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• WPF textbox derived control override drag&drop OnPreviewDrop (C sharp)

  - by Petr Klus

  Hi, I have been working on my custom control derived from the TextBox and I have encountered a problem I can not solve right now. Brief description of the problem: my textbox contains plain text which contains tags which I want to keep consistent - so far I have overriden text selection so they can be selected only as a whole tag etc. Right now I have moved to processing of drag&drop. If any text is dropped on the textfield and it is dropped on the tag, I want the insertion to be moved before or after the tag. The actual problem is with setting of the e.Handled=true. If I set it to true, it almost works - the text is inserted via my routine, but it is not removed from the source. If I set it to false, after executing my method the original textbox's insertion method is run. Is there any way to alter event routing? Or am I approaching this wrong from the start? Code of my method: protected override void OnPreviewDragEnter(DragEventArgs e) { base.OnPreviewDragEnter(e); e.Handled = true; // let us draw our very own caret... } protected override void OnPreviewDrop(DragEventArgs e) { base.OnPreviewDrop(e); fieldsReady = false; int selStart = this.SelectionStart; int selLength = this.SelectionLength; string droppedData = (string)e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.StringFormat); // where to insert Point whereDropped = e.GetPosition(this); int droppedIndex = GetCharacterIndexFromPoint(whereDropped, true); if (droppedIndex == this.Text.Length - 1) { double c = GetRectFromCharacterIndex(droppedIndex).X; if (whereDropped.X > c) droppedIndex++; } // only if the source was us, do this: if (this.SelectionLength > 0) // this means that we are dragging from our textbox! { // was there any selection? if so, remove it! this.Text = this.Text.Substring(0, selStart) + this.Text.Substring(selStart + selLength); e.Handled = true; // 2DO!! alter the indices depending on the removed selection // insertion this.Text = this.Text.Substring(0, droppedIndex) + droppedData + this.Text.Substring(droppedIndex); } }

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• Problem in understanding connectSlotsByName() in pyqt???

  - by Jebagnanadas

  Hi all, I couldn't understand the connectSlotsByName() method which is predominently used by pyuic4.. As far the class is single in a PyQt file it's ok since we can use self which will be associated with a single object throughout.. But when we try to use various classes from different files the problem and the need to use connectSlotsByName() arises.. Here's what i encountered which is weird.. I created a stacked widget.. I placed my first widget on it.. It has a button called "Next ". On clicking next it hides the current widget and adds another widget which has the "click me" button.. The problem here is the click event for "click me" button in second is not captured.. It's a minimal example that i can give for my original problem.. Please help me.. This is file No.1..(which has the parent stacked widget and it's first page). On clicking next it adds the second page which has "clickme" button in file2.. from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui import file2 class Ui_StackedWidget(QtGui.QStackedWidget): def __init__(self,parent=None): QtGui.QStackedWidget.__init__(self,parent) self.setObjectName("self") self.resize(484, 370) self.setWindowTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("self", "stacked widget", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8)) self.createWidget1() def createWidget1(self): self.page=QtGui.QWidget() self.page.setObjectName("widget1") self.pushButton=QtGui.QPushButton(self.page) self.pushButton.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(150, 230, 91, 31)) self.pushButton.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("self", "Next >", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8)) self.addWidget(self.page) QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(self.page) QtCore.QObject.connect(self.pushButton,QtCore.SIGNAL('clicked()'),self.showWidget2) def showWidget2(self): self.page.hide() obj=file2.widget2() obj.createWidget2(self) if __name__ == "__main__": import sys app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv) ui = Ui_StackedWidget() ui.show() sys.exit(app.exec_()) Here's file2 from PyQt4 import QtGui,QtCore class widget2(): def createWidget2(self,parent): self.page = QtGui.QWidget() self.page.setObjectName("page") self.parent=parent self.groupBox = QtGui.QGroupBox(self.page) self.groupBox.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(30, 20, 421, 311)) self.groupBox.setObjectName("groupBox") self.groupBox.setTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("self", "TestGroupBox", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8)) self.pushButton = QtGui.QPushButton(self.groupBox) self.pushButton.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(150, 120, 92, 28)) self.pushButton.setObjectName("pushButton") self.pushButton.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("self", "Click Me", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8)) self.parent.addWidget(self.page) self.parent.setCurrentWidget(self.page) QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(self.page) QtCore.QObject.connect(self.pushButton,QtCore.SIGNAL('clicked()'),self.printMessage) def printMessage(self): print("Hai") Though in both the widgets(i mean pages) QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(self.page) the clicked signal in second dialog isn't getting processed. Thanks in advance.. Might be a beginner question..

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• [c#] SoundPlayer.PlaySync stopping prematurely

  - by JeffE

  I want to play a wav file synchronously on the gui thread, but my call to PlaySync is returning early (and prematurely stopping playback). The wav file is 2-3 minutes. Here's what my code looks like: //in gui code (event handler) //play first audio file JE_SP.playSound("example1.wav"); //do a few other statements doSomethingUnrelated(); //play another audio file JE_SP.playSound("example2.wav"); //library method written by me, called in gui code, but located in another assembly public static int playSound(string wavFile, bool synchronous = true, bool debug = true, string logFile = "", int loadTimeout = FIVE_MINUTES_IN_MS) { SoundPlayer sp = new SoundPlayer(); sp.LoadTimeout = loadTimeout; sp.SoundLocation = wavFile; sp.Load(); switch (synchronous) { case true: sp.PlaySync(); break; case false: sp.Play(); break; } if (debug) { string writeMe = "JE_SP: \r\n\tSoundLocation = " + sp.SoundLocation + "\r\n\t" + "Synchronous = " + synchronous.ToString(); JE_Log.logMessage(writeMe); } sp.Dispose(); sp = null; return 0; } Some things I've thought of are the load timeout, and playing the audio on another thread and then manually 'freeze' the gui by forcing the gui thread to wait for the duration of the sound file. I tried lengthening the load timeout, but that did nothing. I'm not quite sure what the best way to get the duration of a wav file is without using code written by somebody who isn't me/Microsoft. I suppose this can be calculated since I know the file size, and all of the encoding properties (bitrate, sample rate, sample size, etc) are consistent across all files I intend to play. Can somebody elaborate on how to calculate the duration of a wav file using this info? That is, if nobody has an idea about why PlaySync is returning early. Of Note: I encountered a similar problem in VB 6 a while ago, but that was caused by a timeout, which I don't suspect to be a problem here. Shorter (< 1min) files seem to play fine, so I might decide to manually edit the longer files down, then play them separately with multiple calls.

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• Cannot get document.getElementById() to find my textarea

  - by Slruh

  Maybe I've been working on my site for to long, but I can't get the following to work. I am having my textarea fire an onkeyup() event called limiter which is supposed to check the textarea and limit the text in the box, while updated another readonly input field that shows the amount of characters left. This is the javascript code: <script type="text/javascript"> var count = "500"; function limiter(){ var comment = document.getElementById("comment"); var form = this.parent; var tex = comment.value; var len = tex.length; if(len > count){ tex = tex.substring(0,count); comment.value =tex; return false; } form.limit.value = count-len; } </script> The form looks like this: <form id="add-course-rating" method="post" action="/course_ratings/add/8/3/5/3" accept- charset="utf-8"><div style="display:none;"><input type="hidden" name="_method" value="POST" /> //Other inputs here <div id="comment-name" style="margin-top:10px"> <div id="comment-name-text"> <b>Comments</b><br /> Please leave any comments that you think will help anyone else. </div> <style type="text/css"> .rating-form-box textarea { -moz-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; } </style> <div class="rating-form-box"> <textarea name="data[CourseRatings][comment]" id="comment" onkeyup="limiter()" cols="115" rows="5" ></textarea> <script type="text/javascript"> document.write("<input type=text name=limit size=4 readonly value="+count+">"); </script> </div> <input type="submit" value="Add Rating" style="float: right;"> </form> If anyone can help that would be great.

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• Android: Stopping method to be called twice if already running.

  - by user285831

  I'm trying to prevent my application to call the same method twice in the event of a double-click, or if the user presses different buttons quickly, almost at the same time. I have clickable Views, acting as buttons, that call the same method but passing different parameters. This is the call: startTheSearch(context, getState(), what, where); Inside this method I'm creating a new Thread, because it queries a web server for the result: new Thread(new Runnable() { public void run() { progDiag = ProgressDialog.show(ctx, null, "Searching", true); getServerXML(context, what, where, searchIsCustom, mOffset); handler.sendEmptyMessage(0); } }).start(); The problem is that upon two quick clicks, the method is fired twice, two threads are created, and consequently two new activities are created. That makes my app crash. When the methods are done, and we have the result from the server, we call the handler: private Handler handler = new Handler() { @Override public void handleMessage(Message msg) { super.handleMessage(msg); try { Intent i = new Intent(Golf.this, Result.class); Bundle b = new Bundle(); b.putString("what", mWhat); b.putString("where", mWhere); b.putInt("offset", mOffset); b.putBoolean("searchIsCustom", searchIsCustom); i.putExtras(b); startActivityForResult(i, Activity.RESULT_OK); progDiag.dismiss(); } catch (Exception e) { Alerts.generalDialogAlert("Error", "settings", ctx); } } }; I tried to have a global boolean variable called "blocked" initially set to false, creating a condition like: if(!blocked){ blocked = true; new Thread(new Runnable() { public void run() { But this only seems to work on slower phones like the G1, I tried on Nexus and before it set blocked = true, the second request has was granted. So is there any way I can block the method being called if it's already running, or if the thread has started so it wont create a new one? Please, I really need to fix this. I've been developing on Android for almost 2 months now, but I'm yet to tackle that bug. Thanks in advance.

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• WPF/INotifyPropertyChanged, change the value of txtA, the txtB and txtC should change automatically?

  - by user1033098

  I supposed, once i change the value of txtA, the txtB and txtC would change automatically, since i have implemented INotifyPropertyChanged for ValueA. But they were not updated on UI. txtB was always 100, and txtC was always -50. I don't know what's the reason. My Xaml.. <Window x:Class="WpfApplicationReviewDemo.MainWindow" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525"> <StackPanel> <TextBox Name="txtA" Text="{Binding ValueA}" /> <TextBox Name="txtB" Text="{Binding ValueB}" /> <TextBox Name="txtC" Text="{Binding ValueC}" /> </StackPanel> </Window> My code behind... public partial class MainWindow : Window { public MainWindow() { InitializeComponent(); this.DataContext = new Model(); } } public class Model : INotifyPropertyChanged { private decimal valueA; public decimal ValueA { get { return valueA; } set { valueA = value; PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("ValueA")); } } private decimal valueB; public decimal ValueB { get { valueB = ValueA + 100; return valueB; } set { valueB = value; PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("ValueB")); } } private decimal valueC; public decimal ValueC { get { valueC = ValueA - 50; return valueC; } set { valueC = value; PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("ValueC")); } } #region INotifyPropertyChanged Members public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; #endregion } After i add code to the set method of ValueA property, it works. public decimal ValueA { get { return valueA; } set { valueA = value; PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("ValueA")); PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("ValueB")); PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("ValueC")); } } But I supposed it should be automatically refresh/updated for txtB and txtC. Please advise.

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• Does this type of function or technique have a name?

  - by DHR

  HI there, I'm slightly new to programming, more of a hobby. I am wondering if a the following logic or technique has a specific name, or term. My current project has 7 check boxes, one for each day of the week. I needed an easy to save which boxes were checked. The following is the method to saved the checked boxes to a single number. Each checkbox gets a value that is double from the last check box. When I want to find out which boxes are checked, I work backwards, and see how many times I can divide the total value by the checkbox value. private int SetSelectedDays() { int selectedDays = 0; selectedDays += (dayMon.Checked) ? 1 : 0; selectedDays += (dayTue.Checked) ? 2 : 0; selectedDays += (dayWed.Checked) ? 4 : 0; selectedDays += (dayThu.Checked) ? 8 : 0; selectedDays += (dayFri.Checked) ? 16 : 0; selectedDays += (daySat.Checked) ? 32 : 0; selectedDays += (daySun.Checked) ? 64 : 0; return selectedDays; } private void SelectedDays(int n) { if ((n / 64 >= 1) & !(n / 64 >= 2)) { n -= 64; daySun.Checked = true; } if ((n / 32 >= 1) & !(n / 32 >= 2)) { n -= 32; daySat.Checked = true; } if ((n / 16 >= 1) & !(n / 16 >= 2)) { n -= 16; dayFri.Checked = true; } if ((n / 8 >= 1) & !(n / 8 >= 2)) { n -= 8; dayThu.Checked = true; } if ((n / 4 >= 1) & !(n / 4 >= 2)) { n -= 4; dayWed.Checked = true; } if ((n / 2 >= 1) & !(n / 2 >= 2)) { n -= 2; dayTue.Checked = true; } if ((n / 1 >= 1) & !(n / 1 >= 2)) { n -= 1; dayMon.Checked = true; } if (n > 0) { //log event } } The method works well for what I need it for, however, if you do see another way of doing this, or a better way to writing, I would be interested in your suggestions.

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• Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

