15EADS-00S 01.0 /dev/sdb state=running queue_depth=1 scsi_level=6 type=0 device_blocked=0 timeout=30 [2:0:0:0] cd/dvd HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH08LS10 2.00 /dev/sr0 state=running queue_depth=1 scsi_level=6 type=5 device_blocked=0 timeout=30 my udf mod is: filename: /lib/modules/3.0.0-14-generic/kernel/fs/udf/udf.ko license: GPL description: Universal Disk Format Filesystem author: Ben Fennema srcversion: 6ABDE012374D96B9685B8E5 depends: crc-itu-t vermagic: 3.0.0-14-generic SMP mod_unload modversions Do I need special drivers or mods enabled? Do I need to change some BIOS settings? edit: Somehow I am now able to fire the mount command without any filesystem errors, but now I get: mount: no medium found on /dev/sr0

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• Time Tracking on an Agile Team

  - by Stephen.Walther

  What’s the best way to handle time-tracking on an Agile team? Your gut reaction to this question might be to resist any type of time-tracking at all. After all, one of the principles of the Agile Manifesto is “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”.  Forcing the developers on your team to track the amount of time that they devote to completing stories or tasks might seem like useless bureaucratic red tape: an impediment to getting real work done. I completely understand this reaction. I’ve been required to use time-tracking software in the past to account for each hour of my workday. It made me feel like Fred Flintstone punching in at the quarry mine and not like a professional. Why You Really Do Need Time-Tracking There are, however, legitimate reasons to track time spent on stories even when you are a member of an Agile team.  First, if you are working with an outside client, you might need to track the number of hours spent on different stories for the purposes of billing. There might be no way to avoid time-tracking if you want to get paid. Second, the Product Owner needs to know when the work on a story has gone over the original time estimated for the story. The Product Owner is concerned with Return On Investment. If the team has gone massively overtime on a story, then the Product Owner has a legitimate reason to halt work on the story and reconsider the story’s business value. Finally, you might want to track how much time your team spends on different types of stories or tasks. For example, if your team is spending 75% of their time doing testing then you might need to bring in more testers. Or, if 10% of your team’s time is expended performing a software build at the end of each iteration then it is time to consider better ways of automating the build process. Time-Tracking in SonicAgile For these reasons, we added time-tracking as a feature to SonicAgile which is our free Agile Project Management tool. We were heavily influenced by Jeff Sutherland (one of the founders of Scrum) in the way that we implemented time-tracking (see his article http://scrum.jeffsutherland.com/2007/03/time-tracking-is-anti-scrum-what-do-you.html). In SonicAgile, time-tracking is disabled by default. If you want to use this feature then the project owner must enable time-tracking in Project Settings. You can choose to estimate using either days or hours. If you are estimating at the level of stories then it makes more sense to choose days. Otherwise, if you are estimating at the level of tasks then it makes more sense to use hours. After you enable time-tracking then you can assign three estimates to a story: Original Estimate – This is the estimate that you enter when you first create a story. You don’t change this estimate. Time Spent – This is the amount of time that you have already devoted to the story. You update the time spent on each story during your daily standup meeting. Time Left – This is the amount of time remaining to complete the story. Again, you update the time left during your daily standup meeting. So when you first create a story, you enter an original estimate that becomes the time left. During each daily standup meeting, you update the time spent and time left for each story on the Kanban. If you had perfect predicative power, then the original estimate would always be the same as the sum of the time spent and the time left. For example, if you predict that a story will take 5 days to complete then on day 3, the story should have 3 days spent and 2 days left. Unfortunately, never in the history of mankind has anyone accurately predicted the exact amount of time that it takes to complete a story. For this reason, SonicAgile does not update the time spent and time left automatically. Each day, during the daily standup, your team should update the time spent and time left for each story. For example, the following table shows the history of the time estimates for a story that was originally estimated to take 3 days but, eventually, takes 5 days to complete: Day Original Estimate Time Spent Time Left Day 1 3 days 0 days 3 days Day 2 3 days 1 day 2 days Day 3 3 days 2 days 2 days Day 4 3 days 3 days 2 days Day 5 3 days 4 days 0 days In the table above, everything goes as predicted until you reach day 3. On day 3, the team realizes that the work will require an additional two days. The situation does not improve on day 4. All of the sudden, on day 5, all of the remaining work gets done. Real work often follows this pattern. There are long periods when nothing gets done punctuated by occasional and unpredictable bursts of progress. We designed SonicAgile to make it as easy as possible to track the time spent and time left on a story. Detecting when a Story Goes Over the Original Estimate Sometimes, stories take much longer than originally estimated. There’s a surprise. For example, you discover that a new software component is incompatible with existing software components. Or, you discover that you have to go through a month-long certification process to finish a story. In those cases, the Product Owner has a legitimate reason to halt work on a story and re-evaluate the business value of the story. For example, the Product Owner discovers that a story will require weeks to implement instead of days, then the story might not be worth the expense. SonicAgile displays a warning on both the Backlog and the Kanban when the time spent on a story goes over the original estimate. An icon of a clock is displayed. Time-Tracking and Tasks Another optional feature of SonicAgile is tasks. If you enable Tasks in Project Settings then you can break stories into one or more tasks. You can perform time-tracking at the level of a story or at the level of a task. If you don’t break a story into tasks then you can enter the time left and time spent for the story. As soon as you break a story into tasks, then you can no longer enter the time left and time spent at the level of the story. Instead, the time left and time spent for a story is rolled up from its tasks. On the Kanban, you can see how the time left and time spent for each task gets rolled up into each story. The progress bar for the story is rolled up from the progress bars for each task. The original estimate is never rolled up – even when you break a story into tasks. A story’s original estimate is entered separately from the original estimates of each of the story’s tasks. Summary Not every Agile team can avoid time-tracking. You might be forced to track time to get paid, to detect when you are spending too much time on a particular story, or to track the amount of time that you are devoting to different types of tasks. We designed time-tracking in SonicAgile to require the least amount of work to track the information that you need. Time-tracking is an optional feature. If you enable time-tracking then you can track the original estimate, time left, and time spent for each story and task. You can use time-tracking with SonicAgile for free. Register at http://SonicAgile.com.

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• DRBD Not syncing between my nodes

  - by Mike Curry

  Some version info: Operating system is Ubuntu 11.10, on EC2, kernel is 3.0.0-16-virtual and the application info is: Version: 8.3.11 (api:88) GIT-hash: 0de839cee13a4160eed6037c4bddd066645e23c5 build by buildd@allspice, 2011-07-05 19:51:07 Getting some strange errors in dmesg (seen below) as well, there is no replication happening. I have made my first node primary and its showing: drbd driver loaded OK; device status: version: 8.3.11 (api:88/proto:86-96) srcversion: DA5A13F16DE6553FC7CE9B2 m:res cs ro ds p mounted fstype 0:r0 StandAlone Primary/Unknown UpToDate/DUnknown r----s ext3 my secondary node is showing: drbd driver loaded OK; device status: version: 8.3.11 (api:88/proto:86-96) srcversion: DA5A13F16DE6553FC7CE9B2 m:res cs ro ds p mounted fstype 0:r0 StandAlone Secondary/Unknown Inconsistent/DUnknown r----s Showing /proc/drbd on the master shows: version: 8.3.11 (api:88/proto:86-96) srcversion: DA5A13F16DE6553FC7CE9B2 0: cs:StandAlone ro:Primary/Unknown ds:UpToDate/DUnknown r----s ns:0 nr:0 dw:4 dr:1073 al:0 bm:0 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0 ep:1 wo:f oos:262135964 Showing /proc/drbd on the slave shows that there is nothing being transfered... version: 8.3.11 (api:88/proto:86-96) srcversion: DA5A13F16DE6553FC7CE9B2 0: cs:StandAlone ro:Secondary/Unknown ds:Inconsistent/DUnknown r----s ns:0 nr:0 dw:0 dr:0 al:0 bm:0 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0 ep:1 wo:f oos:262135964 Here is my config... resource r0 { protocol C; startup { wfc-timeout 15; degr-wfc-timeout 60; } net { cram-hmac-alg sha1; shared-secret "test123; } on drbd01 { device /dev/drbd0; disk /dev/xvdm; address 23.XX.XX.XX:7788; # blocked out ip meta-disk internal; } on drbd02 { device /dev/drbd0; disk /dev/xvdm; address 184.XX.XX.XX:7788; #blocked out ip meta-disk internal; } } I have run the following on the master: sudo drbdadm -- --overwrite-data-of-peer primary all There is no firewall between the systems. Here is the dmesg with some errors: [2285172.969955] drbd: initialized. Version: 8.3.11 (api:88/proto:86-96) [2285172.969960] drbd: srcversion: DA5A13F16DE6553FC7CE9B2 [2285172.969962] drbd: registered as block device major 147 [2285172.969965] drbd: minor_table @ 0xffff88000276ea00 [2285173.000952] block drbd0: Starting worker thread (from drbdsetup [1300]) [2285173.003971] block drbd0: disk( Diskless -> Attaching ) [2285173.006150] block drbd0: No usable activity log found. [2285173.006154] block drbd0: Method to ensure write ordering: flush [2285173.006158] block drbd0: max BIO size = 4096 [2285173.006165] block drbd0: drbd_bm_resize called with capacity == 524271928 [2285173.008512] block drbd0: resync bitmap: bits=65533991 words=1023969 pages=2000 [2285173.008518] block drbd0: size = 250 GB (262135964 KB) [2285173.079566] block drbd0: bitmap READ of 2000 pages took 17 jiffies [2285173.081189] block drbd0: recounting of set bits took additional 1 jiffies [2285173.081194] block drbd0: 250 GB (65533991 bits) marked out-of-sync by on disk bit-map. [2285173.081203] block drbd0: Suspended AL updates [2285173.081210] block drbd0: disk( Attaching -> UpToDate ) [2285173.081214] block drbd0: attached to UUIDs 1C1291D39584C1D1:0000000000000004:0000000000000000:0000000000000000 [2285173.095016] block drbd0: conn( StandAlone -> Unconnected ) [2285173.095046] block drbd0: Starting receiver thread (from drbd0_worker [1301]) [2285173.099297] block drbd0: receiver (re)started [2285173.099304] block drbd0: conn( Unconnected -> WFConnection ) [2285173.099330] block drbd0: bind before connect failed, err = -99 [2285173.099346] block drbd0: conn( WFConnection -> Disconnecting ) [2285173.295788] block drbd0: Discarding network configuration. [2285173.295815] block drbd0: Connection closed [2285173.295826] block drbd0: conn( Disconnecting -> StandAlone ) [2285173.295840] block drbd0: receiver terminated [2285173.295844] block drbd0: Terminating drbd0_receiver Edit: Reading some other similar issues, it was suggested to do a 'drbdadm dump all', so I figured it couldn't hurt. ubuntu@drbd01:~$ drbdadm dump all /etc/drbd.conf:19: in resource r0, on drbd01: IP 23.XX.XX.XX not found on this host. and on slave: root@drbd02:~# drbdadm dump all /etc/drbd.conf:25: in resource r0, on drbd02: IP 184.XX.XX.XX not found on this host. Strange it doesn't find its own ip, however, this is an Amazon EC2 system using an elastic IP... here are my ipconfigs for both... master: ubuntu@drbd01:~$ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 22:00:0a:1c:27:11 inet addr:10.28.39.17 Bcast:10.28.39.63 Mask:255.255.255.192 inet6 addr: fe80::2000:aff:fe1c:2711/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1569 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1169 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:124409 (124.4 KB) TX bytes:213601 (213.6 KB) Interrupt:26 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) slave: root@drbd02:~# ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 12:31:3f:00:14:9d inet addr:10.160.27.107 Bcast:10.160.27.255 Mask:255.255.254.0 inet6 addr: fe80::1031:3fff:fe00:149d/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:915 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:774 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:75381 (75.3 KB) TX bytes:109673 (109.6 KB) Interrupt:26 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

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• Metro: Creating a Master/Detail View with a WinJS ListView Control

  - by Stephen.Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to explain how you can create a simple master/detail view by using the WinJS ListView and Template controls. In particular, I explain how you can use a ListView control to display a list of movies and how you can use a Template control to display the details of the selected movie. Creating a master/detail view requires completing the following four steps: Create the data source – The data source contains the list of movies. Declare the ListView control – The ListView control displays the entire list of movies. It is the master part of the master/detail view. Declare the Details Template control – The Details Template control displays the details for the selected movie. It is the details part of the master/detail view. Handle the selectionchanged event – You handle the selectionchanged event to display the details for a movie when a new movie is selected. Creating the Data Source There is nothing special about our data source. We initialize a WinJS.Binding.List object to represent a list of movies: (function () { "use strict"; var movies = new WinJS.Binding.List([ { title: "Star Wars", director: "Lucas"}, { title: "Shrek", director: "Adamson" }, { title: "Star Trek", director: "Abrams" }, { title: "Spiderman", director: "Raimi" }, { title: "Memento", director: "Nolan" }, { title: "Minority Report", director: "Spielberg" } ]); // Expose the data source WinJS.Namespace.define("ListViewDemos", { movies: movies }); })(); The data source is exposed to the rest of our application with the name ListViewDemos.movies. Declaring the ListView Control The ListView control is declared with the following markup: <div id="movieList" data-win-control="WinJS.UI.ListView" data-win-options="{ itemDataSource: ListViewDemos.movies.dataSource, itemTemplate: select('#masterItemTemplate'), tapBehavior: 'directSelect', selectionMode: 'single', layout: { type: WinJS.UI.ListLayout } }"> </div> The data-win-options attribute is used to set the following properties of the ListView control: itemDataSource – The ListView is bound to the list of movies which we created in the previous section. Notice that the ListView is bound to ListViewDemos.movies.dataSource and not just ListViewDemos.movies. itemTemplate – The item template contains the template used for rendering each item in the ListView. The markup for this template is included below. tabBehavior – This enumeration determines what happens when you tap or click on an item in the ListView. The possible values are directSelect, toggleSelect, invokeOnly, none. Because we want to handle the selectionchanged event, we set tapBehavior to the value directSelect. selectionMode – This enumeration determines whether you can select multiple items or only a single item. The possible values are none, single, multi. In the code above, this property is set to the value single. layout – You can use ListLayout or GridLayout with a ListView. If you want to display a vertical ListView, then you should select ListLayout. You must associate a ListView with an item template if you want to render anything interesting. The ListView above is associated with an item template named #masterItemTemplate. Here’s the markup for the masterItemTemplate: <div id="masterItemTemplate" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div class="movie"> <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> </div> </div> This template simply renders the title of each movie. Declaring the Details Template Control The details part of the master/detail view is created with the help of a Template control. Here’s the markup used to declare the Details Template control: <div id="detailsTemplate" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div> <div> Title: <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> </div> <div> Director: <span data-win-bind="innerText:director"></span> </div> </div> </div> The Details Template control displays the movie title and director.   Handling the selectionchanged Event The ListView control can raise two types of events: the iteminvoked and selectionchanged events. The iteminvoked event is raised when you click on a ListView item. The selectionchanged event is raised when one or more ListView items are selected. When you set the tapBehavior property of the ListView control to the value “directSelect” then tapping or clicking a list item raised both the iteminvoked and selectionchanged event. Tapping a list item causes the item to be selected and the item appears with a checkmark. In our code, we handle the selectionchanged event to update the movie details Template when you select a new movie. Here’s the code from the default.js file used to handle the selectionchanged event: var movieList = document.getElementById("movieList"); var detailsTemplate = document.getElementById("detailsTemplate"); var movieDetails = document.getElementById("movieDetails"); // Setup selectionchanged handler movieList.winControl.addEventListener("selectionchanged", function (evt) { if (movieList.winControl.selection.count() > 0) { movieList.winControl.selection.getItems().then(function (items) { // Clear the template container movieDetails.innerHTML = ""; // Render the template detailsTemplate.winControl.render(items[0].data, movieDetails); }); } }); The code above sets up an event handler (listener) for the selectionchanged event. The event handler first verifies that an item has been selected in the ListView (selection.count() > 0). Next, the details for the movie are rendered using the movie details Template (we created this Template in the previous section). The Complete Code For the sake of completeness, I’ve included the complete code for the master/detail view below. I’ve included both the default.html, default.js, and movies.js files. Here is the final code for the default.html file: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>ListViewMasterDetail</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- ListViewMasterDetail references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/movies.js"></script> <style type="text/css"> body { font-size: xx-large; } .movie { padding: 5px; } #masterDetail { display: -ms-box; } #movieList { width: 300px; margin: 20px; } #movieDetails { margin: 20px; } </style> </head> <body> <!-- Templates --> <div id="masterItemTemplate" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div class="movie"> <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> </div> </div> <div id="detailsTemplate" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div> <div> Title: <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> </div> <div> Director: <span data-win-bind="innerText:director"></span> </div> </div> </div> <!-- Master/Detail --> <div id="masterDetail"> <!-- Master --> <div id="movieList" data-win-control="WinJS.UI.ListView" data-win-options="{ itemDataSource: ListViewDemos.movies.dataSource, itemTemplate: select('#masterItemTemplate'), tapBehavior: 'directSelect', selectionMode: 'single', layout: { type: WinJS.UI.ListLayout } }"> </div> <!-- Detail --> <div id="movieDetails"></div> </div> </body> </html> Here is the default.js file: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { WinJS.UI.processAll(); var movieList = document.getElementById("movieList"); var detailsTemplate = document.getElementById("detailsTemplate"); var movieDetails = document.getElementById("movieDetails"); // Setup selectionchanged handler movieList.winControl.addEventListener("selectionchanged", function (evt) { if (movieList.winControl.selection.count() > 0) { movieList.winControl.selection.getItems().then(function (items) { // Clear the template container movieDetails.innerHTML = ""; // Render the template detailsTemplate.winControl.render(items[0].data, movieDetails); }); } }); } }; app.start(); })();   Here is the movies.js file: (function () { "use strict"; var movies = new WinJS.Binding.List([ { title: "Star Wars", director: "Lucas"}, { title: "Shrek", director: "Adamson" }, { title: "Star Trek", director: "Abrams" }, { title: "Spiderman", director: "Raimi" }, { title: "Memento", director: "Nolan" }, { title: "Minority Report", director: "Spielberg" } ]); // Expose the data source WinJS.Namespace.define("ListViewDemos", { movies: movies }); })();   Summary The purpose of this blog entry was to describe how to create a simple master/detail view by taking advantage of the WinJS ListView control. We handled the selectionchanged event of the ListView control to display movie details when you select a movie in the ListView.

