How-To Tutorials

article-image-create-local-ubuntu-repository-using-apt-mirror-and-apt-cacher

05 Oct 2009

7 min read

Create a Local Ubuntu Repository using Apt-Mirror and Apt-Cacher

05 Oct 2009

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33055

article-image-integrating-asterisk-wireless-technologies-part-1

Packt

05 Oct 2009

9 min read

Integrating Asterisk with Wireless Technologies: Part 1

Packt

05 Oct 2009

9 min read

Why integrate Asterisk with wireless technologies? This is a good question, and is worthy of consideration at the outset of the article. As an open-standards (never mind open source) telephony platform, Asterisk is ideally positioned to connect with all manner of devices, and this is excellent news for those that are involved in designing and deploying Asterisk-based solutions, as we are able to choose the best options rather than being restricted by proprietary compatibility issues. Getting back to the question, or rather the answer to the question, mobility is one of the main reasons people want to hook Asterisk up to the wireless world—both mobility within the office environment and the requirements of a mobile workforce outside the office. Even in this day and age, many international travelers are plagued by heavy roaming costs for their mobile phones. Ironically, a good proportion of them probably carry devices with Wi-Fi and VoIP capabilities, some even staying in hotels with free Wi-Fi, if only they knew! Other reasons that people and corporations may be looking for wireless solutions include rapid deployments, cost reductions (in implementation costs, running costs,or both), or it may be that they need a portable PBX solution that can be moved around with them without the hassle of running cables and so on, every time they arrive at a new location. The following table shows business drivers and technology enablers involved: Business drivers Technology enablers (and issues) Mobility within the office Work anywhere in or around the building Mobile workforce International travel Field staff Multi-site enterprises Rapid implementations New office installations Fast office installation Cost reductions Reduced "hard" infrastructure (cabling, switches, and so on) Reduced real-estate needed Temporary deployments Hot desking Business continuity* Disaster recovery* Wireless access points are already very common, both within offices and in public locations Wi-Fi and WiMAX technology (may suffer with NAT and firewall issues) Wireless routing means phones (and PCs) can now be rolled out very quickly SIP and IAX2 trunks are usually much more cost effective that traditional trunks IP PBXs can be physically much smaller, meaning less rack/floor space is used The power consumption of an IP PBX can be a lot less than a traditional PBX. These reasons in particular are a great sell for VoIP, not just wireless. Wireless technology overview With this weight of reasons to think about wireless, our next job is to look at the options available so that we can deploy the best technology in each given application. To help us consider the options, I have split the next section into two parts—one that considers wireless handsets and one that considers wireless networks. There are many types of wireless handsets on the market today, some have been around for quite some time while others are relatively new. Most are aimed at the consumer, a few are definite enterprise plays, and there is even an "industrial strength" offering. Let's outline each type and home in on their advantages and disadvantages. Wi-Fi (only) phones Wi-Fi (only) phones have probably been around the longest, but in most cases, the vendors do not seem to have refined their offerings following the experience of their first products. Rather, Wi-Fi (only) handsets seem to be disappearing in favor of dual-mode cell phones. These devices started out as a piece of Wi-Fi kit that someone attached to a SIP stack and added on a microphone, speaker, and some basic audio-processing apparatus—and it shows. These phones are usually not excellent. Their issues often include poor battery life and less than perfect audio. Also, something that could be a big issue depending on your specific application, is the ability to roam from one Wi-Fi hotspot to another, which has now been addressed in specification 802.11n. But I have not yet seen many phones which implement this advance. Advantages Disadvantages Truly mobile Inside the office or home Other hotspots worldwide Allows PBX extension to travel. Small and portable. Configuration is difficult. Battery life is generally short. Voice quality can be poor. Not a wide choice of phones. If the phone does not have a web browser, you may not be able to connect to hotspots that require a login. One notable exception to majority of Wi-Fi (only) handsets is the Polycom range. As you would expect, these phones are very well constructed—there is even a rough use version for demanding environments, and they work well too. For more information, look up UT Starcomm, Hitachi, or Linksys Wi-Fi phone. SIP desk phones with a wireless link Imagine all the positive attributes of a good SIP "normal" desk phone—great looks, familiar feel, excellent functionality, high speech quality, and sturdy construction. Now make it wireless! This is exactly the idea that Linksys (and others like Mitel) have implemented by bringing out a wireless Ethernet bridge (a device that connects into a standard Ethernet socket on any device and gives it Wi-Fi connectivity), which is specifically designed to fit into the void in the base of their phones. This brings together the standard-looking office phone (the sort that seems familiar to users and will not scare them) with the convenience of wireless. The intention is not to go wandering around with this phone, as it still needs mains power, but to be able to locate it wherever you want in the office without needing a cabled Ethernet connection, nice! Advantages Disadvantages Very user friendly Great for office use Comprehensive features Good for temporary and flexible deployments Additional work of configuring and connecting the wireless Ethernet bridge The devices still need power, and so are not truly wireless Adds significant extra cost per extension Of course, any wireless Ethernet bridge and any SIP desk phone could be used, as these are standard interfaces that we are talking about. You could just have a wireless Ethernet bridge for a whole room going into a switch and then run cables to a number of phones (if you needed a few), but the elegance and simplicity of the Linksys solution does make it stand out. Dual-mode (GSM and SIP) phones and PDA/smart phones Within the last two to three years, these devices have really taken off. There are offerings from UT Starcomm (who also make Wi-Fi [only] handsets) and Pirelli Communications, but it is the Nokia handsets that have set the standard. Any high end "E" (business) or "N" (multimedia) series Nokia handset will have both Wi-Fi and SIP connectivity, and a SIP client is available for the iPhone, and for Windows mobile phones and PDA devices too. Great news for those wishing to integrate with Asterisk! These handsets (putting call costs to one side for a moment) provide the ultimate mobility, as they will enable calling through Wi-Fi access points or over the regular mobile network Often held up as examples of FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence), GSM/SIP phones are not really that—they are really two phones in one case, a GSM (or 3G) phone and a SIP phone. The only converged thing about them is that they share a microphone, an earpiece, and the contacts list. These devices cannot currently be configured to intelligently route calls over GSM or IP, depending on, say, cost. You have to choose your preferred method of communication, and all calls will go that way unless you choose the alternative (with an inconvenient two key-press method) on a per-call basis. This is something of an issue in countries like the UK, where it is usually cheapest to call a mobile from a mobile, and most business customers will have their mobile device on a monthly plan that includes minutes—so they will want calls to mobiles routed over the mobile network, and calls to landlines routed over the SIP (Wi-Fi) network. Having said that, two things have emerged to make things a little more user-friendly. Firstly, the UT Starcomm phones have two "place call" buttons—one that directs the call over the GSM (or 3G) network and one that directs the call over the SIP (Wi-Fi) network. Secondly, some third-party companies have developed small applications which run on the Nokia handsets (which use the Symbian S60 operating system) to do Least Cost Routing, which to my mind is an excellent development. Those little gripes aside, can you see the power of a single handset which is both a standard mobile phone AND an extension of your Asterisk PBX, by virtue of its SIP and Wi-Fi capabilities? To give you an idea of the potential benefits, co-author David Duffett describes his experiences: As someone who travels regularly, I continue to be impressed when my Nokia phone rings while I am in, say, Johannesburg, South Africa because someone back in the UK called my office number! It freaks them out when they find out you are not really in the office, and they are also impressed when you tell them that the call between your telephone system (Asterisk) and your mobile phone is FREE! It is heart-warming to find yourself in a hotel that offers free WiFi, able to make calls back to other extensions in the office at zero cost. And, as the internet (in general) and WiFi access points improve, I am finding that there is no noticeable difference in quality between a regular mobile call and a call placed over the internet. I have recently been experimenting with placing SIP calls over the 3G network (as opposed to using WiFi internet access) and, where the 3G network is good (mainly town and city centers at present), call quality has been acceptable. This means that if you are on an unlimited data plan as part of your mobile package, you could be calling your office (and any locations peering with it) free. Advantages Disadvantages Typically better voice quality than Wi-Fi (only) phones User interface is generally better than Wi-Fi (only) alternatives Great mobility Always on-net, just variable costs VoIP is an "application" Respected vendors Battery life is reduced by having Wi-Fi on, in addition to the regular phone Complex hotspot attachment processes in some environments (not a problem with the phone, just the Wi-Fi hook up) Sometimes frustrating steps to choose call route For more information, look at Nokia, Pirelli, or UT Starcomm dual-mode VoIP phone, or Windows mobile SIP.