  - by raul.goycoolea

  @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Abstract   Reference architecture provides needed architectural information that can be provided in advance to an enterprise to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps business owners to actualize their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. It evaluates the IT systems, based on Reference Architecture goals, principles, and standards. It helps to reduce IT costs by increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc. Telecom Reference Architecture provides customers with the flexibility to view bundled service bills online with the provision of multiple services. It provides real-time, flexible billing and charging systems, to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Enterprises. It lays the foundation for a Telecom Reference Architecture by articulating the requirements, drivers, and pitfalls for telecom service providers. It describes generic reference architecture for telecom enterprises and moves on to explain how to achieve Enterprise Reference Architecture by using SOA.   Introduction   A Reference Architecture provides a methodology, set of practices, template, and standards based on a set of successful solutions implemented earlier. These solutions have been generalized and structured for the depiction of both a logical and a physical architecture, based on the harvesting of a set of patterns that describe observations in a number of successful implementations. It helps as a reference for the various architectures that an enterprise can implement to solve various problems. It can be used as the starting point or the point of comparisons for various departments/business entities of a company, or for the various companies for an enterprise. It provides multiple views for multiple stakeholders.   Major artifacts of the Enterprise Reference Architecture are methodologies, standards, metadata, documents, design patterns, etc.   Purpose of Reference Architecture   In most cases, architects spend a lot of time researching, investigating, defining, and re-arguing architectural decisions. It is like reinventing the wheel as their peers in other organizations or even the same organization have already spent a lot of time and effort defining their own architectural practices. This prevents an organization from learning from its own experiences and applying that knowledge for increased effectiveness.   Reference architecture provides missing architectural information that can be provided in advance to project team members to enable consistent architectural best practices.   Enterprise Reference Architecture helps an enterprise to achieve the following at the abstract level:   ·       Reference architecture is more of a communication channel to an enterprise ·       Helps the business owners to accommodate to their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. ·       Evaluates the IT systems based on Reference Architecture Principles ·       Reduces IT spending through increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc ·       A Real-time Integration Model helps to reduce the latency of the data updates Is used to define a single source of Information ·       Provides a clear view on how to manage information and security ·       Defines the policy around the data ownership, product boundaries, etc. ·       Helps with cost optimization across project and solution portfolios by eliminating unused or duplicate investments and assets ·       Has a shorter implementation time and cost   Once the reference architecture is in place, the set of architectural principles, standards, reference models, and best practices ensure that the aligned investments have the greatest possible likelihood of success in both the near term and the long term (TCO).     Common pitfalls for Telecom Service Providers   Telecom Reference Architecture serves as the first step towards maturity for a telecom service provider. During the course of our assignments/experiences with telecom players, we have come across the following observations – Some of these indicate a lack of maturity of the telecom service provider:   ·       In markets that are growing and not so mature, it has been observed that telcos have a significant amount of in-house or home-grown applications. In some of these markets, the growth has been so rapid that IT has been unable to cope with business demands. Telcos have shown a tendency to come up with workarounds in their IT applications so as to meet business needs. ·       Even for core functions like provisioning or mediation, some telcos have tried to manage with home-grown applications. ·       Most of the applications do not have the required scalability or maintainability to sustain growth in volumes or functionality. ·       Applications face interoperability issues with other applications in the operator's landscape. Integrating a new application or network element requires considerable effort on the part of the other applications. ·       Application boundaries are not clear, and functionality that is not in the initial scope of that application gets pushed onto it. This results in the development of the multiple, small applications without proper boundaries. ·       Usage of Legacy OSS/BSS systems, poor Integration across Multiple COTS Products and Internal Systems. Most of the Integrations are developed on ad-hoc basis and Point-to-Point Integration. ·       Redundancy of the business functions in different applications • Fragmented data across the different applications and no integrated view of the strategic data • Lot of performance Issues due to the usage of the complex integration across OSS and BSS systems   However, this is where the maturity of the telecom industry as a whole can be of help. The collaborative efforts of telcos to overcome some of these problems have resulted in bodies like the TM Forum. They have come up with frameworks for business processes, data, applications, and technology for telecom service providers. These could be a good starting point for telcos to clean up their enterprise landscape.   Industry Trends in Telecom Reference Architecture   Telecom reference architectures are evolving rapidly because telcos are facing business and IT challenges.   “The reality is that there probably is no killer application, no silver bullet that the telcos can latch onto to carry them into a 21st Century.... Instead, there are probably hundreds – perhaps thousands – of niche applications.... And the only way to find which of these works for you is to try out lots of them, ramp up the ones that work, and discontinue the ones that fail.” – Martin Creaner President & CTO TM Forum.   The following trends have been observed in telecom reference architecture:   ·       Transformation of business structures to align with customer requirements ·       Adoption of more Internet-like technical architectures. The Web 2.0 concept is increasingly being used. ·       Virtualization of the traditional operations support system (OSS) ·       Adoption of SOA to support development of IP-based services ·       Adoption of frameworks like Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and IP Multimedia Subsystem ·       (IMS) to enable seamless deployment of various services over fixed and mobile networks ·       Replacement of in-house, customized, and stove-piped OSS/BSS with standards-based COTS products ·       Compliance with industry standards and frameworks like eTOM, SID, and TAM to enable seamless integration with other standards-based products   Drivers of Reference Architecture   The drivers of the Reference Architecture are Reference Architecture Goals, Principles, and Enterprise Vision and Telecom Transformation. The details are depicted below diagram. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Figure 1. Drivers for Reference Architecture @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Today’s telecom reference architectures should seamlessly integrate traditional legacy-based applications and transition to next-generation network technologies (e.g., IP multimedia subsystems). This has resulted in new requirements for flexible, real-time billing and OSS/BSS systems and implications on the service provider’s organizational requirements and structure.   Telecom reference architectures are today expected to:   ·       Integrate voice, messaging, email and other VAS over fixed and mobile networks, back end systems ·       Be able to provision multiple services and service bundles • Deliver converged voice, video and data services ·       Leverage the existing Network Infrastructure ·       Provide real-time, flexible billing and charging systems to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. ·       Support charging of advanced data services such as VoIP, On-Demand, Services (e.g.  Video), IMS/SIP Services, Mobile Money, Content Services and IPTV. ·       Help in faster deployment of new services • Serve as an effective platform for collaboration between network IT and business organizations ·       Harness the potential of converging technology, networks, devices and content to develop multimedia services and solutions of ever-increasing sophistication on a single Internet Protocol (IP) ·       Ensure better service delivery and zero revenue leakage through real-time balance and credit management ·       Lower operating costs to drive profitability   Enterprise Reference Architecture   The Enterprise Reference Architecture (RA) fills the gap between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the reference model and the implementation. Reference architecture provides detailed architectural information in a common format such that solutions can be repeatedly designed and deployed in a consistent, high-quality, supportable fashion. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Application Usage and how to achieve the Enterprise Level Reference Architecture using SOA.   • Telecom Reference Architecture • Enterprise SOA based Reference Architecture   Telecom Reference Architecture   Tele Management Forum’s New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) is an architectural framework for organizing, integrating, and implementing telecom systems. NGOSS is a component-based framework consisting of the following elements:   ·       The enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) is a business process framework. ·       The Shared Information Data (SID) model provides a comprehensive information framework that may be specialized for the needs of a particular organization. ·       The Telecom Application Map (TAM) is an application framework to depict the functional footprint of applications, relative to the horizontal processes within eTOM. ·       The Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA) is an integrated framework. TNA is an architecture that is sustainable through technology changes.   NGOSS Architecture Standards are:   ·       Centralized data ·       Loosely coupled distributed systems ·       Application components/re-use  ·       A technology-neutral system framework with technology specific implementations ·       Interoperability to service provider data/processes ·       Allows more re-use of business components across multiple business scenarios ·       Workflow automation   The traditional operator systems architecture consists of four layers,   ·       Business Support System (BSS) layer, with focus toward customers and business partners. Manages order, subscriber, pricing, rating, and billing information. ·       Operations Support System (OSS) layer, built around product, service, and resource inventories. ·       Networks layer – consists of Network elements and 3rd Party Systems. ·       Integration Layer – to maximize application communication and overall solution flexibility.   Reference architecture for telecom enterprises is depicted below. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 2. Telecom Reference Architecture   The major building blocks of any Telecom Service Provider architecture are as follows:   1. Customer Relationship Management   CRM encompasses the end-to-end lifecycle of the customer: customer initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering, and service activation, customer care and support, proactive campaigns, cross sell/up sell, and retention/loyalty.   CRM also includes the collection of customer information and its application to personalize, customize, and integrate delivery of service to a customer, as well as to identify opportunities for increasing the value of the customer to the enterprise.   The key functionalities related to Customer Relationship Management are   ·       Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of a customer request for products. ·       Create and manage customer profiles. ·       Manage all interactions with customers – inquiries, requests, and responses. ·       Provide updates to Billing and other south bound systems on customer/account related updates such as customer/ account creation, deletion, modification, request bills, final bill, duplicate bills, credit limits through Middleware. ·       Work with Order Management System, Product, and Service Management components within CRM. ·       Manage customer preferences – Involve all the touch points and channels to the customer, including contact center, retail stores, dealers, self service, and field service, as well as via any media (phone, face to face, web, mobile device, chat, email, SMS, mail, the customer's bill, etc.). ·       Support single interface for customer contact details, preferences, account details, offers, customer premise equipment, bill details, bill cycle details, and customer interactions.   CRM applications interact with customers through customer touch points like portals, point-of-sale terminals, interactive voice response systems, etc. The requests by customers are sent via fulfillment/provisioning to billing system for ordering processing.   2. Billing and Revenue Management   Billing and Revenue Management handles the collection of appropriate usage records and production of timely and accurate bills – for providing pre-bill usage information and billing to customers; for processing their payments; and for performing payment collections. In addition, it handles customer inquiries about bills, provides billing inquiry status, and is responsible for resolving billing problems to the customer's satisfaction in a timely manner. This process grouping also supports prepayment for services.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       To ensure that enterprise revenue is billed and invoices delivered appropriately to customers. ·       To manage customers’ billing accounts, process their payments, perform payment collections, and monitor the status of the account balance. ·       To ensure the timely and effective fulfillment of all customer bill inquiries and complaints. ·       Collect the usage records from mediation and ensure appropriate rating and discounting of all usage and pricing. ·       Support revenue sharing; split charging where usage is guided to an account different from the service consumer. ·       Support prepaid and post-paid rating. ·       Send notification on approach / exceeding the usage thresholds as enforced by the subscribed offer, and / or as setup by the customer. ·       Support prepaid, post paid, and hybrid (where some services are prepaid and the rest of the services post paid) customers and conversion from post paid to prepaid, and vice versa. ·       Support different billing function requirements like charge prorating, promotion, discount, adjustment, waiver, write-off, account receivable, GL Interface, late payment fee, credit control, dunning, account or service suspension, re-activation, expiry, termination, contract violation penalty, etc. ·       Initiate direct debit to collect payment against an invoice outstanding. ·       Send notification to Middleware on different events; for example, payment receipt, pre-suspension, threshold exceed, etc.   Billing systems typically get usage data from mediation systems for rating and billing. They get provisioning requests from order management systems and inquiries from CRM systems. Convergent and real-time billing systems can directly get usage details from network elements.   3. Mediation   Mediation systems transform/translate the Raw or Native Usage Data Records into a general format that is acceptable to billing for their rating purposes.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Mediation system in the end-to-end solution.   ·       Collect Usage Data Records from different data sources – like network elements, routers, servers – via different protocol and interfaces. ·       Process Usage Data Records – Mediation will process Usage Data Records as per the source format. ·       Validate Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Segregates Usage Data Records coming from each source to multiple, based on the segregation requirement of end Application. ·       Aggregates Usage Data Records based on the aggregation rule if any from different sources. ·       Consolidates multiple Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Delivers formatted Usage Data Records to different end application like Billing, Interconnect, Fraud Management, etc. ·       Generates audit trail for incoming Usage Data Records and keeps track of all the Usage Data Records at various stages of mediation process. ·       Checks duplicate Usage Data Records across files for a given time window.   4. Fulfillment   This area is responsible for providing customers with their requested products in a timely and correct manner. It translates the customer's business or personal need into a solution that can be delivered using the specific products in the enterprise's portfolio. This process informs the customers of the status of their purchase order, and ensures completion on time, as well as ensuring a delighted customer. These processes are responsible for accepting and issuing orders. They deal with pre-order feasibility determination, credit authorization, order issuance, order status and tracking, customer update on customer order activities, and customer notification on order completion. Order management and provisioning applications fall into this category.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       Issuing new customer orders, modifying open customer orders, or canceling open customer orders; ·       Verifying whether specific non-standard offerings sought by customers are feasible and supportable; ·       Checking the credit worthiness of customers as part of the customer order process; ·       Testing the completed offering to ensure it is working correctly; ·       Updating of the Customer Inventory Database to reflect that the specific product offering has been allocated, modified, or cancelled; ·       Assigning and tracking customer provisioning activities; ·       Managing customer provisioning jeopardy conditions; and ·       Reporting progress on customer orders and other processes to customer.   These applications typically get orders from CRM systems. They interact with network elements and billing systems for fulfillment of orders.   5. Enterprise Management   This process area includes those processes that manage enterprise-wide activities and needs, or have application within the enterprise as a whole. They encompass all business management processes that   ·       Are necessary to support the whole of the enterprise, including processes for financial management, legal management, regulatory management, process, cost, and quality management, etc.;   ·       Are responsible for setting corporate policies, strategies, and directions, and for providing guidelines and targets for the whole of the business, including strategy development and planning for areas, such as Enterprise Architecture, that are integral to the direction and development of the business;   ·       Occur throughout the enterprise, including processes for project management, performance assessments, cost assessments, etc.     (i) Enterprise Risk Management:   Enterprise Risk Management focuses on assuring that risks and threats to the enterprise value and/or reputation are identified, and appropriate controls are in place to minimize or eliminate the identified risks. The identified risks may be physical or logical/virtual. Successful risk management ensures that the enterprise can support its mission critical operations, processes, applications, and communications in the face of serious incidents such as security threats/violations and fraud attempts. Two key areas covered in Risk Management by telecom operators are:   ·       Revenue Assurance: Revenue assurance system will be responsible for identifying revenue loss scenarios across components/systems, and will help in rectifying the problems. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Revenue Assurance system in the end-to-end solution. o   Identify all usage information dropped when networks are being upgraded. o   Interconnect bill verification. o   Identify where services are routinely provisioned but never billed. o   Identify poor sales policies that are intensifying collections problems. o   Find leakage where usage is sent to error bucket and never billed for. o   Find leakage where field service, CRM, and network build-out are not optimized.   ·       Fraud Management: Involves collecting data from different systems to identify abnormalities in traffic patterns, usage patterns, and subscription patterns to report suspicious activity that might suggest fraudulent usage of resources, resulting in revenue losses to the operator.   The key roles and responsibilities of the system component are as follows:   o   Fraud management system will capture and monitor high usage (over a certain threshold) in terms of duration, value, and number of calls for each subscriber. The threshold for each subscriber is decided by the system and fixed automatically. o   Fraud management will be able to detect the unauthorized access to services for certain subscribers. These subscribers may have been provided unauthorized services by employees. The component will raise the alert to the operator the very first time of such illegal calls or calls which are not billed. o   The solution will be to have an alarm management system that will deliver alarms to the operator/provider whenever it detects a fraud, thus minimizing fraud by catching it the first time it occurs. o   The Fraud Management system will be capable of interfacing with switches, mediation systems, and billing systems   (ii) Knowledge Management   This process focuses on knowledge management, technology research within the enterprise, and the evaluation of potential technology acquisitions.   Key responsibilities of knowledge base management are to   ·       Maintain knowledge base – Creation and updating of knowledge base on ongoing basis. ·       Search knowledge base – Search of knowledge base on keywords or category browse ·       Maintain metadata – Management of metadata on knowledge base to ensure effective management and search. ·       Run report generator. ·       Provide content – Add content to the knowledge base, e.g., user guides, operational manual, etc.   (iii) Document Management   It focuses on maintaining a repository of all electronic documents or images of paper documents relevant to the enterprise using a system.   (iv) Data Management   It manages data as a valuable resource for any enterprise. For telecom enterprises, the typical areas covered are Master Data Management, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence. It is also responsible for data governance, security, quality, and database management.   Key responsibilities of Data Management are   ·       Using ETL, extract the data from CRM, Billing, web content, ERP, campaign management, financial, network operations, asset management info, customer contact data, customer measures, benchmarks, process data, e.g., process inputs, outputs, and measures, into Enterprise Data Warehouse. ·       Management of data traceability with source, data related business rules/decisions, data quality, data cleansing data reconciliation, competitors data – storage for all the enterprise data (customer profiles, products, offers, revenues, etc.) ·       Get online update through night time replication or physical backup process at regular frequency. ·       Provide the data access to business intelligence and other systems for their analysis, report generation, and use.   (v) Business Intelligence   It uses the Enterprise Data to provide the various analysis and reports that contain prospects and analytics for customer retention, acquisition of new customers due to the offers, and SLAs. It will generate right and optimized plans – bolt-ons for the customers.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Business Intelligence system at the Enterprise Level:   ·       It will do Pattern analysis and reports problem. ·       It will do Data Analysis – Statistical analysis, data profiling, affinity analysis of data, customer segment wise usage patterns on offers, products, service and revenue generation against services and customer segments. ·       It will do Performance (business, system, and forecast) analysis, churn propensity, response time, and SLAs analysis. ·       It will support for online and offline analysis, and report drill down capability. ·       It will collect, store, and report various SLA data. ·       It will provide the necessary intelligence for marketing and working on campaigns, etc., with cost benefit analysis and predictions.   It will advise on customer promotions with additional services based on loyalty and credit history of customer   ·       It will Interface with Enterprise Data Management system for data to run reports and analysis tasks. It will interface with the campaign schedules, based on historical success evidence.   (vi) Stakeholder and External Relations Management   It manages the enterprise's relationship with stakeholders and outside entities. Stakeholders include shareholders, employee organizations, etc. Outside entities include regulators, local community, and unions. Some of the processes within this grouping are Shareholder Relations, External Affairs, Labor Relations, and Public Relations.   (vii) Enterprise Resource Planning   It is used to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the enterprise and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise wide system environment.   The key roles and responsibilities for Enterprise System are given below:   ·        It will handle responsibilities such as core accounting, financial, and management reporting. ·       It will interface with CRM for capturing customer account and details. ·       It will interface with billing to capture the billing revenue and other financial data. ·       It will be responsible for executing the dunning process. Billing will send the required feed to ERP for execution of dunning. ·       It will interface with the CRM and Billing through batch interfaces. Enterprise management systems are like horizontals in the enterprise and typically interact with all major telecom systems. E.g., an ERP system interacts with CRM, Fulfillment, and Billing systems for different kinds of data exchanges.   6. External Interfaces/Touch Points   The typical external parties are customers, suppliers/partners, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders. External interactions from/to a Service Provider to other parties can be achieved by a variety of mechanisms, including:   ·       Exchange of emails or faxes ·       Call Centers ·       Web Portals ·       Business-to-Business (B2B) automated transactions   These applications provide an Internet technology driven interface to external parties to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These can provide fully or partially automated service to external parties through various touch points.   Typical characteristics of these touch points are   ·       Pre-integrated self-service system, including stand-alone web framework or integration front end with a portal engine ·       Self services layer exposing atomic web services/APIs for reuse by multiple systems across the architectural environment ·       Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a portal engine or web application   These touch points mostly interact with the CRM systems for requests, inquiries, and responses.   7. Middleware   The component will be primarily responsible for integrating the different systems components under a common platform. It should provide a Standards-Based Platform for building Service Oriented Architecture and Composite Applications. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Middleware component in the end-to-end solution.   ·       As an integration framework, covering to and fro interfaces ·       Provide a web service framework with service registry. ·       Support SOA framework with SOA service registry. ·       Each of the interfaces from / to Middleware to other components would handle data transformation, translation, and mapping of data points. ·       Receive data from the caller / activate and/or forward the data to the recipient system in XML format. ·       Use standard XML for data exchange. ·       Provide the response back to the service/call initiator. ·       Provide a tracking until the response completion. ·       Keep a store transitional data against each call/transaction. ·       Interface through Middleware to get any information that is possible and allowed from the existing systems to enterprise systems; e.g., customer profile and customer history, etc. ·       Provide the data in a common unified format to the SOA calls across systems, and follow the Enterprise Architecture directive. ·       Provide an audit trail for all transactions being handled by the component.   8. Network Elements   The term Network Element means a facility or equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. Such terms also includes features, functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of such facility or equipment, including subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information sufficient for billing and collection or used in the transmission, routing, or other provision of a telecommunications service.   Typical network elements in a GSM network are Home Location Register (HLR), Intelligent Network (IN), Mobile Switching Center (MSC), SMS Center (SMSC), and network elements for other value added services like Push-to-talk (PTT), Ring Back Tone (RBT), etc.   Network elements are invoked when subscribers use their telecom devices for any kind of usage. These elements generate usage data and pass it on to downstream systems like mediation and billing system for rating and billing. They also integrate with provisioning systems for order/service fulfillment.   9. 3rd Party Applications   3rd Party systems are applications like content providers, payment gateways, point of sale terminals, and databases/applications maintained by the Government.   Depending on applicability and the type of functionality provided by 3rd party applications, the integration with different telecom systems like CRM, provisioning, and billing will be done.   10. Service Delivery Platform   A service delivery platform (SDP) provides the architecture for the rapid deployment, provisioning, execution, management, and billing of value added telecom services. SDPs are based on the concept of SOA and layered architecture. They support the delivery of voice, data services, and content in network and device-independent fashion. They allow application developers to aggregate network capabilities, services, and sources of content. SDPs typically contain layers for web services exposure, service application development, and network abstraction.   SOA Reference Architecture   SOA concept is based on the principle of developing reusable business service and building applications by composing those services, instead of building monolithic applications in silos. It’s about bridging the gap between business and IT through a set of business-aligned IT services, using a set of design principles, patterns, and techniques.   In an SOA, resources are made available to participants in a value net, enterprise, line of business (typically spanning multiple applications within an enterprise or across multiple enterprises). It consists of a set of business-aligned IT services that collectively fulfill an organization’s business processes and goals. We can choreograph these services into composite applications and invoke them through standard protocols. SOA, apart from agility and reusability, enables:   ·       The business to specify processes as orchestrations of reusable services ·       Technology agnostic business design, with technology hidden behind service interface ·       A contractual-like interaction between business and IT, based on service SLAs ·       Accountability and governance, better aligned to business services ·       Applications interconnections untangling by allowing access only through service interfaces, reducing the daunting side effects of change ·       Reduced pressure to replace legacy and extended lifetime for legacy applications, through encapsulation in services   ·       A Cloud Computing paradigm, using web services technologies, that makes possible service outsourcing on an on-demand, utility-like, pay-per-usage basis   The following section represents the Reference Architecture of logical view for the Telecom Solution. The new custom built application needs to align with this logical architecture in the long run to achieve EA benefits.   Packaged implementation applications, such as ERP billing applications, need to expose their functions as service providers (as other applications consume) and interact with other applications as service consumers.   COT applications need to expose services through wrappers such as adapters to utilize existing resources and at the same time achieve Enterprise Architecture goal and objectives.   The following are the various layers for Enterprise level deployment of SOA. This diagram captures the abstract view of Enterprise SOA layers and important components of each layer. Layered architecture means decomposition of services such that most interactions occur between adjacent layers. However, there is no strict rule that top layers should not directly communicate with bottom layers.   The diagram below represents the important logical pieces that would result from overall SOA transformation. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 3. Enterprise SOA Reference Architecture 1.          Operational System Layer: This layer consists of all packaged applications like CRM, ERP, custom built applications, COTS based applications like Billing, Revenue Management, Fulfilment, and the Enterprise databases that are essential and contribute directly or indirectly to the Enterprise OSS/BSS Transformation.   ERP holds the data of Asset Lifecycle Management, Supply Chain, and Advanced Procurement and Human Capital Management, etc.   CRM holds the data related to Order, Sales, and Marketing, Customer Care, Partner Relationship Management, Loyalty, etc.   Content Management handles Enterprise Search and Query. Billing application consists of the following components:   ·       Collections Management, Customer Billing Management, Invoices, Real-Time Rating, Discounting, and Applying of Charges ·       Enterprise databases will hold both the application and service data, whether structured or unstructured.   MDM - Master data majorly consists of Customer, Order, Product, and Service Data.     2.          Enterprise Component Layer:   This layer consists of the Application Services and Common Services that are responsible for realizing the functionality and maintaining the QoS of the exposed services. This layer uses container-based technologies such as application servers to implement the components, workload management, high availability, and load balancing.   Application Services: This Service Layer enables application, technology, and database abstraction so that the complex accessing logic is hidden from the other service layers. This is a basic service layer, which exposes application functionalities and data as reusable services. The three types of the Application access services are:   ·       Application Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application level functionalities as a reusable service between BSS to BSS and BSS to OSS integration. This layer is enabled using disparate technology such as Web Service, Integration Servers, and Adaptors, etc.   ·       Data Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application data services as a reusable reference data service. This is done via direct interaction with application data. and provides the federated query.   ·       Network Access Service: This Service Layer exposes provisioning layer as a reusable service from OSS to OSS integration. This integration service emphasizes the need for high performance, stateless process flows, and distributed design.   Common Services encompasses management of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data such as information services, portal services, interaction services, infrastructure services, and security services, etc.   3.          Integration Layer:   This consists of service infrastructure components like service bus, service gateway for partner integration, service registry, service repository, and BPEL processor. Service bus will carry the service invocation payloads/messages between consumers and providers. The other important functions expected from it are itinerary based routing, distributed caching of routing information, transformations, and all qualities of service for messaging-like reliability, scalability, and availability, etc. Service registry will hold all contracts (wsdl) of services, and it helps developers to locate or discover service during design time or runtime.   • BPEL processor would be useful in orchestrating the services to compose a complex business scenario or process. • Workflow and business rules management are also required to support manual triggering of certain activities within business process. based on the rules setup and also the state machine information. Application, data, and service mediation layer typically forms the overall composite application development framework or SOA Framework.   4.          Business Process Layer: These are typically the intermediate services layer and represent Shared Business Process Services. At Enterprise Level, these services are from Customer Management, Order Management, Billing, Finance, and Asset Management application domains.   5.          Access Layer: This layer consists of portals for Enterprise and provides a single view of Enterprise information management and dashboard services.   6.          Channel Layer: This consists of various devices; applications that form part of extended enterprise; browsers through which users access the applications.   7.          Client Layer: This designates the different types of users accessing the enterprise applications. The type of user typically would be an important factor in determining the level of access to applications.   8.          Vertical pieces like management, monitoring, security, and development cut across all horizontal layers Management and monitoring involves all aspects of SOA-like services, SLAs, and other QoS lifecycle processes for both applications and services surrounding SOA governance.     9.          EA Governance, Reference Architecture, Roadmap, Principles, and Best Practices:   EA Governance is important in terms of providing the overall direction to SOA implementation within the enterprise. This involves board-level involvement, in addition to business and IT executives. At a high level, this involves managing the SOA projects implementation, managing SOA infrastructure, and controlling the entire effort through all fine-tuned IT processes in accordance with COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology).   Devising tools and techniques to promote reuse culture, and the SOA way of doing things needs competency centers to be established in addition to training the workforce to take up new roles that are suited to SOA journey.   Conclusions   Reference Architectures can serve as the basis for disparate architecture efforts throughout the organization, even if they use different tools and technologies. Reference architectures provide best practices and approaches in the independent way a vendor deals with technology and standards. Reference Architectures model the abstract architectural elements for an enterprise independent of the technologies, protocols, and products that are used to implement an SOA. Telecom enterprises today are facing significant business and technology challenges due to growing competition, a multitude of services, and convergence. Adopting architectural best practices could go a long way in meeting these challenges. The use of SOA-based architecture for communication to each of the external systems like Billing, CRM, etc., in OSS/BSS system has made the architecture very loosely coupled, with greater flexibility. Any change in the external systems would be absorbed at the Integration Layer without affecting the rest of the ecosystem. The use of a Business Process Management (BPM) tool makes the management and maintenance of the business processes easy, with better performance in terms of lead time, quality, and cost. Since the Architecture is based on standards, it will lower the cost of deploying and managing OSS/BSS applications over their lifecycles.