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• SQL Server Master class winner

  - by Testas

   The winner of the SQL Server MasterClass competition courtesy of the UK SQL Server User Group and SQL Server Magazine!    Steve Hindmarsh     There is still time to register for the seminar yourself at:  www.regonline.co.uk/kimtrippsql     More information about the seminar     Where: Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel, London  When: Thursday 17th June 2010  This one-day MasterClass will focus on many of the top issues companies face when implementing and maintaining a SQL Server-based solution. In the case where a company has no dedicated DBA, IT managers sometimes struggle to keep the data tier performing well and the data available. This can be especially troublesome when the development team is unfamiliar with the affect application design choices have on database performance. The Microsoft SQL Server MasterClass 2010 is presented by Paul S. Randal and Kimberly L. Tripp, two of the most experienced and respected people in the SQL Server world. Together they have over 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server in the field, and on the SQL Server product team itself. This is a unique opportunity to hear them present at a UK event which will: Debunk many of the ingrained misconceptions around SQL Server's behaviour    Show you disaster recovery techniques critical to preserving your company's life-blood - the data    Explain how a common application design pattern can wreak havoc in the database Walk through the top-10 points to follow around operations and maintenance for a well-performing and available data tier! Please Note: Agenda may be subject to change  Sessions Abstracts  KEYNOTE: Bridging the Gap Between Development and Production    Applications are commonly developed with little regard for how design choices will affect performance in production. This is often because developers don't realize the implications of their design on how SQL Server will be able to handle a high workload (e.g. blocking, fragmentation) and/or because there's no full-time trained DBA that can recognize production problems and help educate developers. The keynote sets the stage for the rest of the day. Discussing some of the issues that can arise, explaining how some can be avoided and highlighting some of the features in SQL 2008 that can help developers and DBAs make better use of SQL Server, and troubleshoot when things go wrong.   SESSION ONE: SQL Server Mythbusters  It's amazing how many myths and misconceptions have sprung up and persisted over the years about SQL Server - after many years helping people out on forums, newsgroups, and customer engagements, Paul and Kimberly have heard it all. Are there really non-logged operations? Can interrupting shrinks or rebuilds cause corruption? Can you override the server's MAXDOP setting? Will the server always do a table-scan to get a row count? Many myths lead to poor design choices and inappropriate maintenance practices so these are just a few of many, many myths that Paul and Kimberly will debunk in this fast-paced session on how SQL Server operates and should be managed and maintained.   SESSION TWO: Database Recovery Techniques Demo-Fest  Even if a company has a disaster recovery strategy in place, they need to practice to make sure that the plan will work when a disaster does strike. In this fast-paced demo session Paul and Kimberly will repeatedly do nasty things to databases and then show how they are recovered - demonstrating many techniques that can be used in production for disaster recovery. Not for the faint-hearted!   SESSION THREE: GUIDs: Use, Abuse, and How To Move Forward   Since the addition of the GUID (Microsoft’s implementation of the UUID), my life as a consultant and "tuner" has been busy. I’ve seen databases designed with GUID keys run fairly well with small workloads but completely fall over and fail because they just cannot scale. And, I know why GUIDs are chosen - it simplifies the handling of parent/child rows in your batches so you can reduce round-trips or avoid dealing with identity values. And, yes, sometimes it's even for distributed databases and/or security that GUIDs are chosen. I'm not entirely against ever using a GUID but overusing and abusing GUIDs just has to be stopped! Please, please, please let me give you better solutions and explanations on how to deal with your parent/child rows, round-trips and clustering keys!   SESSION 4: Essential Database Maintenance  In this session, Paul and Kimberly will run you through their top-ten database maintenance recommendations, with a lot of tips and tricks along the way. These are distilled from almost 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server customers and are geared towards making your databases more performant, more available, and more easily managed (to save you time!). Everything in this session will be practical and applicable to a wide variety of databases. Topics covered include: backups, shrinks, fragmentation, statistics, and much more! Focus will be on 2005 but we'll explain some of the key differences for 2000 and 2008 as well. Speaker Biographies     Kimberley L. Tripp Paul and Kimberly are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. Paul worked on the SQL Server team for nine years in development and management roles, writing many of the DBCC commands, and ultimately with responsibility for core Storage Engine for SQL Server 2008. Paul writes extensively on his blog (SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul) and for TechNet Magazine, for which he is also a Contributing Editor. Kimberly worked on the SQL Server team in the early 1990s as a tester and writer before leaving to found SQLskills and embrace her passion for teaching and consulting. Kimberly has been a staple at worldwide conferences since she first presented at TechEd in 1996, and she blogs at SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly. They have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft.In their spare time, they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world.   Speaker Testimonials  "To call them good trainers is an epic understatement. They know how to deliver technical material in ways that illustrate it well. I had to stop Paul at one point and ask him how long it took to build a particular slide because the animations were so good at conveying a hard-to-describe process." "These are not beginner presenters, and they put an extreme amount of preparation and attention to detail into everything that they do. Completely, utterly professional." "When it comes to the instructors themselves, Kimberly and Paul simply have no equal. Not only are they both ultimate authorities, but they have endless enthusiasm about the material, and spot on delivery. If either ever got tired they never showed it, even after going all day and all week. We witnessed countless demos over the course of the week, some extremely involved, multi-step processes, and I can’t recall one that didn’t go the way it was supposed to." "You might think that with this extreme level of skill comes extreme levels of egotism and lack of patience. Nothing could be further from the truth. ... They simply know how to teach, and are approachable, humble, and patient." "The experience Paul and Kimberly have had with real live customers yields a lot more information and things to watch out for than you'd ever get from documentation alone." “Kimberly, I just wanted to send you an email to let you know how awesome you are! I have applied some of your indexing strategies to our website’s homegrown CMS and we are experiencing a significant performance increase. WOW....amazing tips delivered in an exciting way!  Thanks again” 

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• Following the Thread in OSB

  - by Antony Reynolds

  Threading in OSB The Scenario I recently led an OSB POC where we needed to get high throughput from an OSB pipeline that had the following logic: 1. Receive Request 2. Send Request to External System 3. If Response has a particular value   3.1 Modify Request   3.2 Resend Request to External System 4. Send Response back to Requestor All looks very straightforward and no nasty wrinkles along the way.  The flow was implemented in OSB as follows (see diagram for more details): Proxy Service to Receive Request and Send Response Request Pipeline   Copies Original Request for use in step 3 Route Node   Sends Request to External System exposed as a Business Service Response Pipeline   Checks Response to Check If Request Needs to Be Resubmitted Modify Request Callout to External System (same Business Service as Route Node) The Proxy and the Business Service were each assigned their own Work Manager, effectively giving each of them their own thread pool. The Surprise Imagine our surprise when, on stressing the system we saw it lock up, with large numbers of blocked threads.  The reason for the lock up is due to some subtleties in the OSB thread model which is the topic of this post.   Basic Thread Model OSB goes to great lengths to avoid holding on to threads.  Lets start by looking at how how OSB deals with a simple request/response routing to a business service in a route node. Most Business Services are implemented by OSB in two parts.  The first part uses the request thread to send the request to the target.  In the diagram this is represented by the thread T1.  After sending the request to the target (the Business Service in our diagram) the request thread is released back to whatever pool it came from.  A multiplexor (muxer) is used to wait for the response.  When the response is received the muxer hands off the response to a new thread that is used to execute the response pipeline, this is represented in the diagram by T2. OSB allows you to assign different Work Managers and hence different thread pools to each Proxy Service and Business Service.  In out example we have the “Proxy Service Work Manager” assigned to the Proxy Service and the “Business Service Work Manager” assigned to the Business Service.  Note that the Business Service Work Manager is only used to assign the thread to process the response, it is never used to process the request. This architecture means that while waiting for a response from a business service there are no threads in use, which makes for better scalability in terms of thread usage. First Wrinkle Note that if the Proxy and the Business Service both use the same Work Manager then there is potential for starvation.  For example: Request Pipeline makes a blocking callout, say to perform a database read. Business Service response tries to allocate a thread from thread pool but all threads are blocked in the database read. New requests arrive and contend with responses arriving for the available threads. Similar problems can occur if the response pipeline blocks for some reason, maybe a database update for example. Solution The solution to this is to make sure that the Proxy and Business Service use different Work Managers so that they do not contend with each other for threads. Do Nothing Route Thread Model So what happens if there is no route node?  In this case OSB just echoes the Request message as a Response message, but what happens to the threads?  OSB still uses a separate thread for the response, but in this case the Work Manager used is the Default Work Manager. So this is really a special case of the Basic Thread Model discussed above, except that the response pipeline will always execute on the Default Work Manager.   Proxy Chaining Thread Model So what happens when the route node is actually calling a Proxy Service rather than a Business Service, does the second Proxy Service use its own Thread or does it re-use the thread of the original Request Pipeline? Well as you can see from the diagram when a route node calls another proxy service then the original Work Manager is used for both request pipelines.  Similarly the response pipeline uses the Work Manager associated with the ultimate Business Service invoked via a Route Node.  This actually fits in with the earlier description I gave about Business Services and by extension Route Nodes they “… uses the request thread to send the request to the target”. Call Out Threading Model So what happens when you make a Service Callout to a Business Service from within a pipeline.  The documentation says that “The pipeline processor will block the thread until the response arrives asynchronously” when using a Service Callout.  What this means is that the target Business Service is called using the pipeline thread but the response is also handled by the pipeline thread.  This implies that the pipeline thread blocks waiting for a response.  It is the handling of this response that behaves in an unexpected way. When a Business Service is called via a Service Callout, the calling thread is suspended after sending the request, but unlike the Route Node case the thread is not released, it waits for the response.  The muxer uses the Business Service Work Manager to allocate a thread to process the response, but in this case processing the response means getting the response and notifying the blocked pipeline thread that the response is available.  The original pipeline thread can then continue to process the response. Second Wrinkle This leads to an unfortunate wrinkle.  If the Business Service is using the same Work Manager as the Pipeline then it is possible for starvation or a deadlock to occur.  The scenario is as follows: Pipeline makes a Callout and the thread is suspended but still allocated Multiple Pipeline instances using the same Work Manager are in this state (common for a system under load) Response comes back but all Work Manager threads are allocated to blocked pipelines. Response cannot be processed and so pipeline threads never unblock – deadlock! Solution The solution to this is to make sure that any Business Services used by a Callout in a pipeline use a different Work Manager to the pipeline itself. The Solution to My Problem Looking back at my original workflow we see that the same Business Service is called twice, once in a Routing Node and once in a Response Pipeline Callout.  This was what was causing my problem because the response pipeline was using the Business Service Work Manager, but the Service Callout wanted to use the same Work Manager to handle the responses and so eventually my Response Pipeline hogged all the available threads so no responses could be processed. The solution was to create a second Business Service pointing to the same location as the original Business Service, the only difference was to assign a different Work Manager to this Business Service.  This ensured that when the Service Callout completed there were always threads available to process the response because the response processing from the Service Callout had its own dedicated Work Manager. Summary Request Pipeline Executes on Proxy Work Manager (WM) Thread so limited by setting of that WM.  If no WM specified then uses WLS default WM. Route Node Request sent using Proxy WM Thread Proxy WM Thread is released before getting response Muxer is used to handle response Muxer hands off response to Business Service (BS) WM Response Pipeline Executes on Routed Business Service WM Thread so limited by setting of that WM.  If no WM specified then uses WLS default WM. No Route Node (Echo functionality) Proxy WM thread released New thread from the default WM used for response pipeline Service Callout Request sent using proxy pipeline thread Proxy thread is suspended (not released) until the response comes back Notification of response handled by BS WM thread so limited by setting of that WM.  If no WM specified then uses WLS default WM. Note this is a very short lived use of the thread After notification by callout BS WM thread that thread is released and execution continues on the original pipeline thread. Route/Callout to Proxy Service Request Pipeline of callee executes on requestor thread Response Pipeline of caller executes on response thread of requested proxy Throttling Request message may be queued if limit reached. Requesting thread is released (route node) or suspended (callout) So what this means is that you may get deadlocks caused by thread starvation if you use the same thread pool for the business service in a route node and the business service in a callout from the response pipeline because the callout will need a notification thread from the same thread pool as the response pipeline.  This was the problem we were having. You get a similar problem if you use the same work manager for the proxy request pipeline and a business service callout from that request pipeline. It also means you may want to have different work managers for the proxy and business service in the route node. Basically you need to think carefully about how threading impacts your proxy services. References Thanks to Jay Kasi, Gerald Nunn and Deb Ayers for helping to explain this to me.  Any errors are my own and not theirs.  Also thanks to my colleagues Milind Pandit and Prasad Bopardikar who travelled this road with me. OSB Thread Model Great Blog Post on Thread Usage in OSB

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, June 15, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, June 15, 2010New ProjectsBackup on Build: Backup critical files on each Visual Studio build.CDN Support for EPiServer CMS: This module adds CDN support for EPiServer CMS by modifying outgoing links.Custom WCF Bindings: This project contains some custom WCF LOB SDK bindings I have created including a SalesForce one. I will blog on updates as they occur. Please se...DocIcon for SharePoint 2010: DocIcon for SharePoint re-enables links from document icons in SharePoint 2010. This feature was in previous versions of SharePoint, but was remove...EEG Peak Detection: EEG Peak Detectionemployeemanagement1: employeemanagement1Enables map services on top of existing map providers like Google Maps: Services include Map visualization services, Map decoration services, Spot registration services and Spot naming services.fbprivacy: Tool to assess your Facebook Privacy SettingsfMRI SVM Toolbox: fMRI SVM ToolboxGCMS – using .Net for human CMS: GCMS makes only what you need to do with a CMS and nothing more and it makes it with .NETqjblog: My First Blog.Send2Sharepoint: Office(Word,Excel,Outlook) and windows explorer addin to upload documents to sharepoint document library. SharePoint Find and Replace: SharePoint Find & Replace allows you to replace a specific string within a site collection with a different value. For example, when you change a l...SharePoint Management Studio: This project developed on Visula Studio 2008 and c# language. The main aim is manage your SharePoint 2007 FARM.SharePoint PageController: A SharePoint solution which provides an extensible framework to perform actions on a per-page basis in SharePoint. OOTB functionality allows for f...SilverNotePad: Simple notepad built using MVVM patern.SolidWorks Addin Development: The SolidWorks Addin Development project is dedicated to helping developers and non-developers with creating fully functional addins.Sunlit World Scheme: Sunlit World Scheme is a nearly R4RS-compliant Scheme implementation that supports threading, TCP, UDP, cryptography, and simple graphics and windo...TimeBend: Time tracking gone wild.TinyCMS: Jednostavan CMS s mogućnosti unosa vijesti, linkova i natječaja. CSS je napravljen tek toliko... Aplikacija izrađena za dev4Fun natjecanje.Ujimanet Android: text categorization tool for androidVisual Storm Engine: Visual Storm es un motor para probar nuevas tecnologias orientadas a la creacion de video juegos. Por ahora solo soporta Windows Vista/7 y usa Dire...New ReleasesAjax ASP.Net Forum: developer.insecla.com-forum_v0.1.4: *VERSION: 0.1.4* FEATURES ADDED Rating Threads (Through AjaxCTK (included Ms .DLL in the BIN folder)) Empowered Within AJAX Custom star ima...AlphaGet: Alpha 3: Important: from this release WinGet changes its name to AlphaGet in order to identify it better and make it search-engine friendly. New Features N...Backup on Build: Backup on Build v1.0.0 Initial Release: Initial Release version 1.0.0Boleto.Net: BoletoNet: Última versão estável da BoletoNet.dll. O código fonte dessa versão pode ser encontrado em http://boletonet.codeplex.com/SourceControl/list/change...CDN Support for EPiServer CMS: CDN Support v1: See links on start page for information on how to use and install this module.Chargify.NET: Chargify.NET v0.750: Adding support for creating freemium subscription plans Adding preliminary JSON support Adding ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 data embedded in the library ...Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V38: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has ad...ContainerOne - C# application server: V0.1.3.0: New minor release containing: Infrastructure - core service An installer of a windows service which provides the following: Service registry Even...DocIcon for SharePoint 2010: wwEsp.DocIcon Deployment Package Release 1.0.0: This package installs the DocIcon feature on a SharePoint 2010 server farm. The solution is deployed as a Farm-level feature that can be enabled or...Ethical Hacking ASP.NET: Version 1.2.0.0: For the complete list of changes, new features and fixes in the new version, please view the Version History page. Read more about the available te...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.6.3: The latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.6.3), with new features and Mini-Menu UI Changes (1.4). Once you have extracted the file, do not delete ...Hades: Projet Hadès - Official Demo - Version 0.1.1 Beta: Second release correcting some bugs... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Projet Hadès - Official Demo...KooBoo Image Gallery: RC 1: This new Version has this features 1) Refactoring to change the mispelled word galery to gallery 2) Change to use the plugin in the same page of ...LibWowArmory: LibWowArmory 0.3 beta: LibWowArmory 0.3 betaThis release of the LibWowArmory source code matches the WoW Armory as of version 3.3.3. Changes since version 0.2.3:Solution...MailChimp4Umbraco: 0.90 stable: Can be used in productionMapWindow6: MapWindow 6.0 June 14: This version adds the WebMercator projection and fixes a bug that was causing some perfect spheres to be created as oblate WGS1984 spheroids.MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.18.59782: Supported FileServe. Supported SharingMatrix. Fixed minor bugs.MGM - MyGroupManager: MyGroupManager v0.1.5 - Alpha: At this point the application appears feature complete and works pretty well. The code still needs some tweaks (error handling), and a general look...MvcPager: MvcPager 1.4: MvcPager 1.4 source codes and demo projects MvcPager 1.4版源代码及示例文件Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.6): Rx version The "with Rx" versions of Nito.LINQ are built against Rx 1.0.2563.0, released 2010-06-09. Supported Platforms .NET 4.0 Client Profile, ...open gaze and mouse analyzer: Ogama 3.3: This release was published on 14.06.2010 and is a bugfix release. For the list of changes please visit http://www.ogama.net. Only use this installe...patterns & practices: Prism: Prism 4.0 Drop 2: Prism 4.0 Drop 2 Welcome to the second drop of Prism 4.0 (formally known as the Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight). This drop ...Prism Software Factory Light: 0.5 Beta: 4ward Prism Software Factory Light - 0.5 Beta releaseThis is the first public beta release of the 4ward Prism Software Factory Light that allows to...PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT: PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT--3.3: Over the last several months, my primary research effort has been directed at producing strictly portable development methods between C and C# . T...qjblog: v1.source: v1.sourceqjblog: v1blog: V1 BlogQuick Performance Monitor: Version 1.4.2: Added 'Move to new window' functionality.Refix - .NET dependency management: Refix v0.1.0.90 ALPHA: Added console tree-style visualisation of solution dependencies, as well as some bug fixes. This version should work out of the box with the demons...SEMICO Framework: Version Stable 1.0.0.3: Version Stable 1.0.0.3SharePoint Find and Replace: 1.0.16: Version: 1.0.16 This release is the first stable release of this project, including the Microsoft public license agreement. Fixes: Added about dia...SharePoint Management Studio: v1: v1SharePoint PageController: SharePoint PageController: For SharePoint 2010 and 2007 running on IIS 7Software Is Hardwork: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+06: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+06SolidWorks Addin Development: GenericAddinFramework-06.14.2010: R1.SourceGrid: SourceGrid 4.30: Sources are here Note that SourceGrid sources are not hosted on CodePlex. The sources are hosted on bitbucket.org Main Changes Improved hidden ...SSIS Expression Editor & Tester: Expression Editor and Tester v1.0.2.0: Corrected release of expression editor tool, no changes to control. Download and extract the files to get started, no install required. Changes Co...Sunlit World Scheme: Sunlit World Scheme - 20100614 - source and binary: This is the result of building the current source code in Debug mode. The source code is included.TinyCMS: TinyCMS: Source kodVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30614.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVianaNET - Videoanalysis for physical motion: VianaNET 1.2 - beta: This is the VianaNET beta release with some bug fixes. Would like to have some comments on it. Regards, AdrianWorkLogger: Worklogger Beta 1: Simple work logger for Windows in WPFMost Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRhyduino - Arduino and Managed CodeCassandraemonCommunity Forums NNTP bridgedotSpatialjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesBlogEngine.NETLightweight Fluent WorkflowNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleUmbraco CMS