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article-image-user-and-group-management-oracle-vm-manager-212

Packt

05 Oct 2009

3 min read

User and Group Management: Oracle VM Manager 2.1.2

Packt

05 Oct 2009

3 min read

This function is only available to administrators, so use this role prudently. During the installation of the Oracle VM Manager, a default admin account is created. And with this admin's account we can go about managing the users and groups. Managing Users Here it is possible to create new users, delete older or unwanted ones, assign different roles to those users, reset user password, and so on. Let's break it up into a few topics and have a look at it. Creating a User Viewing or editing details Changing a role Deleting a User Creating a User To create a User, perform the following: On the Administrator's page click User tab and then click on the Create button: Enter the necessary information such as: Username (avoid using user, manager, and administrator as username) Password Retype Password First Name Last Name Valid Email address We can select the account status, it could either be locked or unlocked and is only accessible when it's unlocked. We can lock an account for security reasons by using the status Locked. We can grant the following roles to this newly created user—User, Manager, or Administrator. Then select the Server Pools for this user and also select the group to which this user should belong to. Click on the Confirm button to confirm the information and we will get this information: As we can see in the preceding screenshot this is a plain user and has no groups or servers assigned to it. However this was unlocked and was granted a User role. Viewing or editing a User Now let's view the User we just created. Click on the User tab on the Administrator page: Click on the Show link to view the Server Pools that the user is allowed to use: We can now edit account details such as change email address, change account status, and so on. Let's change the User's email address: Modifying the account status to either locked or unlocked: Changing the role: Next, add the User to the Server Pool: Removing a User from groups or Server Pools: Changing a User's role Lets change regular Users' role to Administrator: On the Administrator's page, select the newly created User and click on the Edit button. Select the role and click Apply to effectively assign the role to the User: Once applied, we will be presented with the following screen: Deleting User To delete a User, we need to do the following on the Administrator's page. We can carry out a search and then select the User that we want to delete. Click on the Delete button and confirm the User you want to delete:

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2949

article-image-integrating-asterisk-wireless-technologies-part-2

Packt

05 Oct 2009

2 min read

Integrating Asterisk with Wireless Technologies: Part 2

Packt

05 Oct 2009

2 min read

Configuring wireless devices Each device will have its own user interface-either through the display on the device (if it's a phone) or through a web interface that you can browse to (some Wi-Fi phones will have both). The actual entries used for setting up the device to work with Asterisk are standard SIP parameters like username, password, host, and so on, and therefore, the next screenshot has been included (taken from the Siemens S460IP phone) as an example: What is worth looking into in more detail are the Nokia dual-mode phones, as there are a couple of parameters necessary for successful connection with Asterisk, which are not as widely known as they should be. These "lesser known" parameters are responsible for many people giving up on connecting their devices to Asterisk. I will use the Nokia E90 as an example: Most of the parameters are self explanatory, but the two parameters we pay special attention to are the Public user name in the SIP profile itself, and the Realm in the submenus for both the Proxy server and the Registrar server. Further in this section, some screenshots of each of the screens you will need to go through to set up your Nokia phone as an extension on your Asterisk PBX have been included. Start by selecting the Connection in the Settings screen: Then select SIP settings: Select or create the relevant SIP profile from the submenu: Inside the SIP profile, complete the settings—the Public user name must be the SIP profile name (from sip.conf)@: Now move down to the Proxy server and Registrar server sections: It is here that the all-important Realm must be entered—Asterisk sets this as "asterisk" by default, but you can change it in the [general] section of sip.conf. The Registrar server screen needs to be the same as the previous one: Although the IP address used (see preceding screenshot) is internal, it could equally be an Internet IP address such as 80.229.203.112 Note that the Realm is defined in the [general] section of sip.conf by the realm= line. If this line is missing, then the realm will default to "asterisk".