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• Agile Development

  - by James Oloo Onyango

  Alot of literature has and is being written about agile developement and its surrounding philosophies. In my quest to find the best way to express the importance of agile methodologies, i have found Robert C. Martin's "A Satire Of Two Companies" to be both the most concise and thorough! Enjoy the read! Rufus Inc Project Kick Off Your name is Bob. The date is January 3, 2001, and your head still aches from the recent millennial revelry. You are sitting in a conference room with several managers and a group of your peers. You are a project team leader. Your boss is there, and he has brought along all of his team leaders. His boss called the meeting. "We have a new project to develop," says your boss's boss. Call him BB. The points in his hair are so long that they scrape the ceiling. Your boss's points are just starting to grow, but he eagerly awaits the day when he can leave Brylcream stains on the acoustic tiles. BB describes the essence of the new market they have identified and the product they want to develop to exploit this market. "We must have this new project up and working by fourth quarter October 1," BB demands. "Nothing is of higher priority, so we are cancelling your current project." The reaction in the room is stunned silence. Months of work are simply going to be thrown away. Slowly, a murmur of objection begins to circulate around the conference table.   His points give off an evil green glow as BB meets the eyes of everyone in the room. One by one, that insidious stare reduces each attendee to quivering lumps of protoplasm. It is clear that he will brook no discussion on this matter. Once silence has been restored, BB says, "We need to begin immediately. How long will it take you to do the analysis?" You raise your hand. Your boss tries to stop you, but his spitwad misses you and you are unaware of his efforts.   "Sir, we can't tell you how long the analysis will take until we have some requirements." "The requirements document won't be ready for 3 or 4 weeks," BB says, his points vibrating with frustration. "So, pretend that you have the requirements in front of you now. How long will you require for analysis?" No one breathes. Everyone looks around to see whether anyone has some idea. "If analysis goes beyond April 1, we have a problem. Can you finish the analysis by then?" Your boss visibly gathers his courage: "We'll find a way, sir!" His points grow 3 mm, and your headache increases by two Tylenol. "Good." BB smiles. "Now, how long will it take to do the design?" "Sir," you say. Your boss visibly pales. He is clearly worried that his 3 mms are at risk. "Without an analysis, it will not be possible to tell you how long design will take." BB's expression shifts beyond austere.   "PRETEND you have the analysis already!" he says, while fixing you with his vacant, beady little eyes. "How long will it take you to do the design?" Two Tylenol are not going to cut it. Your boss, in a desperate attempt to save his new growth, babbles: "Well, sir, with only six months left to complete the project, design had better take no longer than 3 months."   "I'm glad you agree, Smithers!" BB says, beaming. Your boss relaxes. He knows his points are secure. After a while, he starts lightly humming the Brylcream jingle. BB continues, "So, analysis will be complete by April 1, design will be complete by July 1, and that gives you 3 months to implement the project. This meeting is an example of how well our new consensus and empowerment policies are working. Now, get out there and start working. I'll expect to see TQM plans and QIT assignments on my desk by next week. Oh, and don't forget that your crossfunctional team meetings and reports will be needed for next month's quality audit." "Forget the Tylenol," you think to yourself as you return to your cubicle. "I need bourbon."   Visibly excited, your boss comes over to you and says, "Gosh, what a great meeting. I think we're really going to do some world shaking with this project." You nod in agreement, too disgusted to do anything else. "Oh," your boss continues, "I almost forgot." He hands you a 30-page document. "Remember that the SEI is coming to do an evaluation next week. This is the evaluation guide. You need to read through it, memorize it, and then shred it. It tells you how to answer any questions that the SEI auditors ask you. It also tells you what parts of the building you are allowed to take them to and what parts to avoid. We are determined to be a CMM level 3 organization by June!"   You and your peers start working on the analysis of the new project. This is difficult because you have no requirements. But from the 10-minute introduction given by BB on that fateful morning, you have some idea of what the product is supposed to do.   Corporate process demands that you begin by creating a use case document. You and your team begin enumerating use cases and drawing oval and stick diagrams. Philosophical debates break out among the team members. There is disagreement as to whether certain use cases should be connected with <<extends>> or <<includes>> relationships. Competing models are created, but nobody knows how to evaluate them. The debate continues, effectively paralyzing progress.   After a week, somebody finds the iceberg.com Web site, which recommends disposing entirely of <<extends>> and <<includes>> and replacing them with <<precedes>> and <<uses>>. The documents on this Web site, authored by Don Sengroiux, describes a method known as stalwart-analysis, which claims to be a step-by-step method for translating use cases into design diagrams. More competing use case models are created using this new scheme, but again, people can't agree on how to evaluate them. The thrashing continues. More and more, the use case meetings are driven by emotion rather than by reason. If it weren't for the fact that you don't have requirements, you'd be pretty upset by the lack of progress you are making. The requirements document arrives on February 15. And then again on February 20, 25, and every week thereafter. Each new version contradicts the previous one. Clearly, the marketing folks who are writing the requirements, empowered though they might be, are not finding consensus.   At the same time, several new competing use case templates have been proposed by the various team members. Each template presents its own particularly creative way of delaying progress. The debates rage on. On March 1, Prudence Putrigence, the process proctor, succeeds in integrating all the competing use case forms and templates into a single, all-encompassing form. Just the blank form is 15 pages long. She has managed to include every field that appeared on all the competing templates. She also presents a 159- page document describing how to fill out the use case form. All current use cases must be rewritten according to the new standard.   You marvel to yourself that it now requires 15 pages of fill-in-the-blank and essay questions to answer the question: What should the system do when the user presses Return? The corporate process (authored by L. E. Ott, famed author of "Holistic Analysis: A Progressive Dialectic for Software Engineers") insists that you discover all primary use cases, 87 percent of all secondary use cases, and 36.274 percent of all tertiary use cases before you can complete analysis and enter the design phase. You have no idea what a tertiary use case is. So in an attempt to meet this requirement, you try to get your use case document reviewed by the marketing department, which you hope will know what a tertiary use case is.   Unfortunately, the marketing folks are too busy with sales support to talk to you. Indeed, since the project started, you have not been able to get a single meeting with marketing, which has provided a never-ending stream of changing and contradictory requirements documents.   While one team has been spinning endlessly on the use case document, another team has been working out the domain model. Endless variations of UML documents are pouring out of this team. Every week, the model is reworked.   The team members can't decide whether to use <<interfaces>> or <<types>> in the model. A huge disagreement has been raging on the proper syntax and application of OCL. Others on the team just got back from a 5-day class on catabolism, and have been producing incredibly detailed and arcane diagrams that nobody else can fathom.   On March 27, with one week to go before analysis is to be complete, you have produced a sea of documents and diagrams but are no closer to a cogent analysis of the problem than you were on January 3. **** And then, a miracle happens.   **** On Saturday, April 1, you check your e-mail from home. You see a memo from your boss to BB. It states unequivocally that you are done with the analysis! You phone your boss and complain. "How could you have told BB that we were done with the analysis?" "Have you looked at a calendar lately?" he responds. "It's April 1!" The irony of that date does not escape you. "But we have so much more to think about. So much more to analyze! We haven't even decided whether to use <<extends>> or <<precedes>>!" "Where is your evidence that you are not done?" inquires your boss, impatiently. "Whaaa . . . ." But he cuts you off. "Analysis can go on forever; it has to be stopped at some point. And since this is the date it was scheduled to stop, it has been stopped. Now, on Monday, I want you to gather up all existing analysis materials and put them into a public folder. Release that folder to Prudence so that she can log it in the CM system by Monday afternoon. Then get busy and start designing."   As you hang up the phone, you begin to consider the benefits of keeping a bottle of bourbon in your bottom desk drawer. They threw a party to celebrate the on-time completion of the analysis phase. BB gave a colon-stirring speech on empowerment. And your boss, another 3 mm taller, congratulated his team on the incredible show of unity and teamwork. Finally, the CIO takes the stage to tell everyone that the SEI audit went very well and to thank everyone for studying and shredding the evaluation guides that were passed out. Level 3 now seems assured and will be awarded by June. (Scuttlebutt has it that managers at the level of BB and above are to receive significant bonuses once the SEI awards level 3.)   As the weeks flow by, you and your team work on the design of the system. Of course, you find that the analysis that the design is supposedly based on is flawedno, useless; no, worse than useless. But when you tell your boss that you need to go back and work some more on the analysis to shore up its weaker sections, he simply states, "The analysis phase is over. The only allowable activity is design. Now get back to it."   So, you and your team hack the design as best you can, unsure of whether the requirements have been properly analyzed. Of course, it really doesn't matter much, since the requirements document is still thrashing with weekly revisions, and the marketing department still refuses to meet with you.     The design is a nightmare. Your boss recently misread a book named The Finish Line in which the author, Mark DeThomaso, blithely suggested that design documents should be taken down to code-level detail. "If we are going to be working at that level of detail," you ask, "why don't we simply write the code instead?" "Because then you wouldn't be designing, of course. And the only allowable activity in the design phase is design!" "Besides," he continues, "we have just purchased a companywide license for Dandelion! This tool enables 'Round the Horn Engineering!' You are to transfer all design diagrams into this tool. It will automatically generate our code for us! It will also keep the design diagrams in sync with the code!" Your boss hands you a brightly colored shrinkwrapped box containing the Dandelion distribution. You accept it numbly and shuffle off to your cubicle. Twelve hours, eight crashes, one disk reformatting, and eight shots of 151 later, you finally have the tool installed on your server. You consider the week your team will lose while attending Dandelion training. Then you smile and think, "Any week I'm not here is a good week." Design diagram after design diagram is created by your team. Dandelion makes it very difficult to draw these diagrams. There are dozens and dozens of deeply nested dialog boxes with funny text fields and check boxes that must all be filled in correctly. And then there's the problem of moving classes between packages. At first, these diagram are driven from the use cases. But the requirements are changing so often that the use cases rapidly become meaningless. Debates rage about whether VISITOR or DECORATOR design patterns should be used. One developer refuses to use VISITOR in any form, claiming that it's not a properly object-oriented construct. Someone refuses to use multiple inheritance, since it is the spawn of the devil. Review meetings rapidly degenerate into debates about the meaning of object orientation, the definition of analysis versus design, or when to use aggregation versus association. Midway through the design cycle, the marketing folks announce that they have rethought the focus of the system. Their new requirements document is completely restructured. They have eliminated several major feature areas and replaced them with feature areas that they anticipate customer surveys will show to be more appropriate. You tell your boss that these changes mean that you need to reanalyze and redesign much of the system. But he says, "The analysis phase is system. But he says, "The analysis phase is over. The only allowable activity is design. Now get back to it."   You suggest that it might be better to create a simple prototype to show to the marketing folks and even some potential customers. But your boss says, "The analysis phase is over. The only allowable activity is design. Now get back to it." Hack, hack, hack, hack. You try to create some kind of a design document that might reflect the new requirements documents. However, the revolution of the requirements has not caused them to stop thrashing. Indeed, if anything, the wild oscillations of the requirements document have only increased in frequency and amplitude.   You slog your way through them.   On June 15, the Dandelion database gets corrupted. Apparently, the corruption has been progressive. Small errors in the DB accumulated over the months into bigger and bigger errors. Eventually, the CASE tool just stopped working. Of course, the slowly encroaching corruption is present on all the backups. Calls to the Dandelion technical support line go unanswered for several days. Finally, you receive a brief e-mail from Dandelion, informing you that this is a known problem and that the solution is to purchase the new version, which they promise will be ready some time next quarter, and then reenter all the diagrams by hand.   ****   Then, on July 1 another miracle happens! You are done with the design!   Rather than go to your boss and complain, you stock your middle desk drawer with some vodka.   **** They threw a party to celebrate the on-time completion of the design phase and their graduation to CMM level 3. This time, you find BB's speech so stirring that you have to use the restroom before it begins. New banners and plaques are all over your workplace. They show pictures of eagles and mountain climbers, and they talk about teamwork and empowerment. They read better after a few scotches. That reminds you that you need to clear out your file cabinet to make room for the brandy. You and your team begin to code. But you rapidly discover that the design is lacking in some significant areas. Actually, it's lacking any significance at all. You convene a design session in one of the conference rooms to try to work through some of the nastier problems. But your boss catches you at it and disbands the meeting, saying, "The design phase is over. The only allowable activity is coding. Now get back to it."   ****   The code generated by Dandelion is really hideous. It turns out that you and your team were using association and aggregation the wrong way, after all. All the generated code has to be edited to correct these flaws. Editing this code is extremely difficult because it has been instrumented with ugly comment blocks that have special syntax that Dandelion needs in order to keep the diagrams in sync with the code. If you accidentally alter one of these comments, the diagrams will be regenerated incorrectly. It turns out that "Round the Horn Engineering" requires an awful lot of effort. The more you try to keep the code compatible with Dandelion, the more errors Dandelion generates. In the end, you give up and decide to keep the diagrams up to date manually. A second later, you decide that there's no point in keeping the diagrams up to date at all. Besides, who has time?   Your boss hires a consultant to build tools to count the number of lines of code that are being produced. He puts a big thermometer graph on the wall with the number 1,000,000 on the top. Every day, he extends the red line to show how many lines have been added. Three days after the thermometer appears on the wall, your boss stops you in the hall. "That graph isn't growing quickly enough. We need to have a million lines done by October 1." "We aren't even sh-sh-sure that the proshect will require a m-million linezh," you blather. "We have to have a million lines done by October 1," your boss reiterates. His points have grown again, and the Grecian formula he uses on them creates an aura of authority and competence. "Are you sure your comment blocks are big enough?" Then, in a flash of managerial insight, he says, "I have it! I want you to institute a new policy among the engineers. No line of code is to be longer than 20 characters. Any such line must be split into two or more preferably more. All existing code needs to be reworked to this standard. That'll get our line count up!"   You decide not to tell him that this will require two unscheduled work months. You decide not to tell him anything at all. You decide that intravenous injections of pure ethanol are the only solution. You make the appropriate arrangements. Hack, hack, hack, and hack. You and your team madly code away. By August 1, your boss, frowning at the thermometer on the wall, institutes a mandatory 50-hour workweek.   Hack, hack, hack, and hack. By September 1st, the thermometer is at 1.2 million lines and your boss asks you to write a report describing why you exceeded the coding budget by 20 percent. He institutes mandatory Saturdays and demands that the project be brought back down to a million lines. You start a campaign of remerging lines. Hack, hack, hack, and hack. Tempers are flaring; people are quitting; QA is raining trouble reports down on you. Customers are demanding installation and user manuals; salespeople are demanding advance demonstrations for special customers; the requirements document is still thrashing, the marketing folks are complaining that the product isn't anything like they specified, and the liquor store won't accept your credit card anymore. Something has to give.    On September 15, BB calls a meeting. As he enters the room, his points are emitting clouds of steam. When he speaks, the bass overtones of his carefully manicured voice cause the pit of your stomach to roll over. "The QA manager has told me that this project has less than 50 percent of the required features implemented. He has also informed me that the system crashes all the time, yields wrong results, and is hideously slow. He has also complained that he cannot keep up with the continuous train of daily releases, each more buggy than the last!" He stops for a few seconds, visibly trying to compose himself. "The QA manager estimates that, at this rate of development, we won't be able to ship the product until December!" Actually, you think it's more like March, but you don't say anything. "December!" BB roars with such derision that people duck their heads as though he were pointing an assault rifle at them. "December is absolutely out of the question. Team leaders, I want new estimates on my desk in the morning. I am hereby mandating 65-hour work weeks until this project is complete. And it better be complete by November 1."   