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• T-SQL Tuesday #53-Matt's Making Me Do This!

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  Hello everyone! It's that time again, time for T-SQL Tuesday, the wonderful blog series started by Adam Machanic (b|t). This month we are hosted by Matt Velic (b|t) who asks the question, "Why So Serious?", in celebration of April Fool's Day. He asks the contributors for their dirty tricks. And for some reason that escapes me, he and Jeff Verheul (b|t) seem to think I might be able to write about those. Shocked, I am! Nah, not really. They're absolutely right, this one is gonna be fun! I took some inspiration from Matt's suggestions, namely Resource Governor and Login Triggers.  I've done some interesting login trigger stuff for a presentation, but nothing yet with Resource Governor. Best way to learn it! One of my oldest pet peeves is abuse of the sa login. Don't get me wrong, I use it too, but typically only as SQL Agent job owner. It's been a while since I've been stuck with it, but back when I started using SQL Server, EVERY application needed sa to function. It was hard-coded and couldn't be changed. (welllllll, that is if you didn't use a hex editor on the EXE file, but who would do such a thing?) My standard warning applies: don't run anything on this page in production. In fact, back up whatever server you're testing this on, including the master database. Snapshotting a VM is a good idea. Also make sure you have other sysadmin level logins on that server. So here's a standard template for a logon trigger to address those pesky sa users: CREATE TRIGGER SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY ON ALL SERVER WITH ENCRYPTION, EXECUTE AS N'sa' AFTER LOGON AS IF ORIGINAL_LOGIN()<>N'sa' OR APP_NAME() LIKE N'SQL Agent%' RETURN; -- interesting stuff goes here GO   What can you do for "interesting stuff"? Books Online limits itself to merely rolling back the logon, which will throw an error (and alert the person that the logon trigger fired).  That's a good use for logon triggers, but really not tricky enough for this blog.  Some of my suggestions are below: WAITFOR DELAY '23:59:59';   Or: EXEC sp_MSforeach_db 'EXEC sp_detach_db ''?'';'   Or: EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_job @job_name=N'`', @enabled=1, @start_step_id=1, @notify_level_eventlog=0, @delete_level=3; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobserver @job_name=N'`', @server_name=@@SERVERNAME; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobstep @job_name=N'`', @step_id=1, @step_name=N'`', @command=N'SHUTDOWN;'; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_start_job @job_name=N'`';   Really, I don't want to spoil your own exploration, try it yourself!  The thing I really like about these is it lets me promote the idea that "sa is SLOW, sa is BUGGY, don't use sa!".  Before we get into Resource Governor, make sure to drop or disable that logon trigger. They don't work well in combination. (Had to redo all the following code when SSMS locked up) Resource Governor is a feature that lets you control how many resources a single session can consume. The main goal is to limit the damage from a runaway query. But we're not here to read about its main goal or normal usage! I'm trying to make people stop using sa BECAUSE IT'S SLOW! Here's how RG can do that: USE master; GO CREATE FUNCTION dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY() RETURNS sysname WITH SCHEMABINDING, ENCRYPTION AS BEGIN RETURN CASE WHEN ORIGINAL_LOGIN()=N'sa' AND APP_NAME() NOT LIKE N'SQL Agent%' THEN N'SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY' ELSE N'default' END END GO CREATE RESOURCE POOL SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY WITH ( MIN_CPU_PERCENT = 0 ,MAX_CPU_PERCENT = 1 ,CAP_CPU_PERCENT = 1 ,AFFINITY SCHEDULER = (0) ,MIN_MEMORY_PERCENT = 0 ,MAX_MEMORY_PERCENT = 1 -- ,MIN_IOPS_PER_VOLUME = 1 ,MAX_IOPS_PER_VOLUME = 1 -- uncomment for SQL Server 2014 ); CREATE WORKLOAD GROUP SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY WITH ( IMPORTANCE = LOW ,REQUEST_MAX_MEMORY_GRANT_PERCENT = 1 ,REQUEST_MAX_CPU_TIME_SEC = 1 ,REQUEST_MEMORY_GRANT_TIMEOUT_SEC = 1 ,MAX_DOP = 1 ,GROUP_MAX_REQUESTS = 1 ) USING SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY; ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR WITH (CLASSIFIER_FUNCTION=dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY); ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR RECONFIGURE;   From top to bottom: Create a classifier function to determine which pool the session should go to. More info on classifier functions. Create the pool and provide a generous helping of resources for the sa login. Create the workload group and further prioritize those resources for the sa login. Apply the classifier function and reconfigure RG to use it. I have to say this one is a bit sneakier than the logon trigger, least of all you don't get any error messages.  I heartily recommend testing it in Management Studio, and click around the UI a lot, there's some fun behavior there. And DEFINITELY try it on SQL 2014 with the IO settings included!  You'll notice I made allowances for SQL Agent jobs owned by sa, they'll go into the default workload group.  You can add your own overrides to the classifier function if needed. Some interesting ideas I didn't have time for but expect you to get to before me: Set up different pools/workgroups with different settings and randomize which one the classifier chooses Do the same but base it on time of day (Books Online example covers this)... Or, which workstation it connects from. This can be modified for certain special people in your office who either don't listen, or are attracted (and attractive) to you. And if things go wrong you can always use the following from another sysadmin or Dedicated Admin connection: ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR DISABLE;   That will let you go in and either fix (or drop) the pools, workgroups and classifier function. So now that you know these types of things are possible, and if you are tired of your team using sa when they shouldn't, I expect you'll enjoy playing with these quite a bit! Unfortunately, the aforementioned Dedicated Admin Connection kinda poops on the party here.  Books Online for both topics will tell you that the DAC will not fire either feature. So if you have a crafty user who does their research, they can still sneak in with sa and do their bidding without being hampered. Of course, you can still detect their login via various methods, like a server trace, SQL Server Audit, extended events, and enabling "Audit Successful Logins" on the server.  These all have their downsides: traces take resources, extended events and SQL Audit can't fire off actions, and enabling successful logins will bloat your error log very quickly.  SQL Audit is also limited unless you have Enterprise Edition, and Resource Governor is Enterprise-only.  And WORST OF ALL, these features are all available and visible through the SSMS UI, so even a doofus developer or manager could find them. Fortunately there are Event Notifications! Event notifications are becoming one of my favorite features of SQL Server (keep an eye out for more blogs from me about them). They are practically unknown and heinously underutilized.  They are also a great gateway drug to using Service Broker, another great but underutilized feature. Hopefully this will get you to start using them, or at least your enemies in the office will once they read this, and then you'll have to learn them in order to fix things. So here's the setup: USE msdb; GO CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_act WITH ENCRYPTION AS DECLARE @x XML, @message nvarchar(max); RECEIVE @x=CAST(message_body AS XML) FROM SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q; IF @x.value('(//LoginName)[1]','sysname')=N'sa' AND @x.value('(//ApplicationName)[1]','sysname') NOT LIKE N'SQL Agent%' BEGIN -- interesting activation procedure stuff goes here END GO CREATE QUEUE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q WITH STATUS=ON, RETENTION=OFF, ACTIVATION (PROCEDURE_NAME=dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_act, MAX_QUEUE_READERS=1, EXECUTE AS OWNER); CREATE SERVICE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_s ON QUEUE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q([http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/PostEventNotification]); CREATE EVENT NOTIFICATION SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_en ON SERVER WITH FAN_IN FOR AUDIT_LOGIN TO SERVICE N'SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_s', N'current database' GO   From top to bottom: Create activation procedure for event notification queue. Create queue to accept messages from event notification, and activate the procedure to process those messages when received. Create service to send messages to that queue. Create event notification on AUDIT_LOGIN events that fire the service. I placed this in msdb as it is an available system database and already has Service Broker enabled by default. You should change this to another database if you can guarantee it won't get dropped. So what to put in place for "interesting activation procedure code"?  Hmmm, so far I haven't addressed Matt's suggestion of writing a lengthy script to send an annoying message: SET @[email protected]('(//HostName)[1]','sysname') + N' tried to log in to server ' + @x.value('(//ServerName)[1]','sysname') + N' as SA at ' + @x.value('(//StartTime)[1]','sysname') + N' using the ' + @x.value('(//ApplicationName)[1]','sysname') + N' program. That''s why you''re getting this message and the attached pornography which' + N' is bloating your inbox and violating company policy, among other things. If you know' + N' this person you can go to their desk and hit them, or use the following SQL to end their session: KILL ' + @x.value('(//SPID)[1]','sysname') + N'; Hopefully they''re in the middle of a huge query that they need to finish right away.' EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail @recipients=N'[email protected]', @subject=N'SA Login Alert', @query_result_width=32767, @body=@message, @query=N'EXEC sp_readerrorlog;', @attach_query_result_as_file=1, @query_attachment_filename=N'UtterlyGrossPorn_SeriouslyDontOpenIt.jpg' I'm not sure I'd call that a lengthy script, but the attachment should get pretty big, and I'm sure the email admins will love storing multiple copies of it.  The nice thing is that this also fires on Dedicated Admin connections! You can even identify DAC connections from the event data returned, I leave that as an exercise for you. You can use that info to change the action taken by the activation procedure, and since it's a stored procedure, it can pretty much do anything! Except KILL the SPID, or SHUTDOWN the server directly.  I'm still working on those.

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• Juju Zookeeper & Provisioning Agent Not Deployed