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2077

article-image-simple-alphabetical-glossary-using-jquery

Packt

05 Oct 2009

8 min read

Simple Alphabetical Glossary Using jQuery

Packt

05 Oct 2009

8 min read

Adding jQuery to your page As we have discussed above you can download the latest version of jQuery from jQuery site (http://jquery.com/) and can be added as a reference to your web pages accordingly. You can reference a local copy of jQuery using <script> tag in the page. Either you can reference your local copy or you can directly reference remote copy from jQuery.com or Google Ajax API (http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3/jquery.min.js) Prerequisite Knowledge In order to understand the code, one should have the basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and basic knowledge of jQuery. Ingredients Used HTML CSS jQuery Photoshop (Used for Designing the Button Background) Preview/Download If you would like to see the working example, click the following link: http://www.developersnippets.com/snippets/jquery/alphabetical_glossary/alphabetical_glossary.html. And if you would like to download the snippet, click the following link: http://www.developersnippets.com/snippets/jquery/alphabetical_glossary.zip. Figure 1: Snapshot of "Simple Alphabetical Glossary using jQuery" Figure 2: Overview of div’s and Listings used Figure 3: Image used for Listings (CSS Sprite) Successfully tested The above application is successfully tested on various browsers like IE 6.0, IE 7, IE 8, Mozilla Firefox (Latest Version), Google Chrome and Safari Browser (4.0.2) respectively. HTML Code Below is the HTML code with comments for you to better understand. <div id="body-container"> <div class="glossary-container"> <ul class="firstUL"> <li id="a" class="selected">A</li> <li id="b">B</li> <li id="c">C</li> <li id="d">D</li> <li id="e">E</li> <li id="f">F</li> <li id="g">G</li> <li id="h">H</li> </ul> </div>  <div class="content-container">  <div id="content-for-a" style="background-color:#d2e2fc">  </div>  <div id="content-for-b">  </div>  <div id="content-for-c">  </div>  <div id="content-for-d">  </div> </div> </div>  Explanation of HTML Code To get the UI shown in above screenshot, I have written some HTML div tags to hold the Glossary terms in one container and the results in another container. CSS styles are used to assign some nice colors. <div id="body-container">.....</div> I have used "body-container" as the main container to catch hold of other two div containers. <div class="glossary-container">.....</div> "glossary-container" contains a glossary term that is Alphabets, as of now in this example I have used alphabets only from "A" to "H". <div class="content-container">.....</div> In "content-container" I have arranged all the results or definitions of glossary terms, for each and every glossary term I have used separate <div> tags like for Alphabet "A" --- <div id="content-for-a" style="background-color:#d2e2fc">....</div>, and given default background color as "background-color:#d2e2fc" which highlights the definition accordingly. After going through the HTML code, we will have a glance on CSS styling. This is very important to give a good look and feel to the application. Explanation of CSS Code <style>/* Making margin and padding to 0, since by default the body will be allocated some amount of pixels of margin and padding. */body{ margin:0; padding:0;}#body-container{ width:415px; /* Given a constant width of 415px to body-container div */ height:500px; /* Given a constant height of 500px to the div */ margin:0 auto; /* This will align the div to center */ border:1px solid #3285ef; /* Giving the border */}#body-container .glossary-container{ clear:both; /* This will not allow floating elements on either sides */}#body-container .content-container{ height:430px; /* Given a constant height of 430px to the div */ width:415px; /* Given a constant width of 415px to the div */ overflow:auto; /* Scroll bar is shown when content is more than specified height */ font-family:'Arial',Verdana,Tahoma; /* Taken the default font to 'Arial' */ font-size:10pt; /* Making font size to 10 points */ clear:both; /* This will not allow floating elements on either sides */}#body-container .content-container div{ padding-left:10px; /* Left padding given as 10px */ border-bottom:1px #666666 solid; /* In order to separate each terms given bottom border color as #666666 (gray) with 1px */}#body-container .content-container div h2{ margin-top:0px; /* Making the top margin to 0px */}#body-container .content-container p.return-to-top{ color:#0066FF; /* Giving text color to Return to top text */ text-decoration:underline; /* The text will be underlined */ text-align:right; /* Text will be aligned to right */ margin-right:10px; /* Given some margin 10px to right */ cursor:pointer; /* Making the cursor to 'hand' */}.firstUL{ padding:0px 0px 0px 10px; /* Given some padding to left and 0 padding to top, right, bottom */ margin:0px; /* margin to 0px */ background-color:#3285ef; /* Given background color */}.firstUL li { background:transparent url(images/link_sprite_img.jpg) no-repeat scroll 0 0; /* For all li’s(listings) given default background image using CSS Sprite concept */ display:inline; /* Listings will be placed in a line */ font-family:'Arial',Verdana,Tahoma; /* Setting the font to 'Arial' */ font-size:16pt; /* Setting the font size to 16 points */ font-weight:bold; /* Making the text to bold */ padding:10px 15px 22px; /* Given some padding to top, right, bottom and left */ line-height:70px; /* This property specifies the line height */ cursor:pointer; /* Making the cursor to 'hand' */}.firstUL li.selected{ background:transparent url(images/link_sprite_img.jpg) no-repeat scroll 0px -57px; /* When any listing is highlighted, we are given the background to image using CSS Sprite concept */ color:#ffffff; /* Making the font color 'white' */ font-weight:bold; /* Making text bold */}</style> Explanation of jQuery Code In order to work your jQuery code, as mentioned above in "Adding jQuery to your page" section, we need to include jQuery JavaScript file onto your web page using <script> tag. <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.js"></script> I have downloaded the jQuery file from jQuery site and kept it on my local machine. To see the scrolling effect, you need to include the following plugin: <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.scrollTo-min.js"></script> You can get the above plugin at this location—http://plugins.jquery.com/project/ScrollTo The above two .js files should be in included in <head> tag in order to utilize those in our code. jQuery Code <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">$(document).ready(function() { //below code is for high-lighting the link and scroll to particular DOM Element as well $(".firstUL li").each(function() { $(this).click(function() { //On click of any Alphabet $(".firstUL li").removeClass("selected"); //Initially remove "selected" class if any $(this).addClass("selected"); //Add "selected" class for the clicked one elementClick = $(this).attr("id"); //get respective 'Id' for example 'a','b','c'.. etc., $(".content-container").scrollTo($("#content-for-"+elementClick), 800); //scrollTo particular DOM Element $(".content-container div").css({'background-color' : '#ffffff'}); //set the background color to default, that is white $(".content-container #content-for-"+elementClick).css({'background-color' : '#d2e2fc'}); //set the background color to light-blue to that div }); }); //When "Return to Top" is clicked highlight the first Alphabet that 'A' and scroll to top. $('.return-to-top').click(function(){ $(".firstUL li").each(function() { $(".firstUL li").removeClass("selected"); //Remove classname "selected" }); $("#a").addClass("selected"); //Add a class named "selected" to the first Alphabet $(".content-container").scrollTo($("#content-for-a"), 800); //This is for scrolling to particular element that is "A" here... $(".content-container div").css({'background-color' : '#ffffff'}); //set the background color to default, that is white $(".content-container #content-for-a").css({'background-color' : '#d2e2fc'}); //set the background color to light-blue to that div });});</script> Summary In this article, we saw how to create a Simple Alphabetical Glossary using jQuery. We have learnt how we can highlight particular DOM Element, how we can scroll-to particular div element using scroll-to plugin, and learnt how we can add the background-color to a div using CSS properties.

