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• iis 7.5 - WFF and ARR farm management

  - by smackaysmith

  We have two test web farms (IIS 7.5). The Florida web farm has two ARR servers and two content servers. The ARR servers have WFF and NLB installed. The ARR setup uses a shared config located on a file share. The content servers do not have WFF installed. There is one web farm, and it's managed on an ARR server. The Illinois web farm also has two ARR servers and two content servers. ARR servers have WFF and NLB installed, and they use a shared config located on a share. One of the content servers has WFF installed, which makes it the controller; it's also the primary content server. Apparently, Illinois isn't properly configured. From what we've pieced together from various IIS.net articles and this post (http://ruslany.net/2010/07/web-farm-framework-2-0-overview/), the controller should be one of the ARR servers (like our Florida setup). The thing is Florida's controller doesn't have a Primary server nor can you set one of the content servers as Primary. It doesn't have the management piece showing the Trace messages when you click the Servers node (from iis console, Server Farms/FLFarm/Servers http://ruslany.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/WebFarm8.png). That management piece does exist in the Illinois farm, but that's a bad configuration. What are we missing that our Florida configuration doesn't have the Primary and Secondary content servers, and the management piece? I have looked for IIS role differences, but there are none.

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• Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Creating your first sealed document

  - by Simon Thorpe

  Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g indexThe previous articles in this guide have detailed how to install, configure and secure your Oracle IRM 11g service. This article walks you through the process of now creating your first context and securing a document against it. I should mention that it would be worth reviewing the following to ensure your installation is ready for that all important first document. Ensure you have correctly configured the keystore for the IRM wrapper keys. If this is not correctly configured, creating the context below will fail. Make sure the IRM server URL correctly resolves and uses the right protocol (HTTP or HTTPS) ContentsCreate the first contextInstall the Oracle IRM Desktop Seal your first document Create the first contextIn Oracle 11g there is a built in classification and rights system called the "standard rights model" which is based on 10 years of customer use cases and innovation. It is a system which enables IRM to scale massively whilst retaining the ability to balance security and usability and also separate duties by allowing contacts in the business to own classifications. The final article in this guide goes into detail on this inbuilt classification model, but for the purposes of this current article all we need to do is create at least one context to test our system out.With a new IRM server there are a set of predefined context templates and roles which again are setup in a way which reflects the most common use we've learned from our customers. We will use these out of the box configurations as they are to create the first context against which we will seal some content.First login to your Oracle IRM Management Website located at https://irm.company.com/irm_rights/. Currently the system is only configured to use the built in LDAP for users, so use the only account we have at the moment, which by default is weblogic. Once logged in switch to the Contexts tab. Click on the New Context icon () in the menu bar on the left. In the resulting dialog select the Standard context template and enter in a name for the context. Then just hit finish, the weblogic account will automatically be made the manager. You'll now see your brand new context ready for users to be assigned. Now click on the Assign Role icon () in the menu bar and in the resulting dialog search for your only user account, weblogic, and add to the list on the right. Now select a role for this user. Because we need to create a document with this user we must select contributor, as this is the only role which allows for the ability to seal. Finally hit next and then finish. We now have a context with a user that has the rights to create a document. The next step is to configure the IRM Desktop to get these rights from the server. Install the Oracle IRM Desktop Before we can seal a document we need the client software installed. Oracle IRM has a very small, lightweight client called the Oracle IRM Desktop which can be freely downloaded in 27 languages from here. Double click on the installer and click on next... Next again... And finally on install... Very easy. You may get a warning about closing Outlook, Word or another application and most of the time no reboots are required. Once it is installed you will see the IRM Desktop icon running in your tool tray, bottom right of the desktop. Seal your first document Finally the prize is within reach, creating your first sealed document. The server is running, we've got a context ready, a user assigned a role in the context but there is the simple and obvious hoop left to jump through. To seal a document we need to have the users rights cached to the local machine. For this to take place, the IRM Desktop needs to know where the Oracle IRM server is on the network so we can synchronize these rights and then be able to seal a document. The usual way for the IRM Desktop to know about the IRM server is it learns automatically when you open an existing piece of content that someone has sent you... ack. Bit of a chicken or the egg dilemma. The solution is to manually tell the IRM Desktop the location of the IRM Server and then force a synchronization of rights. Right click on the Oracle IRM Desktop icon in the system tray and select Options.... Then switch to the Servers tab in the resulting dialog. There are no servers in the list because you've never opened any content. This list is usually populated automatically but we are going to add a server manually, so click on New.... Into the dialog enter in the full URL to the IRM server. Note that this time you use the path /irm_desktop/ and not /irm_rights/. You can see an example from the image below. Click on the validate button and you'll be asked to authenticate. Enter in your weblogic username and password and also check the Remember my password check box. Click OK and the IRM Desktop will confirm a successful connection to the server. OK all the dialogs and we are ready to Synchronize this users rights to the desktop. Right click once more on the Oracle IRM Desktop icon in the system tray. Now the Synchronize menu option is available. Select this and the IRM Desktop will now talk to the IRM server, authenticate using your weblogic account and get your rights to the context we created. Because this is the first time this users has communicated with the IRM server the IRM Desktop presents a privacy policy dialog. This is a chance for the business to ask users to agree to any policy about the use of IRM before opening secured documents. In our guide we've not bothered to setup this URL so just click on the check box and hit Accept. The IRM Desktop will then talk to the server, get your rights and display a success dialog. Lets protect a documentNow we are ready to seal a piece of content. In my guide i'm going to protect a Microsoft Word document. This mean's I have to have copy of Office installed, in this guide i'm using Microsoft Office 2007. You could also seal a PDF document, you'll need to download and install Adobe Acrobat Reader. A very simple test could be to seal a GIF/JPG/PNG or piece of HTML because this is rendered using Internet Explorer. But as I say, i'm going to protect a Word document. The following example demonstrates choosing a file in Windows Explorer, there are many ways to seal a file and you can watch a few in this video.Open a copy of Windows Explorer and locate the file you wish to seal. Right click on the document and select Seal To -> Context You are now presented with the Select Context dialog. You'll now have a sealed copy of the document sat in the same location. Double click on this document and it will open, again using the credentials you've already provided. That is it, now you just need to add more users, more documents, more classifications and start exploring the different roles and experiment with different offline periods etc. You may wish to setup the server against an existing LDAP or Active Directory environment instead of using the built in WebLogic LDAP store. You can read how to use your corporate directory here. But before we finish this guide, there is one more article and arguably the most important article of all. Next I discuss the all important decision making surrounding the actually implementation of Oracle IRM inside your business. Who has rights to what? How do you map contexts to your existing business practices? It is the next article which actually ensures you deploy a successful IRM solution by looking at the business and understanding how they use your sensitive information and then configuring Oracle IRM to reflect their use.