  - by Keith Tobin

  I am using juju with the openstack provider, i expected that when i bootstrap that zookeeper and provisioning agent would get deployed on the bootstrap vm in openstack. This dose not seem to be the case. the bootstrap vm gets deployed but it seems that nothing gets deployed to the VM. See logs below, I may be missing something, also how is it possible to log on the bootstrap vm. Could I manual deploy, if so what do I need to do. Juju Bootstrap commend root@cinder01:/home/cinder# juju -v bootstrap 2012-10-12 03:21:20,976 DEBUG Initializing juju bootstrap runtime 2012-10-12 03:21:20,982 WARNING Verification of xxxxS certificates is disabled for this environment. Set 'ssl-hostname-verification' to ensure secure communication. 2012-10-12 03:21:20,982 DEBUG openstack: using auth-mode 'userpass' with xxxx:xxxxxx.10:35357/v2.0/ 2012-10-12 03:21:21,064 DEBUG openstack: authenticated til u'2012-10-13T08:21:13Z' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,064 DEBUG openstack: GET 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,091 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"flavors": [{"id": "3", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/3", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/3", "rel": "bookmark"}], "name": "m1.medium"}, {"id": "4", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/4", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/4", "rel": "bookmark"}], "name": "m1.large"}, {"id": "1", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/1", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/1", "rel": "bookmark"}], "name": "m1.tiny"}, {"id": "5", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/5", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/5", "rel": "bookmark"}], "name": "m1.xlarge"}, {"id": "2", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/2", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/2", "rel": "bookmark"}], "name": "m1.small"}]}' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,091 INFO Bootstrapping environment 'openstack' (origin: ppa type: openstack)... 2012-10-12 03:21:21,091 DEBUG access object-store @ xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/provider-state 2012-10-12 03:21:21,092 DEBUG openstack: GET 'xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/provider-state' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,165 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{}\n' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,165 DEBUG Verifying writable storage 2012-10-12 03:21:21,165 DEBUG access object-store @ xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/bootstrap-verify 2012-10-12 03:21:21,166 DEBUG openstack: PUT 'xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/bootstrap-verify' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,251 DEBUG openstack: 201 '201 Created\n\n\n\n ' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,251 DEBUG Launching juju bootstrap instance. 2012-10-12 03:21:21,271 DEBUG access object-store @ xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/juju_master_id 2012-10-12 03:21:21,273 DEBUG access compute @ xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-security-groups 2012-10-12 03:21:21,273 DEBUG openstack: GET 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-security-groups' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,321 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"security_groups": [{"rules": [{"from_port": -1, "group": {}, "ip_protocol": "icmp", "to_port": -1, "parent_group_id": 1, "ip_range": {"cidr": "0.0.0.0/0"}, "id": 7}, {"from_port": 22, "group": {}, "ip_protocol": "tcp", "to_port": 22, "parent_group_id": 1, "ip_range": {"cidr": "0.0.0.0/0"}, "id": 38}], "tenant_id": "d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d", "id": 1, "name": "default", "description": "default"}]}' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,322 DEBUG Creating juju security group juju-openstack 2012-10-12 03:21:21,322 DEBUG openstack: POST 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-security-groups' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,401 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"security_group": {"rules": [], "tenant_id": "d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d", "id": 48, "name": "juju-openstack", "description": "juju group for openstack"}}' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,401 DEBUG openstack: POST 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-security-group-rules' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,504 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"security_group_rule": {"from_port": 22, "group": {}, "ip_protocol": "tcp", "to_port": 22, "parent_group_id": 48, "ip_range": {"cidr": "0.0.0.0/0"}, "id": 54}}' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,504 DEBUG openstack: POST 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-security-group-rules' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,647 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"security_group_rule": {"from_port": 1, "group": {"tenant_id": "d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d", "name": "juju-openstack"}, "ip_protocol": "tcp", "to_port": 65535, "parent_group_id": 48, "ip_range": {}, "id": 55}}' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,647 DEBUG openstack: POST 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-security-group-rules' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,791 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"security_group_rule": {"from_port": 1, "group": {"tenant_id": "d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d", "name": "juju-openstack"}, "ip_protocol": "udp", "to_port": 65535, "parent_group_id": 48, "ip_range": {}, "id": 56}}' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,792 DEBUG Creating machine security group juju-openstack-0 2012-10-12 03:21:21,792 DEBUG openstack: POST 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-security-groups' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,871 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"security_group": {"rules": [], "tenant_id": "d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d", "id": 49, "name": "juju-openstack-0", "description": "juju group for openstack machine 0"}}' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,871 DEBUG access compute @ xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/detail 2012-10-12 03:21:21,871 DEBUG openstack: GET 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/detail' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,906 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"flavors": [{"vcpus": 2, "disk": 10, "name": "m1.medium", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/3", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/3", "rel": "bookmark"}], "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 40, "ram": 4096, "id": "3", "swap": ""}, {"vcpus": 4, "disk": 10, "name": "m1.large", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/4", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/4", "rel": "bookmark"}], "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 80, "ram": 8192, "id": "4", "swap": ""}, {"vcpus": 1, "disk": 0, "name": "m1.tiny", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/1", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/1", "rel": "bookmark"}], "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 0, "ram": 512, "id": "1", "swap": ""}, {"vcpus": 8, "disk": 10, "name": "m1.xlarge", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/5", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/5", "rel": "bookmark"}], "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 160, "ram": 16384, "id": "5", "swap": ""}, {"vcpus": 1, "disk": 10, "name": "m1.small", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/2", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/2", "rel": "bookmark"}], "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 20, "ram": 2048, "id": "2", "swap": ""}]}' 2012-10-12 03:21:21,907 DEBUG access compute @ xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers 2012-10-12 03:21:21,907 DEBUG openstack: POST 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers' 2012-10-12 03:21:22,284 DEBUG openstack: 202 '{"server": {"OS-DCF:diskConfig": "MANUAL", "id": "a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "rel": "bookmark"}], "adminPass": "SuFp48cZzdo4"}}' 2012-10-12 03:21:22,284 DEBUG access object-store @ xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/juju_master_id 2012-10-12 03:21:22,285 DEBUG openstack: PUT 'xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/juju_master_id' 2012-10-12 03:21:22,375 DEBUG openstack: 201 '201 Created\n\n\n\n ' 2012-10-12 03:21:27,379 DEBUG Waited for 5 seconds for networking on server u'a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023' 2012-10-12 03:21:27,380 DEBUG access compute @ xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023 2012-10-12 03:21:27,380 DEBUG openstack: GET 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023' 2012-10-12 03:21:27,556 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"server": {"OS-EXT-STS:task_state": "networking", "addresses": {"private": [{"version": 4, "addr": "10.0.0.8"}]}, "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "rel": "bookmark"}], "image": {"id": "5bf60467-0136-4471-9818-e13ade75a0a1", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/images/5bf60467-0136-4471-9818-e13ade75a0a1", "rel": "bookmark"}]}, "OS-EXT-STS:vm_state": "building", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:instance_name": "instance-00000060", "flavor": {"id": "1", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/1", "rel": "bookmark"}]}, "id": "a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "user_id": "01610f73d0fb4922aefff09f2627e50c", "OS-DCF:diskConfig": "MANUAL", "accessIPv4": "", "accessIPv6": "", "progress": 0, "OS-EXT-STS:power_state": 0, "config_drive": "", "status": "BUILD", "updated": "2012-10-12T08:21:23Z", "hostId": "1cdb25708fb8e464d83a69fe4a024dcd5a80baf24a82ec28f9d9f866", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host": "nova01", "key_name": "", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname": null, "name": "juju openstack instance 0", "created": "2012-10-12T08:21:22Z", "tenant_id": "d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d", "metadata": {}}}' 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 2012-10-12 03:21:27,557 DEBUG access compute @ xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-floating-ips 2012-10-12 03:21:27,557 DEBUG openstack: GET 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/os-floating-ips' 2012-10-12 03:21:27,815 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"floating_ips": [{"instance_id": "a0e0df11-91c0-4801-95b3-62d910d729e9", "ip": "xxxx.35", "fixed_ip": "10.0.0.5", "id": 447, "pool": "nova"}, {"instance_id": "b84f1a42-7192-415e-8650-ebb1aa56e97f", "ip": "xxxx.36", "fixed_ip": "10.0.0.6", "id": 448, "pool": "nova"}, {"instance_id": null, "ip": "xxxx.37", "fixed_ip": null, "id": 449, "pool": "nova"}, {"instance_id": null, "ip": "xxxx.38", "fixed_ip": null, "id": 450, "pool": "nova"}, {"instance_id": null, "ip": "xxxx.39", "fixed_ip": null, "id": 451, "pool": "nova"}, {"instance_id": null, "ip": "xxxx.40", "fixed_ip": null, "id": 452, "pool": "nova"}, {"instance_id": null, "ip": "xxxx.41", "fixed_ip": null, "id": 453, "pool": "nova"}]}' 2012-10-12 03:21:27,815 DEBUG access compute @ xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023/action 2012-10-12 03:21:27,816 DEBUG openstack: POST 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023/action' 2012-10-12 03:21:28,356 DEBUG openstack: 202 '' 2012-10-12 03:21:28,356 DEBUG access object-store @ xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/provider-state 2012-10-12 03:21:28,357 DEBUG openstack: PUT 'xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/provider-state' 2012-10-12 03:21:28,446 DEBUG openstack: 201 '201 Created\n\n\n\n ' 2012-10-12 03:21:28,446 INFO 'bootstrap' command finished successfully Juju Status Command root@cinder01:/home/cinder# juju -v status 2012-10-12 03:23:28,314 DEBUG Initializing juju status runtime 2012-10-12 03:23:28,320 WARNING Verification of xxxxS certificates is disabled for this environment. Set 'ssl-hostname-verification' to ensure secure communication. 2012-10-12 03:23:28,320 DEBUG openstack: using auth-mode 'userpass' with xxxx:xxxxxx.10:35357/v2.0/ 2012-10-12 03:23:28,320 INFO Connecting to environment... 2012-10-12 03:23:28,403 DEBUG openstack: authenticated til u'2012-10-13T08:23:20Z' 2012-10-12 03:23:28,403 DEBUG access object-store @ xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/provider-state 2012-10-12 03:23:28,403 DEBUG openstack: GET 'xxxx:xx10.49.113.11:8080/v1/AUTH_d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/juju-hpc-az1-cb/provider-state' 2012-10-12 03:23:35,480 DEBUG openstack: 200 'zookeeper-instances: [a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023]\n' 2012-10-12 03:23:35,480 DEBUG access compute @ xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023 2012-10-12 03:23:35,480 DEBUG openstack: GET 'xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023' 2012-10-12 03:23:35,662 DEBUG openstack: 200 '{"server": {"OS-EXT-STS:task_state": null, "addresses": {"private": [{"version": 4, "addr": "10.0.0.8"}, {"version": 4, "addr": "xxxx.37"}]}, "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/v1.1/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/servers/a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "rel": "bookmark"}], "image": {"id": "5bf60467-0136-4471-9818-e13ade75a0a1", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/images/5bf60467-0136-4471-9818-e13ade75a0a1", "rel": "bookmark"}]}, "OS-EXT-STS:vm_state": "active", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:instance_name": "instance-00000060", "flavor": {"id": "1", "links": [{"href": "xxxx:xxxxxx.15:8774/d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d/flavors/1", "rel": "bookmark"}]}, "id": "a598b402-8678-4447-baeb-59255409a023", "user_id": "01610f73d0fb4922aefff09f2627e50c", "OS-DCF:diskConfig": "MANUAL", "accessIPv4": "", "accessIPv6": "", "progress": 0, "OS-EXT-STS:power_state": 1, "config_drive": "", "status": "ACTIVE", "updated": "2012-10-12T08:21:40Z", "hostId": "1cdb25708fb8e464d83a69fe4a024dcd5a80baf24a82ec28f9d9f866", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host": "nova01", "key_name": "", "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname": null, "name": "juju openstack instance 0", "created": "2012-10-12T08:21:22Z", "tenant_id": "d5f52673953f49e595279e89ddde979d", "metadata": {}}}' 2012-10-12 03:23:35,663 DEBUG Connecting to environment using xxxx.37... 2012-10-12 03:23:35,663 DEBUG Spawning SSH process with remote_user="ubuntu" remote_host="xxxx.37" remote_port="2181" local_port="45859". 2012-10-12 03:23:36,173:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@log_env@658: Client environment:zookeeper.version=zookeeper C client 3.3.5 2012-10-12 03:23:36,173:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@log_env@662: Client environment:host.name=cinder01 2012-10-12 03:23:36,174:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@log_env@669: Client environment:os.name=Linux 2012-10-12 03:23:36,174:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@log_env@670: Client environment:os.arch=3.2.0-23-generic 2012-10-12 03:23:36,174:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@log_env@671: Client environment:os.version=#36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 20:39:51 UTC 2012 2012-10-12 03:23:36,174:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@log_env@679: Client environment:user.name=cinder 2012-10-12 03:23:36,174:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@log_env@687: Client environment:user.home=/root 2012-10-12 03:23:36,175:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@log_env@699: Client environment:user.dir=/home/cinder 2012-10-12 03:23:36,175:4355(0x7fd581973700):ZOO_INFO@zookeeper_init@727: Initiating client connection, host=localhost:45859 sessionTimeout=10000 watcher=0x7fd57f9146b0 sessionId=0 sessionPasswd= context=0x2c1dab0 flags=0 2012-10-12 03:23:36,175:4355(0x7fd577fff700):ZOO_ERROR@handle_socket_error_msg@1579: Socket [127.0.0.1:45859] zk retcode=-4, errno=111(Connection refused): server refused to accept the client 2012-10-12 03:23:39,512:4355(0x7fd577fff700):ZOO_ERROR@handle_socket_error_msg@1579: Socket [127.0.0.1:45859] zk retcode=-4, errno=111(Connection refused): server refused to accept the client 2012-10-12 03:23:42,848:4355(0x7fd577fff700):ZOO_ERROR@handle_socket_error_msg@1579: Socket [127.0.0.1:45859] zk retcode=-4, errno=111(Connection refused): server refused to accept the client ^Croot@cinder01:/home/cinder#

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• Hosting a website on Heroku.... I know how to, but im running into problems!

  - by Thomas Miller

  I'm starting to learn more on the back-end scale of programing. Recently I started up Heroku for the second or third time. This time I actually installed the Git update to my Mac and installed Heroku in the terminal. I wanted to upload a static html site with the Sinatra gem. Everything worked out fine inside the terminal, though I added Sinatra after I got everything working and the file with the site hooked up to Heroku. In my logs I did see that I was missing the Sinatra gem, so I installed it. My site contains both the proper app.rb and config.ru files. I have nothing showing up online. Just a blank screen! Contacting Heroku on this problem has been very difficult. I get a response every day, and on every day I respond with a question to the answer that didn't help me at all. 2011-05-18T00:25:20+00:00 app[web.1]: 71.198.0.51 - - [17/May/2011 17:25:20] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T00:25:20+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T00:25:26+00:00 app[web.1]: 71.198.0.51 - - [17/May/2011 17:25:26] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T00:25:26+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=313 2011-05-17T18:25:51-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-17T18:26:01-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T01:26:01+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T01:26:01+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T01:26:02+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-17T20:12:46-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-17T20:12:47-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T03:12:48+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 40055 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Listening on 0.0.0.0:40055, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=9954ms service=6ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:12:50] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0012 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-17T20:12:50-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T03:12:51+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:12:51] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T03:12:51+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:13:05] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0011 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:13:05] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:05] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:05] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T03:57:08+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:08] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-17T21:58:27-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-17T21:58:33-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-17T23:11:58-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-17T23:11:58-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T06:12:00+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 40091 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Listening on 0.0.0.0:40091, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: 183.97.156.226 - - [17/May/2011 23:12:01] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0017 2011-05-18T06:12:02+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=3209ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T06:12:03+00:00 app[web.1]: 183.97.156.226 - - [17/May/2011 23:12:03] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0019 2011-05-17T23:12:08-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T00:13:13-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T00:13:16-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T07:13:16+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T07:13:16+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T07:13:17+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-18T01:54:21-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-18T01:54:21-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T08:54:23+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 59491 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Listening on 0.0.0.0:59491, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T01:54:28-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=6943ms service=6ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0018 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0014 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=1ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=1ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T02:55:23-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T02:55:33-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-18T07:23:10-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T14:23:12+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 20560 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Listening on 0.0.0.0:20560, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T07:23:13-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0018 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=7ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0015 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0009 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:24:03-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T08:24:07-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T15:24:07+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T15:24:07+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T17:34:27-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-18T17:34:28-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-19T00:34:29+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 57621 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T17:34:31-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:32] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0016 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:32] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0011 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-19T00:34:34+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-19T00:34:34+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:34] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0007 2011-05-18T18:35:48-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T18:35:51-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down

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• Blogging tips for SQL Server professionals

  - by jamiet

  For some time now I have been intending to put some material together relating my blogging experiences since I began blogging in 2004 and that led to me submitting a session for SQLBits recently where I intended to do just that. That didn’t get enough votes to allow me to present however so instead I resolved to write a blog post about it and Simon Sabin’s recent post Blogging – how do you do it? has prompted me to get around to completing it. So, here I present a compendium of tips that I’ve picked up from authoring a fair few blog posts over the past 6 years. Feedburner Feedburner.com is a service that can consume your blog’s default RSS feed and provide another, replacement, feed that has exactly the same content. You can then supply that replacement feed on your blog site for other people to consume in their RSS readers. Why would you want to do this? Well, two reasons actually: It makes your blog portable. If you ever want to move your blog to a different URL you don’t have to tell your subscribers to move to a different feed. The feedburner feed is a pointer to your blog content rather than being a copy of it. Feedburner will collect stats telling you how many people are subscribed to your feed, which RSS readers they use, stuff like that. Here’s a sample screenshot for http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/: It also tells you what your most viewed posts are: Web stats like these are notoriously inaccurate but then again the method of measurement here is not important, what IS important is that it gives you a trustworthy ranking of your blog posts and (in my opinion) knowing which are your most popular posts is more important than knowing exactly how many views each post has had. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Feedburner provides and I recommend every new blogger to try it! Monitor subscribers using Google Reader If for some reason Feedburner is not to your taste or (more likely) you already have an established RSS feed that you do not want to change then Google provide another way in which you can monitor your readership in the shape of their online RSS reader, Google Reader. It provides, for every RSS feed, a collection of stats including the number of Google Reader users that have subscribed to that RSS feed. This is really valuable information and in fact I have been recording this statistic for mine and a number of other blogs for a few years now and as such I can produce the following chart that indicates how readership is trending for those blogs over time: [Good news for my fellow SQLBlog bloggers.] As Stephen Few readily points out, its not the numbers that are important but the trend. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) SEO (or “How do I get my blog to show up in Google”) is a massive area of expertise which I don’t want (and am unable) to cover in much detail here but there are some simple rules of thumb that will help: Tags – If your blog engine offers the ability to add tags to your blog post, use them. Invariably those tags go into the meta section of the page HTML and search engines lap that stuff up. For example, from my recent post Microsoft publish Visual Studio 2010 Database Project Guidance: Title – Search engines take notice of web page titles as well so make them specific and descriptive (e.g. “Configuring dtsConfig connection strings”) rather than esoteric and meaningless in a vain attempt to be humorous (e.g. “Last night a DJ saved my ETL batch”)! Title(2) – Make your title even more search engine friendly by mentioning high level subject areas, not dissimilar to Twitter hashtags. For example, if you look at all of my posts related to SSIS you will notice that nearly all contain the word “SSIS” in the title even if I had to shoehorn it in there by putting it in square brackets or similar. Another tip, if you ARE putting words into your titles in this artificial manner then put them at the end so that they’re not that prominent in search engine results; they’re there for the search engines to consume, not for human beings. Images – Always add titles and alternate text (ALT attribute) to images in your blog post. If you use Windows 7 or Windows Vista then you can use Live Writer (which Simon recommended) makes this easy for you. Headings – If you want to highlight section headings use heading tags (e.g. <H1>, <H2>, <H3> etc…) rather than just formatting the text appropriately – again, Live makes this easy. These tags give your blog posts structure that is understood by search engines and RSS readers alike. (I believe it makes them more amenable to CSS as well – though that’s not something I know too much about). If you check the HTML source for the blog post you’re reading right now you’ll be able to scan through and see where I have used heading tags. Microsoft provide a free tool called the SEO Toolkit that will analyse your blog site (for free) and tell you what things you should change to improve SEO. Go read more and download for free at Search Engine Optimization Toolkit. Did I mention that it was free? Miscellaneous Tips If you are including code in your blog post then ensure it is formatted correctly. Use SQL Server Central’s T-SQL prettifier for formatting T-SQL code. Use images and videos. Personally speaking there’s nothing I like less when reading a blog than paragraph after paragraph of text. Images make your blog more appealing which means people are more likely to read what you have written. Be original. Don’t plagiarise other people’s content and don’t simply rewrite the contents of Books Online. Every time you publish a blog post tweet a link to it. Include hashtags in your tweet that are more likely to grab people’s attention. That’s probably enough for now - I hope this blog post proves useful to someone out there. If you would appreciate a related session at a forthcoming SQLBits conference then please let me know. This will likely be my last blog post for 2010 so I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has commented on, linked to or read any of my blog posts in that time. 2011 is shaping up to be a very interesting for SQL Server observers with the impending release of SQL Server code-named Denali and I promise I’ll have lots more content on that as the year progresses. Happy New Year. @Jamiet

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• PHP+Apache as forward/reverse proxy: ¿how to process client requests and server responses in PHP?