As he leaves the conference room, he is heard to mutter: "Empowermentbah!" * * * Your boss is bald; his points are mounted on BB's wall. The fluorescent lights reflecting off his pate momentarily dazzle you. "Do you have anything to drink?" he asks. Having just finished your last bottle of Boone's Farm, you pull a bottle of Thunderbird from your bookshelf and pour it into his coffee mug. "What's it going to take to get this project done? " he asks. "We need to freeze the requirements, analyze them, design them, and then implement them," you say callously. "By November 1?" your boss exclaims incredulously. "No way! Just get back to coding the damned thing." He storms out, scratching his vacant head.   A few days later, you find that your boss has been transferred to the corporate research division. Turnover has skyrocketed. Customers, informed at the last minute that their orders cannot be fulfilled on time, have begun to cancel their orders. Marketing is re-evaluating whether this product aligns with the overall goals of the company. Memos fly, heads roll, policies change, and things are, overall, pretty grim. Finally, by March, after far too many sixty-five hour weeks, a very shaky version of the software is ready. In the field, bug-discovery rates are high, and the technical support staff are at their wits' end, trying to cope with the complaints and demands of the irate customers. Nobody is happy.   In April, BB decides to buy his way out of the problem by licensing a product produced by Rupert Industries and redistributing it. The customers are mollified, the marketing folks are smug, and you are laid off.     Rupert Industries: Project Alpha   Your name is Robert. The date is January 3, 2001. The quiet hours spent with your family this holiday have left you refreshed and ready for work. You are sitting in a conference room with your team of professionals. The manager of the division called the meeting. "We have some ideas for a new project," says the division manager. Call him Russ. He is a high-strung British chap with more energy than a fusion reactor. He is ambitious and driven but understands the value of a team. Russ describes the essence of the new market opportunity the company has identified and introduces you to Jane, the marketing manager, who is responsible for defining the products that will address it. Addressing you, Jane says, "We'd like to start defining our first product offering as soon as possible. When can you and your team meet with me?" You reply, "We'll be done with the current iteration of our project this Friday. We can spare a few hours for you between now and then. After that, we'll take a few people from the team and dedicate them to you. We'll begin hiring their replacements and the new people for your team immediately." "Great," says Russ, "but I want you to understand that it is critical that we have something to exhibit at the trade show coming up this July. If we can't be there with something significant, we'll lose the opportunity."   "I understand," you reply. "I don't yet know what it is that you have in mind, but I'm sure we can have something by July. I just can't tell you what that something will be right now. In any case, you and Jane are going to have complete control over what we developers do, so you can rest assured that by July, you'll have the most important things that can be accomplished in that time ready to exhibit."   Russ nods in satisfaction. He knows how this works. Your team has always kept him advised and allowed him to steer their development. He has the utmost confidence that your team will work on the most important things first and will produce a high-quality product.   * * *   "So, Robert," says Jane at their first meeting, "How does your team feel about being split up?" "We'll miss working with each other," you answer, "but some of us were getting pretty tired of that last project and are looking forward to a change. So, what are you people cooking up?" Jane beams. "You know how much trouble our customers currently have . . ." And she spends a half hour or so describing the problem and possible solution. "OK, wait a second" you respond. "I need to be clear about this." And so you and Jane talk about how this system might work. Some of her ideas aren't fully formed. You suggest possible solutions. She likes some of them. You continue discussing.   During the discussion, as each new topic is addressed, Jane writes user story cards. Each card represents something that the new system has to do. The cards accumulate on the table and are spread out in front of you. Both you and Jane point at them, pick them up, and make notes on them as you discuss the stories. The cards are powerful mnemonic devices that you can use to represent complex ideas that are barely formed.   At the end of the meeting, you say, "OK, I've got a general idea of what you want. I'm going to talk to the team about it. I imagine they'll want to run some experiments with various database structures and presentation formats. Next time we meet, it'll be as a group, and we'll start identifying the most important features of the system."   A week later, your nascent team meets with Jane. They spread the existing user story cards out on the table and begin to get into some of the details of the system. The meeting is very dynamic. Jane presents the stories in the order of their importance. There is much discussion about each one. The developers are concerned about keeping the stories small enough to estimate and test. So they continually ask Jane to split one story into several smaller stories. Jane is concerned that each story have a clear business value and priority, so as she splits them, she makes sure that this stays true.   The stories accumulate on the table. Jane writes them, but the developers make notes on them as needed. Nobody tries to capture everything that is said; the cards are not meant to capture everything but are simply reminders of the conversation.   As the developers become more comfortable with the stories, they begin writing estimates on them. These estimates are crude and budgetary, but they give Jane an idea of what the story will cost.   At the end of the meeting, it is clear that many more stories could be discussed. It is also clear that the most important stories have been addressed and that they represent several months worth of work. Jane closes the meeting by taking the cards with her and promising to have a proposal for the first release in the morning.   * * *   The next morning, you reconvene the meeting. Jane chooses five cards and places them on the table. "According to your estimates, these cards represent about one perfect team-week's worth of work. The last iteration of the previous project managed to get one perfect team-week done in 3 real weeks. If we can get these five stories done in 3 weeks, we'll be able to demonstrate them to Russ. That will make him feel very comfortable about our progress." Jane is pushing it. The sheepish look on her face lets you know that she knows it too. You reply, "Jane, this is a new team, working on a new project. It's a bit presumptuous to expect that our velocity will be the same as the previous team's. However, I met with the team yesterday afternoon, and we all agreed that our initial velocity should, in fact, be set to one perfectweek for every 3 real-weeks. So you've lucked out on this one." "Just remember," you continue, "that the story estimates and the story velocity are very tentative at this point. We'll learn more when we plan the iteration and even more when we implement it."   Jane looks over her glasses at you as if to say "Who's the boss around here, anyway?" and then smiles and says, "Yeah, don't worry. I know the drill by now."Jane then puts 15 more cards on the table. She says, "If we can get all these cards done by the end of March, we can turn the system over to our beta test customers. And we'll get good feedback from them."   You reply, "OK, so we've got our first iteration defined, and we have the stories for the next three iterations after that. These four iterations will make our first release."   "So," says Jane, can you really do these five stories in the next 3 weeks?" "I don't know for sure, Jane," you reply. "Let's break them down into tasks and see what we get."   So Jane, you, and your team spend the next several hours taking each of the five stories that Jane chose for the first iteration and breaking them down into small tasks. The developers quickly realize that some of the tasks can be shared between stories and that other tasks have commonalities that can probably be taken advantage of. It is clear that potential designs are popping into the developers' heads. From time to time, they form little discussion knots and scribble UML diagrams on some cards.   Soon, the whiteboard is filled with the tasks that, once completed, will implement the five stories for this iteration. You start the sign-up process by saying, "OK, let's sign up for these tasks." "I'll take the initial database generation." Says Pete. "That's what I did on the last project, and this doesn't look very different. I estimate it at two of my perfect workdays." "OK, well, then, I'll take the login screen," says Joe. "Aw, darn," says Elaine, the junior member of the team, "I've never done a GUI, and kinda wanted to try that one."   "Ah, the impatience of youth," Joe says sagely, with a wink in your direction. "You can assist me with it, young Jedi." To Jane: "I think it'll take me about three of my perfect workdays."   One by one, the developers sign up for tasks and estimate them in terms of their own perfect workdays. Both you and Jane know that it is best to let the developers volunteer for tasks than to assign the tasks to them. You also know full well that you daren't challenge any of the developers' estimates. You know these people, and you trust them. You know that they are going to do the very best they can.   The developers know that they can't sign up for more perfect workdays than they finished in the last iteration they worked on. Once each developer has filled his or her schedule for the iteration, they stop signing up for tasks.   Eventually, all the developers have stopped signing up for tasks. But, of course, tasks are still left on the board.   "I was worried that that might happen," you say, "OK, there's only one thing to do, Jane. We've got too much to do in this iteration. What stories or tasks can we remove?" Jane sighs. She knows that this is the only option. Working overtime at the beginning of a project is insane, and projects where she's tried it have not fared well.   So Jane starts to remove the least-important functionality. "Well, we really don't need the login screen just yet. We can simply start the system in the logged-in state." "Rats!" cries Elaine. "I really wanted to do that." "Patience, grasshopper." says Joe. "Those who wait for the bees to leave the hive will not have lips too swollen to relish the honey." Elaine looks confused. Everyone looks confused. "So . . .," Jane continues, "I think we can also do away with . . ." And so, bit by bit, the list of tasks shrinks. Developers who lose a task sign up for one of the remaining ones.   The negotiation is not painless. Several times, Jane exhibits obvious frustration and impatience. Once, when tensions are especially high, Elaine volunteers, "I'll work extra hard to make up some of the missing time." You are about to correct her when, fortunately, Joe looks her in the eye and says, "When once you proceed down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."   In the end, an iteration acceptable to Jane is reached. It's not what Jane wanted. Indeed, it is significantly less. But it's something the team feels that can be achieved in the next 3 weeks.   And, after all, it still addresses the most important things that Jane wanted in the iteration. "So, Jane," you say when things had quieted down a bit, "when can we expect acceptance tests from you?" Jane sighs. This is the other side of the coin. For every story the development team implements,   Jane must supply a suite of acceptance tests that prove that it works. And the team needs these long before the end of the iteration, since they will certainly point out differences in the way Jane and the developers imagine the system's behaviour.   "I'll get you some example test scripts today," Jane promises. "I'll add to them every day after that. You'll have the entire suite by the middle of the iteration."   * * *   The iteration begins on Monday morning with a flurry of Class, Responsibilities, Collaborators sessions. By midmorning, all the developers have assembled into pairs and are rapidly coding away. "And now, my young apprentice," Joe says to Elaine, "you shall learn the mysteries of test-first design!"   "Wow, that sounds pretty rad," Elaine replies. "How do you do it?" Joe beams. It's clear that he has been anticipating this moment. "OK, what does the code do right now?" "Huh?" replied Elaine, "It doesn't do anything at all; there is no code."   "So, consider our task; can you think of something the code should do?" "Sure," Elaine said with youthful assurance, "First, it should connect to the database." "And thereupon, what must needs be required to connecteth the database?" "You sure talk weird," laughed Elaine. "I think we'd have to get the database object from some registry and call the Connect() method. "Ah, astute young wizard. Thou perceives correctly that we requireth an object within which we can cacheth the database object." "Is 'cacheth' really a word?" "It is when I say it! So, what test can we write that we know the database registry should pass?" Elaine sighs. She knows she'll just have to play along. "We should be able to create a database object and pass it to the registry in a Store() method. And then we should be able to pull it out of the registry with a Get() method and make sure it's the same object." "Oh, well said, my prepubescent sprite!" "Hay!" "So, now, let's write a test function that proves your case." "But shouldn't we write the database object and registry object first?" "Ah, you've much to learn, my young impatient one. Just write the test first." "But it won't even compile!" "Are you sure? What if it did?" "Uh . . ." "Just write the test, Elaine. Trust me." And so Joe, Elaine, and all the other developers began to code their tasks, one test case at a time. The room in which they worked was abuzz with the conversations between the pairs. The murmur was punctuated by an occasional high five when a pair managed to finish a task or a difficult test case.   As development proceeded, the developers changed partners once or twice a day. Each developer got to see what all the others were doing, and so knowledge of the code spread generally throughout the team.   Whenever a pair finished something significant whether a whole task or simply an important part of a task they integrated what they had with the rest of the system. Thus, the code base grew daily, and integration difficulties were minimized.   The developers communicated with Jane on a daily basis. They'd go to her whenever they had a question about the functionality of the system or the interpretation of an acceptance test case.   Jane, good as her word, supplied the team with a steady stream of acceptance test scripts. The team read these carefully and thereby gained a much better understanding of what Jane expected the system to do. By the beginning of the second week, there was enough functionality to demonstrate to Jane. She watched eagerly as the demonstration passed test case after test case. "This is really cool," Jane said as the demonstration finally ended. "But this doesn't seem like one-third of the tasks. Is your velocity slower than anticipated?"   You grimace. You'd been waiting for a good time to mention this to Jane but now she was forcing the issue. "Yes, unfortunately, we are going more slowly than we had expected. The new application server we are using is turning out to be a pain to configure. Also, it takes forever to reboot, and we have to reboot it whenever we make even the slightest change to its configuration."   Jane eyes you with suspicion. The stress of last Monday's negotiations had still not entirely dissipated. She says, "And what does this mean to our schedule? We can't slip it again, we just can't. Russ will have a fit! He'll haul us all into the woodshed and ream us some new ones."   You look Jane right in the eyes. There's no pleasant way to give someone news like this. So you just blurt out, "Look, if things keep going like they're going, we're not going to be done with everything by next Friday. Now it's possible that we'll figure out a way to go faster. But, frankly, I wouldn't depend on that. You should start thinking about one or two tasks that could be removed from the iteration without ruining the demonstration for Russ. Come hell or high water, we are going to give that demonstration on Friday, and I don't think you want us to choose which tasks to omit."   "Aw forchrisakes!" Jane barely manages to stifle yelling that last word as she stalks away, shaking her head. Not for the first time, you say to yourself, "Nobody ever promised me project management would be easy." You are pretty sure it won't be the last time, either.   Actually, things went a bit better than you had hoped. The team did, in fact, have to drop one task from the iteration, but Jane had chosen wisely, and the demonstration for Russ went without a hitch. Russ was not impressed with the progress, but neither was he dismayed. He simply said, "This is pretty good. But remember, we have to be able to demonstrate this system at the trade show in July, and at this rate, it doesn't look like you'll have all that much to show." Jane, whose attitude had improved dramatically with the completion of the iteration, responded to Russ by saying, "Russ, this team is working hard, and well. When July comes around, I am confident that we'll have something significant to demonstrate. It won't be everything, and some of it may be smoke and mirrors, but we'll have something."   Painful though the last iteration was, it had calibrated your velocity numbers. The next iteration went much better. Not because your team got more done than in the last iteration but simply because the team didn't have to remove any tasks or stories in the middle of the iteration.   By the start of the fourth iteration, a natural rhythm has been established. Jane, you, and the team know exactly what to expect from one another. The team is running hard, but the pace is sustainable. You are confident that the team can keep up this pace for a year or more.   The number of surprises in the schedule diminishes to near zero; however, the number of surprises in the requirements does not. Jane and Russ frequently look over the growing system and make recommendations or changes to the existing functionality. But all parties realize that these changes take time and must be scheduled. So the changes do not cause anyone's expectations to be violated. In March, there is a major demonstration of the system to the board of directors. The system is very limited and is not yet in a form good enough to take to the trade show, but progress is steady, and the board is reasonably impressed.   The second release goes even more smoothly than the first. By now, the team has figured out a way to automate Jane's acceptance test scripts. The team has also refactored the design of the system to the point that it is really easy to add new features and change old ones. The second release was done by the end of June and was taken to the trade show. It had less in it than Jane and Russ would have liked, but it did demonstrate the most important features of the system. Although customers at the trade show noticed that certain features were missing, they were very impressed overall. You, Russ, and Jane all returned from the trade show with smiles on your faces. You all felt as though this project was a winner.   Indeed, many months later, you are contacted by Rufus Inc. That company had been working on a system like this for its internal operations. Rufus has canceled the development of that system after a death-march project and is negotiating to license your technology for its environment.   Indeed, things are looking up!