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4770

article-image-creating-dynamic-reports-databases-using-jasperreports-35-2

Packt

05 Oct 2009

10 min read

Creating Dynamic Reports from Databases Using JasperReports 3.5

Packt

05 Oct 2009

10 min read

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9406

article-image-displaying-mysql-data-aspnet-web-page

Packt

05 Oct 2009

5 min read

Displaying MySQL data on an ASP.NET Web Page

Packt

05 Oct 2009

5 min read

Web enabling business data is one of the key devices used to advertise and market products. This can be done with various technologies such as VB, ASP, JSP, ASP.Net and many others. This article shows how you may view data from a table on a MySQL database server on a web page using ASP.NET. The table used in this tutorial was the one described in the first article in this series on Exporting data from MS Access 2003 to MySQL. This article by Dr. Jay Krishnaswamy explains how to populate a GridView on an ASP.NET web page by data retrieved from a MySQL Server. MySQL.Data.MySqlClient is a connector (provider) provided by MySQL which you can use with the .NET Framework applications whose details may be reviewed here. MySQL is well integrated with Visual Studio (MySQL Visual Studio Tools: MySQL.VisualStudio.dll). Overview We first create an ASP.NET 3.5 Website Project (even .NET Framework 2.0 should be OK) in Visual Studio 2008. We then drag and drop a GridView ASP.NET control on to the Default.aspx page. We will then use the smart task on the GridView and follow it up to bring data to the GridView. Then we build the web site project and display the data in the GridView on the Default.aspx page. Create a ASP.NET 3.5 Web Site Project Launch Visual Studio 2008. Click File | New |Web Site... to open up the New Web Site window as shown. Change the default name of the web site to something suitable. Herein it is named WebMySQL as shown. Drag and drop a GridView Control From Toolbox under Data find the GridView Control. Drag and drop this control on to the Default.aspx page as shown. The GridView is 'unbound' when it is dropped and has a few template columns and the smart tasks menu. The menu item is shown in its drop-down state and displays the menu items under 'Choose Data Source'. Click on the <New Data Source...> item in Choose data source. This will bring up the Data Source Configuration wizard as shown. Herein you need to choose a source of the data you are trying to bring into the application to be bound to the GridView control. You have several options here and for the present article we will be using data from a database. Click on the Database icon as shown in the previous figure. With this you will be specifying an instance of SQLDataSource1 as your source of data. Click OK. This will take you to the next window shown here. Herein you will try to establish a connection to the data source. In the combo-box shown you may see some of the existing connections you have previously established one of which may initially show up. Herein we will be making a new connection. Click the New Connection... button. This brings up the Add Connection window which gets displayed with the default data source, the Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 as shown. Connecting to MySQL Before establishing the connection make sure that your MySQL Server is running. If you have not started you may do so as described in the article mentioned earlier(the first article). You can start the server from the command line as shown in the next figure. Click the Change... button to open the Change Data Source window as shown in the next figure. This window shows a number of Data Sources one of which is the MySQL Database. Scroll down and highlight MySQL Database as shown and click OK. This will bring you back to the Add Connection window with form controls appropriate for making a connection to a MySQL Database. The Server name; user name and Password are appropriate to the MySQL Server on the local computer and you should enter those appropriate for your installation. You may also test the connection as shown. Click OK after the connection is successful. This adds the connection information to the Configure Data Source wizard. You may expand the connection string item to review the connection string created by your entries. Click Next. Here you have an option to save the connection string to the Application Configuration File. This is a recommended practice and hence shown checked. Click Next. Here you will be selecting the set of columns that you want to bring in to your application. It has already chosen the 'employees' table on the MySQL database Testmove. Choose several columns from the list of columns. The SELECT statement is shown at the bottom of the above figure. If you were to click Next you would probably face a page which throws an exception. The square braces [ ] shown for each of the columns is not acceptable to the server. Click on the first option, "Specify a custom SQL Statement or stored procedure" and then click Next. This opens the "Define Custom Statements or Stored Procedures" page with a Query Builder... button. Here you can not only select columns but also other data modification operations such as Update, Insert and Delete. For now we will be doing just a selection.