  - by Lightworker

  Hi! I'm having a lot of troubles with the propper configuration of Apache mod_proxy.so to work as desired... The main idea, is to create a proxy on a local machine in a network wich will have the ability to proces a client request (client connected through this Apache prepared proxy) in PHP. And also, it will have the capacity to process the server responses on PHP too. Those are the 2 funcionalities, and they are independent one from each other. Let me present a little schema of what I need to achive: As you can see here, there're 2 ways: blue one and red one. For the blue one, I basically conected a client (Machine B - cell phone) on my local network (home) and configured it to go thorugh a proxy, wich is the Machine A (personal computer) on the exactly same network. So let's say (not DHCP): Machine A: 192.168.1.40 -- Apache is running on this machine, and configured to listen port 80. Machine B (cell phone): 192.168.1.75 -- configured to go throug a proxy, wich is IP 192.168.1.75 and port 80 (basically, Machine A). After configuring Apache properly, wich is basically to remove the "#" from httpd.conf on the lines for the mod_proxy.so (main worker), mod_proxy_connect.so (SSL, allowCONNECT, ...) and mod_proxy_http.so (needed for handle HTTP request/responses) and having in my case, lines like this: # Implements a proxy/gateway for Apache. Include "conf/extra/httpd-proxy.conf" # Various default settings Include "conf/extra/httpd-default.conf" # Secure (SSL/TLS) connections Include "conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf" wich gives me the ability to configure the file httpd-proxy.conf to prepare the forward proxy or the reverse proxy. So I'm not sure, if what I need it's a forward proxy or a reverse one. For a forward proxy I've done this: <IfModule proxy_module> <IfModule proxy_http_module> # # FORWARD Proxy # #ProxyRequests Off ProxyRequests On ProxyVia On <Proxy *> Order deny,allow # Allow from all Deny from all Allow from 192.168.1 </Proxy> </IfModule> </IfModule> wich basically passes all the packets normally to the server and back to the client. I can trace it perfectly (and testing that works) looking at the "access.log" from Apache. Any request I make with the cell phone, appears then on the Apache log. So it works. But here come the problem: I need to process those client requests. And I need to do it, in PHP. I have read a lot about this. I've read in detail the oficial site from Apache about mod_proxy. And I've searched a lot on forums, but without luck. So I thought about a first aproximation: 1) Forward proxy in Apache, passes all the packets and it's not possible to process them. This seems to be true, so, what about a reverse proxy? So I envisioned something like: ProxyRequests Off <Proxy *> Order deny,allow Allow from all </Proxy> ProxyPass http://www.google.com http://www.yahoo.com ProxyPassReverse http://www.google.com http://www.yahoo.com which is just a test, but this should cause on my cell phone that when trying to navigate to Google, I should be going to Yahoo, isn't it? But not. It doesn't work. So you really see, that ALL the examples on Apache reverse proxy, goes like: ProxyPass /foo http://foo.example.com/bar ProxyPassReverse /foo http://foo.example.com/bar wich means, that any kind of request in a local context, will be solved on a remote location. But what I needed is the inverse! It's that when asking for a remote site on my phone, I solve this request on my local server (the Apache one) to process it with a PHP module. So, if it's a forward proxy, I need to pass through PHP first. If it's a reverse proxy, I need to change the "going" direction to my local server one to process first on PHP. Then comes in mind second option: 2) I've seen something like: <Proxy http://example.com/foo/*> SetOutputFilter INCLUDES </Proxy> And I started to search for SetOutputFilter, SetInputFilter, AddOutputFilter and AddInputFilter. But I don't really know how can I use it. Seems to be good, or a solution to me, cause with somethin' like this, I should can add an Input filter to process on PHP the client requests and send back to the client what I programed/want (not the remote server response) wich is the BLUE path on schema, and I should have the ability to add an Output filter wich seems to give me the ability to process the remote server response befor sending it to the client, wich should be the RED path on the schema. Red path, it's just to read server responses and play with em. But nothing more. The Blue path, it's the important one. Cause I will send to the client whatever I want after procesing the requests. I so sorry for this amazingly big post, but I needed to explain it as well as I can. I hope someone will understand my problem, and will help me to solve it! Lot of thanks in advance!! :)

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• Metro: Understanding Observables

  - by Stephen.Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to describe how the Observer Pattern is implemented in the WinJS library. You learn how to create observable objects which trigger notifications automatically when their properties are changed. Observables enable you to keep your user interface and your application data in sync. For example, by taking advantage of observables, you can update your user interface automatically whenever the properties of a product change. Observables are the foundation of declarative binding in the WinJS library. The WinJS library is not the first JavaScript library to include support for observables. For example, both the KnockoutJS library and the Microsoft Ajax Library (now part of the Ajax Control Toolkit) support observables. Creating an Observable Imagine that I have created a product object like this: var product = { name: "Milk", description: "Something to drink", price: 12.33 }; Nothing very exciting about this product. It has three properties named name, description, and price. Now, imagine that I want to be notified automatically whenever any of these properties are changed. In that case, I can create an observable product from my product object like this: var observableProduct = WinJS.Binding.as(product); This line of code creates a new JavaScript object named observableProduct from the existing JavaScript object named product. This new object also has a name, description, and price property. However, unlike the properties of the original product object, the properties of the observable product object trigger notifications when the properties are changed. Each of the properties of the new observable product object has been changed into accessor properties which have both a getter and a setter. For example, the observable product price property looks something like this: price: { get: function () { return this.getProperty(“price”); } set: function (value) { this.setProperty(“price”, value); } } When you read the price property then the getProperty() method is called and when you set the price property then the setProperty() method is called. The getProperty() and setProperty() methods are methods of the observable product object. The observable product object supports the following methods and properties: · addProperty(name, value) – Adds a new property to an observable and notifies any listeners. · backingData – An object which represents the value of each property. · bind(name, action) – Enables you to execute a function when a property changes. · getProperty(name) – Returns the value of a property using the string name of the property. · notify(name, newValue, oldValue) – A private method which executes each function in the _listeners array. · removeProperty(name) – Removes a property and notifies any listeners. · setProperty(name, value) – Updates a property and notifies any listeners. · unbind(name, action) – Enables you to stop executing a function in response to a property change. · updateProperty(name, value) – Updates a property and notifies any listeners. So when you create an observable, you get a new object with the same properties as an existing object. However, when you modify the properties of an observable object, then you can notify any listeners of the observable that the value of a particular property has changed automatically. Imagine that you change the value of the price property like this: observableProduct.price = 2.99; In that case, the following sequence of events is triggered: 1. The price setter calls the setProperty(“price”, 2.99) method 2. The setProperty() method updates the value of the backingData.price property and calls the notify() method 3. The notify() method executes each function in the collection of listeners associated with the price property Creating Observable Listeners If you want to be notified when a property of an observable object is changed, then you need to register a listener. You register a listener by using the bind() method like this: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { // Simple product object var product = { name: "Milk", description: "Something to drink", price: 12.33 }; // Create observable product var observableProduct = WinJS.Binding.as(product); // Execute a function when price is changed observableProduct.bind("price", function (newValue) { console.log(newValue); }); // Change the price observableProduct.price = 2.99; } }; app.start(); })(); In the code above, the bind() method is used to associate the price property with a function. When the price property is changed, the function logs the new value of the price property to the Visual Studio JavaScript console. The price property is associated with the function using the following line of code: // Execute a function when price is changed observableProduct.bind("price", function (newValue) { console.log(newValue); }); Coalescing Notifications If you make multiple changes to a property – one change immediately following another – then separate notifications won’t be sent. Instead, any listeners are notified only once. The notifications are coalesced into a single notification. For example, in the following code, the product price property is updated three times. However, only one message is written to the JavaScript console. Only the last value assigned to the price property is written to the JavaScript Console window: // Simple product object var product = { name: "Milk", description: "Something to drink", price: 12.33 }; // Create observable product var observableProduct = WinJS.Binding.as(product); // Execute a function when price is changed observableProduct.bind("price", function (newValue) { console.log(newValue); }); // Change the price observableProduct.price = 3.99; observableProduct.price = 2.99; observableProduct.price = 1.99; Only the last value assigned to price, the value 1.99, appears in the console: If there is a time delay between changes to a property then changes result in different notifications. For example, the following code updates the price property every second: // Simple product object var product = { name: "Milk", description: "Something to drink", price: 12.33 }; // Create observable product var observableProduct = WinJS.Binding.as(product); // Execute a function when price is changed observableProduct.bind("price", function (newValue) { console.log(newValue); }); // Add 1 to price every second window.setInterval(function () { observableProduct.price += 1; }, 1000); In this case, separate notification messages are logged to the JavaScript Console window: If you need to prevent multiple notifications from being coalesced into one then you can take advantage of promises. I discussed WinJS promises in a previous blog entry: http://stephenwalther.com/blog/archive/2012/02/22/windows-web-applications-promises.aspx Because the updateProperty() method returns a promise, you can create different notifications for each change in a property by using the following code: // Change the price observableProduct.updateProperty("price", 3.99) .then(function () { observableProduct.updateProperty("price", 2.99) .then(function () { observableProduct.updateProperty("price", 1.99); }); }); In this case, even though the price is immediately changed from 3.99 to 2.99 to 1.99, separate notifications for each new value of the price property are sent. Bypassing Notifications Normally, if a property of an observable object has listeners and you change the property then the listeners are notified. However, there are certain situations in which you might want to bypass notification. In other words, you might need to change a property value silently without triggering any functions registered for notification. If you want to change a property without triggering notifications then you should change the property by using the backingData property. The following code illustrates how you can change the price property silently: // Simple product object var product = { name: "Milk", description: "Something to drink", price: 12.33 }; // Create observable product var observableProduct = WinJS.Binding.as(product); // Execute a function when price is changed observableProduct.bind("price", function (newValue) { console.log(newValue); }); // Change the price silently observableProduct.backingData.price = 5.99; console.log(observableProduct.price); // Writes 5.99 The price is changed to the value 5.99 by changing the value of backingData.price. Because the observableProduct.price property is not set directly, any listeners associated with the price property are not notified. When you change the value of a property by using the backingData property, the change in the property happens synchronously. However, when you change the value of an observable property directly, the change is always made asynchronously. Summary The goal of this blog entry was to describe observables. In particular, we discussed how to create observables from existing JavaScript objects and bind functions to observable properties. You also learned how notifications are coalesced (and ways to prevent this coalescing). Finally, we discussed how you can use the backingData property to update an observable property without triggering notifications. In the next blog entry, we’ll see how observables are used with declarative binding to display the values of properties in an HTML document.

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• The APEX of Business Value...or...the Business Value of APEX? Oracle Cloud Takes Oracle APEX to New Heights!

  - by Gene Eun

  The attraction of Oracle Application Express (APEX) has increased tremendously with the recent launch of the Oracle Cloud. APEX already supported departmental development and deployment of business applications with minimal involvement from the IT department. Positioned as the ideal replacement for MS Access, APEX probably has managed better to capture the eye of developers and was used for enterprise application development at least as much as for the kind of tactical applications that Oracle strategically positioned it for. With APEX as PaaS from the Oracle Cloud, a leap is made to a much higher level of business value. Now the IT department is not even needed to make infrastructure available with a database running  on it. All the business needs is a credit card. And the business application that is developed, managed and used from the cloud through a standard browser can now just as easily be accessed by users from around the world as by users from the business department itself. As a bonus – the development of the APEX application is also done in the cloud – with no special demands on the location or the enterprise access privileges of the developers. To sum it up: APEX from Oracle Cloud Database Service get the development environment up and running in minutes no involvement from the internal IT department required (not for infrastructure, platform, or development) superior availability and scalability is offered by Oracle users from anywhere in the world can be invited to access the application developers from anywhere in the world can participate in creating and maintaining the application In addition: because the Oracle Cloud platform is the same as the on-premise platform, you can still decide to move the APEX application between the cloud and the local environment – and back again. The REST-ful services that are available through APEX allow programmatic interaction with the database under the APEX application. That means that this database can be synchronized with on premise databases or data stores in (other) clouds. Through the Oracle Cloud Messaging Service, the APEX application can easily enter into asynchronous conversations with other APEX applications, Fusion Middleware applications (ADF, SOA, BPM) and any other type of REST-enabled application. In my opinion, now, for the first time perhaps, APEX offers the attraction to the business that has been suggested before: because of the cloud, all the business needs is  a credit card (a budget of $175 per month), an internet-connection and a browser. Not like before, with a PC hidden under a desk or a database running somewhere in the data center. No matter how unattended: equipment is needed, power is consumed, the database needs to be kept running and if Oracle Database XE does not suffice, software licenses are required as well. And this set up always has a security challenge associated with it. The cloud fee for the Oracle Cloud Database Service includes infrastructure, power, licenses, availability, platform upgrades, a collection of reusable application components and the development and runtime environments containing the APEX platform. Of course this not only means that business departments can move quickly without having to convince their IT colleagues to move along – it also means that small organizations that do not even have IT colleagues can do the same. Getting tailored applications or applications up and running to get in touch with users and customers all over the world is now within easy reach for small outfits – without any investment. My misunderstanding For a long time, I was under the impression that the essence of APEX was that the business could create applications themselves – meaning that business ‘people’ would actually go into APEX to create the application. To me APEX was too much of a developers’ tool to see that happen – apart from the odd business analyst who missed his or her calling as an IT developer. Having looked at various other cloud based development offerings – including Force.com, Mendix, WaveMaker, WorkXpress, OrangeScape, Caspio and Cordys- I have come to realize my mistake. All these platforms are positioned for 'the business' but require a fair amount of coding and technical expertise. However, they make the business happy nevertheless, because they allow the  business to completely circumvent the IT department. That is the essence. Not having to go through the red tape, not having to wait for IT staff who (justifiably) need weeks or months to provide an environment, not having to deal with administrators (again, justifiably) refusing to take on that 'strange environment'. Being able to think of an initiative and turn into action right away. The business does not have to build the application - it can easily hire some external developers or even that nerdy boy next door. They can get started, get an application up and running and invite users in – especially external users such as customers. They will worry later about upgrades and life cycle management and integration. To get applications up and running quickly and start turning ideas into action and results rightaway. That is the key selling point for all these cloud offerings, including APEX from the Cloud. And it is a compelling story. For APEX probably even more so than for the others. While I consider APEX a somewhat proprietary framework compared with ‘regular’ Java/JEE web development (or even .NET and PHP  development), it is still far more open than most cloud environments. APEX is SQL and PL/SQL based – nothing special about those languages – and can run just as easily on site as in the cloud. It has been around since 2004 (that is not including several predecessors that fed straight into APEX) so it can be considered pretty mature. Oracle as a company seems pretty stable – so investments in its technology are bound to last for some time to come. By the way: neither APEX nor the other Cloud DevaaS offerings are targeted at creating applications with enormous life times. They fit into a trend of agile development and rapid life cycle management, with fairly light weight user interfaces that quickly adapt to taste, technology trends and functional requirements and that are easily replaced. APEX and ADF – a match made in heaven?! (or at least in the sky) Note that using APEX only for cloud based database with REST-ful Services is also a perfectly viable scenario: any UI – mobile or browser based – capable of consuming REST-ful services can be created against such a business tier. Creating an ADF Mobile application for example that runs aginst REST-ful services is a best practice for mobile development. Such REST-ful services can be consumed from any service provider – including the Cloud based APEX powered REST-ful services running against the Oracle Cloud Database Service! The ADF Mobile architecture overview can easily be morphed to fit the APEX services in – allowing for a cloud based mobile app: Want to learn more about Oracle Database Cloud Service or Oracle Cloud, just visit cloud.oracle.com  or oracle.com/cloud. Repost of a blog entry by Rick Greenwald, Director of Product Management, Oracle Database Cloud Service.

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• Load-balancing between a Procurve switch and a server

  - by vlad

  Hello I've been searching around the web for this problem i've been having. It's similar in a way to this question: How exactly & specifically does layer 3 LACP destination address hashing work? My setup is as follows: I have a central switch, a Procurve 2510G-24, image version Y.11.16. It's the center of a star topology, there are four switches connected to it via a single gigabit link. Those switches service the users. On the central switch, I have a server with two gigabit interfaces that I want to bond together in order to achieve higher throughput, and two other servers that have single gigabit connections to the switch. The topology looks as follows: sw1 sw2 sw3 sw4 | | | | --------------------- | sw0 | --------------------- || | | srv1 srv2 srv3 The servers were running FreeBSD 8.1. On srv1 I set up a lagg interface using the lacp protocol, and on the switch I set up a trunk for the two ports using lacp as well. The switch showed that the server was a lacp partner, I could ping the server from another computer, and the server could ping other computers. If I unplugged one of the cables, the connection would keep working, so everything looked fine. Until I tested throughput. There was only one link used between srv1 and sw0. All testing was conducted with iperf, and load distribution was checked with systat -ifstat. I was looking to test the load balancing for both receive and send operations, as I want this server to be a file server. There were therefore two scenarios: iperf -s on srv1 and iperf -c on the other servers iperf -s on the other servers and iperf -c on srv1 connected to all the other servers. Every time only one link was used. If one cable was unplugged, the connections would keep going. However, once the cable was plugged back in, the load was not distributed. Each and every server is able to fill the gigabit link. In one-to-one test scenarios, iperf was reporting around 940Mbps. The CPU usage was around 20%, which means that the servers could withstand a doubling of the throughput. srv1 is a dell poweredge sc1425 with onboard intel 82541GI nics (em driver on freebsd). After troubleshooting a previous problem with vlan tagging on top of a lagg interface, it turned out that the em could not support this. So I figured that maybe something else is wrong with the em drivers and / or lagg stack, so I started up backtrack 4r2 on this same server. So srv1 now uses linux kernel 2.6.35.8. I set up a bonding interface bond0. The kernel module was loaded with option mode=4 in order to get lacp. The switch was happy with the link, I could ping to and from the server. I could even put vlans on top of the bonding interface. However, only half the problem was solved: if I used srv1 as a client to the other servers, iperf was reporting around 940Mbps for each connection, and bwm-ng showed, of course, a nice distribution of the load between the two nics; if I run the iperf server on srv1 and tried to connect with the other servers, there was no load balancing. I thought that maybe I was out of luck and the hashes for the two mac addresses of the clients were the same, so I brought in two new servers and tested with the four of them at the same time, and still nothing changed. I tried disabling and reenabling one of the links, and all that happened was the traffic switched from one link to the other and back to the first again. I also tried setting the trunk to "plain trunk mode" on the switch, and experimented with other bonding modes (roundrobin, xor, alb, tlb) but I never saw any traffic distribution. One interesting thing, though: one of the four switches is a Cisco 2950, image version 12.1(22)EA7. It has 48 10/100 ports and 2 gigabit uplinks. I have a server (call it srv4) with a 4 channel trunk connected to it (4x100), FreeBSD 8.0 release. The switch is connected to sw0 via gigabit. If I set up an iperf server on one of the servers connected to sw0 and a client on srv4, ALL 4 links are used, and iperf reports around 330Mbps. systat -ifstat shows all four interfaces are used. The cisco port-channel uses src-mac to balance the load. The HP should use both the source and destination according to the manual, so it should work as well. Could this mean there is some bug in the HP firmware? Am I doing something wrong?