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• Thinking differently about BI delivery

  - by jamiet

  My day job involves implementing Business Intelligence (BI) solutions which, as I have said before, is simply about giving people the information they need to do their jobs. I’m always interested in learning about new ways of achieving that aim and that is my motivation for writing blog entries that are not concerned with SQL or SQL Server per se. Implementing BI systems usually involves hacking together a bunch third party products with some in-house “glue” and delivering information using some shiny, expensive web-based front-end tool; the list of vendors that supply such tools is big and ever-growing. No doubt these tools have their place and of late I have started to wonder whether they can be supplemented with different ways of delivering information. The problem I have with these separate web-based tools is exactly that – they are separate web-based tools. What’s the problem with that you might ask? I’ll explain! They force the information worker to go somewhere unfamiliar in order to get the information they need to do their jobs. Would it not be better if we could deliver information into the tools that those information workers are already using and not force them to go somewhere else? I look at the rise of blogging over recent years and I realise that what made them popular is that people can subscribe to RSS feeds and have information pushed to them in their tool of choice rather than them having to go and find the information for themselves in a tool that has been foisted upon them. Would it not be a good idea to adopt the principle of subscription for the benefit of delivering BI information as well? I think it would and in the rest of this blog entry I’ll outline such a scenario where the power of subscription could be used to enhance the delivery of information to information workers. Typical questions that information workers ask might be: What are my year-on-year sales figures? What was my footfall yesterday? How many widgets have I sold so far today? Each of those questions includes a time element and that shouldn’t surprise us, any BI system that I have worked on includes the dimension of time. Now, what do people use to view and organise their time-oriented information? Its not a trick question, they use a calendar and in the enterprise space more often than not that calendar is managed using Outlook. Given then that information workers are already looking at their calendar in Outlook anyway would it not make sense then to deliver information into that same calendar? Of course it would. Calendars are a great way of visualising information such as sales figures. Observe: Just in this single screenshot I have managed to convey a multitude of information. The information worker can see, at a glance, information about hourly/daily/weekly/monthly sales and, moreover, he/she is viewing that information right inside the tool that they use every day. There is no effort on the part of him/her, the information just appears hour after hour, day after day. Taking the idea further, each one of those calendar items could be a mini-dashboard in its own right. Double-clicking on an item could show a plethora of other information about that time slot such as breaking the sales down per region or year-over-year comparisons. Perhaps the title could employ a sparkline? Loads of possibilities. The point is that calendars are a completely natural way to visualise information; we should make more use of them! The real beauty of delivering information using calendars for us BI developers is that it should be so easy. In the case of Outlook we don’t need to write complicated VBA code that can go and manipulate a person’s calendar, simply publishing data in a format that Outlook can understand is sufficient and happily such formats already exist; iCalendar is the accepted format and the even more flexible xCalendar is hopefully on its way as well.   I’d like to make one last point and this one is with my SQL Server hat on. Reporting Services 2008 R2 introduced the ability to publish data as subscribable Atom feeds so it seems logical that it could also be a vehicle for delivering calendar feeds too. If you think this would be a good idea go and vote for it at Publish data as iCalendar feeds and please please please add some comments (especially if you vote it down). Work smarter, not harder! @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• SQLAuthority News – Three Posts on Reporting – T-SQL Tuesday #005

  - by pinaldave

  If you are following my blog, you already know that I am more of “T-SQL and Performance Tuning” type of person. I do have a good understanding of Business Intelligence suit and I also do certain training sessions on the same subject. When I was writing the blog post for T-SQL Tuesday #005 – Reporting, I realized that I have written a post that clearly explains how to generate reports using SQL Server Management Studio. Here is a quick recap on how one can use SSMS and out-of-the-box reports which can help many developers. Please note that they can be resource-intensive as well, so please use SSMS carefully. SQL SERVER – Generate Report for Index Physical Statistics – SSMS SQL SERVER – Out of the Box – Activity and Performance Reports from SSSMS SQL SERVER – Configure Management Data Collection in Quick Steps – T-SQL Tuesday #005 Junior developers and DBA can use these reports right away and can also start learning and exploring most database performance issues with the help of Sr. DBAs. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Reporting, SQL Reports

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• Amit Jasuja's Session at Gartner IAM with Ranjan Jain of Cisco

  - by Naresh Persaud

  If you did not get a chance to attend Amit Jasuja's session at Gartner IAM this week in Las Vegas, here is a summary of the session and a copy of the slides. The agenda featured an introduction by Ray Wagner, Managing VP at Gartner, followed by Amit discussing the trends in Identity and Access Management shaping Oracle's strategy. Today we are seeing the largest re-architecture in a decade. Every business from manufacturing to retail is transforming the way they do business. Manufacturing companies are becoming manufacturing services companies. Retail organizations are embracing social retail. Healthcare is being delivered on-line around the clock. Identity Management is at the center of the transformation. Whether you are Toyota embracing a social network for cars or launching the next Iphone, the Identity of the user provides context to enable the interaction and secure the experience. All of these require greater attention to the context of the user and externalizing applications for customers and employees.  Ranjan discussed how Cisco is transforming  by integrating 1800 applications to a single access management framework and consolidating 3M users across 4 data centers to support internal and external processes. David Lee demonstrated how to use Oracle Access Manager 11g R2 on a mobile application to sign-on across multiple applications while connecting mobile applications to a single access control policy.

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• SQL SERVER – Copy Column Headers from Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #027 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server Management Studio returns results in Grid View, Text View and to the file. When we copy results from Grid View to Excel there is a common complaint that the column  header displayed in resultset is not copied to the Excel. I often spend time in performance tuning databases and I run many DMV’s in SSMS to get a quick view of the server. In my case it is almost certain that I need all the time column headers when I copy my data to excel or any other place. SQL Server Management Studio have two different ways to do this. Method 1: Ad-hoc When result is rendered you can right click on the resultset and click on Copy Header. This will copy the headers along with the resultset. Additionally, you can use the shortcut key CTRL+SHIFT+C for coping column headers along with the resultset. Method 2: Option Setting at SSMS level This is SSMS level settings and I kept this option always selected as I often need the column headers when I select the resultset. Go Tools >> Options >> Query Results >> SQL Server >> Results to Grid >> Check the Box “Include column header when copying or saving the results.” Both of the methods are discussed in following SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. Here is the code used in the video. Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: Copy Column Headers in Query Analyzers in Result Set Getting Columns Headers without Result Data – SET FMTONLY ON If we like your idea we promise to share with you educational material. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• SQL SERVER – Copy Column Headers from Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #026 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server Management Studio returns results in Grid View, Text View and to the file. When we copy results from Grid View to Excel there is a common complaint that the column  header displayed in resultset is not copied to the Excel. I often spend time in performance tuning databases and I run many DMV’s in SSMS to get a quick view of the server. In my case it is almost certain that I need all the time column headers when I copy my data to excel or any other place. SQL Server Management Studio have two different ways to do this. Method 1: Ad-hoc When result is rendered you can right click on the resultset and click on Copy Header. This will copy the headers along with the resultset. Additionally, you can use the shortcut key CTRL+SHIFT+C for coping column headers along with the resultset. Method 2: Option Setting at SSMS level This is SSMS level settings and I kept this option always selected as I often need the column headers when I select the resultset. Go Tools >> Options >> Query Results >> SQL Server >> Results to Grid >> Check the Box “Include column header when copying or saving the results.” Both of the methods are discussed in following SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. Here is the code used in the video. Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: Copy Column Headers in Query Analyzers in Result Set Getting Columns Headers without Result Data – SET FMTONLY ON If we like your idea we promise to share with you educational material. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• Security Newsletter November Edition is Out

  - by Tanu Sood

  The November edition of the Security Inside Out Newsletter is now out. This month’s newsletter captures the highlights from Oracle OpenWorld. The conference registration broken all the past records and so did all Security related events and activities at OpenWorld. From Security keynotes, conference sessions, hands-on-labs, product demonstrations to the very successful Executive Edge @ Openworld: Chief Security Officer Summit. The main feature discuses the key topics and trends compiled from across all the Security related sessions. The newsletter also features an interview with Amit Jasuja, Senior Vice President, Security and Identity Management at Oracle. Amit discusses the key trends in the industry and how these have helped shape innovation in the latest release of Oracle Identity Management solution set. If you are looking at cloud, social and mobile and are concerned about security, you don’t want to miss this feature. As always, the newsletter captures both recent and upcoming Security and Identity Management events, conferences, training, news and more. So, if you haven’t done so, we recommend you subscribe to the Security Inside Out Newsletter today. We’d love to hear from you. Let us know some topics you’d like to see covered in the upcoming editions. Or just let us know how we are doing. We look forward to hearing from you.