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12821

How-To Tutorials

article-image-messaging-websphere-application-server-70-part-2

Packt

05 Oct 2009

7 min read

Messaging with WebSphere Application Server 7.0 (Part 2)

Packt

05 Oct 2009

7 min read

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3624

article-image-indexing-data-solr-14-enterprise-search-server-part2

Packt

05 Oct 2009

9 min read

Indexing Data in Solr 1.4 Enterprise Search Server: Part2

Packt

05 Oct 2009

9 min read

(For more resources on Solr, see here.) Direct database and XML import The capability for Solr to get data directly from a database or HTTP GET accessible XML is distributed with Solr as a contrib module, and it is known as the DataImportHandler (DIH in short). The complete reference documentation for this capability is here at http://wiki.apache.org/solr/DataImportHandler, and it's rather thorough. In this article, we'll only walk through an example to see how it can be used with the MusicBrainz data set. In short, the DIH offers the following capabilities: Imports data from databases through JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) Imports XML data from a URL (HTTP GET) or a file Can combine data from different tables or sources in various ways Extraction/Transformation of the data Import of updated (delta) data from a database, assuming a last-updated date A diagnostic/development web page Extensible to support alternative data sources and transformation steps As the MusicBrainz data is in a database, the most direct method to get data into Solr is definitely through the DIH using JDBC. Getting started with DIH DIH is not a direct part of Solr. Hence it might not be included in your Solr setup. It amounts to a JAR file named something like apache-solr-dataimporthandler-1.4.jar, which is probably already embedded within the solr.war file. You can use jar -tf solr.war to see. Alternatively, it may be placed in <solr-home>/lib, which is alongside the conf directory we've been working with. For database connectivity, we need to ensure that the JDBC driver is on the Java classpath. Placing it in <solr-home>/lib is a convenient way to do this. The DIH needs to be registered with Solr in solrconfig.xml. Here is how it is done: <requestHandler name="/dataimport"class="org.apache.solr.handler.dataimport.DataImportHandler"><lst name="defaults"><str name="config">mb-dih-artists-jdbc.xml</str></lst></requestHandler> mb-dih-artists-jdbc.xml (mb being short for MusicBrainz) is a file in <solr-home>/conf, which is used to configure DIH. It is possible to specify some configuration aspects in this request handler configuration instead of the dedicated configuration file. However, I recommend that it all be in the DIHconfig file, as in our example here. Given below is an mb-dih-artists-jdbc.xml file with a rather long SQL query: <dataConfig> <dataSource name="jdbc" driver="org.postgresql.Driver" url="jdbc:postgresql://localhost/musicbrainz_db" user="musicbrainz" readOnly="true" autoCommit="false" /> <document> <entity name="artist" dataSource="jdbc" pk="id" query=" select a.id as id, a.name as a_name, a.sortname as a_name_sort, a.begindate as a_begin_date, a.enddate as a_end_date, a.type as a_type ,array_to_string( array(select aa.name from artistalias aa where aa.ref = a.id ) , '|') as a_alias ,array_to_string( array(select am.name from v_artist_members am where am.band = a.id order by am.id) , '|') as a_member_name ,array_to_string( array(select am.id from v_artist_members am where am.band = a.id order by am.id) , '|') as a_member_id, (select re.releasedate from release re inner join album r on re.album = r.id where r.artist = a.id order by releasedate desc limit 1) as a_release_date_latest from artist a " transformer="RegexTransformer,DateFormatTransformer, TemplateTransformer"> <field column = "id" template="Artist:${artist.id}" /> <field column = "type" template="Artist" /> <field column = "a_begin_date" dateTimeFormat="yyyy-MM-dd" /> <field column = "a_end_date" dateTimeFormat="yyyy-MM-dd" /> <field column = "a_alias" splitBy="|" /> <field column = "a_member_name" splitBy="|"/> <field column = "a_member_id" splitBy="|" /> </entity> </document></dataConfig> The DIH development console Before describing the configuration details, we're going to take a look at the DIH development console. It is accessed by going to this URL (modifications may be needed for your host, port, core, and so on):http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/dataimport.jsp The development console looks like the following screenshot: The screen is divided into two panes: on the left is the DIH control form, which includes an editable version of the DIH configuration file and on the right is the command output as raw XML. The screen works quite simply. The form essentially results in submitting a URL to the right pane. There's no real server-side logic to this interface beyond the standard DIH command invocations being executed on the right. The last section on DIH in this article goes into more detail on submitting a command to the DIH. DIH DataSources of type JdbcDataSource The DIH configuration file starts with the declaration of one or more data sources using the element <dataSource/>, which refers to either a database, a file, or an HTTP URL, depending on the type attribute. It defaults to a value of JdbcDataSource. Those familiar with JDBC should find the driver and url attributes with accompanying user and password straightforward—consult the documentation for your driver/database for further information. readOnly is a boolean that will set a variety of other JDBC options appropriately when set to true. And batchSize is an alias for the JDBC fetchSize and defaults to 500. There are numerous JDBC oriented attributes that can be set as well. I would not normally recommend learning about a feature by reading source code, but this is an exception. For further information, read org.apache.solr.handler.dataimport.JdbcDataSource.java Efficient JDBC configuration Many database drivers in the default configurations (including those for PostgreSQL and MySQL) fetch all of the query results into the memory instead of on-demand or using a batch/fetch size. This may work well for typical database usage like OLTP (Online Transaction Processing systems), but is completely unworkable for ETL (Extract Transform and Load) usage such as this. Configuring the driver to stream the data requires driver-specific configuration options. You may need to consult relevant documentation for the JDBC driver. For PostgreSQL, set autoCommit to false. For MySQL, set batchSize to -1(The DIH detects the -1 and replaces it with Java's Integer.MIN_VALUE, which triggers the special behavior in MySQL's JDBC driver). For Microsoft SQL Server, set responseBuffering to adaptive. Further information about specific databases is at :http://wiki.apache.org/solr/DataImportHandlerFaq.. DIH documents, entities After the declaration of <dataSource/> element(s) is the <document/> element. In turn, this element contains one or more <entity/> elements. In this sample configuration, we're only getting artists. However, if we wanted to have more than one type in the same index, then another could be added. The dataSource attribute references a correspondingly named element earlier. It is only necessary if there are multiple to choose from, but we've put it here explicitly anyway. The main piece of an entity used with a JDBC data source is the query attribute, which is the SQL query to be evaluated. You'll notice that this query involves some sub-queries, which are made into arrays and then transformed into strings joined by spaces. The particular functions used to do these sorts of things are generally database specific. This is done to shoe-horn multi-valued data into a single row in the results. It may create a more complicated query, but it does mean that the database does all of the heavy lifting so that all of the data Solr needs for an artist is in the row. An alternative with DIH is to declare other entities within the entity. If you aren't using a database or if you wish to mix in another data source (even if it's of a different type), then you will be forced to do that. See the Solr DIH Wiki page for examples: http://wiki.apache.org/solr/DataImportHandler. The DIH also supports a delta query, which is a query that selects time-stamped data with dates after the last queried date. This won't be covered here, but you can find more information at the previous URL. DIH fields and transformers Within the <entity/> are some <field/>elements that declare how the columns in the query map to Solr. The field element must have a column attribute that matches the corresponding named column in the SQL query. The name attribute is the Solr schema field name that the column is going into. If it is not specified (and it never is for our example), then it defaults to the column name. Use the SQL as a keyword as we've done to use the same names as the Solr schema instead of the database schema. This reduces the number of explicit mappings needed in <field/> elements and shortens existing ones. When a column in the result can be placed directly into Solr without further processing, there is no need to specify the field declaration, because it is implied. An attribute of the entity declaration that we didn't mention yet is transformer. This declares a comma-separated list of transformers that manipulate the transfer of data from the JDBC resultset into a Solr field. These transformers evaluate a field, if it has an attribute it uses to do its job. More than one might operate on a given field. Therefore, the order in which the transformers are declared in matters. Here are the attributes we've used: template: It is used by TemplateTransformer and declares text, which might include variable name substitutions using ${name} syntax. To access an existing field, use the entityname.columnname syntax. splitBy: It is used by RegexTransformer and splits a single string value into a multi-value by looking for the specified character. dateTimeFormat: It is used by DateFormatTransformer. This is a Java date/time format pattern http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html). If the type of the field in the schema is a date, then it is necessary to ensure Solr can interpret the format. Alternatively, ensure that the string matches the ISO-8601 format, which looks like this: 1976-10-23T23:59:59.000Z. As in all cases in Solr, when specifying dates you can use its so-called "DateMath" syntax such as appending /DAY to tell Solr to round the date to a day.