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• API Message Localization

  - by Jesse Taber

  In my post, “Keep Localizable Strings Close To Your Users” I talked about the internationalization and localization difficulties that can arise when you sprinkle static localizable strings throughout the different logical layers of an application. The main point of that post is that you should have your localizable strings reside as close to the user-facing modules of your application as possible. For example, if you’re developing an ASP .NET web forms application all of the localizable strings should be kept in .resx files that are associated with the .aspx views of the application. In this post I want to talk about how this same concept can be applied when designing and developing APIs. An API Facilitates Machine-to-Machine Interaction You can typically think about a web, desktop, or mobile application as a collection “views” or “screens” through which users interact with the underlying logic and data. The application can be designed based on the assumption that there will be a human being on the other end of the screen working the controls. You are designing a machine-to-person interaction and the application should be built in a way that facilitates the user’s clear understanding of what is going on. Dates should be be formatted in a way that the user will be familiar with, messages should be presented in the user’s preferred language, etc. When building an API, however, there are no screens and you can’t make assumptions about who or what is on the other end of each call. An API is, by definition, a machine-to-machine interaction. A machine-to-machine interaction should be built in a way that facilitates a clear and unambiguous understanding of what is going on. Dates and numbers should be formatted in predictable and standard ways (e.g. ISO 8601 dates) and messages should be presented in machine-parseable formats. For example, consider an API for a time tracking system that exposes a resource for creating a new time entry. The JSON for creating a new time entry for a user might look like: 1: { 2: "userId": 4532, 3: "startDateUtc": "2012-10-22T14:01:54.98432Z", 4: "endDateUtc": "2012-10-22T11:34:45.29321Z" 5: }   Note how the parameters for start and end date are both expressed as ISO 8601 compliant dates in UTC. Using a date format like this in our API leaves little room for ambiguity. It’s also important to note that using ISO 8601 dates is a much, much saner thing than the \/Date(<milliseconds since epoch>)\/ nonsense that is sometimes used in JSON serialization. Probably the most important thing to note about the JSON snippet above is the fact that the end date comes before the start date! The API should recognize that and disallow the time entry from being created, returning an error to the caller. You might inclined to send a response that looks something like this: 1: { 2: "errors": [ {"message" : "The end date must come after the start date"}] 3: }   While this may seem like an appropriate thing to do there are a few problems with this approach: What if there is a user somewhere on the other end of the API call that doesn’t speak English?  What if the message provided here won’t fit properly within the UI of the application that made the API call? What if the verbiage of the message isn’t consistent with the rest of the application that made the API call? What if there is no user directly on the other end of the API call (e.g. this is a batch job uploading time entries once per night unattended)? The API knows nothing about the context from which the call was made. There are steps you could take to given the API some context (e.g.allow the caller to send along a language code indicating the language that the end user speaks), but that will only get you so far. As the designer of the API you could make some assumptions about how the API will be called, but if we start making assumptions we could very easily make the wrong assumptions. In this situation it’s best to make no assumptions and simply design the API in such a way that the caller has the responsibility to convey error messages in a manner that is appropriate for the context in which the error was raised. You would work around some of these problems by allowing callers to add metadata to each request describing the context from which the call is being made (e.g. accepting a ‘locale’ parameter denoting the desired language), but that will add needless clutter and complexity. It’s better to keep the API simple and push those context-specific concerns down to the caller whenever possible. For our very simple time entry example, this can be done by simply changing our error message response to look like this: 1: { 2: "errors": [ {"code": 100}] 3: }   By changing our error error from exposing a string to a numeric code that is easily parseable by another application, we’ve placed all of the responsibility for conveying the actual meaning of the error message on the caller. It’s best to have the caller be responsible for conveying this meaning because the caller understands the context much better than the API does. Now the caller can see error code 100, know that it means that the end date submitted falls before the start date and take appropriate action. Now all of the problems listed out above are non-issues because the caller can simply translate the error code of ‘100’ into the proper action and message for the current context. The numeric code representation of the error is a much better way to facilitate the machine-to-machine interaction that the API is meant to facilitate. An API Does Have Human Users While APIs should be built for machine-to-machine interaction, people still need to wire these interactions together. As a programmer building a client application that will consume the time entry API I would find it frustrating to have to go dig through the API documentation every time I encounter a new error code (assuming the documentation exists and is accurate). The numeric error code approach hurts the discoverability of the API and makes it painful to integrate with. We can help ease this pain by merging our two approaches: 1: { 2: "errors": [ {"code": 100, "message" : "The end date must come after the start date"}] 3: }   Now we have an easily parseable numeric error code for the machine-to-machine interaction that the API is meant to facilitate and a human-readable message for programmers working with the API. The human-readable message here is not intended to be viewed by end-users of the API and as such is not really a “localizable string” in my opinion. We could opt to expose a locale parameter for all API methods and store translations for all error messages, but that’s a lot of extra effort and overhead that doesn’t add a lot real value to the API. I might be a bit of an “ugly American”, but I think it’s probably fine to have the API return English messages when the target for those messages is a programmer. When resources are limited (which they always are), I’d argue that you’re better off hard-coding these messages in English and putting more effort into building more useful features, improving security, tweaking performance, etc.

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• WPF Login Verification Using Active Directory

  - by psheriff

  Back in October of 2009 I created a WPF login screen (Figure 1) that just showed how to create the layout for a login screen. That one sample is probably the most downloaded sample we have. So in this blog post, I thought I would update that screen and also hook it up to show how to authenticate your user against Active Directory. Figure 1: Original WPF Login Screen I have updated not only the code behind for this login screen, but also the look and feel as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: An Updated WPF Login Screen The UI To create the UI for this login screen you can refer to my October of 2009 blog post to see how to create the borderless window. You can then look at the sample code to see how I created the linear gradient brush for the background. There are just a few differences in this screen compared to the old version. First, I changed the key image and instead of using words for the Cancel and Login buttons, I used some icons. Secondly I added a text box to hold the Domain name that you wish to authenticate against. This text box is automatically filled in if you are connected to a network. In the Window_Loaded event procedure of the winLogin window you can retrieve the user’s domain name from the Environment.UserDomainName property. For example: txtDomain.Text = Environment.UserDomainName The ADHelper Class Instead of coding the call to authenticate the user directly in the login screen I created an ADHelper class. This will make it easier if you want to add additional AD calls in the future. The ADHelper class contains just one method at this time called AuthenticateUser. This method authenticates a user name and password against the specified domain. The login screen will gather the credentials from the user such as their user name and password, and also the domain name to authenticate against. To use this ADHelper class you will need to add a reference to the System.DirectoryServices.dll in .NET. The AuthenticateUser Method In order to authenticate a user against your Active Directory you will need to supply a valid LDAP path string to the constructor of the DirectoryEntry class. The LDAP path string will be in the format LDAP://DomainName. You will also pass in the user name and password to the constructor of the DirectoryEntry class as well. With a DirectoryEntry object populated with this LDAP path string, the user name and password you will now pass this object to the constructor of a DirectorySearcher object. You then perform the FindOne method on the DirectorySearcher object. If the DirectorySearcher object returns a SearchResult then the credentials supplied are valid. If the credentials are not valid on the Active Directory then an exception is thrown. C#public bool AuthenticateUser(string domainName, string userName,  string password){  bool ret = false;   try  {    DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" + domainName,                                           userName, password);    DirectorySearcher dsearch = new DirectorySearcher(de);    SearchResult results = null;     results = dsearch.FindOne();     ret = true;  }  catch  {    ret = false;  }   return ret;} Visual Basic Public Function AuthenticateUser(ByVal domainName As String, _ ByVal userName As String, ByVal password As String) As Boolean  Dim ret As Boolean = False   Try    Dim de As New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" & domainName, _                                 userName, password)    Dim dsearch As New DirectorySearcher(de)    Dim results As SearchResult = Nothing     results = dsearch.FindOne()     ret = True  Catch    ret = False  End Try   Return retEnd Function In the Click event procedure under the Login button you will find the following code that will validate the credentials that the user types into the login window. C#private void btnLogin_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e){  ADHelper ad = new ADHelper();   if(ad.AuthenticateUser(txtDomain.Text,         txtUserName.Text, txtPassword.Password))    DialogResult = true;  else    MessageBox.Show("Unable to Authenticate Using the                      Supplied Credentials");} Visual BasicPrivate Sub btnLogin_Click(ByVal sender As Object, _ ByVal e As RoutedEventArgs)  Dim ad As New ADHelper()   If ad.AuthenticateUser(txtDomain.Text, txtUserName.Text, _                         txtPassword.Password) Then    DialogResult = True  Else    MessageBox.Show("Unable to Authenticate Using the                      Supplied Credentials")  End IfEnd Sub Displaying the Login Screen At some point when your application launches, you will need to display your login screen modally. Below is the code that you would call to display the login form (named winLogin in my sample application). This code is called from the main application form, and thus the owner of the login screen is set to “this”. You then call the ShowDialog method on the login screen to have this form displayed modally. After the user clicks on one of the two buttons you need to check to see what the DialogResult property was set to. The DialogResult property is a nullable type and thus you first need to check to see if the value has been set. C# private void DisplayLoginScreen(){  winLogin win = new winLogin();   win.Owner = this;  win.ShowDialog();  if (win.DialogResult.HasValue && win.DialogResult.Value)    MessageBox.Show("User Logged In");  else    this.Close();} Visual Basic Private Sub DisplayLoginScreen()  Dim win As New winLogin()   win.Owner = Me  win.ShowDialog()  If win.DialogResult.HasValue And win.DialogResult.Value Then    MessageBox.Show("User Logged In")  Else    Me.Close()  End IfEnd Sub Summary Creating a nice looking login screen is fairly simple to do in WPF. Using the Active Directory services from a WPF application should make your desktop programming task easier as you do not need to create your own user authentication system. I hope this article gave you some ideas on how to create a login screen in WPF. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code for this blog entry at my website: http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Click on Tips & Tricks, then select 'WPF Login Verification Using Active Directory' from the drop down list. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **We frequently offer a FREE gift for readers of my blog. Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for your FREE gift!

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• Looking Back at MIX10

  - by WeigeltRo

  It’s the sad truth of my life that even though I’m fascinated by airplanes and flight in general since my childhood days, my body doesn’t like flying. Even the ridiculously short flights inside Germany are taking their toll on me each time. Now combine this with sitting in the cramped space of economy class for many hours on a transatlantic flight from Germany to Las Vegas and back, and factor in some heavy dose of jet lag (especially on my way eastwards), and you get an idea why after coming back home I had this question on my mind: Was it really worth it to attend MIX10? This of course is a question that will also be asked by my boss at Comma Soft (for other reasons, obviously), who decided to send me and my colleague Jens Schaller, to the MIX10 conference. (A note to my German readers: An dieser Stelle der Hinweis, dass Comma Soft noch Silverlight-Entwickler und/oder UI-Designer für den Standort Bonn sucht – aussagekräftige Bewerbungen bitte an [email protected]) Too keep things short: My answer is yes. Before I’ll go into detail, let me ask the heretical questions whether tech conferences in general still make sense. There was a time, where actually being at a tech conference gave you a head-start in regard to learning about new technologies. Nowadays this is no longer true, where every bit of information and every detail is immediately twittered, blogged and whatevered to death. In the case of MIX10 you even can download the video-taped sessions shortly after. So: Does visiting a conference still make sense? It depends on what you expect from a conference. It should be clear to everybody that you’ll neither get exclusive information, nor receive training in a small group. What a conference does offer that sitting in front of your computer does not can be summarized as follows: Focus Being away from work and home will help you to focus on the presented information. Of course there are always the poor guys who are haunted by their work (with mails and short text messages reporting the latest showstopper problem), but in general being out of your office makes a huge difference. Inspiration With the focus comes the emotional involvement. I find it much easier to absorb information if I feel that certain vibe when sitting in a session. This still means that I have put work into reviewing the information later, but it’s a better starting point. And all the impressions collected at a (good) conference combined lead to a higher motivation – be it by the buzz (“this is gonna be sooo cool!”) or by the fear to fall behind (“man, we’ll have work on this, or else…”). People At a conference it’s pretty easy to get into contact with other people during breakfast, lunch and other breaks. This is a good opportunity to get a feel for what other development teams are doing (on a very general level of course, nobody will tell you about their secret formula) and what they are thinking about specific technologies. So MIX10 did offer focus, inspiration and people, but that would have meant nothing without valuable content. When I (being a frontend developer with a strong interest in UI/UX) planned my visit to MIX10, I made the decision to focus on the "soft" topics of design, interaction and user experience. I figured that I would be bombarded with all the technical details about Silverlight 4 anyway in the weeks and months to come. Actually, I would have liked to catch a few technical sessions, but the agenda wasn’t exactly in favor of people interested in any kind of Silverlight and UI/UX/Design topics. That’s one of my few complaints about the conference – I would have liked one more day and/or more sessions per day. Overall, the quality of the workshops and sessions was pretty high. In fact, looking back at my collection of conferences I’ve visited in the past I’d say that MIX10 ranks somewhere near the top spot. Here’s an overview of the workshops/sessions I attended (I’ll leave out the keynotes): Day 0 (Workshops on Sunday) Design Fundamentals for Developers Robby Ingebretsen is the man! Great workshop in three parts with the perfect mix of examples, well-structured definition of terminology and the right dose of humor. Robby was part of the WPF team before founding his own company so he not only has a strong interest in design (and the skillz!) but also the technical background.   Design Tools and Techniques Originally announced to be held by Arturo Toledo, the Rosso brothers from ArcheType filled in for the first two parts, and Corrina Black had a pretty general part about the Windows Phone UI. The first two thirds were a mixed bag; the two guys definitely knew what they were talking about, and the demos were great, but the talk lacked the preparation and polish of a truly great presentation. Corrina was not allowed to go into too much detail before the keynote on Monday, but the session was still very interesting as it showed how much thought went into the Windows Phone UI (and there’s always a lot to learn when people talk about their thought process). Day 1 (Monday) Designing Rich Experiences for Data-Centric Applications I wonder whether there was ever a test-run for this session, but what Ken Azuma and Yoshihiro Saito delivered in the first 15 minutes of a 30-minutes-session made me walk out. A commercial for a product (just great: a video showing a SharePoint plug-in in an all-Japanese UI) combined with the most generic blah blah one could imagine. EPIC FAIL.   Great User Experiences: Seamlessly Blending Technology & Design I switched to this session from the one above but I guess I missed the interesting part – what I did catch was what looked like a “look at the cool stuff we did” without being helpful. Or maybe I was just in a bad mood after the other session.   The Art, Technology and Science of Reading This talk by Kevin Larson was very interesting, but was more a presentation of what Microsoft is doing in research (pretty impressive) and in the end lacked a bit the helpful advice one could have hoped for.   10 Ways to Attack a Design Problem and Come Out Winning Robby Ingebretsen again, and again a great mix of theory and practice. The clean and simple, yet effective, UI of the reader app resulted in a simultaneous “wow” of Jens and me. If you’d watch only one session video, this should be it. Microsoft has to bring Robby back next year! Day 2 (Tuesday) Touch in Public: Multi-touch Interaction Design for Kiosks & Architectural Experiences Very interesting session by Jason Brush, a great inspiration with many details to look out for in the examples. Exactly what I was hoping for – and then some!   Designing Bing: Heart and Science How hard can it be to design the UI for a search engine? An input field and a list of results, that should be it, right? Well, not so fast! The talk by Paul Ray showed the many iterations to finally get it right (up to the choice of a specific blue for the links). And yes, I want an eye-tracking device to play around with!   The Elephant in the Room When Nishant Kothary presented a long list of what his session was not about, I told to myself (not having the description text present) “Am I in the wrong talk? Should I leave?”. Boy, was I wrong. A great talk about human factors in the process of designing stuff.   An Hour with Bill Buxton Having seen Bill Buxton’s presentation in the keynote, I just had to see this man again – even though I didn’t know what to expect. Being more or less unplanned and intended to be more of a conversation, the session didn’t provide a wealth of immediately useful information. Nevertheless Bill Buxton was impressive with his huge knowledge of seemingly everything. But this could/should have been a session some when in the evening and not in parallel to at least two other interesting talks. Day 3 (Wednesday) Design the Ordinary, Like the Fixie This session by DL Byron and Kevin Tamura started really well and brought across the message to keep things simple. But towards the end the talk lost some of its steam. And, as a member of the audience pointed out, they kind of ignored their own advice when they used a fancy presentation software other then PowerPoint that sometimes got in the way of showing things.   Developing Natural User Interfaces Speaking of alternative presentation software, Joshua Blake definitely had the most remarkable alternative to PowerPoint, a self-written program called NaturalShow that was controlled using multi-touch on a touch screen. Not a PowerPoint-killer, but impressive nevertheless. The (excellent) talk itself was kind of eye-opening in regard to what “multi-touch support” on various platforms (WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone) actually means.   Treat your Content Right The talk by Tiffani Jones Brown wasn’t even on my planned schedule, but somehow I ended up in that session – and it was great. And even for people who don’t necessarily have to write content for websites, some points made by Tiffani are valid in many places, notably wherever you put texts with more than a single word into your UI. Creating Effective Info Viz in Microsoft Silverlight The last session of MIX10 I attended was kind of disappointing. At first things were very promising, with Matthias Shapiro giving a brief but well-structured introduction to info graphics and interactive visualizations. Then the live-coding began and while the result was interesting, too much time was spend on wrestling to get the code working. Ending earlier than planned, the talk was a bit light on actual content, but at least it included a nice list of resources. Conclusion It could be felt all across MIX10, UIs will take a huge leap forward; in fact, there are enough examples that have already. People who both have the technical know-how and at least a basic understanding of design (“literacy” as Bill Buxton called it) are in high demand. The concept of the MIX conference and initiatives like design.toolbox shows that Microsoft understands very well that frontend developers have to acquire new knowledge besides knowing how to hack code and putting buttons on a form. There are extremely exciting times before us, with lots of opportunity for those who are eager to develop their skills, that is for sure.