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• It's The End of Work as We Know It, But I Feel Fine

  - by Naresh Persaud

  If you are attending Open World this year, don't miss Amit Jasuja's session on trends in Identity Management. This session will take place on Monday October 1st in Moscone West at 10:45. You can join the conversation on Twitter as Amit Jasuja discusses the trends that are shaping Identity Management as a market and how Oracle is responding to these secular trends. Use hashtag OracleIDM. In addition, here’s a list of the sessions in the  Identity Management  track. In Amit's session, he will discuss how the workplace is changing. The pace of technology is accelerating and work is no longer a place but rather an activity. We are behaving socially in our professional lives and our professional responsibilities are encroaching on our social lives.  The net result is that we will need to change the way we work and collaborate. Work is anytime and anywhere. This impacts the dynamics of teams and how they access information and applications. Our teams span multiple organizations and "the new work order" means enabling the interaction and securing the experience. It is the end of work as we know it both economically and technologically. Join Amit for this session and you will feel much better about the changing workplace. 

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• CSO Summit @ Executive Edge

  - by Naresh Persaud

  If you are attending the Executive Edge at Open World be sure to check out the sessions at the Chief Security Officer Summit. Former Sr. Counsel for the National Security Agency, Joel Brenner ,  will be speaking about his new book "America the Vulnerable". In addition, PWC will present a panel discussion on "Crisis Management to Business Advantage: Security Leadership". See below for the complete agenda. TUESDAY, October 2, 2012 Chief Security Officer Summit Welcome Dave Profozich, Group Vice President, Oracle 10:00 a.m.–10:15 a.m. America the Vulnerable Joel Brenner, former Senior Counsel, National Security Agency 10:15 a.m.–11:00 a.m. The Threats are Outside, the Risks are Inside Sonny Singh, Senior Vice President, Oracle 11:00 a.m.–11:20 a.m. From Crisis Management to Business Advantage: Security Leadership Moderator: David Burg, Partner, Forensic Technology Solutions, PwC Panelists: Charles Beard, CIO and GM of Cyber Security, SAIC Jim Doggett, Chief Information Technology Risk Officer, Kaiser Permanente Chris Gavin, Vice President, Information Security, Oracle John Woods, Partner, Hunton & Williams 11:20 a.m.–12:20 p.m. Lunch Union Square Tent 12:20 p.m.–1:30 p.m. Securing the New Digital Experience Amit Jasuja, Senior Vice President, Identity Management and Security, Oracle 1:30 p.m.–2:00 p.m. Securing Data at the Source Vipin Samar, Vice President, Database Security, Oracle 2:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m. Security from the Chairman’s Perspective Jeff Henley, Chairman of the Board, Oracle Dave Profozich, Group Vice President, Oracle 2:30 p.m.–3:00 p.m.

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• Only One Month to OpenWorld-San Francisco!

  - by Stephen Slade

  From around the world, the city is expecting 50,000+ guests to flock to this annual extravaganza.  Over 2,000 sessions will focus on Oracle’s latest product offerings, customer case studies, panels of experts and a variety of other hardware, technology, middleware and applications. For those interested  in the latest capabilities delivered by Oracle’s supply chain applications, the ‘Focus-On’ documents are now avaiable to help guide you in your schedule builder. Schedule builder allows the capability to create a personalized agenda for the sessions you wish to attend, such as: Monday October 1, 2012 TIME TITLE LOCATION  3:15 pm –4:15 pm General Session: Supply Chain Management—Strategy, Update, and Roadmap Richard Jewell, Senior Vice President, Applications Development, Oracle Moscone West Level 2 Room 3014 Tuesday October 2, 2012 TIME TITLE LOCATION  10:15 am –11:15 am Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management: Overview, Strategy, Customer Experiences, and Roadmap Jon Chorley, CSO & VP, Product Strategy, Oracle Moscone West  Level 2 Room 2006 There is an exciting lineup of about 100 supply chain sessions at OpenWorld. Contact your sales rep or Oracle Partner to obtain a copy of the most current Focus-On document, segmented by pillars such as Manufacturing, Maintenance/EAM, Value Chain Planning, Value Chain Execution, Procurement and Agile/Product Lifecycle Management.  They will provide you with a better informed view to schedule your time in San Francisco.

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• How to handle growing QA reporting requirements?

  - by Phillip Jackson

  Some Background: Our company is growing very quickly - in 3 years we've tripled in size and there are no signs of stopping any time soon. Our marketing department has expanded and our IT requirements have as well. When I first arrived everything was managed in Dreamweaver and Excel spreadsheets and we've worked hard to implement bug tracking, version control, continuous integration, and multi-stage deployment. It's been a long hard road, and now we need to get more organized. The Problem at Hand: Management would like to track, per-developer, who is generating the most issues at the QA stage (post unit testing, regression, and post-production issues specifically). This becomes a fine balance because many issues can't be reported granularly (e.g. per-url or per-"page") but yet that's how Management would like reporting to be broken down. Further, severity has to be taken into account. We have drafted standards for each of these areas specific to our environment. Developers don't want to be nicked for 100+ instances of an issue if it was a problem with an include or inheritance... I had a suggestion to "score" bugs based on severity... but nobody likes that. We can't enter issues for every individual module affected by a global issue. [UPDATED] The Actual Questions: How do medium sized businesses and code shops handle bug tracking, reporting, and providing useful metrics to management? What kinds of KPIs are better metrics for employee performance? What is the most common way to provide per-developer reporting as far as time-to-close, reopens, etc.? Do large enterprises ignore the efforts of the individuals and rather focus on the team? Some other questions: Is this too granular of reporting? Is this considered 'blame culture'? If you were the developer working in this environment, what would you define as a measureable goal for this year to track your progress, with the reward of achieving the goal a bonus?