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2936

article-image-time-dimension-oracle-warehouse-builder-11g

Packt

05 Oct 2009

4 min read

Time Dimension in Oracle Warehouse Builder 11g

Packt

05 Oct 2009

4 min read

Let's discuss briefly what a Time dimension is, and then we'll dive right into the Warehouse Builder Design Center and create one. A Time dimension is a key part of most data warehouses. It provides the time series information to describe our data. A key feature of data warehouses is being able to analyze data from several time periods and compare results between them. The Time dimension is what provides us the means to retrieve data by time period. Do not be confused by the use of the word Time to refer to this dimension. In this case, it does not refer to the time of day but to time in general which can span days, weeks, months, and so on. We are using it because the Warehouse Builder uses the word Time for this type of dimension to signify a time period. So when referring to a Time dimension here, we will be talking about our time period dimension that we will be using to store the date. We will give the name Date to be clear about what information it contains. Every dimension, whether time or not, has four characteristics that have to be defined in OWB: Levels Dimension Attributes Level Attributes Hierarchies The Levels are for defining the levels where aggregations will occur, or to which data can be summed. We must have at least two levels in our Time dimension. While reporting on data from our data warehouse, users will want to see totals summed up by certain time periods such as per day, per month, or per year. These become the levels. A multidimensional implementation includes metadata to enable aggregations automatically at those levels, if we use the OLAP feature. The relational implementation can make use of those levels in queries to sum the data. The Warehouse Builder has the following Levels available for the Time dimension: Day Fiscal week Calendar week Fiscal month Calendar month Fiscal quarter Calendar quarter Fiscal year Calendar year The Dimension Attributes are individual pieces of information we're going to store in the dimension that can be found at more than one level. Each level will have an ID that identifies that level, a start and an end date for the time period represented at that level, a time span that indicates the number of days in the period, and a description of the level. Each level has Level Attributes associated with it that provide descriptive information about the value in that level. The dimension attributes found at that level and additional attributes specific to the level are included. For example, if we're talking about the Month level, we will find attributes that describe the value for the month such as the month of the year it represents, or the month in the calendar quarter. These would be numbers indicating which month of the year or which month of the quarter it is. The Oracle Warehouse Builder Users' Guide contains a more complete list of all the attributes that are available. OWB tracks which of these attributes are applicable to which level and allows the setting of a separate description that identifies the attribute for that level. Toward the end of the chapter, when we look at the Data Object Editor, we'll see the feature provided by the Warehouse Builder to view details about objects such as dimensions and cubes. We must also define at least one Hierarchy for our Time dimension. A hierarchy is a structure in our dimension that is composed of certain levels in order; there can be one or more hierarchies in a dimension. Calendar month, calendar quarter, and calendar year can be a hierarchy. We could view our data at each of these levels, and the next level up would simply be a summation of all the lower-level data within that period. A calendar quarter sum would be the sum of all the values in the calendar month level in that quarter, and the multidimensional implementation includes the metadata to facilitate these kinds of calculations. This is one of the strengths of a multidimensional implementation. The good news is that the Warehouse Builder contains a wizard that will do all the work for us—create our Time dimension and define the above four characteristics—just by asking us a few questions.