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• Prioritizing Product Features

  - by Robert May

  A very common task in Agile Environments is prioritization.  Teams that are functioning well will prioritize new features, old features, the backlog, and any other source of stories for the team, and they’ll do it regularly. Not all teams are good at prioritizing according to the real return on investment that building stories will yield to the company.  This is unfortunate.  Too often, teams end up building features that are less valuable, and everyone seems to know it except perhaps the product owner!  Most features built into software are never even used.  Clearly, not much return for features that go unused. So how does a company avoid building features that add little value to the company?  This is a tough question to answer, but usually, this prioritization starts at the top with the executives of the company.  After all, they’re responsible for the overall vision of the company. Here’s what I recommend: Know your market. Know your customers and users. Know where you’re going and what you want to achieve. Implement the Vision Know Your Market We often see companies that don’t know their market.  Personally, I’m surprised by this.  These companies don’t know who their competitors are, don’t know what features make their product desirable in the market, and in many cases, get by with saying, “I’ve been doing this for XX years.  I know what the market wants!”  In many cases, they equate “marketing” with “advertising” and don’t understand the difference. This is almost never true.  Good companies will spend significant amounts of time and money finding out who they’re competing against and what makes their competitors successful in the marketplace.  Good companies understand that marketing involves more than just advertising.  Often, marketing is mostly research and analysis, not sales.  Until you understand your market, you cannot know what features will give you the best return on your investment dollar. Good companies have a marketing department and can answer the next important step which is to know your customers and your users. Know your Customers and Users First, note that I included both customers and users.  They’re often not the same thing.  Users use the product that you build.  Customers buy the product that you build.  It’s a subtle difference, but too often, I’ve seen companies that focus exclusively on one or the other and are not successful simply because they ignore an important part of the group. If your company is doing appropriate marketing, you know that these are two different aspects of your product and that both deserve attention to have a product that is successful in your target market.  Your marketing department should be spending a lot of time understanding these personas and then conveying that information to the company. I’m always surprised when development teams think that they can build a product that people want to use without understanding the users of that product.  Developers think differently than most people in the world.  They know what the computer is doing.  The computer isn’t magic to them.  So when they assume that they know how to build something, they bring with them quite a bit of baggage.  Never assume that you know your customer unless you’re regularly having interaction with them.  Also, don’t just leave this to Marketing or Product Management.  Take them time to get your developers out with the customers as well.  Developers are very smart people, and often, seeing how someone uses their software inspires them to make a much better product. Very often, because the users and customers aren’t know, teams will spend a significant amount of time building apps that are super flexible and configurable so that any possible combination of feature can be used.  This demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the customer.  Most configuration questions can quickly be answered by talking to the customer.  In most cases, if your software requires significant setup and configuration before its usable, you probably don’t know your customers and users very well. Until you know your customers, you cannot know what features will be most valuable to your customers and you cannot build those features in a way that your customers can use. Know Where You’re Going and What You Want to Achieve Many companies suffer from not having a plan.  Executives will tell the team to make them a plan.  The team, not knowing their market and customers and users, will come up with a plan that doesn’t reflect reality and doesn’t consider ROI.  Management then wonders why the product is doing poorly in the market place. Instead of leaving this up to the teams, as executives, work with Marketing to understand what broad categories of features will sell the most product in the marketplace.  Then, once you’ve determined that, give this vision to the team and let them run with it.  Revise the vision as needed, but avoid changing streams frequently.  Sure, sometimes you need to, but often, executives will change priorities many times a month, leading to nothing more than confusion.  If the team has a vision, they’ll be able to execute that vision far better than they could otherwise. By knowing what products are most important, you can set budgetary goals and guidelines that will help you achieve the vision that was created. Implement the Vision Creating the vision is often where the general executives stop participating in the plan.  The team is responsible for implementing that vision.  Executives should attend showcases and and should remain aware of the progress that the team is making towards meeting the vision, however. Once a broad vision has been created, the team should break that vision down into minimal market features (MMF).  These MMFs should be sized using story points so that, using the team’s velocity, an estimated cost can be determined for each feature.  The product management team should then try to quantify the relative value of the MMFs based on customer feedback and interviews.  Once the value and cost of creating the feature is understood, a return on investment can be calculated.  The features should then be prioritized with the MMF’s that have the highest value and lowest cost rising to the top of features to implement.  Don’t let politics get in the way! Once the MMF’s have been prioritized, they should go through release planning to schedule them for implementation. Conclusion By having a good grasp on the strategy of the company, your Agile teams can be much more effective.  Each and every story the team is implementing will roll up into features that matter to the company and provide ROI to them.  The steps outlined in this post should be repeated on a regular basis.  I recommend reviewing them at least once per quarter to make sure that the vision hasn’t shifted and that the teams are still working on what matters most to the company. Technorati Tags: Agile,Product Owner,ROI

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• Windows 8.1 Will Start Encrypting Hard Drives By Default: Everything You Need to Know

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1 will automatically encrypt the storage on modern Windows PCs. This will help protect your files in case someone steals your laptop and tries to get at them, but it has important ramifications for data recovery. Previously, “BitLocker” was available on Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows, while “Device Encryption” was available on Windows RT and Windows Phone. Device encryption is included with all editions of Windows 8.1 — and it’s on by default. When Your Hard Drive Will Be Encrypted Windows 8.1 includes “Pervasive Device Encryption.” This works a bit differently from the standard BitLocker feature that has been included in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows for the past few versions. Before Windows 8.1 automatically enables Device Encryption, the following must be true: The Windows device “must support connected standby and meet the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK) requirements for TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby systems.”  (Source) Older Windows PCs won’t support this feature, while new Windows 8.1 devices you pick up will have this feature enabled by default. When Windows 8.1 installs cleanly and the computer is prepared, device encryption is “initialized” on the system drive and other internal drives. Windows uses a clear key at this point, which is removed later when the recovery key is successfully backed up. The PC’s user must log in with a Microsoft account with administrator privileges or join the PC to a domain. If a Microsoft account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Microsoft’s servers and encryption will be enabled. If a domain account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Active Directory Domain Services and encryption will be enabled. If you have an older Windows computer that you’ve upgraded to Windows 8.1, it may not support Device Encryption. If you log in with a local user account, Device Encryption won’t be enabled. If you upgrade your Windows 8 device to Windows 8.1, you’ll need to enable device encryption, as it’s off by default when upgrading. Recovering An Encrypted Hard Drive Device encryption means that a thief can’t just pick up your laptop, insert a Linux live CD or Windows installer disc, and boot the alternate operating system to view your files without knowing your Windows password. It means that no one can just pull the hard drive from your device, connect the hard drive to another computer, and view the files. We’ve previously explained that your Windows password doesn’t actually secure your files. With Windows 8.1, average Windows users will finally be protected with encryption by default. However, there’s a problem — if you forget your password and are unable to log in, you’d also be unable to recover your files. This is likely why encryption is only enabled when a user logs in with a Microsoft account (or connects to a domain). Microsoft holds a recovery key, so you can gain access to your files by going through a recovery process. As long as you’re able to authenticate using your Microsoft account credentials — for example, by receiving an SMS message on the cell phone number connected to your Microsoft account — you’ll be able to recover your encrypted data. With Windows 8.1, it’s more important than ever to configure your Microsoft account’s security settings and recovery methods so you’ll be able to recover your files if you ever get locked out of your Microsoft account. Microsoft does hold the recovery key and would be capable of providing it to law enforcement if it was requested, which is certainly a legitimate concern in the age of PRISM. However, this encryption still provides protection from thieves picking up your hard drive and digging through your personal or business files. If you’re worried about a government or a determined thief who’s capable of gaining access to your Microsoft account, you’ll want to encrypt your hard drive with software that doesn’t upload a copy of your recovery key to the Internet, such as TrueCrypt. How to Disable Device Encryption There should be no real reason to disable device encryption. If nothing else, it’s a useful feature that will hopefully protect sensitive data in the real world where people — and even businesses — don’t enable encryption on their own. As encryption is only enabled on devices with the appropriate hardware and will be enabled by default, Microsoft has hopefully ensured that users won’t see noticeable slow-downs in performance. Encryption adds some overhead, but the overhead can hopefully be handled by dedicated hardware. If you’d like to enable a different encryption solution or just disable encryption entirely, you can control this yourself. To do so, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right edge of the screen or press Windows Key + C, click the Settings icon, and select Change PC settings. Navigate to PC and devices -> PC info. At the bottom of the PC info pane, you’ll see a Device Encryption section. Select Turn Off if you want to disable device encryption, or select Turn On if you want to enable it — users upgrading from Windows 8 will have to enable it manually in this way. Note that Device Encryption can’t be disabled on Windows RT devices, such as Microsoft’s Surface RT and Surface 2. If you don’t see the Device Encryption section in this window, you’re likely using an older device that doesn’t meet the requirements and thus doesn’t support Device Encryption. For example, our Windows 8.1 virtual machine doesn’t offer Device Encryption configuration options. This is the new normal for Windows PCs, tablets, and devices in general. Where files on typical PCs were once ripe for easy access by thieves, Windows PCs are now encrypted by default and recovery keys are sent to Microsoft’s servers for safe keeping. This last part may be a bit creepy, but it’s easy to imagine average users forgetting their passwords — they’d be very upset if they lost all their files because they had to reset their passwords. It’s also an improvement over Windows PCs being completely unprotected by default.     

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• What is causing the unusual high load average and IOwait?

  - by James

  I noticed on Tuesday night of last week, the load average went up sharply and it seemed abnormal since the traffic is small. Usually, the numbers usually average around .40 or lower and my server stuff (mysql, php and apache) are optimized. I noticed that the IOWait is unusually high even though the processes is barely using any CPU. top - 01:44:39 up 1 day, 21:13, 1 user, load average: 1.41, 1.09, 0.86 Tasks: 60 total, 1 running, 59 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu0 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu1 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu2 : 0.0%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.7%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu3 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu4 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu5 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu6 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu7 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 91.5%id, 8.5%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 1048576k total, 331944k used, 716632k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 1 root 15 0 2468 1376 1140 S 0 0.1 0:00.92 init 1656 root 15 0 13652 5212 664 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2 9323 root 18 0 13652 5212 664 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2 10079 root 18 0 3972 1248 972 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 su 10080 root 15 0 4612 1956 1448 S 0 0.2 0:00.01 bash 11298 root 15 0 13652 5212 664 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2 11778 chikorit 15 0 2344 1092 884 S 0 0.1 0:00.05 top 15384 root 18 0 17544 13m 1568 S 0 1.3 0:02.28 miniserv.pl 15585 root 15 0 8280 2736 2168 S 0 0.3 0:00.02 sshd 15608 chikorit 15 0 8280 1436 860 S 0 0.1 0:00.02 sshd Here is the VMStat procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 1 0 0 768644 0 0 0 0 14 23 0 10 1 0 99 0 IOStat - Nothing unusal Total DISK READ: 67.13 K/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND 19496 be/4 chikorit 11.85 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19501 be/4 mysql 3.95 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % mysqld 19568 be/4 chikorit 11.85 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19569 be/4 chikorit 11.85 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19570 be/4 chikorit 11.85 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19571 be/4 chikorit 7.90 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19573 be/4 chikorit 7.90 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 1 be/4 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % init 11778 be/4 chikorit 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % top 19470 be/4 mysql 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % mysqld Load Average Chart - http://i.stack.imgur.com/kYsD0.png I want to be sure if this is not a MySQL problem before making sure. Also, this is a Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server on OpenVZ. Edit: This will probably give a good picture on the IO Wait top - 22:12:22 up 17:41, 1 user, load average: 1.10, 1.09, 0.93 Tasks: 33 total, 1 running, 32 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 0.6%us, 0.2%sy, 0.0%ni, 89.0%id, 10.1%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 1048576k total, 260708k used, 787868k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 1 root 15 0 2468 1376 1140 S 0 0.1 0:00.88 init 5849 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 8063 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 9732 root 16 0 8280 2728 2168 S 0 0.3 0:00.02 sshd 9746 chikorit 18 0 8412 1444 864 S 0 0.1 0:01.10 sshd 9747 chikorit 18 0 4576 1960 1488 S 0 0.2 0:00.24 bash 13706 chikorit 15 0 2344 1088 884 R 0 0.1 0:00.03 top 15745 chikorit 15 0 12968 5108 1280 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2 15751 chikorit 15 0 72184 25m 18m S 0 2.5 0:00.37 php5-fpm 15790 chikorit 18 0 12472 4640 1192 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 15797 chikorit 15 0 72888 23m 16m S 0 2.3 0:00.06 php5-fpm 16038 root 15 0 67772 2848 592 D 0 0.3 0:00.00 php5-fpm 16309 syslog 18 0 24084 1316 992 S 0 0.1 0:00.07 rsyslogd 16316 root 15 0 5472 908 500 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 sshd 16326 root 15 0 2304 908 712 S 0 0.1 0:00.02 cron 17464 root 15 0 10252 7560 856 D 0 0.7 0:01.88 psad 17466 root 18 0 1684 276 208 S 0 0.0 0:00.31 psadwatchd 17559 root 18 0 11444 2020 732 S 0 0.2 0:00.47 sendmail-mta 17688 root 15 0 10252 5388 1136 S 0 0.5 0:03.81 python 17752 teamspea 19 0 44648 7308 4676 S 0 0.7 1:09.70 ts3server_linux 18098 root 15 0 12336 6380 3032 S 0 0.6 0:00.47 apache2 18099 chikorit 18 0 10368 2536 464 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 apache2 18120 ntp 15 0 4336 1316 984 S 0 0.1 0:00.87 ntpd 18379 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 18387 mysql 15 0 62796 36m 5864 S 0 3.6 1:43.26 mysqld 19584 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.02 apache2 22498 root 16 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 24260 root 15 0 67772 3612 1356 S 0 0.3 0:00.22 php5-fpm 27712 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 27730 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 30343 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 30366 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2

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• Cyrus on CentOS with sasl / pam / ldap

  - by Oscar

  SASL/PAM/LDAP is driving me crazy... that's what I read a lot when googling for problems in this area, and what I experience myself :-S I'm trying to get Cyrus imap working for virtual hosting on CentOS with this authorisation backend and really don't know what's happening. In saslauthd I configured the LDAP search filter to use, but it looks like pam completely ignores it. Here's what I do for testing (done more tests but all with similar results): [root@testserv ~]# imtest -u [email protected] -a [email protected] WARNING: no hostname supplied, assuming localhost S: * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ ID STARTTLS] testserv. Cyrus IMAP4 v2.3.7-Invoca-RPM-2.3.7-7.el5_6.4 server ready C: C01 CAPABILITY S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ ID STARTTLS ACL RIGHTS=kxte QUOTA MAILBOX-REFERRALS NAMESPACE UIDPLUS NO_ATOMIC_RENAME UNSELECT CHILDREN MULTIAPPEND BINARY SORT SORT=MODSEQ THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES ANNOTATEMORE CATENATE CONDSTORE IDLE LISTEXT LIST-SUBSCRIBED X-NETSCAPE URLAUTH S: C01 OK Completed Please enter your password: C: L01 LOGIN [email protected] {6} S: + go ahead C: <omitted> S: L01 NO Login failed: authentication failure Authentication failed. generic failure Security strength factor: 0 C: Q01 LOGOUT * BYE LOGOUT received Q01 OK Completed Connection closed. The LDAP entry does exist (and so does the mailbox in Cyrus): [root@testserv ~]# ldapsearch -WxD cn=Manager,o=mydomain,c=com [email protected] Enter LDAP Password: # extended LDIF # # LDAPv3 # base <> with scope subtree # filter: [email protected] # requesting: ALL # # myuser, accounts, testserv.mydomain.com, mydomain, com dn: uid=myuser,ou=accounts,dc=testserv.mydomain.com,o=mydomain,c=com objectClass: top objectClass: person objectClass: organizationalPerson objectClass: inetOrgPerson objectClass: posixAccount objectClass: shadowAccount uidNumber: 16 uid: myuser gidNumber: 5 givenName: My sn: Name mail: [email protected] cn: My Name userPassword:: dYN5ebB0fXhNRn1pZllhRnJX7Uk= shadowLastChange: 15176 homeDirectory: /dev/null # search result search: 2 result: 0 Success # numResponses: 2 # numEntries: 1 This is what I get in /var/log/messages Aug 2 04:00:11 testserv cyrus/imap[12514]: auxpropfunc error invalid parameter supplied Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv saslauthd[5926]: do_auth : auth failure: [[email protected]] [service=imap] [realm=testserv.mydomain.com] [mech=pam] [reason=PAM auth error] ... /var/adm/auth.log Aug 2 04:00:11 testserv cyrus/imap[12514]: auxpropfunc error invalid parameter supplied Aug 2 04:00:11 testserv cyrus/imap[12514]: _sasl_plugin_load failed on sasl_auxprop_plug_init for plugin: ldapdb Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv saslauthd[5926]: DEBUG: auth_pam: pam_authenticate failed: User not known to the underlying authentication module Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv saslauthd[5926]: do_auth : auth failure: [[email protected]] [service=imap] [realm=testserv.mydomain.com] [mech=pam] [reason=PAM auth error] (AFAIK I can ignore the auxprop msg) ... and /var/log/slapd.log: Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv slapd[5968]: conn=61 fd=27 ACCEPT from IP=127.0.0.1:51403 (IP=0.0.0.0:389) Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv slapd[5968]: conn=61 op=0 BIND dn="" method=128 Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv slapd[5968]: conn=61 op=0 RESULT tag=97 err=0 text= Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv slapd[5968]: conn=61 op=1 SRCH base="o=mydomain,c=com" scope=2 deref=0 filter="([email protected])" Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv slapd[5968]: conn=61 op=1 SEARCH RESULT tag=101 err=0 nentries=0 text= Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv slapd[5968]: conn=61 op=2 UNBIND Aug 2 04:00:19 testserv slapd[5968]: conn=61 fd=27 closed These are the settings in In /etc/imapd.conf: sasl_mech_list: PLAIN LOGIN sasl_pwcheck_method: saslauthd ## sasl_auxprop_plugin: sasldb sasl_auto_transition: no and my sasl config: [root@testserv ~]# cat /etc/sysconfig/saslauthd # Directory in which to place saslauthd's listening socket, pid file, and so # on. This directory must already exist. SOCKETDIR=/var/run/saslauthd # Mechanism to use when checking passwords. Run "saslauthd -v" to get a list # of which mechanism your installation was compiled with the ablity to use. MECH=pam # Additional flags to pass to saslauthd on the command line. See saslauthd(8) # for the list of accepted flags. FLAGS="-c -r -O /etc/saslauthd.conf" [root@testserv ~]# cat /etc/saslauthd.conf ldap_servers: ldap://127.0.0.1/ ldap_search_base: dc=%d,o=mydomain,c=com ldap_auth_method: bind #ldap_filter: (|(uid=%u)((&(mail=%u@%d)(accountStatus=active))) ldap_filter: (&(mail=%u@%d)(accountStatus=active)) ldap_debug: 1 ldap_version: 3 The accountStatus=active is not in ldap yet, but that doesn't make a difference since I don't see it in the filter... that's not the reason for the failure. The weird thing is, I do get an error when I rename or remove /etc/saslauthd.conf, but when the file exists it seems happily ignored... The filter in slapd.log seems to be taken from /etc/ldap.conf. Apart from some timers, that only contains: host 127.0.0.1 base o=mydomain,c=com pam_login_attribute mail Outcommenting the pam_login_attribute results in this filter in slapd.log: filter="([email protected])" Pam-imap looks like this: [root@testserv ~]# cat /etc/pam.d/imap auth required pam_ldap.so debug account required pam_ldap.so debug #auth sufficient pam_unix.so likeauth nullok #auth sufficient pam_ldap.so use_first_pass #auth required pam_deny.so #account sufficient pam_unix.so #account sufficient pam_ldap.so The outcommented stuff is because I don't have the cyrus admin user in Ldap; that's a Linux user. That works fine when uncommented, but I still need to play around with that a little and first I wanna get imap working. Finally nsswitch: [root@testserv ~]# cat /etc/nsswitch.conf # # /etc/nsswitch.conf # # An example Name Service Switch config file. This file should be # sorted with the most-used services at the beginning. # # The entry '[NOTFOUND=return]' means that the search for an # entry should stop if the search in the previous entry turned # up nothing. Note that if the search failed due to some other reason # (like no NIS server responding) then the search continues with the # next entry. # # Legal entries are: # # nisplus or nis+ Use NIS+ (NIS version 3) # nis or yp Use NIS (NIS version 2), also called YP # dns Use DNS (Domain Name Service) # files Use the local files # db Use the local database (.db) files # compat Use NIS on compat mode # hesiod Use Hesiod for user lookups # [NOTFOUND=return] Stop searching if not found so far # # To use db, put the "db" in front of "files" for entries you want to be # looked up first in the databases # # Example: #passwd: db files nisplus nis #shadow: db files nisplus nis #group: db files nisplus nis passwd: compat ldap group: compat ldap shadow: compat ldap hosts: files dns bootparams: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files ethers: files netmasks: files networks: files protocols: files rpc: files services: files netgroup: nisplus publickey: nisplus automount: files nisplus aliases: files nisplus Any info where to start looking will be greatly appreciated! Thnx in advance