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• A Year of Upheaval for Procurement Professionals-New Report & Webinar

  - by DanAshton

  2013 will see significant changes in priorities and initiatives among procurement professionals as they balance the needs of their enterprises with efforts to add capabilities for long-term procurement success. In response, procurement managers will expand their organization’s spend influence via supplier relationship management, sourcing, and category management. These findings are part of the new report, “2013 Procurement Key Issues: Going Deeper and Broader to Deliver Borderless Procurement Services,” by the Hackett Group. The authors say that compared to similar studies over the last five years, 2013 is registering the greatest year-over-year changes in priorities for both procurement performance and capability issues. Three Important PrioritiesThe survey found that procurement professionals are focusing their attention in three key areas. Cost reduction. Controlling expenses is always a high priority, but with 90 percent of the respondents now placing this at the top of their performance concerns, the Hackett analysts say this “clearly shows that, for better or worse, cost reduction is king” in 2013. Technology innovation. Innovation has shot up significantly in the priority rankings and is now tied with spend influence for second among procurement professionals. Sixty-five percent of the survey participants said pursuing game-changing innovation and technology is a top procurement initiative. Managing supply risk. This area registered a sharp rise in importance because of its role in protecting profits, Hackett says. Supplier compliance with performance milestones and regulatory requirements is receiving particular attention, with an emphasis on efficient management of cross-functional workflows. “These processes create headaches for suppliers and buyers alike, and can detract from strategic value creation when participants are bogged down in processing paper and spreadsheets,” the report explains.  For more insights into the current state of the procurement industry, download the full report, “2013 Procurement Key Issues: Going Deeper and Broader to Deliver Borderless Procurement Services” and watch a Webcast featuring Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader for The Hackett Group, Chis Sawchuk, and Managing Supervisor of Supply Chain Processes and Systems for Ameren, Chris Nelms. 

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• What is the role of traditional issue tracker when Scrum / Kanban board is used?

  - by Borek

  From a very high level view, to me it seems there are generally 2 types of Project Management tools: Traditional issue trackers like Fogbugz, JIRA, BugZilla, Trac, Redmine etc. Virtual card boards / agile project management tools like Pivotal Tracker, GreenHopper, AgileZen, Trello etc. Sure, they overlap in one way or another, e.g. Pivotal Tracker tasks can be imported to JIRA, GreenHopper itself is implemented on top of JIRA issue base etc. but I think one can still see the difference in orientation between those two types of tools. Traditional issue tracker seems to be used even in companies otherwise doing agile project management. My question is, why do they do that? I also feel that we should use an issue tracker in my company but when I'm thinking about it, I'm not actually sure why should we need it. For example, Trello development seems to be managed by using Trello itself (see this virtual wall) even though they have access to Fogbugz, one of the best issue trackers around. So maybe we don't need traditional issue tracker when we'll be doing 100% of our work in an agile manner using one of the agile PM tools?

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• Notification framework for object lifecycle

  - by rlandster

  I am looking for an application, framework, or library that would help us with "object life-cycle management". There are many things that are created for users, departments, and services that, all too often, are left unmanaged. Some examples: user accounts groups SSL certificates access rights databases software license provisionings storage list-serve accounts These objects are created and managed by a wide variety of applications and systems. Typically, a user (person) requests (either explicitly or implicitly) one of these objects. A centralized management tool would help us manage such administration chores as: What objects does user X currently own/manage? Move the ownership of object P to user X; move all objects owned by user X (who was just been fired) to user Y. For all objects of type T that have expired be sure the objects have been disabled or deleted by their provider. How many active (expired, about-to-expire) objects of type P are there? Send periodic notifications to all users who own active objects of type P reminding them of what they own. There is a security alert for objects of type P; send a notification to all users who own these types of objects to take a specific remedial action. Delete or disable a set of objects based on expiration (or some other criteria). These objects are directly managed through their own applications (Active Directory, MySql, file systems, etc.) and may even have their own notification systems, but I want to centralize this into an "object management system". The OMS should allow the association with an external identity provider that defines who the users and groups are (e.g., LDAP, Active Directory) creation of objects association of an object to a specific user and/or group association with an expiration date creation of flexible reporting including letting users know what objects they currently own and their expiration dates integration with an external object "provider" via a plug-in We could write something from scratch, but I am hoping there is something already out there that will help, either an entire application or a set of libraries that provide much of what is needed. Any ideas?

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• Webcast: DB Enterprise User Security Integration with Oracle Directory Services

  - by B Shashikumar

  The typical enterprise has a large number of DBA (Database administrator) accounts that are locally managed, which is often very costly, problematic and error-prone. Databases are a crucial component of your enterprise IT infrastructure, housing sensitive corporate data and database user accounts and privileges. To ensure the integrity of your enterprise's data, it's imperative to have a well-managed identity management system. This begins with centralized management of user accounts and access rights. Enterprise User Security (EUS), an Oracle Database Enterprise Edition feature, combined with Oracle Identity Management, gives you the ability to centrally manage database users and their authorizations in one central place. The cost of user provisioning and password resets is dramatically reduced. This technology is a must for new application development and should be considered for existing applications as well. Join Oracle Advisors for a live webcast on Jul 11 at 8am Pacific Time where Oracle experts will briefly introduce EUS, followed by a detailed discussion about the various directory options that are supported, including integration with Microsoft Active Directory. We'll conclude how to avoid common pitfalls deploying EUS with directory services. To register for this event, click here  

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• PeopleSoft CRM 9.2 Release Value Proposition

  - by Race Bannon

  Oracle's PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM) delivers solutions that have been tailored to fit your industry business processes, your customer strategies, and your success criteria. With PeopleSoft CRM 9.2, organizations will be able to deploy a solution that delivers built-in best practices specific to your industry with a highly configurable, tightly integrated platform, ensuring that solutions will be fast to implement. The result is less configuration, less customization, and less integration. PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a world-class solution for organizations of every size and Oracle’s planned product roadmap for PeopleSoft applications is to deliver valuable, needed features for all of an organization’s constituents along three design principles — Simplicity, Productivity, and Lowered Total Cost of Ownership — as well as new application functionality as prioritized by our customers. The upcoming 9.2 release of PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management focuses on these themes of Simplicity, Productivity, and Lower Total Cost of Ownership while also delivering robust new functionality to help your organization succeed. The recently published PeopleSoft CRM 9.2 Release Value Proposition provides overviews of the new features and enhancements planned for these applications for Release 9.2. This document offers customers a road map intended to help them assess the business benefits of upgrading to the 9.2 release while also helping them plan their IT projects and investments. (Link is to a My Oracle Support page, available to customers and partners.) Oracle continues to deliver enterprise-wide features that enhance our customer ownership experience and helps them run their businesses more efficiently and profitably. With the CRM 9.2 release, we continue to abide by this firm commitment we’ve made to our customers.