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• Error when installing AppFabric 1.1 on Server 2012 64bit

  - by no9

  I am trying to install AppFabric 1.1 on 64bit Windows Server 2012 R2. All updates have been installed and updates are turned ON .NET Framework 4.0 is installed .NET Framework 3.5 is installed IIS is installed Windows Powershell 3.0 should already be included in Server 2012 I am getting the following error: 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup ===== Logging started: 2014-03-21 11:02:34+01:00 ===== 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup File: c:\6c4006b0b3f6dee1bf616f1967\setup.exe 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup InternalName: Setup.exe 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup OriginalFilename: Setup.exe 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup FileVersion: 1.1.2106.32 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup FileDescription: Setup.exe 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup Product: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Server AppFabric 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup ProductVersion: 1.1.2106.32 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup Debug: False 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup Patched: False 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup PreRelease: False 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup PrivateBuild: False 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup SpecialBuild: False 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup Language: Language Neutral 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup OS Name: Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup OS Edition: ServerStandard 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup OSVersion: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup CurrentCulture: sl-SI 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup Processor Architecture: AMD64 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup Event Registration Source : AppFabric_Setup 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Upgrade.V1UpgradeSetupModule : Initiating V1.0 Upgrade module. 2014-03-21 11:02:34, Information Setup Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Upgrade.V1UpgradeSetupModule : V1.0 is not installed. 2014-03-21 11:02:54, Information Setup Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Upgrade.V1UpgradeSetupModule : Initiating V1 Upgrade pre-install. 2014-03-21 11:02:54, Information Setup Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Upgrade.V1UpgradeSetupModule : V1.0 is not installed, not taking backup. 2014-03-21 11:02:55, Information Setup Executing C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe with commandline -iru. 2014-03-21 11:02:55, Information Setup Return code from aspnet_regiis.exe is 0 2014-03-21 11:02:55, Information Setup Process.Start: C:\Windows\system32\msiexec.exe /quiet /norestart /i "c:\6c4006b0b3f6dee1bf616f1967\Microsoft CCR and DSS Runtime 2008 R3.msi" /l*vx "C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp\AppServerSetup1_1(2014-03-21 11-02-55).log" 2014-03-21 11:02:57, Information Setup Process.ExitCode: 0x00000000 2014-03-21 11:02:57, Information Setup Windows features successfully enabled. 2014-03-21 11:02:57, Information Setup Process.Start: C:\Windows\system32\msiexec.exe /quiet /norestart /i "c:\6c4006b0b3f6dee1bf616f1967\Packages\AppFabric-1.1-for-Windows-Server-64.msi" ADDDEFAULT=Worker,WorkerAdmin,CacheService,CacheAdmin,Setup /l*vx "C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp\AppServerSetup1_1(2014-03-21 11-02-57).log" LOGFILE="C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp\AppServerSetup1_1_CustomActions(2014-03-21 11-02-57).log" INSTALLDIR="C:\Program Files\AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server" LANGID=en-US 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Process.ExitCode: 0x00000643 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Error Setup AppFabric installation failed because installer MSI returned with error code : 1603 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Error Setup 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Error Setup AppFabric installation failed because installer MSI returned with error code : 1603 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Error Setup 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Core.SetupException: AppFabric installation failed because installer MSI returned with error code : 1603 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Installer.WindowsInstallerProxy.GenerateAndThrowSetupException(Int32 exitCode, LogEventSource logEventSource) 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Installer.WindowsInstallerProxy.Invoke(LogEventSource logEventSource, InstallMode installMode, String packageIdentity, List`1 updateList, List`1 customArguments) 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Installer.MsiInstaller.InstallSelectedFeatures() 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Installer.MsiInstaller.Install() 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Setup.Client.ProgressPage.StartAction() 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup === Summary of Actions === 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Required Windows components : Completed Successfully 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup IIS Management Console : Completed Successfully 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Microsoft CCR and DSS Runtime 2008 R3 : Completed Successfully 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server : Failed 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Hosting Services : Failed 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Caching Services : Failed 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Hosting Administration : Failed 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Cache Administration : Failed 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Microsoft Update : Skipped 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup Microsoft Update : Skipped 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup 2014-03-21 11:03:45, Information Setup ===== Logging stopped: 2014-03-21 11:03:45+01:00 ===== I have tried this solution but no success: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11205927/appfabric-installation-failed-because-installer-msi-returned-with-error-code-1 My system enviroment variable PSModulesPath has this value: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules I have also followed this link with no success: http://jefferytay.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/installing-appfabric-on-windows-server-2012/ Any help would be greatly appreciated !

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• BIND DNS Master with Zerigo Slaves - BIND won't update the slave servers

  - by Anthony

  I've tried to resolve this myself and have looked through Google and Stack but haven't found the answer I'm looking for. Currently on a VPS server I have BIND DNS installed as a MASTER DNS Server. I use Zerigo's DNS service as SLAVE servers for public use: The Master doesn't receive queries - It's job is to simply create and modify DNS entries locally of which the SLAVE use to serve. Here is an excerpt of the BIND log, I set it to INFO event logging: 14-Apr-2012 23:00:00.234 general: info: received control channel command 'reload' 14-Apr-2012 23:00:00.234 general: info: loading configuration from 'C:\DNS\BIND\etc\named.conf' 14-Apr-2012 23:00:00.234 general: info: using default UDP/IPv4 port range: [1024, 65535] 14-Apr-2012 23:00:00.234 general: info: using default UDP/IPv6 port range: [1024, 65535] 14-Apr-2012 23:00:00.250 general: info: reloading configuration succeeded 14-Apr-2012 23:00:00.250 general: info: reloading zones succeeded 14-Apr-2012 23:16:22.750 xfer-out: info: client 174.36.24.251#47135: transfer of 'ajmakeup.com/IN': AXFR started 14-Apr-2012 23:16:22.750 xfer-out: info: client 174.36.24.251#47135: transfer of 'ajmakeup.com/IN': AXFR ended 14-Apr-2012 23:16:23.015 xfer-out: info: client 68.71.141.22#36212: transfer of 'ajmakeup.com/IN': AXFR started 14-Apr-2012 23:16:23.031 xfer-out: info: client 68.71.141.22#36212: transfer of 'ajmakeup.com/IN': AXFR ended As you can see there is no problem with Zerigo's DNS servers requesting new DNS data, when I force a reload that is; I don't believe, as per the way they are set as SLAVE, that they poll for changes. However the problem is the other way; the MASTER is not updating the SLAVE servers when reload is run (on the MASTER); it is a batch on a 15 minute timer. Below is my NAMED.CONF: key "rndc-key" { algorithm hmac-md5; secret "REMOVED FOR SECURITY"; }; acl "trusted" { 174.36.24.251/32; 68.71.141.22/32; localhost; }; options { version "not currently available"; directory "C:\DNS\BIND\etc"; allow-query { trusted; }; }; controls { inet 127.0.0.1 port 953 allow { 127.0.0.1; } keys { "rndc-key"; }; }; logging{ channel simple_log { file "C:\DNS\BIND\logging\bind.log" versions 3 size 5m; severity info; print-time yes; print-severity yes; print-category yes; }; category default{ simple_log; }; }; zone "ajmakeup.com" in { type master; file "c:\dns\BIND\zones\db.ajmakeup.com.txt"; allow-transfer { 174.36.24.251; 68.71.141.22; }; allow-update { none; }; }; Does my problem have something to do with 'allow-query' under options? You will notice that 'allow-transfer' is set explicitly on each DNS zone. In case you need it here is my RNDC.CONF: key "rndc-key" { algorithm hmac-md5; secret "REMOVED FOR SECURITY"; }; options { default-key "rndc-key"; default-server 127.0.0.1; default-port 953; }; server localhost { key "rndc-key"; }; Note: I am using WebsitePanel as my hosting panel and is such why it creates the zone enteries the way it does. Although I know I can change this behaviour, I do not wish to do so nor do I believe is the root of the problem. Thanks for your help.