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• In Which We Demystify A Few Docupresentment Settings And Learn the Ethos of the Author

  - by Andy Little

  It's no secret that Docupresentment (part of the Oracle Documaker suite) is powerful tool for integrating on-demand and interactive applications for publishing with the Oracle Documaker framework.  It's also no secret there are are many details with respect to the configuration of Docupresentment that can elude even the most erudite of of techies.  To be sure, Docupresentment will work for you right out of the box, and in most cases will suit your needs without toying with a configuration file.  But, where's the adventure in that?   With this inaugural post to That's The Way, I'm going to introduce myself, and what my aim is with this blog.  If you didn't figure it out already by checking out my profile, my name is Andy and I've been with Oracle (nee Skywire Software nee Docucorp nee Formmaker) since the formative years of 1998.  Strangely, it doesn't seem that long ago, but it's certainly a lifetime in the age of technology.  I recall running a BBS from my parent's basement on a 1200 baud modem, and the trepidation and sweaty-palmed excitement of upgrading to the power and speed of 2400 baud!  Fine, I'll admit that perhaps I'm inflating the experience a bit, but I was kid!  This is the stuff of War Games and King's Quest I and the demise of TI-99 4/A.  Exciting times.  So fast-forward a bit and I'm 12 years into a career in the world of document automation and publishing working for the best (IMHO) software company on the planet.  With That's The Way I hope to shed a little light and peek under the covers of some of the more interesting aspects of implementations involving the tech space within the Oracle Insurance Global Business Unit (IGBU), which includes Oracle Documaker, Rating & Underwriting, and Policy Administration to name a few.  I may delve off course a bit, and you'll likely get a dose of humor (at least in my mind) but I hope you'll glean at least a tidbit of usefulness with each post.  Feel free to comment as I'm a fairly conversant guy and happy to talk -- it's stopping the talking that's the hard part... So, back to our regularly-scheduled post, already in progress.  By this time you've visited Oracle's E-Delivery site and acquired your properly-licensed version of Oracle Documaker.  Wait -- you didn't find it?  Understandable -- navigating the voluminous download library within Oracle can be a daunting task.  It's pretty simple once you’ve done it a few times.  Login to the e-delivery site, and accept the license terms and restrictions.  Then, you’ll be able to select the Oracle Insurance Applications product pack and your appropriate platform. Click Go and you’ll see a list of applicable products, and you’ll click on Oracle Documaker Media Pack (as I went to press with this article the version is 11.4): Finally, click the Download button next to Docupresentment (again, version at press time is 2.2 p5). This should give you a ZIP file that contains the installation packages for the Docupresentment Server and Client, cryptically named IDSServer22P05W32.exe and IDSClient22P05W32.exe. At this time, I’d like to take a little detour and explain that the world of Oracle, like most technical companies, is rife with acronyms.  One of the reasons Skywire Software was a appealing to Oracle was our use of many acronyms, including the occasional use of multiple acronyms with the same meaning.  I apologize in advance and will try to point these out along the way.  Here’s your first sticky note to go along with that: IDS = Internet Document Server = Docupresentment Once you’ve completed the installation, you’ll have a shiny new Docupresentment server and client, and if you installed the default location it will be living in c:\docserv. Unix users, I’m one of you!  You’ll find it by default in  ~/docupresentment/docserv.  Forging onward with the meat of this post is learning about some special configuration options.  By now you’ve read the documentation included with the download (specifically ids_book.pdf) which goes into some detail of the rubric of the configuration file and in fact there’s even a handy utility that provides an interface to the configuration file (see Running IDSConfig in the documentation).  But who wants to deal with a configuration utility when we have the tools and technology to edit the file <gasp> by hand! I shall now proceed with the standard Information Technology Under the Hood Disclaimer: Please remember to back up any files before you make changes.  I am not responsible for any havoc you may wreak! Go to your installation directory, and locate your docserv.xml file.  Open it in your favorite XML editor.  I happen to be fond of Notepad++ with the XML Tools plugin.  Almost immediately you will behold the splendor of the configuration file.  Just take a moment and let that sink in.  Ok – moving on.  If you reviewed the documentation you know that inside the root <configuration> node there are multiple <section> nodes, each containing a specific group of settings.  Let’s take a look at <section name=”DocumentServer”>: There are a few entries I’d like to discuss.  First, <entry name=”StartCommand”>. This should be pretty self-explanatory; it’s the name of the executable that’s run when you fire up Docupresentment.  Immediately following that is <entry name=”StartArguments”> and as you might imagine these are the arguments passed to the executable.  A few things to point out: The –Dids.configuration=docserv.xml parameter specifies the name of your configuration file. The –Dlogging.configuration=logconf.xml parameter specifies the name of your logging configuration file (this uses log4j so bone up on that before you delve here). The -Djava.endorsed.dirs=lib/endorsed parameter specifies the path where 3rd party Java libraries can be located for use with Docupresentment.  More on that in another post. The <entry name=”Instances”> allows you to specify the number of instances of Docupresentment that will be started.  By default this is two, and generally two instances per CPU is adequate, however you will always need to perform load testing to determine the sweet spot based on your hardware and types of transactions.  You may have many, many more instances than 2. Time for a sidebar on instances.  An instance is nothing more than a separate process of Docupresentment.  The Docupresentment service that you fire up with docserver.bat or docserver.sh actually starts a watchdog process, which is then responsible for starting up the actual Docupresentment processes.  Each of these act independently from one another, so if one crashes, it does not affect any others.  In the case of a crashed process, the watchdog will start up another instance so the number of configured instances are always running.  Bottom line: instance = Docupresentment process. And now, finally, to the settings which gave me pause on an not-too-long-ago implementation!  Docupresentment includes a feature that watches configuration files (such as docserv.xml and logconf.xml) and will automatically restart its instances to load the changes.  You can configure the time that Docupresentment waits to check these files using the setting <entry name=”FileWatchTimeMillis”>.  By default the number is 12000ms, or 12 seconds.  You can save yourself a few CPU cycles by extending this time, or by disabling  the check altogether by setting the value to 0.  This may or may not be appropriate for your environment; if you have 100% uptime requirements then you probably don’t want to bring down an entire set of processes just to accept a new configuration value, so it’s best to leave this somewhere between 12 seconds to a few minutes.  Another point to keep in mind: if you are using Documaker real-time processing under Docupresentment the Master Resource Library (MRL) files and INI options are cached, and if you need to affect a change, you’ll have to “restart” Docupresentment.  Touching the docserv.xml file is an easy way to do this (other methods including using the RSS request, but that’s another post). The next item up: <entry name=”FilePurgeTimeSeconds”>.  You may already know that the Docupresentment system can generate many temporary files based on certain request types that are processed through the system.  What you may not know is how those files are cleaned up.  There are many rules in Docupresentment that cause the creation of temporary files.  When these files are created, Docupresentment writes an entry into a properties file called the file cache.  This file contains the name, creation date, and expiration time of each temporary file created by each instance of Docupresentment.  Periodically Docupresentment will check the file cache to determine if there are files that are past the expiration time, not unlike that block of cheese festering away in the back of my refrigerator.  However, unlike my ‘fridge cleaning tendencies, Docupresentment is quick to remove files that are past their expiration time.  You, my friend, have the power to control how often Docupresentment inspects the file cache.  Simply set the value for <entry name=”FilePurgeTimeSeconds”> to the number of seconds appropriate for your requirements and you’re set.  Note that file purging happens on a separate thread from normal request processing, so this shouldn’t interfere with response times unless the CPU happens to be really taxed at the point of cache processing.  Finally, after all of this, we get to the final setting I’m going to address in this post: <entry name=”FilePurgeList”>.  The default is “filecache.properties”.  This establishes the root name for the Docupresentment file cache that I mentioned previously.  Docupresentment creates a separate cache file for each instance based on this setting.  If you have two instances, you’ll see two files created: filecache.properties.1 and filecache.properties.2.  Feel free to open these up and check them out. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first foray into the configuration file of Docupresentment.  If you did enjoy it, feel free to drop a comment, I welcome feedback.  If you have ideas for other posts you’d like to see, please do let me know.  You can reach me at [email protected]. ‘Til next time! ###

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• Azure, don't give me multiple VMs, give me one elastic VM

  - by FransBouma

  Yesterday, Microsoft revealed new major features for Windows Azure (see ScottGu's post). It all looks shiny and great, but after reading most of the material describing the new features, I still find the overall idea behind all of it flawed: why should I care on how much VMs my web app runs? Isn't that a problem to solve for the Windows Azure engineers / software? And what if I need the file system, why can't I simply get a virtual filesystem ? To illustrate my point, let's use a real example: a product website with a customer system/database and next to it a support site with accompanying database. Both are written in .NET, using ASP.NET and use a SQL Server database each. The product website offers files to download by customers, very simple. You have a couple of options to host these websites: Buy a server, place it in a rack at an ISP and run the sites on that server Use 'shared hosting' with an ISP, which means your sites' appdomains are running on the same machine, as well as the files stored, and the databases are hosted in the same server as the other shared databases. Hire a VM, install your OS of choice at an ISP, and host the sites on that VM, basically the same as the first option, except you don't have a physical server At some cloud-vendor, either host the sites 'shared' or in a VM. See above. With all of those options, scalability is a problem, even the cloud-based ones, though not due to the same reasons: The physical server solution has the obvious problem that if you need more power, you need to buy a bigger server or more servers which requires you to add replication and other overhead Shared hosting solutions are almost always capped on memory usage / traffic and database size: if your sites get too big, you have to move out of the shared hosting environment and start over with one of the other solutions The VM solution, be it a VM at an ISP or 'in the cloud' at e.g. Windows Azure or Amazon, in theory allows scaling out by simply instantiating more VMs, however that too introduces the same overhead problems as with the physical servers: suddenly more than 1 instance runs your sites. If a cloud vendor offers its services in the form of VMs, you won't gain much over having a VM at some ISP: the main problems you have to work around are still there: when you spin up more than one VM, your application must be completely stateless at any moment, including the DB sub system, because what's in memory in instance 1 might not be in memory in instance 2. This might sounds trivial but it's not. A lot of the websites out there started rather small: they were perfectly runnable on a single machine with normal memory and CPU power. After all, you don't need a big machine to run a website with even thousands of users a day. Moving these sites to a multi-VM environment will cause a problem: all the in-memory state they use, all the multi-page transitions they use while keeping state across the transition, they can't do that anymore like they did that on a single machine: state is something of the past, you have to store every byte of state in either a DB or in a viewstate or in a cookie somewhere so with the next request, all state information is available through the request, as nothing is kept in-memory. Our example uses a bunch of files in a file system. Using multiple VMs will require that these files move to a cloud storage system which is mounted in each VM so we don't have to store the files on each VM. This might require different file paths, but this change should be minor. What's perhaps less minor is the maintenance procedure in place on the new type of cloud storage used: instead of ftp-ing into a VM, you might have to update the files using different ways / tools. All in all this makes moving an existing website which was written for an environment that's based around a VM (namely .NET with its CLR) overly cumbersome and problematic: it forces you to refactor your website system to be able to be used 'in the cloud', which is caused by the limited way how e.g. Windows Azure offers its cloud services: in blocks of VMs. Offer a scalable, flexible VM which extends with my needs Instead, cloud vendors should offer simply one VM to me. On that VM I run the websites, store my DB and my files. As it's a virtual machine, how this machine is actually ran on physical hardware (e.g. partitioned), I don't care, as that's the problem for the cloud vendor to solve. If I need more resources, e.g. I have more traffic to my server, way more visitors per day, the VM stretches, like I bought a bigger box. This frees me from the problem which comes with multiple VMs: I don't have any refactoring to do at all: I can simply build my website as if it runs on my local hardware server, upload it to the VM offered by the cloud vendor, install it on the VM and I'm done. "But that might require changes to windows!" Yes, but Microsoft is Windows. Windows Azure is their service, they can make whatever change to what they offer to make it look like it's windows. Yet, they're stuck, like Amazon, in thinking in VMs, which forces developers to 'think ahead' and gamble whether they would need to migrate to a cloud with multiple VMs in the future or not. Which comes down to: gamble whether they should invest time in code / architecture which they might never need. (YAGNI anyone?) So the VM we're talking about, is that a low-level VM which runs a guest OS, or is that VM a different kind of VM? The flexible VM: .NET's CLR ? My example websites are ASP.NET based, which means they run inside a .NET appdomain, on the .NET CLR, which is a VM. The only physical OS resource the sites need is the file system, however this too is accessed through .NET. In short: all the websites see is what .NET allows the websites to see, the world as the websites know it is what .NET shows them and lets them access. How the .NET appdomain is run physically, that's the concern of .NET, not mine. This begs the question why Windows Azure doesn't offer virtual appdomains? Or better: .NET environments which look like one machine but could be physically multiple machines. In such an environment, no change has to be made to the websites to migrate them from a local machine or own server to the cloud to get proper scaling: the .NET VM will simply scale with the need: more memory needed, more CPU power needed, it stretches. What it offers to the application running inside the appdomain is simply increasing, but not fragmented: all resources are available to the application: this means that the problem of how to scale is back to where it should be: with the cloud vendor. "Yeah, great, but what about the databases?" The .NET application communicates with the database server through a .NET ADO.NET provider. Where the database is located is not a problem of the appdomain: the ADO.NET provider has to solve that. I.o.w.: we can host the databases in an environment which offers itself as a single resource and is accessible through one connection string without replication overhead on the outside, and use that environment inside the .NET VM as if it was a single DB. But what about memory replication and other problems? This environment isn't simple, at least not for the cloud vendor. But it is simple for the customer who wants to run his sites in that cloud: no work needed. No refactoring needed of existing code. Upload it, run it. Perhaps I'm dreaming and what I described above isn't possible. Yet, I think if cloud vendors don't move into that direction, what they're offering isn't interesting: it doesn't solve a problem at all, it simply offers a way to instantiate more VMs with the guest OS of choice at the cost of me needing to refactor my website code so it can run in the straight jacket form factor dictated by the cloud vendor. Let's not kid ourselves here: most of us developers will never build a website which needs a truck load of VMs to run it: almost all websites created by developers can run on just a few VMs at most. Yet, the most expensive change is right at the start: moving from one to two VMs. As soon as you have refactored your website code to run across multiple VMs, adding another one is just as easy as clicking a mouse button. But that first step, that's the problem here and as it's right there at the beginning of scaling the website, it's particularly strange that cloud vendors refuse to solve that problem and leave it to the developers to solve that. Which makes migrating 'to the cloud' particularly expensive.

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