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• Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Configuring SSL

  - by Simon Thorpe

  Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g index So far in this guide we have an IRM Server up and running, however I skipped over SSL configuration in the previous article because I wanted to focus in more detail now. You can, if you wish, not bother with setting up SSL, but considering this is a security technology it is worthwhile doing. Contents Setting up a one way, self signed SSL certificate in WebLogic Setting up an official SSL certificate in Apache 2.x Configuring Apache to proxy traffic to the IRM server There are two common scenarios in which an Oracle IRM server is configured. For a development or evaluation system, people usually communicate directly to the WebLogic Server running the IRM service. However in a production environment and for some proof of concept evaluations that require a setup reflecting a production system, the traffic to the IRM server travels via a web server proxy, commonly Apache. In this guide we are building an Oracle Enterprise Linux based IRM service and this article will go over the configuration of SSL in WebLogic and also in Apache. Like in the past articles, we are going to use two host names in the configuration below,irm.company.com will refer to the public Apache server irm.company.internal will refer to the internal WebLogic IRM server Setting up a one way, self signed SSL certificate in WebLogic First lets look at creating just a simple self signed SSL certificate to be used in WebLogic. This is a quick and easy way to get SSL working in your environment, however the downside is that no browsers are going to trust this certificate you create and you'll need to manually install the certificate onto any machine's communicating with the server. This is fine for development or when you have only a few users evaluating the system, but for any significant use it's usually better to have a fully trusted certificate in use and I explain that in the next section. But for now lets go through creating, installing and testing a self signed certificate. We use a library in Java to create the certificates, open a console and running the following commands. Note you should choose your own secure passwords whenever you see password below. [oracle@irm /] source /oracle/middleware/wlserver_10.3/server/bin/setWLSEnv.sh [oracle@irm /] cd /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/ [oracle@irm /] java utils.CertGen -selfsigned -certfile MyOwnSelfCA.cer -keyfile MyOwnSelfKey.key -keyfilepass password -cn "irm.oracle.demo" [oracle@irm /] java utils.ImportPrivateKey -keystore MyOwnIdentityStore.jks -storepass password -keypass password -alias trustself -certfile MyOwnSelfCA.cer.pem -keyfile MyOwnSelfKey.key.pem -keyfilepass password [oracle@irm /] keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias trustself -keystore TrustMyOwnSelf.jks -file MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der -keyalg RSA We now have two Java Key Stores, MyOwnIdentityStore.jks and TrustMyOwnSelf.jks. These contain keys and certificates which we will use in WebLogic Server. Now we need to tell the IRM server to use these stores when setting up SSL connections for incoming requests. Make sure the Admin server is running and login into the WebLogic Console at http://irm.company.intranet:7001/console and do the following; In the menu on the left, select the + next to Environment to expose the submenu, then click on Servers. You will see two servers in the list, AdminServer(admin) and IRM_server1. If the IRM server is running, shut it down either by hitting CONTROL + C in the console window it was started from, or you can switch to the CONTROL tab, select IRM_server1 and then select the Shutdown menu and then Force Shutdown Now. In the Configuration tab select IRM_server1 and switch to the Keystores tab. By default WebLogic Server uses it's own demo identity and trust. We are now going to switch to the self signed one's we've just created. So select the Change button and switch to Custom Identity and Custom Trust and hit save. Now we have to complete the resulting fields, the setting's i've used in my evaluation server are below. IdentityCustom Identity Keystore: /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/MyOwnIdentityStore.jks Custom Identity Keystore Type: JKS Custom Identity Keystore Passphrase: password Confirm Custom Identity Keystore Passphrase: password TrustCustom Trust Keystore: /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/TrustMyOwnSelf.jks Custom Trust Keystore Type: JKS Custom Trust Keystore Passphrase: password Confirm Custom Trust Keystore Passphrase: password Now click on the SSL tab for the IRM_server1 and enter in the alias and passphrase, in my demo here the details are; IdentityPrivate Key Alias: trustself Private Key Passphrase: password Confirm Private Key Passphrase: password And hit save. Now lets test a connection to the IRM server over HTTPS using SSL. Go back to a console window and start the IRM server, a quick reminder on how to do this is... [oracle@irm /] cd /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/bin [oracle@irm /] ./startManagedWeblogic IRM_server1 Once running, open a browser and head to the SSL port of the server. By default the IRM server will be listening on the URL https://irm.company.intranet:16101/irm_rights. Note in the example image on the right the port is 7002 because it's a system that has the IRM services installed on the Admin server, this isn't typical (or advisable). Your system is going to have a separate managed server which will be listening on port 16101. Once you open this address you will notice that your browser is going to complain that the server certificate is untrusted. The images on the right show how Firefox displays this error. You are going to be prompted every time you create a new SSL session with the server, both from the browser and more annoyingly from the IRM Desktop. If you plan on always using a self signed certificate, it is worth adding it to the Windows certificate store so that when you are accessing sealed content you do not keep being informed this certificate is not trusted. Follow these instructions (which are for Internet Explorer 8, they may vary for your version of IE.) Start Internet Explorer and open the URL to your IRM server over SSL, e.g. https://irm.company.intranet:16101/irm_rights. IE will complain that about the certificate, click on Continue to this website (not recommended). From the IE Tools menu select Internet Options and from the resulting dialog select Security and then click on Trusted Sites and then the Sites button. Add to the list of trusted sites a URL which mates the server you are accessing, e.g. https://irm.company.intranet/ and select OK. Now refresh the page you were accessing and next to the URL you should see a red cross and the words Certificate Error. Click on this button and select View Certificates. You will now see a dialog with the details of the self signed certificate and the Install Certificate... button should be enabled. Click on this to start the wizard. Click next and you'll be asked where you should install the certificate. Change the option to Place all certificates in the following store. Select browse and choose the Trusted Root Certification Authorities location and hit OK. You'll then be prompted to install the certificate and answer yes. You also need to import the root signed certificate into the same location, so once again select the red Certificate Error option and this time when viewing the certificate, switch to the Certification Path tab and you should see a CertGenCAB certificate. Select this and then click on View Certificate and go through the same process as above to import the certificate into the store. Finally close all instances of the IE browser and re-access the IRM server URL again, this time you should not receive any errors. Setting up an official SSL certificate in Apache 2.x At this point we now have an IRM server that you can communicate with over SSL. However this certificate isn't trusted by any browser because it's path of trust doesn't end in a recognized certificate authority (CA). Also you are communicating directly to the WebLogic Server over a non standard SSL port, 16101. In a production environment it is common to have another device handle the initial public internet traffic and then proxy this to the WebLogic server. The diagram below shows a very simplified view of this type of deployment. What i'm going to walk through next is configuring Apache to proxy traffic to a WebLogic server and also to use a real SSL certificate from an official CA. First step is to configure Apache to handle incoming requests over SSL. In this guide I am configuring the IRM service in Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 update 3 and Apache 2.2.3 which came with OpenSSL and mod_ssl components. Before I purchase an SSL certificate, I need to generate a certificate request from the server. Oracle.com uses Verisign and for my own personal needs I use cheaper certificates from GoDaddy. The following instructions are specific to Apache, but there are many references out there for other web servers. For Apache I have OpenSSL and the commands are; [oracle@irm /] cd /usr/bin [oracle@irm bin] openssl genrsa -des3 -out irm-apache-server.key 2048 Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus ............................