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• Wifi not working after a few minutes

  - by drtanz

  I'm using a few MacBooks and iPads connected to a router via WiFi. The problem is that a few minutes after they connect via WiFi the connection stops working. This happens on all devices. I went into the router settings by connecting via cable and everything seems in order. Connecting a laptop via cable to the router I can use internet as normal, the problem is only with WiFi. What can be the problem here? Here are the connected clients Connected Clients MAC Address Idle(s) RSSI(dBm) IP Addr Host Name Mode Speed (kbps) 14:10:9F:F3:48:D6 1 -36 192.168.0.5 Jeans-Air n 78000 14:99:E2:C6:41:10 1 -36 192.168.0.8 JeanGaleasiPad n 24000 Here's the router event log Mon Dec 30 04:12:30 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 1 (Side-Band Channel:N/A)... Mon Dec 30 04:12:25 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 1 (Side-Band Channel:5) -... Mon Dec 30 02:17:56 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 40 (Side-Band Channel:36)... Mon Dec 30 02:16:04 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 11 (Side-Band Channel:7) ... Mon Dec 30 01:59:26 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 6 (Side-Band Channel:N/A)... Mon Dec 30 01:59:22 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 6 (Side-Band Channel:2) -... Sun Dec 29 23:27:51 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 1 (Side-Band Channel:N/A)... Sun Dec 29 23:27:49 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 11 (Side-Band Channel:N/A... Sun Dec 29 14:32:55 2013 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... Sat Dec 28 13:08:19 2013 Error (4) DHCP REBIND WARNING - Field invalid in response ;CM-MAC=1c:3e... Fri Dec 27 18:10:19 2013 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... Fri Dec 27 16:08:55 2013 Error (4) Map Request Retry Timeout;CM-MAC=1c:3e:84:f1:6b:84;CMTS-MAC=0... Thu Dec 26 21:08:53 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 11 (Side-Band Channel:7) ... Thu Dec 26 20:43:50 2013 Notice (6) WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 11 (Side-Band Channel:N/A... Tue Dec 24 12:45:03 2013 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... Tue Dec 24 04:55:52 2013 Error (4) Map Request Retry Timeout;CM-MAC=1c:3e:84:f1:6b:84;CMTS-MAC=0... Mon Dec 23 12:32:00 2013 Notice (6) TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=1c:3e:84:f1:6b:84;CMTS-MAC=0... Mon Dec 23 12:32:00 2013 Error (4) Missing BP Configuration Setting TLV Type: 17.9;CM-MAC=1c:3e:... Mon Dec 23 12:32:00 2013 Error (4) Missing BP Configuration Setting TLV Type: 17.8;CM-MAC=1c:3e:... Mon Dec 23 12:32:00 2013 Warning (5) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response ;CM-MAC... Mon Dec 23 18:32:02 2013 Notice (6) Honoring MDD; IP provisioning mode = IPv4 Mon Dec 23 18:31:10 2013 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=1c:3e:84:f1... Mon Dec 23 18:28:57 2013 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un... Mon Dec 23 18:28:25 2013 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... Mon Dec 23 12:17:48 2013 Notice (6) TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=1c:3e:84:f1:6b:84;CMTS-MAC=0... Mon Dec 23 12:17:48 2013 Error (4) Missing BP Configuration Setting TLV Type: 17.9;CM-MAC=1c:3e:... Mon Dec 23 12:17:48 2013 Error (4) Missing BP Configuration Setting TLV Type: 17.8;CM-MAC=1c:3e:... Mon Dec 23 12:17:48 2013 Warning (5) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response ;CM-MAC... Mon Dec 23 18:17:48 2013 Notice (6) Honoring MDD; IP provisioning mode = IPv4 Mon Dec 23 18:16:58 2013 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=1c:3e:84:f1... Mon Dec 23 18:16:15 2013 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un... Mon Dec 23 18:15:43 2013 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...

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• Monit won't run

  - by Yaniro

  I have two identical EC2 instances (the second is a replica of the first), running Gentoo. The first instance has monit running which monitors a single process and some system resources and functions great. In the second instance, monit runs but quits right away. The configuration is similar on both instances so are the versions of monit. monit.log shows: [GMT Oct 3 08:36:41] info : monit daemon with PID 5 awakened Final lines on strace monit show: write(2, "monit daemon with PID 5 awakened"..., 33monit daemon with PID 5 awakened ) = 33 time(NULL) = 1349252827 open("/etc/localtime", O_RDONLY) = 4 fstat64(4, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=118, ...}) = 0 fstat64(4, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=118, ...}) = 0 mmap2(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0xb773a000 read(4, "TZif2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\0"..., 4096) = 118 _llseek(4, -6, [112], SEEK_CUR) = 0 read(4, "\nGMT0\n", 4096) = 6 close(4) = 0 munmap(0xb773a000, 4096) = 0 write(3, "[GMT Oct 3 08:27:07] info :"..., 33) = 33 write(3, "monit daemon with PID 5 awakened"..., 33) = 33 waitpid(-1, NULL, WNOHANG) = -1 ECHILD (No child processes) close(3) = 0 exit_group(0) = ? No core dumps (ulimit -c shows unlimited) monit -v shows: monit: Debug: Adding host allow 'localhost' monit: Debug: Skipping redundant host 'localhost' monit: Debug: Skipping redundant host 'localhost' monit: Debug: Adding credentials for user 'xxxx'. Runtime constants: Control file = /etc/monitrc Log file = /var/log/monit/monit.log Pid file = /var/run/monit.pid Id file = /var/run/monit.pid Debug = True Log = True Use syslog = False Is Daemon = True Use process engine = True Poll time = 30 seconds with start delay 0 seconds Expect buffer = 256 bytes Event queue = base directory /var/monit with 100 slots Mail server(s) = xx.xxx.xx.xxx with timeout 30 seconds Mail from = (not defined) Mail subject = (not defined) Mail message = (not defined) Start monit httpd = True httpd bind address = Any/All httpd portnumber = 2812 httpd signature = True Use ssl encryption = False httpd auth. style = Basic Authentication and Host/Net allow list Alert mail to = [email protected] Alert on = All events The service list contains the following entries: System Name = xxxx Monitoring mode = active CPU wait limit = if greater than 20.0% 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert else if succeeded 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert CPU system limit = if greater than 30.0% 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert else if succeeded 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert CPU user limit = if greater than 70.0% 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert else if succeeded 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert Swap usage limit = if greater than 25.0% 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert else if succeeded 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert Memory usage limit = if greater than 75.0% 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert else if succeeded 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert Load avg. (5min) = if greater than 2.0 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert else if succeeded 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert Load avg. (1min) = if greater than 4.0 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert else if succeeded 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert Process Name = xxxx Group = server Pid file = /var/run/xxxx.pid Monitoring mode = active Start program = '/etc/init.d/xxxx restart' timeout 20 second(s) Stop program = '/etc/init.d/xxxx stop' timeout 30 second(s) Existence = if does not exist 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then restart else if succeeded 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert Pid = if changed 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert Ppid = if changed 1 times within 1 cycle(s) then alert Timeout = If restarted 3 times within 5 cycle(s) then unmonitor Alert mail to = [email protected] Alert on = All events Alert mail to = [email protected] Alert on = All events ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- monit daemon with PID 5 awakened Ran emerge --sync before emerge -va monit which installed monit v5.3.2. When that didn't work i've downloaded v5.5 from their website and compiled from source which did not work either.

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• Server 2003 R2 doesn't allow logon after a few days of uptime

  - by Bryan

  We have a server 2003 R2 standard (which I'll refer to as SRV01) that's knocking on a bit now, but it still acts as a file, print and SQL server on our company's network. SRV01 hosts user profiles, home directories and pretty much all our business data. Note our AD is currently at 2008 R2 level. This server is due to be upgraded in the next 12 months, but I've no budget to spend on it just yet. A bit of history of this server follows: When SRV01 was first commissioned, it acted as a domain controller (with the same 2003 R2 install it has today), paired with another server that ran Server 2003 R2 SBS. A few years ago, we purchased a pair of dedicated DCs (2008 R2) and at this point we decommissioned the 2003 SBS server, and SRV01 was DCPROMOed out of the AD. Up until very recently, SRV01 used to run Exchange 2003, however we've recently purchased a dedicated server for Exchange 2010 and upgraded (following Microsoft recommended upgrade path). Exchange 2003 was recently uninstalled. - Cleanly to the best of my knowledge. Ever since Exchange was removed from SRV01, I'm finding that after a few days of uptime, when I attempt to logon, pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL just hides the Welcome to Windows Server 2003 banner, and never presents the logon dialog. All I see is a moveable mouse pointer and a blank background. It's a similar story with an admin TS session, the RDP client connects and gives me a blank background, but no logon dialog is presented. The RDP session indefinitely hangs until I give up and close it. The only way I've been able to gain access to the server is to pull the plug on it. Whilst the server does have a battery backed up RAID 5 controller, I'm unhappy about having to do this, so as a temporary measure, I've created a scheduled job to reboot SRV01 each night. Not only do I not like the idea of scheduling a reboot of a server like this, but it is also causing problems for users that leave desktop PCs left logged on overnight. Users complain of 'Delayed Write Failures', and there has also been a number of users that have started to complain about account lockout problems, as well as users not able to connect to shares on SRV01 until they reboot their desktop PCs. I've examined event logs on SRV01 and on the DCs looking for clues as to what the problem is, but there really is nothing untoward being logged. How could I being to investigate this problem when nothing of any relevance is being logged? Is there some additional logging that can be enabled that might give some clues as to what could be causing this problem? Could performance monitor help me out here, and if so, what counters would you consider monitoring? It's worth mentioning that whilst the server is unresponsive via the console and TS, it does still respond to clients connecting to shares without problems for several days, but after about a week I then start to hear users reporting problems accessing shares, but this seems quite sporadic. I've also tried leaving the console logged on (and locked), when I notice I can no longer logon via TS, I can unlock the server console without problem, but it refuses to reboot/shutdown, and subsequent attempts to reboot report that a system shutdown is already in progress and the system then completely hangs. I've tried playing the waiting game for several hours thinking that a timeout might allow the shutdown to continue, but to no avail.

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• disk-to-disk backup without costly backup redundancy?

  - by AaronLS

  A good backup strategy involves a combination of 1) disconnected backups/snapshots that will not be affected by bugs, viruses, and/or security breaches 2) geographically distributed backups to protect against local disasters 3) testing backups to ensure that they can be restored as needed Generally I take an onsite backup daily, and an offsite backup weekly, and do test restores periodically. In the rare circumstance that I need to restore files, I do some from the local backup. Should a catastrophic event destroy the servers and local backups, then the offsite weekly tape backup would be used to restore the files. I don't need multiple offsite backups with redundancy. I ALREADY HAVE REDUNDANCY THROUGH THE USE OF BOTH LOCAL AND REMOTE BACKUPS. I have recovery blocks and par files with the backups, so I already have protection against a small percentage of corrupt bits. I perform test restores to ensure the backups function properly. Should the remote backups experience a dataloss, I can replace them with one of the local backups. There are historical offsite backups as well, so if a dataloss was not noticed for a few weeks(such as a bug/security breach/virus), the data could be restored from an older backup. By doing this, the only scenario that poses a risk to complete data loss would be one where both the local, remote, and servers all experienced a data loss in the same time period. I'm willing to risk that happening since the odds of that trifecta negligibly small, and the data isn't THAT valuable to me. So I hope I have emphasized that I don't need redundancy in my offsite backups because I have covered all the bases. I know this exact technique is employed by numerous businesses. Of course there are some that take multiple offsite backups, because the data is so incredibly valuable that they don't even want to risk that trifecta disaster, but in the majority of cases the trifecta disaster is an accepted risk. I HAD TO COVER ALL THIS BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE DON'T READ!!! I think I have justified my backup strategy and the majority of businesses who use offsite tape backups do not have any additional redundancy beyond what is mentioned above(recovery blocks, par files, historical snapshots). Now I would like to eliminate the use of tapes for offsite backups, and instead use a backup service. Most however are extremely costly for $/gb/month storage. I don't mind paying for transfer bandwidth, but the cost of storage is way to high. All of them advertise that they maintain backups of the data, and I imagine they use RAID as well. Obviously if you were using them to host servers this would all be necessary, but for my scenario, I am simply replacing my offsite backups with such a service. So there is no need for RAID, and absolutely no value in another layer of backups of backups. My one and only question: "Are there online data-storage/backup services that do not use redundancy or offer backups(backups of my backups) as part of their packages, and thus are more reasonably priced?" NOT my question: "Is this a flawed strategy?" I don't care if you think this is a good strategy or not. I know it pretty standard. Very few people make an extra copy of their offsite backups. They already have local backups that they can use to replace the remote backups if something catastrophic happens at the remote site. Please limit your responses to the question posed. Sorry if I seem a little abrasive, but I had some trolls in my last post who didn't read my requirements nor my question, and were trying to go off answering a totally different question. I made it pretty clear, but didn't try to justify my strategy, because I didn't ask about whether my strategy was justifyable. So I apologize if this was lengthy, as it really didn't need to be, but since there are so many trolls here who try to sidetrack questions by responding without addressing the question at hand.