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2234

article-image-ubuntu-user-interface-tweaks

Packt

01 Oct 2009

10 min read

Ubuntu User Interface Tweaks

Packt

01 Oct 2009

10 min read

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0
4993

article-image-faceting-solr-14-enterprise-search-server

Packt

01 Oct 2009

9 min read

Faceting in Solr 1.4 Enterprise Search Server

Packt

01 Oct 2009

9 min read

(For more resources on Solr, see here.) Faceting, after searching, is arguably the second-most valuable feature in Solr. It is perhaps even the most fun you'll have, because you will learn more about your data than with any other feature. Faceting enhances search results with aggregated information over all of the documents found in the search to answer questions such as the ones mentioned below, given a search on MusicBrainz releases: How many are official, bootleg, or promotional? What were the top five most common countries in which the releases occurred? Over the past ten years, how many were released in each year? How many have names in these ranges: A-C, D-F, G-I, and so on? Given a track search, how many are < 2 minutes long, 2-3, 3-4, or more? Moreover, in addition, it can power term-suggest aka auto-complete functionality, which enables your search application to suggest a completed word that the user is typing, which is based on the most commonly occurring words starting with what they have already typed. So if a user started typing siamese dr, then Solr might suggest that dreams is the most likely word, along with other alternatives. Faceting, sometimes referred to as faceted navigation, is usually used to power user interfaces that display this summary information with clickable links that apply Solr filter queries to a subsequent search. If we revisit the comparison of search technology to databases, then faceting is more or less analogous to SQL's group by feature on a column with count(*). However, in Solr, facet processing is performed subsequent to an existing search as part of a single request-response with both the primary search results and the faceting results coming back together. In SQL, you would need to potentially perform a series of separate queries to get the same information. A quick example: Faceting release types Observe the following search results. echoParams is set to explicit (defined in solrconfig.xml) so that the search parameters are seen here. This example is using the standard handler (though perhaps dismax is more typical). The query parameter q is *:*, which matches all documents. In this case, the index I'm using only has releases. If there were non-releases in the index, then I would add a filter fq=type%3ARelease to the URL or put this in the handler configuration, as that is the data set we'll be using for most of this article. I wanted to keep this example brief so I set rows to 2. Sometimes when using faceting, you only want the facet information and not the main search, so you would set rows to 0, if that is the case. It's important to understand that the faceting numbers are computed over the entire search result, which is all of the releases in this example, and not just the two rows being returned. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <response> <lst name="responseHeader"> <int name="status">0</int> <int name="QTime">160</int> <lst name="params"> <str name="wt">standard</str> <str name="rows">2</str> <str name="facet">true</str> <str name="q">*:*</str> <str name="fl">*,score</str> <str name="qt">standard</str> <str name="facet.field">r_official</str> <str name="f.r_official.facet.missing">true</str> <str name="f.r_official.facet.method">enum</str> <str name="indent">on</str> </lst> </lst> <result name="response" numFound="603090" start="0" maxScore="1.0"> <doc> <float name="score">1.0</float> <str name="id">Release:136192</str> <str name="r_a_id">3143</str> <str name="r_a_name">Janis Joplin</str> <arr name="r_attributes"><int>0</int><int>9</int> <int>100</int></arr> <str name="r_name">Texas International Pop Festival 11-30-69</str> <int name="r_tracks">7</int> <str name="type">Release</str> </doc> <doc> <float name="score">1.0</float> <str name="id">Release:133202</str> <str name="r_a_id">6774</str> <str name="r_a_name">The Dubliners</str> <arr name="r_attributes"><int>0</int></arr> <str name="r_lang">English</str> <str name="r_name">40 Jahre</str> <int name="r_tracks">20</int> <str name="type">Release</str> </doc> </result> <lst name="facet_counts"> <lst name="facet_queries"/> <lst name="facet_fields"> <lst name="r_official"> <int name="Official">519168</int> <int name="Bootleg">19559</int> <int name="Promotion">16562</int> <int name="Pseudo-Release">2819</int> <int>44982</int> </lst> </lst> <lst name="facet_dates"/> </lst> </response> The facet related search parameters are highlighted at the top. The facet.missing parameter was set using the field-specific syntax, which will be explained shortly. Notice that the facet results (highlighted) follow the main search result and are given a name facet_counts. In this example, we only faceted on one field, r_official, but you'll learn in a bit that you can facet on as many fields as you desire. The name attribute holds a facet value, which is simply an indexed term, and the integer following it is the number of documents in the search results containing that term, aka a facet count. The next section gives us an explanation of where r_official and r_type came from. MusicBrainz schema changes In order to get better self-explanatory faceting results out of the r_attributes field and to split its dual-meaning, I modified the schema and added some text analysis. r_attributes is an array of numeric constants, which signify various types of releases and it's official-ness, for lack of a better word. As it represents two different things, I created two new fields: r_type and r_official with copyField directives to copy r_attributes into them: <field name="r_attributes" type="integer" multiValued="true" indexed="false" /> <field name="r_type" type="rType" multiValued="true" stored="false" /> <field name="r_official" type="rOfficial" multiValued="true" stored="false" /> And: <copyField source="r_attributes" dest="r_type" /> <copyField source="r_attributes" dest="r_official" /> In order to map the constants to human-readable definitions, I created two field types: rType and rOfficial that use a regular expression to pull out the desired numbers and a synonym list to map from the constant to the human readable definition. Conveniently, the constants for r_type are in the range 1-11, whereas r_official are 100-103. I removed the constant 0, as it seemed to be bogus. <fieldType name="rType" class="solr.TextField" sortMissingLast="true" omitNorms="true"> <analyzer> <tokenizer class="solr.KeywordTokenizerFactory"/> <filter class="solr.PatternReplaceFilterFactory" pattern="^(0|1dd)$" replacement="" replace="first" /> <filter class="solr.LengthFilterFactory" min="1" max="100" /> <filter class="solr.SynonymFilterFactory" synonyms="mb_attributes.txt" ignoreCase="false" expand="false"/> </analyzer> </fieldType> The definition of the type rOfficial is the same as rType, except it has this regular expression: ^(0|dd?)$. The presence of LengthFilterFactory is to ensure that no zero-length (empty-string) terms get indexed. Otherwise, this would happen because the previous regular expression reduces text fitting unwanted patterns to empty strings. The content of mb_attributes.txt is as follows: # from: http://bugs.musicbrainz.org/browser/mb_server/trunk/ # cgi-bin/MusicBrainz/Server/Release.pm#L48 #note: non-album track seems bogus; almost everything has it 0=>Non-Album Track 1=>Album 2=>Single 3=>EP 4=>Compilation 5=>Soundtrack 6=>Spokenword 7=>Interview 8=>Audiobook 9=>Live 10=>Remix 11=>Other 100=>Official 101=>Promotion 102=>Bootleg 103=>Pseudo-Release It does not matter if the user interface uses the name (for example: Official) or constant (for example: 100) when applying filter queries when implementing faceted navigation, as the text analysis will let the names through and will map the constants to the names. This is not necessarily true in a general case, but it is for the text analysis as I've configured it above. The approach I took was relatively simple, but it is not the only way to do it. Alternatively, I might have split the attributes and/or mapped them as part of the import process. This would allow me to remove the multiValued setting in r_official. Moreover, it wasn't truly necessary to map the numbers to their names, as a user interface, which is going to present the data, could very well map it on the fly. Field requirements The principal requirement of a field that will be faceted on is that it must be indexed. In addition to all but the prefix faceting use case, you will also want to use text analysis that does not tokenize the text. For example, the value Non-Album Track is indexed the way it is in r_type. We need to be careful to escape the space where this appeared in mb_attributes.txt. Otherwise, faceting on this field would show tallies for Non-Album and Track separately. Depending on the type of faceting you want to do and other needs you have like sorting, you will often find it necessary to have a copy of a field just for faceting. Remember that with faceting, the facet values returned in search results are the actual terms indexed, and not the stored value, which isn't even used.