+++ .........+++ e is 65537 (0x10001) Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: Verifying - Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: [oracle@irm bin] openssl req -new -key irm-apache-server.key -out irm-apache-server.csr Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter '.', the field will be left blank. ----- Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:US State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:CA Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]:San Francisco Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:Oracle Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Security Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:irm.company.com Email Address []:[email protected] Please enter the following 'extra' attributes to be sent with your certificate request A challenge password []:testing An optional company name []: You must make sure to remember the pass phrase you used in the initial key generation, you will need this when later configuring Apache. In the /usr/bin directory there are now two new files. The irm-apache-server.csr contains our certificate request and is what you cut and paste, or upload, to your certificate authority when you purchase and validate your SSL certificate. In response you will typically get two files. Your server certificate and another certificate file that will likely contain a set of certificates from your CA which validate your certificate's trust. Next we need to configure Apache to use these files. Typically there is an ssl.conf file which is where all the SSL configuration is done. On my Oracle Enterprise Linux server this file is located in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf and i've added the following lines. <VirtualHost irm.company.com> # Setup SSL for irm.company.com ServerName irm.company.com SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile /oracle/secure/irm.company.com.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /oracle/secure/irm.company.com.key SSLCertificateChainFile /oracle/secure/gd_bundle.crt </VirtualHost> Restarting Apache (apachectl restart) and I can now attempt to connect to the Apache server in a web browser, https://irm.company.com/. If all is configured correctly I should now see an Apache test page delivered to me over HTTPS. Configuring Apache to proxy traffic to the IRM server Final piece in setting up SSL is to have Apache proxy requests for the IRM server but do so securely. So the requests to Apache will be over HTTPS using a legitimate certificate, but we can also configure Apache to proxy these requests internally across to the IRM server using SSL with the self signed certificate we generated at the start of this article. To do this proxying we use the WebLogic Web Server plugin for Apache which you can download here from Oracle. Download the zip file and extract onto the server. The file extraction reveals a set of zip files, each one specific to a supported web server. In my instance I am using Apache 2.2 32bit on an Oracle Enterprise Linux, 64 bit server. If you are not sure what version your Apache server is, run the command /usr/sbin/httpd -V and you'll see version and it its 32 or 64 bit. Mine is a 32bit server so I need to extract the file WLSPlugin1.1-Apache2.2-linux32-x86.zip. The from the resulting lib folder copy the file mod_wl.so into /usr/lib/httpd/modules/. First we want to test that the plug in will work for regular HTTP traffic. Edit the httpd.conf for Apache and add the following section at the bottom. LoadModule weblogic_module modules/mod_wl.so <IfModule mod_weblogic.c>    WebLogicHost irm.company.internal    WebLogicPort 16100    WLLogFile /tmp/wl-proxy.log </IfModule> <Location /irm_rights>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_desktop>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_sealing>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_services>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> Now restart Apache again (apachectl restart) and now open a browser to http://irm.company.com/irm_rights. Apache will proxy the HTTP traffic from the port 80 of your Apache server to the IRM service listening on port 16100 of the WebLogic Managed server. Note above I have included all four of the Locations you might wish to proxy. http://irm.company.internalirm_rights is the URL to the management website, /irm_desktop is the URL used for the IRM Desktop to communicate. irm_sealing is for web services based document sealing and irm_services is for IRM server web services. The last two are typically only used when you have the IRM server integrated with another application and it is unlikely you'd be accessing these resources from the public facing Apache server. However, just in case, i've mentioned them above. Now let's enable SSL communication from Apache to WebLogic. In the ZIP file we extracted were some more modules we need to copy into the Apache folder. Looking back in the lib that we extracted, there are some more files. Copy the following into the /usr/lib/httpd/modules/ folder. libwlssl.so libnnz11.so libclntsh.so.11.1 Now the documentation states that should only need to do this, but I found that I also needed to create an environment variable called LD_LIBRARY_PATH and point this to the folder /usr/lib/httpd/modules/. If I didn't do this, starting Apache with the WebLogic module configured to SSL would throw the error. [crit] (20014)Internal error: WL SSL Init failed for server: (null) on 0 So I had to edit the file /etc/profile and add the following lines at the bottom. You may already have the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable defined, therefore simply add this path to it. LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/httpd/modules/ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH Now the WebLogic plug in uses an Oracle Wallet to store the required certificates.You'll need to copy the self signed certificate from the IRM server over to the Apache server. Copy over the MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der into the same folder where you are storing your public certificates, in my example this is /oracle/secure. It's worth mentioning these files should ONLY be readable by root (the user Apache runs as). Now lets create an Oracle Wallet and import the self signed certificate from the IRM server. The file orapki was included in the bin folder of the Apache 1.1 plugin zip you extracted. orapki wallet create -wallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet -auto_login_only orapki wallet add -wallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet -trusted_cert -cert MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der -auto_login_only Finally change the httpd.conf to reflect that we want the WebLogic Apache plug-in to use HTTPS/SSL and not just plain HTTP. <IfModule mod_weblogic.c>    WebLogicHost irm.company.internal    WebLogicPort 16101    SecureProxy ON    WLSSLWallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet    WLLogFile /tmp/wl-proxy.log </IfModule> Then restart Apache once more and you can go back to the browser to test the communication. Opening the URL https://irm.company.com/irm_rights will proxy your request to the WebLogic server at https://irm.company.internal:16101/irm_rights. At this point you have a fully functional Oracle IRM service, the next step is to create a sealed document and test the entire system.