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• PC: Quick Freeze, then BSOD, then forced reboot, then freezes again

  - by cr0z3r

  Lately I have been experiencing a weird issue. My PC will hang for a second and then BSOD - it stays there, so I have to reboot. Once Windows starts again and I'm logged in, after 1-10min it freezes again, this time without BSOD. RECAP: 1 second freeze BSOD, hangs there I have to force-reboot Once PC rebooted, I log back into Windows second freeze between a 1-10min range, no BSOD (alternatively, I get a freeze with a constant sound/noise, no BSOD) I contacted my PC provider, who told me my graphics-card might be flawed (Quadro 4000), so I used a Quadro 2000 that they lend me. The issue still occurred. The issue now seemed to belong to a flawed RAM module. Following my provider's steps, I removed all but the first from the left column and kept using my PC for a week or so without any issues. I then added the bottom-right module, and so on, until all modules were back inside - I had no problems. Now it seemed that a simple take-out-put-back-in of the RAM modules had fixed the issue. However, after a few months, the issue was back. I redid all the RAM-swapping I had done before, and concluded that the lower-right module was flawed. My provider changed it for another, and everything was great until now. My PC froze again for barely a second, hanged on a BSOD, I rebooted it, logged-in to Windows to get a freeze (without BSOD or reboot) 40 seconds later. Something worth noting, is that every time I reboot after the BSOD, it is something within Chrome that freezes my PC (e.g. this time I clicked the "restore" button as Chrome mentioned it had exited unexpectedly - from the previous freeze obviously - and it instantly froze). Finally, the Event Viewer lists 2 critical events in the past hour as "ID: 41, Type: Kernel-Power". PC-Specs: http://i.imgur.com/VZpbr.jpg Previous Dump-files: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/716600/DumpFiles_08_2012.zip I would like to thank anybody in advance for your help. You're great. UPDATE 1: I realized that I did not mention an awkward fact about this issue. After I have gotten the 1-sec freeze followed by a BSOD, after I rebooted because the BSOD hanged, and after I logged back in to get another (this time, eternal) freeze and rebooted once again, the PC does not boot back up. The power-light is on, but my monitor says "no signal", as if the PC wouldn't really be turned on. This truly seems a like a power-related issue, doesn't it? UPDATE 2: I just got a freeze, but without BSOD. My screen froze (while on Chrome, which is starting to seem suspicious to me) with an ongoing sound/noise. I had to force-reboot my PC. I would say this is a graphics-card issue, but this issue also happened when I was using the Quadro 2000 from my provider. UPDATE 3: I just got a BSOD while trying to render something (quite heavy, actually) in 3ds Max 2012. I left the BSOD "running", as it said it was writing dump files to disk. However, the percentage number stayed at 0, so after 15 minutes I force-rebooted. I then used the software WhoCrashed (thank you Dave) which reported the following from the C:\Windows\Memory.dmp file: On Thu 22.11.2012 22:13:45 GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp uptime: 01:05:27 This was probably caused by the following module: Unknown () Bugcheck code: 0x124 (0x0, 0xFFFFFA80275AC028, 0xF200001F, 0x100B2) Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA). This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue. A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: Unknown . Google query: Unknown WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR

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• Replicate between mysql 5.0.xx community and enterprise edition over ssh

  - by Arlukin

  I'm trying to setup a mysql replication over an SSH tunnel. The odd thing about this setup is that I have one master with mysql 5.0.60sp1-enterprise-gpl-log and one slave with mysql 5.0.67-community-log. Could it be so that it's not possible to replicate between community and enterprise edition? As you can see in my log below, it's possible to login on the remote server with the mysql client. But the replication get "Can't connect to MySQL server on '127.0.0.1' (13)" Is it any log file I have forgotten to look in, to get more info? [root@mysql1-av ~]# mysql -uroot -p Enter password: Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 73 Server version: 5.0.67-community-log MySQL Community Edition (GPL) Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer. The version of the slave mysql [root@mysql1-av ~]# autossh -f -M 20001 -L 3307:10.200.200.200:3306 [email protected] -N [root@mysql1-av ~]# mysql -h127.0.0.1 --port 3307 -uroot -p Enter password: Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 5189 Server version: 5.0.60sp1-enterprise-gpl-log MySQL Enterprise Server (GPL) Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer. mysql> Aborted Login to the master mysql with the mysql client over the ssh tunnel. [root@mysql1-av ~]# mysql -uroot -p Enter password: Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 75 Server version: 5.0.67-community-log MySQL Community Edition (GPL) Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer. mysql> change master to master_host='127.0.0.1', MASTER_PORT=3307, master_user='xxxx', master_password='xxxx', master_log_file='bin.000001'; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> start slave; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> show slave status \G *************************** 1. row *************************** Slave_IO_State: Connecting to master Master_Host: 127.0.0.1 Master_User: replNSG Master_Port: 3307 Connect_Retry: 60 Master_Log_File: bin.000001 Read_Master_Log_Pos: 4 Relay_Log_File: relay.000001 Relay_Log_Pos: 98 Relay_Master_Log_File: bin.000001 Slave_IO_Running: No Slave_SQL_Running: Yes Replicate_Do_DB: Replicate_Ignore_DB: Replicate_Do_Table: Replicate_Ignore_Table: Replicate_Wild_Do_Table: Replicate_Wild_Ignore_Table: Last_Errno: 0 Last_Error: Skip_Counter: 0 Exec_Master_Log_Pos: 4 Relay_Log_Space: 98 Until_Condition: None Until_Log_File: Until_Log_Pos: 0 Master_SSL_Allowed: No Master_SSL_CA_File: Master_SSL_CA_Path: Master_SSL_Cert: Master_SSL_Cipher: Master_SSL_Key: Seconds_Behind_Master: NULL 1 row in set (0.00 sec) Start the replication, but it breaks on IO. [root@mysql1-av ~]# tail /var/log/mysqld.log 120921 22:17:59 [Note] Slave I/O thread killed while connecting to master 120921 22:17:59 [Note] Slave I/O thread exiting, read up to log 'bin.000001', position 4 120921 22:17:59 [Note] Error reading relay log event: slave SQL thread was killed 120921 22:29:36 [Note] Slave SQL thread initialized, starting replication in log 'bin.000001' at position 4, relay log '/var/lib/mysql/relay.000001' position: 4 120921 22:29:36 [ERROR] Slave I/O thread: error connecting to master '[email protected]:3307': Error: 'Can't connect to MySQL server on '127.0.0.1' (13)' errno: 2003 retry-time: 60 retries: 86400 Because it can't connect to the master server.

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• PPTP connection fails with errors 800/806

  - by Mark S. Rasmussen

  I've got a client (Server 2008 R2) that won't connect to our production environment PPTP VPN server (Server 2003, running RRAS). The server is behind a firewall that has TCP1723 open as well as GRE. Other clients at our office are able to connect just fine. Our office is behind a Juniper SSG5-Serial firewall, but all outgoing traffic is allowed, and multiple other clients are able to connect to VPN servers without issues. I've also setup a completely different VPN server on another network outside of our office. The functioning clients connect just fine - the Server 2008 R2 machine doesn't. Thus it's definitely a problem with this machine in particular. I've rebooted it. I've disabled the firewall, no dice on either. I've run PPTPSRV and PPTPCLNT on the server/client and they're able to communicate perfectly - indicating there's no problem using neither TCP1723 nor GRE. The Server 2008 R2 machine is also running as a VPN server itself (incoming connection) and that's working perfectly. We have the issues no matter if there are active incoming connections or not. I'm not sure what my next debugging step would be; any suggestions? EDIT: The event log on the server has the following warning from RasMan: A connection between the VPN server and the VPN client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx has been established, but the VPN connection cannot be completed. The most common cause for this is that a firewall or router between the VPN server and the VPN client is not configured to allow Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) packets (protocol 47). Verify that the firewalls and routers between your VPN server and the Internet allow GRE packets. Make sure the firewalls and routers on the user's network are also configured to allow GRE packets. If the problem persists, have the user contact the Internet service provider (ISP) to determine whether the ISP might be blocking GRE packets. Obviously this points to GRE being a potential problem. But seeing as I have other clients connectiong without problems, as well as PPTPSRV and PPTPCLNT being able to communicate, I'm suspecting this might be a red herring. EDIT: Here are the anonymized events logged by the client in chronological order: CoId={742CB15C-A7E0-47B7-8240-0EFA1139CBD9}: The user XXX\YYY has started dialing a VPN connection using a per-user connection profile named ZZZ. The connection settings are: Dial-in User = XXX\YYY VpnStrategy = PPTP DataEncryption = Require PrerequisiteEntry = AutoLogon = No UseRasCredentials = Yes Authentication Type = CHAP/MS-CHAPv2 Ipv4DefaultGateway = No Ipv4AddressAssignment = By Server Ipv4DNSServerAssignment = By Server Ipv6DefaultGateway = Yes Ipv6AddressAssignment = By Server Ipv6DNSServerAssignment = By Server IpDnsFlags = Register primary domain suffix IpNBTEnabled = Yes UseFlags = Private Connection ConnectOnWinlogon = No. CoId={742CB15C-A7E0-47B7-8240-0EFA1139CBD9}: The user XXX\YYY is trying to establish a link to the Remote Access Server for the connection named ZZZ using the following device: Server address/Phone Number = XXX.YYY.ZZZ.KKK Device = WAN Miniport (PPTP) Port = VPN3-4 MediaType = VPN. CoId={742CB15C-A7E0-47B7-8240-0EFA1139CBD9}: The user XXX\YYY has successfully established a link to the Remote Access Server using the following device: Server address/Phone Number = XXX.YYY.ZZZ.KKK Device = WAN Miniport (PPTP) Port = VPN3-4 MediaType = VPN. CoId={742CB15C-A7E0-47B7-8240-0EFA1139CBD9}: The link to the Remote Access Server has been established by user XXX\YYY. CoId={742CB15C-A7E0-47B7-8240-0EFA1139CBD9}: The user XXX\YYY dialed a connection named ZZZ which has failed. The error code returned on failure is 806. Running Wireshark on the client shows it trying and retrying to send a "71 Configuration Request" While the server shows the incoming client requests, but apparently without replying: Given that this is GRE traffic, I think rules out the GRE traffic being blocked. Question is, why doesn't the server reply? This is the Configuration Request the server receives from the non functioning client (meaning no response is sent to the client request): And this is the Configuration Request the server receives from the working client: To me they seem identical, except for differing keys and magic numbers, and the fact that one client receives a response while the other doesn't.

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• Cannot read status the monit daemon, even with allowed group

  - by jefflunt

  I cannot seem to get monit status or other CLI commands to work. I've built monit v5.8 to run on a Raspberry Pi. I'm able to add services to be monitored, and the web interface can be accessed just fine, as I've set it up for public read-only access (it's a test server, not my final production setup, so not a big deal right now). Problem is, when I run monit status while logged in as root I get: # monit status monit: cannot read status from the monit daemon I also have monit started on boot via this /etc/inittab file entry: mo:2345:respawn:/usr/local/bin/monit -Ic /etc/monitrc I've verified that monit is running, and I'm getting email alerts anytime I either kill the monit process manually, or reboot my raspberry pi. So, next I check my monitrc file permissions to see which group is allowed access. # ls -al /etc/monitrc -rw------- 1 root root 2359 Aug 24 14:48 /etc/monitrc Here's my relevant allow section of the control file. set httpd port 80 allow [omitted] readonly allow @root allow localhost allow 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 Also tried setting permissions on this file to 640 to allow group read permissions, but no matter what I try I either get the same error as noted above, or when the permissions are set to 640 I get: # monit status monit: The control file '/etc/monitrc' must have permissions no more than -rwx------ (0700); right now permissions are -rw-r----- (0640). What am I missing here? I know that the httpd must be enabled, as that's the interface that the CLI uses to get information (or so I've read), so I've done that. And in terms of monit doing its monitoring job and sending email alerts, that's all working as well. Here's my entire monitrc file - again, this is version v5.8, and it was build with both PAM and SSL support. The process runs under the root user: # Global settings set daemon 300 with start delay 5 set logfile /var/log/monit.log set pidfile /var/run/monit.pid set idfile /var/run/.monit.id set statefile /var/run/.monit.state # Mail alerts ## Set the list of mail servers for alert delivery. Multiple servers may be ## specified using a comma separator. If the first mail server fails, Monit # will use the second mail server in the list and so on. By default Monit uses # port 25 - it is possible to override this with the PORT option. # set mailserver smtp.gmail.com port 587 username [omitted] password [omitted] using tlsv1 ## Send status and events to M/Monit (for more informations about M/Monit ## see http://mmonit.com/). By default Monit registers credentials with ## M/Monit so M/Monit can smoothly communicate back to Monit and you don't ## have to register Monit credentials manually in M/Monit. It is possible to ## disable credential registration using the commented out option below. ## Though, if safety is a concern we recommend instead using https when ## communicating with M/Monit and send credentials encrypted. # # set mmonit http://monit:[email protected]:8080/collector # # and register without credentials # Don't register credentials # # ## Monit by default uses the following format for alerts if the the mail-format ## statement is missing:: set mail-format { from: [email protected] subject: $SERVICE $DESCRIPTION message: $EVENT Service: $SERVICE Date: $DATE Action: $ACTION Host: $HOST Description: $DESCRIPTION Monit instance provided by chicagomeshnet.com } # Web status page set httpd port 80 allow [omitted] readonly allow @root allow localhost allow 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 ## You can set alert recipients whom will receive alerts if/when a ## service defined in this file has errors. Alerts may be restricted on ## events by using a filter as in the second example below.

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• Exchange 2003-Exchange 2010 post migration GAL/OAB problem

  - by user68726

  I am very new to Exchange so forgive my newbie-ness. I've exhausted Google trying to find a way to solve my problem so I'm hoping some of you gurus can shed some light on my next steps. Please forgive my bungling around through this. The problem I cannot download/update the Global Address List (GAL) and Offline Address Book (OAB) on my Outlook 2010 clients. I get: Task 'emailaddress' reported error (0x8004010F) : 'The operation failed. An object cannot be found.' ---- error. I'm using cached exchange mode, which if I turn off Outlook hangs completely from the moment I start it up. (Note I've replaced my actual email address with 'emailaddress') Background information I migrated mailboxes, public store, etc. from a Small Business Server 2003 with Exchange 2003 box to a Server 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010 based primarily on an experts exchange how to article. The exchange server is up and running as an internet facing exchange server with all of the roles necessary to send and receive mail and in that capacity is working fine. I "thought" I had successfully migrated everything from the SBS03 box, and due to huge amounts of errors in everything from AD to the Exchange install itself I removed the reference to the SBS03 server in adsiedit. I've still got access to the old SBS03 box, but as I said the number of errors in everything is preventing even the uninstall of Exchange (or the starting of the Exchange Information Store service), so I'm quite content to leave that box completely out of the picture while trying to solve my problem. After research I discovered this is most likely because I failed to run the “update-globaladdresslist” (or get / update) command from the Exchange shell before I removed the Exchange 2003 server from adsiedit (and the network). If I run the command now it gives me: WARNING: The recipient "domainname.com/Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Offline Address Book - first administrative group" is invalid and couldn't be updated. WARNING: The recipient "domainname.com/Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Schedule+ Free Busy Information – first administrative group" is invalid and couldn't be updated. WARNING: The recipient "domainname.com/Microsoft Exchange System Objects/ContainernameArchive" is invalid and couldn't be updated. WARNING: The recipient "domainname.com/Microsoft Exchange System Objects/ContainernameContacts" is invalid and couldn't be updated. (Note that I’ve replaced my domain with “domainname.com” and my organization name with “containername”) What I’ve tried I don’t want to use the old OAB, or GAL, I don’t care about either, our GAL and distribution lists needed to be organized anyway, so at this point I really just want to get rid of the old reference to the “first administrative group” and move on. I’ve tried to create a new GAL and tell Exchange 2010 to use that GAL instead of the old GAL, but I'm obviously missing some of the commands or something dumb I need to do to start over with a blank slate/GAL/OAB. I'm very tempted to completely delete the entire "first administrative group" tree from adsiedit and see if that gets rid of the ridiculous reference that no longer exists but I dont want to break something else. Commands run to try to create a new GAL and tell exch10 to use that GAL: New-globaladdresslist –name NAMEOFNEWGAL Set-globaladdresslist GUID –name NAMEOFNEWGAL This did nothing for me except now when I run get-globaladdresslist or with the | FL pipe I see two GALs listed, the “default global address list” and the “NAMEOFNEWGAL” that I created. After a little more research this morning it looks like you can't change/delete/remove the default address list, and the only way to do what I'm trying to do would be to maybe remove the default address list via adsiedit and recreate with a command something like new-GlobalAddressList -Name "Default Global Address List" -IncludedRecipients AllRecipients. This would be acceptable but I've searched and searched and can't find instructions or a breakdown of where exactly the default GAL lives in AD, and if I'd have to remove multiple child references/records. ** Of interest** I'm getting an event ID 9337 in my application log OALGen did not find any recipients in address list ‘\Global Address List. This offline address list will not be generated. -\NAMEOFMYOAB --------- on my Exchange 2010 box, which pretty much to me seems to confirm my suspicion that the empty GAL/OAB is what's causing the Outlook client 0x8004010F error. Help please!