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• Is your team is a high-performing team?

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

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• GMail suspects confirmation email in stealing personal information

  - by Dennis Gorelik

  When user registers on my web site, web site sends user email confirmation link. Subject: Please confirm your email address Body:Please open this link in your browser to confirm your email address: http://www.postjobfree.com/a/c301718062444f96ba0e358ea833c9b3 This link will expire on: 6/9/2012 8:04:07 PM EST. If my web site sends that email to GMaill (either @gmail.com or another domain that's handled by Google Apps) and that user never emailed to email -- then GMail not only puts the email to spam folder, but also adds prominent red warning:Be careful with this message. Similar messages were used to steal people's personal information. Unless you trust the sender, don't click links or reply with personal information. Learn more That warning really scares many of my users, so they are afraid to open that link and confirm their email. What can I do about it? Ideally I would like that message end up in user's inbox, not spam folder. But at least how do I prevent that scary message? IP address of my mailing server is not blacklisted: http://www.mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3a208.43.198.72 I use SPF and DKIM signature. Below is the email that ended up in spam folder with that scary red message. Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: by 10.112.84.98 with SMTP id x2csp36568lby; Fri, 8 Jun 2012 17:04:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.60.25.6 with SMTP id y6mr9110318oef.42.1339200255375; Fri, 08 Jun 2012 17:04:15 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: Received: from smtp.postjobfree.com (smtp.postjobfree.com. [208.43.198.72]) by mx.google.com with ESMTP id v8si6058193oev.44.2012.06.08.17.04.14; Fri, 08 Jun 2012 17:04:15 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 208.43.198.72 as permitted sender) client-ip=208.43.198.72; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 208.43.198.72 as permitted sender) [email protected]; dkim=pass [email protected] DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; q=dns; d=postjobfree.com; s=postjobfree.com; h= received:message-id:mime-version:from:to:date:subject:content-type; b=TCip/3hP1WWViWB1cdAzMFPjyi/aUKXQbuSTVpEO7qr8x3WdMFhJCqZciA69S0HB4 Koatk2cQQ3fOilr4ledCgZYemLSJgwa/ZRhObnqgPHAglkBy8/RAwkrwaE0GjLKup 0XI6G2wPlh+ReR+inkMwhCPHFInmvrh4evlBx/VlA= DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=postjobfree.com; s=postjobfree.com; h=content-type:subject:date:to:from:mime-version:message-id; bh=N59EIgRECIlAnd41LY4HY/OFI+v1p7t5M9yP+3FsKXY=; b=J3/BdZmpjzP4I6GA4ntmi4REu5PpOcmyzEL+6i7y7LaTR8tuc2h7fdW4HaMPlB7za Lj4NJPed61ErumO66eG4urd1UfyaRDtszWeuIbcIUqzwYpnMZ8ytaj8DPcWPE3JYj oKhcYyiVbgiFjLujib3/2k2PqDIrNutRH9Ln7puz4= Received: from sv3035 (sv3035 [208.43.198.72]) by smtp.postjobfree.com with SMTP; Fri, 8 Jun 2012 20:04:07 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 From: "PostJobFree Notification" To: [email protected] Date: 8 Jun 2012 20:04:07 -0400 Subject: Please confirm your email address Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=--boundary_107_ffa6a9ea-01dc-40f5-a50c-4c3b3d113f08 ----boundary_107_ffa6a9ea-01dc-40f5-a50c-4c3b3d113f08 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Please open this link in your browser to confirm your email addre= ss: =0D=0Ahttp://www.postjobfree.com/a/c301718062444f96ba0e358ea8= 33c9b3 =0D=0AThis link will expire on: 6/9/2012 8:04:07 PM EST. =0D=0A ----boundary_107_ffa6a9ea-01dc-40f5-a50c-4c3b3d113f08 Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 PGh0bWw+PGhlYWQ+PG1ldGEgaHR0cC1lcXVpdj1Db250ZW50LVR5cGUgY29udGVu dD0idGV4dC9odG1sOyBjaGFyc2V0PXV0Zi04Ij48L2hlYWQ+DQo8Ym9keT48ZGl2 Pg0KUGxlYXNlIG9wZW4gdGhpcyBsaW5rIGluIHlvdXIgYnJvd3NlciB0byBjb25m aXJtIHlvdXIgZW1haWwgYWRkcmVzczo8YnIgLz48YSBocmVmPSJodHRwOi8vd3d3 LnBvc3Rqb2JmcmVlLmNvbS9hL2MzMDE3MTgwNjI0NDRmOTZiYTBlMzU4ZWE4MzNj OWIzIj5odHRwOi8vd3d3LnBvc3Rqb2JmcmVlLmNvbS9hL2MzMDE3MTgwNjI0NDRm OTZiYTBlMzU4ZWE4MzNjOWIzPC9hPjxiciAvPlRoaXMgbGluayB3aWxsIGV4cGly ZSBvbjogNi85LzIwMTIgODowNDowNyBQTSBFU1QuPGJyIC8+DQo8L2Rpdj48L2Jv ZHk+PC9odG1sPg== ----boundary_107_ffa6a9ea-01dc-40f5-a50c-4c3b3d113f08--

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• Postfix logs missing information on delivery status (postfix/smtp message)

  - by hegemon

  I noticed a problem with postfix logs, that information on some of emails delivery status is missing. The issue affects about 1% of emails. "Healthy" log: <server># grep 8EB992EFBB44 postfix_log/mail04.log Jun 5 03:09:29 mail04 postfix/smtpd[8537]: 8EB992EFBB44: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 5 03:09:29 mail04 postfix/cleanup[34349]: 8EB992EFBB44: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 5 03:12:02 mail04 postfix/qmgr[76377]: 8EB992EFBB44: from=<[email protected]>, size=48845, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Jun 5 03:15:12 mail04 postfix/smtp[35058]: 8EB992EFBB44: to=<[email protected]>, relay=mx.baz.com[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]:25, conn_use=70, delay=343, delays=153/190/0/0.24, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 ok) Jun 5 03:15:12 mail04 postfix/qmgr[76377]: 8EB992EFBB44: removed "Broken" log: <server># grep F3C362EF37CA postfix_log/mail04.log Jun 5 04:03:27 mail04 postfix/smtpd[39666]: F3C362EF37CA: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 5 04:03:27 mail04 postfix/cleanup[41287]: F3C362EF37CA: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 5 04:03:28 mail04 postfix/qmgr[76377]: F3C362EF37CA: from=<[email protected]>, size=48892, nrcpt=1 (queue active) ** here should be a log line from postfix/smtp but there is none ** Jun 5 04:03:29 mail04 postfix/qmgr[76377]: F3C362EF37CA: removed Background information: system: FreeBSD xxx.xxx.xxx 8.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #0: Thu Feb 17 02:41:51 UTC 2011 [email protected]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64 Postfix is installed inside jail. Logs are on the same machine, log dir is mounted thru nullfs. The site has spikes of heavy load, causing disks (local) to run at 100%. Update The log is rotated daily, current size is ~ 500MB. I made a test by queuing 99000 messages to same destination (in order to rule out dns/network/mx issues). 5715 messages don't have any DSN record. Failed messages queue time is spread evenly over time, i don't see any time-bound issues. Some undelivered emails: envelopeid | processed_time --------------+---------------------------- 8D7652EF3BAE | 2012-06-06 13:19:11.072715 DD53A2EF3C5C | 2012-06-06 13:33:24.374783 8C52F2EF4E3F | 2012-06-06 13:39:15.810616 BBC572EF525C | 2012-06-06 13:44:22.762812 E95822EF54D1 | 2012-06-06 13:52:01.134533 839DD2EF4FBB | 2012-06-06 14:13:48.511236 017EE2EF6234 | 2012-06-06 15:04:48.618963 Those are a few picks, such records of undelivered email occur almost every second. <server># egrep '(8D7652EF3BAE|BBC572EF525C|017EE2EF6234)' mail04.log Jun 6 13:19:10 mail04 postfix/smtpd[20350]: 8D7652EF3BAE: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 6 13:19:10 mail04 postfix/cleanup[21024]: 8D7652EF3BAE: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 6 13:19:10 mail04 postfix/qmgr[7939]: 8D7652EF3BAE: from=<[email protected]>, size=63718, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Jun 6 13:19:11 mail04 postfix/qmgr[7939]: 8D7652EF3BAE: removed Jun 6 13:44:22 mail04 postfix/smtpd[20346]: BBC572EF525C: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 6 13:44:22 mail04 postfix/cleanup[24811]: BBC572EF525C: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 6 13:44:22 mail04 postfix/qmgr[7939]: BBC572EF525C: from=<[email protected]>, size=63758, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Jun 6 15:04:49 mail04 postfix/smtpd[20344]: 017EE2EF6234: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 6 15:04:49 mail04 postfix/cleanup[35585]: 017EE2EF6234: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 6 15:04:49 mail04 postfix/qmgr[7939]: 017EE2EF6234: from=<[email protected]>, size=63706, nrcpt=1 (queue active) <server># <server># find /var/spool/postfix/active/ -type f -print | wc -l 1 <server># IMPORTANT: As you can see above some of emails doesn't event have the removed line.

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• SOA Implementation Challenges

  Why do companies think that if they put up a web service that they are doing Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)? Unfortunately, the IT and business world love to run on the latest hype or buzz words of which very few even understand the meaning. One of the largest issues companies have today as they consider going down the path of SOA, is the lack of knowledge regarding the architectural style and the over usage of the term SOA. So how do we solve this issue?I am sure most of you are thinking by now that you know what SOA is because you developed a few web services.  Isn’t that SOA, right? No, that is not SOA, but instead Just Another Web Service (JAWS). For us to better understand what SOA is let’s look at a few definitions.Douglas K. Bary defines service-oriented architecture as a collection of services. These services are enabled to communicate with each other in order to pass data or coordinating some activity with other services.If you look at this definition closely you will notice that Bary states that services communicate with each other. Let us compare this statement with my first statement regarding companies that claim to be doing SOA when they have just a collection of web services. In order for these web services to for an SOA application they need to be interdependent on one another forming some sort of architectural hierarchy. Just because a company has a few web services does not mean that they are all interconnected.SearchSOA from TechTarget.com states that SOA defines how two computing entities work collectively to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another. Once again, just because a company has a few web services does not guarantee that they are even working together let alone if they are performing work for each other.SearchSOA also points out service interactions should be self-contained and loosely-coupled so that all interactions operate independent of each other.Of all the definitions regarding SOA Thomas Erl’s seems to shed the most light on this concept. He states that “SOA establishes an architectural model that aims to enhance the efficiency, agility, and productivity of an enterprise by positioning services as the primary means through which solution logic is represented in support of the realization of the strategic goals associated with service-oriented computing.” (Erl, 2011) Once again this definition proves that a collection of web services does not mean that a company is doing SOA. However, it does mean that a company has a collection of web services, and that is it.In order for a company to start to go down the path of SOA, they must take  a hard look at their existing business process while abstracting away any technology so that they can define what is they really want to accomplish. Once a company has done this, they can begin to factor out common sub business process like credit card process, user authentication or system notifications in to small components that can be built independent of each other and then reassembled to form new and dynamic services that are loosely coupled and agile in that they can change as a business grows.Another key pitfall of companies doing SOA is the fact that they let vendors drive their architecture. Why do companies do this? Vendors’ do not hold your company’s success as their top priority; in fact they hold their own success as their top priority by selling you as much stuff as you are willing to buy. In my experience companies tend to strive for the maximum amount of benefits with a minimal amount of cost. Does anyone else see any conflicts between this and the driving force behind vendors.Mike Kavis recommends in an article written in CIO.com that companies need to figure out what they need before they talk to a vendor or at least have some idea of what they need. It is important to thoroughly evaluate each vendor and watch them perform a live demo of their system so that you as the company fully understand what kind of product or service the vendor is actually offering. In addition, do research on each vendor that you are considering, check out blog posts, online reviews, and any information you can find on the vendor through various search engines.Finally he recommends companies to verify any recommendations supplied by a vendor. From personal experience this is very important. I can remember when the company I worked for purchased a $200,000 add-on to their phone system that never actually worked as it was intended. In fact, just after my departure from the company started the process of attempting to get their money back from the vendor. This potentially could have been avoided if the company had done the research before selecting this vendor to ensure that their product and vendor would live up to their claims. I know that some SOA vendor offer free training regarding SOA because they know that there are a lot of misconceptions about the topic. Superficially this is a great thing for companies to take part in especially if the company is starting to implement SOA architecture and are still unsure about some topics or are looking for some guidance regarding the topic. However beware that some companies will focus on their product line only regarding the training. As an example, InfoWorld.com claims that companies providing deep seminars disguised as training, focusing more about ESBs and SOA governance technology, and less on how to approach and solve the architectural issues of the attendees.In short, it is important to remember that we as software professionals are responsible for guiding a business’s technology sections should be well informed and fully understand any new concepts that may be considered for implementation. As I have demonstrated already a company that has a few web services does not mean that they are doing SOA.  Additionally, we must not let the new buzz word of the day drive our technology, but instead our technology decisions should be driven from research and proven experience. Finally, it is important to rely on vendors when necessary, however, always take what they say with a grain of salt while cross checking any claims that they may make because we have to live with the aftermath of a system after the vendors are gone.   References: Barry, D. K. (2011). Service-oriented architecture (SOA) definition. Retrieved 12 12, 2011, from Service-Architecture.com: http://www.service-architecture.com/web-services/articles/service-oriented_architecture_soa_definition.html Connell, B. (2003, 9). service-oriented architecture (SOA). Retrieved 12 12, 2011, from SearchSOA: http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/service-oriented-architecture Erl, T. (2011, 12 12). Service-Oriented Architecture. Retrieved 12 12, 2011, from WhatIsSOA: http://www.whatissoa.com/p10.php InfoWorld. (2008, 6 1). Should you get your SOA knowledge from SOA vendors? . Retrieved 12 12, 2011, from InfoWorld.com: http://www.infoworld.com/d/architecture/should-you-get-your-soa-knowledge-soa-vendors-453 Kavis, M. (2008, 6 18). Top 10 Reasons Why People are Making SOA Fail. Retrieved 12 13, 2011, from CIO.com: http://www.cio.com/article/438413/Top_10_Reasons_Why_People_are_Making_SOA_Fail?page=5&taxonomyId=3016  

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• asus smartdotctor "can not find graphics card information"

  - by Trimack

  Hi, I am not sure that this is the place I can ask questions like this, but I'll give it a try. I have a Windows 7 64bit, new graphic card ASUS ENGTX260 MATRIX, installed latest graphics drivers nv19045_Win7Vista64 and ASUS Smart Doctor version 5.44. Unfortunately, after the required reboot when the smartdoctor is starting, I get an error "can not find graphics card information". I tried google, but none of that "run as admin"/"use compatibility" doesn't help. Perhaps here can I find my answers? Thanks in advance.

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• Getting warning about sensitive information that could be disclosed to 3rd parties - Asp.net MVC 2.0

  - by chobo2

  Hi I never gotten this message before I started to use asp.net mvc 2.0 and jquery 1.4. <title>This request has been blocked because sensitive information could be disclosed to third party web sites when this is used in a GET request. To allow GET requests, set JsonRequestBehavior to AllowGet.</title> <span><H1>Server Error in '/' Application.<hr width=100% size=1 color=silver></H1> <h2> <i>This request has been blocked because sensitive information could be disclosed to third party web sites when this is used in a GET request. To allow GET requests, set JsonRequestBehavior to AllowGet.</i> </h2></span> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif "> <b> Description: </b>An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. <br><br> <b> Exception Details: </b>System.InvalidOperationException: This request has been blocked because sensitive information could be disclosed to third party web sites when this is used in a GET request. To allow GET requests, set JsonRequestBehavior to AllowGet.<br><br> So it makes me wondering what sensitive data could be disclosed and if so how to get around this? What I was trying to send back was a rendered string of a partial view(http://www.klopfenstein.net/lorenz.aspx/render-partial-view-to-string-in-asp-net-mvc) and a success msg.

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• when using exchange 2010 it complains of not talking to Information Store service on exchange 2007

  - by ChrisMuench

  I am attempting to do an upgrade in my org from exchange 2007 to exchange 2010. I moved all the mailboxes and made sure my certificates were setup in exchange 2010. I then changed my ip forwarding rules to forward mail to my exchange 2010 box. I can receive email. I then powered off my exchange 2007 server. However now when I open my exchange 2010 console it is complaing of not being able to talk to the Information Store service on my exchange 2007 server. What is up? do I have to tell exchange somewhere "who" is the new exchange server? I'm confused. I hate it when software does it automatically. I want to force it to do something.

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