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• SATA drive problems with two SIL RAID cards

  - by Jon Topper

  I've just put a second SiI 3114 SATARaid card in my home server so that I could add another pair of SATA drives and increase my storage space. Annoyingly, it doesn't seem to work: [ 32.816030] ata5: lost interrupt (Status 0x0) [ 32.816072] ata5.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen [ 32.816091] ata5.00: cmd c8/00:08:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 in [ 32.816094] res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout) [ 32.816101] ata5.00: status: { DRDY } [ 32.816117] ata5: hard resetting link [ 33.136082] ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0) [ 36.060940] irq 18: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option) [ 36.060949] Pid: 0, comm: swapper Not tainted 2.6.31-20-generic #58-Ubuntu [ 36.060954] Call Trace: [ 36.060977] [] ? printk+0x18/0x1c [ 36.060997] [] __report_bad_irq+0x27/0x90 [ 36.061005] [] note_interrupt+0x150/0x190 [ 36.061011] [] handle_fasteoi_irq+0xac/0xd0 [ 36.061023] [] handle_irq+0x18/0x30 [ 36.061029] [] do_IRQ+0x47/0xc0 [ 36.061042] [] ? irq_exit+0x50/0x70 [ 36.061058] [] ? smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x57/0x90 [ 36.061065] [] common_interrupt+0x30/0x40 [ 36.061075] [] ? native_safe_halt+0x5/0x10 [ 36.061082] [] default_idle+0x46/0xd0 [ 36.061088] [] cpu_idle+0x8c/0xd0 [ 36.061103] [] rest_init+0x55/0x60 [ 36.061111] [] start_kernel+0x2e6/0x2ec [ 36.061117] [] ? unknown_bootoption+0x0/0x19e [ 36.061133] [] i386_start_kernel+0x7c/0x83 [ 36.061137] handlers: [ 36.061139] [] (sil_interrupt+0x0/0xb0) [ 36.061151] Disabling IRQ #18 [ 38.136014] ata5: hard resetting link [ 38.456022] ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0) [ 43.456013] ata5: hard resetting link [ 43.776022] ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0) [ 43.776035] ata5.00: disabled [ 43.776055] ata5.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0 [ 43.776074] sd 4:0:0:0: [sde] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE [ 43.776082] sd 4:0:0:0: [sde] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor] [ 43.776092] Descriptor sense data with sense descriptors (in hex): [ 43.776097] 72 0b 00 00 00 00 00 0c 00 0a 80 00 00 00 00 00 [ 43.776112] 00 00 00 00 [ 43.776118] sd 4:0:0:0: [sde] Add. Sense: No additional sense information [ 43.776127] end_request: I/O error, dev sde, sector 0 [ 43.776136] Buffer I/O error on device sde, logical block 0 [ 43.776170] ata5: EH complete [ 43.776187] ata5.00: detaching (SCSI 4:0:0:0) root@core:~# cat /proc/interrupts CPU0 0: 47 IO-APIC-edge timer 1: 8 IO-APIC-edge i8042 6: 3 IO-APIC-edge floppy 7: 0 IO-APIC-edge parport0 8: 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc0 9: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi acpi 14: 53069 IO-APIC-edge pata_sis 15: 53004 IO-APIC-edge pata_sis 17: 112265 IO-APIC-fasteoi sata_sil 18: 200002 IO-APIC-fasteoi sata_sil, SiS SI7012 19: 111140 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth0 20: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb2 21: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb3 23: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb1 NMI: 0 Non-maskable interrupts LOC: 6650492 Local timer interrupts SPU: 0 Spurious interrupts CNT: 0 Performance counter interrupts PND: 0 Performance pending work RES: 0 Rescheduling interrupts CAL: 0 Function call interrupts TLB: 0 TLB shootdowns TRM: 0 Thermal event interrupts THR: 0 Threshold APIC interrupts MCE: 0 Machine check exceptions MCP: 160 Machine check polls ERR: 0 MIS: 0 root@core:~# lspci | grep Raid 00:09.0 RAID bus controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3114 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 02) 00:0a.0 RAID bus controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3114 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 02) root@core:~# lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 9.10 Release: 9.10 Codename: karmic root@core:~# uname -a Linux core.topper.me.uk 2.6.31-20-generic #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 05:23:09 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux I've tried a combination of different kernel options (irqpoll, noapic, noacpi, pci=noapic) all to no avail. Does anyone have any bright ideas about how I can go about making this work? Swapping PCI cards around isn't an option as there are only two slots in this motherboard (an ASRock K7S41GX). The BIOS doesn't look to have too much in the way of configuration options regarding IRQ usage. Plan B is to ditch this server completely and buy a new QNAP for these drives to go in, but I was hoping to avoid doing this right now.

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• BSOD & System Failure after trying to install a new RAM

  - by Praveen Kumar

  I have updated the question with sections, so that people won't find it difficult to read. Basic System Information Let me give a basic introduction on my system. I have a system of following configuration: Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.40GHz RAM: Corsair Vengeance - 4GB Single Module DDR3 Memory Kit (CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9) x 2 OS: Windows 7 Ultimate, SP1 Build 7601 HDD: 1 TB Seagate 7200 RPM The Problem It was working fine for about an year. Yesterday I planned to increase my RAM to 16 GB by putting another set of two Corsair Vengeance - 4GB Single Module DDR3 Memory Kit (CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9). I got it from an authorized reseller and also, the RAM was fitted by a service engineer only. After the RAM was fit (all the four), the system failed to start, with an error code of 0x000000f4. The complete information of it is: Problem signature: Problem Event Name: BlueScreen OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1 Locale ID: 16393 Additional information about the problem: BCCode: f4 BCP1: 0000000000000003 BCP2: FFFFFA8008A39060 BCP3: FFFFFA8008A39340 BCP4: FFFFF800037C8510 OS Version: 6_1_7601 Service Pack: 1_0 Product: 256_1 Files that help describe the problem: C:\Windows\Minidump\093012-13041-01.dmp C:\Users\Praveen Kumar\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-30716-0.sysdata.xml Read our privacy statement online: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409 If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline: C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt Another Problem We first thought that it was the RAM, which caused the issue. So I returned the RAMs and now my computer configuration is exactly how it was the previous day. But, following the removal of the RAM, I also had several crashes after that. One suspicious thing was with an error code c0000134: STOP: c0000135 The program can’t start because %hs is missing from your computer . Try resintalling the program to fix this problem. After reading contents from this, this and this, which were never my case, they didn't help me. But I didn't receive any more STOP c0000134 messages. But this 0x000000f4 keeps on coming. I am writing from the same system and it allows me to work for say, half an hour max. Then I hear a device disconnect sound, the one you hear in Windows 7, when a USB Mass Storage Device is plugged out. Immediately following that, my screen goes blank and I get 0x000000f4 blue screen. Okay, now I am really concerned about my Hard Disk data, but I have no clue if there is a problem with the HDD. My Question What all files do I need to submit for your reference? Can this issue be fixed? I am getting more time if I remove my RAM, clean it and then put it back. Weird! Hope I have given the necessary information to help you guys. Thanks in advance. Minidumps I have uploaded all the Minidump DMP files from C:\Windows\Minidump folder here: http://www.praveen-kumar.com/Minidumps.zip Let me know if you face any issues in accessing it. Will be able to share elsewhere. Updates 30-Sep-2012 10:15 AM IST: When I keep the system cover opened, pressed the HDD Cable well, it is allowing me to be on for about half an hour, I guess? Also, I feel that the CPU fan speed is kind of slow. It rotates at around 900 RPM, but the CPU Temperature is not more than 70° C. 30-Sep-2012 10:30 AM IST: My Modem (Beetel 220BX ADSL2+ Router) failed. I have no idea how it is related to this issue, but I thought that I need to document this too. I really have a bad day here. 30-Sep-2012 11:00 AM IST: System still running fine, with the cabinet cover open, now for about an hour. 30-Sep-2012 12:00 PM IST: I shut down the system and closed the cabinet. Started the system, and it hung after giving the password. After a few minutes, got the same 0x000000f4 error. So, while it is in the upright position, fixed the Hard Disk cable and now it is booting fine. Waiting for more observations and answers.

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• I cut-to-move DCIM folder to ext SD when an auto android OS update popped up b4 I could choose target - Cannot recover 200+ photos

  - by ZeroG

  I was downloading my Exhibit II's DCIM camera folder (with month's of photos inside) to its external SD card, in order to transfer them into my laptop. In my overconfidence, I hurriedly chose cut-to-move (rather than copy-to-move) when KABOOM! —an automatic Android OS update popped up before I could choose the target!!! I figured everything was in cache & calmly tried to go through with the update. But that was not a typically seamless event. It showed downloading icon but hmm… since I rooted the phone it brought the command line up & recovery sequence. But neither Android nor I had yet downloaded any alternate custom ROM Files to internal SD to update from! So were they trying to make me unroot my phone by giving me some bogus update on the fly or just give me a hard time in trying to hand me down an unrooted ROM that I'd have to figure out how to root again? Yes, I know there was that blurb about overwriting a file of the same name but I was trying to shake the darn stubborn update being forced on my phone during this precarious moment. I thought I had frozen or turned off all those auto-updates previously. Anyway, phones are small & fingers are big (sigh)... I tried to reboot into safe mode but the resultant photo file was partially overwritten (200 files had names but Zero bytes in them). I thought maybe it was still hung in cache or deposited somewhere else but I have searched everywhere with file managers. Since I did not have Titanium backing up camera, photo folder or gallery, I cannot recover 200+ photos. Dumb. You can understand my dilemma as I am involved in the arts & although just a camera phone, most of these photos were historic & aesthetic or at least as to subject matter. Photo-ops don't reoccur. I have tried a couple of recovery apps from the market like Search Duplicates & Recover to no avail. I was only able to salvage stuff I'd sent out in messages. I've got several decades in computers & this is such a miserable beginner's piece of bad luck I can't believe it happened to me. They were precious photos! Yes, I turned on Titanium since & yes I even tried USB to laptop recoveries. Being on a MacBookPro I'm trying androidfiletransfer.dmg, but I'd have to upgrade to Peach Sunrise to get above Android 3.0 for that App to recognize the phone via USB & the programmer says installation zeros your data, so that pretty much toasts any secret hidden places where these photos may have been deposited. Don't want to do that & am still trying to find them. They certainly didn't make it to my external SD Card. If any of you techies out there know anything, please help & thanks. Despite decades of being in computing, unfamiliar & ever-changing hard or software can humble even the most seasoned veterans.

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• Issue in setting up VPN connection (IKEv1) using android (ICS vpn client) with Strongswan 4.5.0 server

  - by Kushagra Bhatnagar

  I am facing issues in setting up VPN connection(IKEv1) using android (ICS vpn client) and Strongswan 4.5.0 server. Below is the set up: Strongswan server is running on ubuntu linux machine which is connected to some wifi hotspot. Using the steps in this guide link, I generated CA, server and client certificate. Once certificates are generated, following (clientCert.p12 and caCert.pem) are sent to mobile via mail and installed on android device. Below are the ip addresses assigned to various interfaces Linux server wlan0 interface ip where server is running: 192.168.43.212, android device eth0 interface ip address: 192.168.43.62; Android device is also attached with the same wifi hotspot. On the Android device, I uses IPsec Xauth RSA option for setting up VPN authentication configuration. I am using the following ipsec.conf configuration: # basic configuration config setup plutodebug=all # crlcheckinterval=600 # strictcrlpolicy=yes # cachecrls=yes nat_traversal=yes # charonstart=yes plutostart=yes # Add connections here. # Sample VPN connections conn ios1 keyexchange=ikev1 authby=xauthrsasig xauth=server left=%defaultroute leftsubnet=0.0.0.0/0 leftfirewall=yes leftcert=serverCert.pem right=192.168.43.62 rightsubnet=10.0.0.0/24 rightsourceip=10.0.0.2 rightcert=clientCert.pem pfs=no auto=add      With the above configurations when I enable VPN on android device, VPN connection is not successful and it gets timed out in Authentication phase. I ran wireshark on both the android device and strongswan server, from the tcpdump below are the observations. Initially Identity Protection (Main mode) exchanges happens between device and server and all are successful. After all successful Identity Protection (Main mode) exchanges server is sending Transaction (Config mode) to device. In reply android device is sending Informational message instead of Transaction (Config mode) message. Further server is keep on sending Transaction (Config mode) message and device is again sending Identity Protection (Main mode) messages. Finally timeout happens and connection fails. I also capture Strongswan server logs and below are the snippets from the server logs which also verifies the same(described above). Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | **parse ISAKMP Message: Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | initiator cookie: Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | 06 fd 61 b8 86 82 df ed Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | responder cookie: Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | 73 7a af 76 74 f0 39 8b Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | next payload type: ISAKMP_NEXT_HASH Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | ISAKMP version: ISAKMP Version 1.0 Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | exchange type: ISAKMP_XCHG_INFO Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | flags: ISAKMP_FLAG_ENCRYPTION Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | message ID: a2 80 ad 82 Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | length: 92 Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | ICOOKIE: 06 fd 61 b8 86 82 df ed Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | RCOOKIE: 73 7a af 76 74 f0 39 8b Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | peer: c0 a8 2b 3e Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | state hash entry 25 Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | state object not found Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: packet from 192.168.43.62:500: Informational Exchange is for an unknown (expired?) SA Apr 27 21:09:40 Linux pluto[12105]: | next event EVENT_RETRANSMIT in 10 seconds for #9 Can anyone please provide update on this issue. Why the VPN connection gets timed out and why the ISAKMP exchanges are not proper between Android and strongswan server.

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• mysql replication 1x master, 1x slave

  - by clarkk

  I have just setup one master and one slave server, but its not working.. On my website I connect to the slave server and I insert some rows, but they do not appear on the master and vice versa.. What is wrong? This is what I did: Master: -> /etc/mysql/my.cnf [mysqld] log-bin = mysql-master-bin server-id=1 # bind-address = 127.0.0.1 binlog-do-db = test_db Slave: -> /etc/mysql/my.cnf [mysqld] log-bin = mysql-slave-bin server-id=2 # bind-address = 127.0.0.1 replicate-do-db = test_db Slave: terminal 0 > mysql> STOP SLAVE; // and drop tables Master: terminal 1 > mysql> CREATE USER 'repl_slave'@'slave_ip' IDENTIFIED BY 'repl_pass'; mysql> GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON *.* TO 'repl_slave'@'slave_ip'; mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES; mysql> FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK; -- leave terminal open terminal 2 > shell> mysqldump -u root -pPASSWORD test_db --lock-all-tables > dump.sql mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS; Slave: terminal 3 > shell> mysql -u root -pPASSWORD test_db < dump.sql terminal 0 > mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO mysql> MASTER_HOST='master_ip', mysql> MASTER_USER='repl_slave', mysql> MASTER_PASSWORD='repl_pass', mysql> MASTER_PORT=3306, mysql> MASTER_LOG_FILE='mysql-master-bin.000003', // terminal 2 > SHOW MASTER STATUS mysql> MASTER_LOG_POS=4, // terminal 2 > SHOW MASTER STATUS mysql> MASTER_CONNECT_RETRY=10; mysql> START SLAVE; mysql> SHOW SLAVE STATUS; Here is the slave status: Array ( [Slave_IO_State] => Waiting for master to send event [Master_Host] => xx.xx.xx.xx [Master_User] => repl_slave [Master_Port] => 3306 [Connect_Retry] => 10 [Master_Log_File] => mysql-master-bin.000003 [Read_Master_Log_Pos] => 106 [Relay_Log_File] => mysqld-relay-bin.000002 [Relay_Log_Pos] => 258 [Relay_Master_Log_File] => mysql-master-bin.000003 [Slave_IO_Running] => Yes [Slave_SQL_Running] => Yes [Replicate_Do_DB] => test_db [Replicate_Ignore_DB] => [Replicate_Do_Table] => [Replicate_Ignore_Table] => [Replicate_Wild_Do_Table] => [Replicate_Wild_Ignore_Table] => [Last_Errno] => 0 [Last_Error] => [Skip_Counter] => 0 [Exec_Master_Log_Pos] => 106 [Relay_Log_Space] => 414 [Until_Condition] => None [Until_Log_File] => [Until_Log_Pos] => 0 [Master_SSL_Allowed] => No [Master_SSL_CA_File] => [Master_SSL_CA_Path] => [Master_SSL_Cert] => [Master_SSL_Cipher] => [Master_SSL_Key] => [Seconds_Behind_Master] => 0 [Master_SSL_Verify_Server_Cert] => No [Last_IO_Errno] => 0 [Last_IO_Error] => [Last_SQL_Errno] => 0 [Last_SQL_Error] => )

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