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4285

article-image-messaging-websphere-application-server-70-part-1

Packt

01 Oct 2009

6 min read

Messaging with WebSphere Application Server 7.0 (Part 1)

Packt

01 Oct 2009

6 min read

Messaging in a large enterprise is common and a WebSphere administrator needs to understand what WebSphere Application Server can do for Java Messaging and/or WebSphere Message Queuing (WMQ) based messaging. Here, we will learn how to create Queue Connection Factories (QCF) and Queue Destinations (QD) which we will use in a demonstration application where we will demonstrate the Java Message Service (JMS) and also show how WMQ can be used as part of a messaging implementation. In this two-part article by Steven Charles Robinson, we will cover the following topics: Java messaging Java Messaging Service (JMS) WebSphere messaging Service integration bus (SIB) WebSphere MQ Message providers Queue connection factories Queue destinations Java messaging Messaging is a method of communication between software components or applications. A messaging system is often peer-to-peer, meaning that a messaging client can send messages to, and receive messages from, any other client. Each client connects to a messaging service that provides a system for creating, sending, receiving, and reading messages. So why do we have Java messaging? Messaging enables distributed communication that is loosely-coupled. What this means is that a client sends a message to a destination, and the recipient can retrieve the message from the destination. A key point of Java messaging is that the sender and the receiver do not have to be available at the same time in order to communicate. The term communication can be understood as an exchange of messages between software components. In fact, the sender does not need to know anything about the receiver; nor does the receiver need to know anything about the sender. The sender and the receiver need to know only what message format and what destination to use. Messaging also differs from electronic mail (email), which is a method of communication between people or between software applications and people. Messaging is used for communication between software applications or software components. Java messaging attempts to relax tightly-coupled communication (such as, TCP network sockets, CORBA, or RMI), allowing software components to communicate indirectly with each other. Java Message Service Java Message Service (JMS) is an application program interface (API) from Sun. JMS provides a common interface to standard messaging protocols and also to special messaging services in support of Java programs. Messages can involve the exchange of crucial data between systems and contain information such as event notification and service requests. Messaging is often used to coordinate programs in dissimilar systems or written in different programming languages. By using the JMS interface, a programmer can invoke the messaging services like IBM's WebSphere MQ (WMQ) formerly known as MQSeries, and other popular messaging products. In addition, JMS supports messages that contain serialized Java objects and messages that contain XML-based data. A JMS application is made up of the following parts, as shown in the following diagram: A JMS provider is a messaging system that implements the JMS interfaces and provides administrative and control features. JMS clients are the programs or components, written in the Java programming language, that produce and consume messages. Messages are the objects that communicate information between JMS clients. Administered objects are preconfigured JMS objects created by an administrator for the use of clients. The two kinds of objects are destinations and Connection Factories (CF). As shown in the diagram above, administrative tools allow you to create destinations and connection factories resources and bind them into a Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) API namespace. A JMS client can then look up the administered objects in the namespace and establish a logical connection to the same objects through the JMS provider. JMS features Application clients, Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), and Web components can send or synchronously receive JMS messages. Application clients can, in addition, receive JMS messages asynchronously. A special kind of enterprise bean, the message-driven bean, enables the asynchronous consumption of messages. A JMS message can also participate in distributed transactions. JMS concepts The JMS API supports two models: Point-to-point or queuing model As shown below, in the point-to-point or queueing model, the sender posts messages to a particular queue and a receiver reads messages from the queue. Here, the sender knows the destination of the message and posts the message directly to the receiver's queue. Only one consumer gets the message. The producer does not have to be running at the time the consumer consumes the message, nor does the consumer need to be running at the time the message is sent. Every message successfully processed is acknowledged by the consumer. Multiple queue senders and queue receivers can be associated with a single queue, but an individual message can be delivered to only one queue receiver. If multiple queue receivers are listening for messages on a queue, Java Message Service determines which one will receive the next message on a first-come-first-serve basis. If no queue receivers are listening on the queue, messages remain in the queue until a queue receiver attaches to the queue. Publish and subscribe model As shown by the above diagram, the publish/subscribe model supports publishing messages to a particular message topic. Unlike the point-to-point messaging model, the publish/subscribe messaging model allows multiple topic subscribers to receive the same message. JMS retains the message until all topic subscribers have received it. The Publish & Subscribe messaging model supports durable subscribers, allowing you to assign a name to a topic subscriber and associate it with a user or application. Subscribers may register interest in receiving messages on a particular message topic. In this model, neither the publisher nor the subscriber knows about each other. By using Java, JMS provides a way of separating the application from the transport layer of providing data. The same Java classes can be used to communicate with different JMS providers by using the JNDI information for the desired provider. The classes first use a connection factory to connect to the queue or topic, and then populate and send or publish the messages. On the receiving side, the clients then receive or subscribe to the messages.

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12981

article-image-load-testing-using-visual-studio-2008-part-1

Packt

01 Oct 2009

12 min read

Load Testing Using Visual Studio 2008: Part 1

Packt

01 Oct 2009

12 min read

Load testing an application helps the development and management team understand the application performance under various conditions. Load testing can have different parameter values and conditions to test the application and check the application performance. Each load test can simulate the number of users, network bandwidths, combinations of different web browsers, and different configurations. In the case of web applications, it is required to test the application with different sets of users and different sets of browsers to simulate multiple requests at the same time to the server. The following figure shows a sample of real-time situations for multiple users accessing the web site using different networks and different browsers from multiple locations. Load testing is meant not just for web applications. We can also test the unit tests under load tests to check the performance of the data access from the server. The load test helps identify application performance in various capacities, application performance under light loads for a short duration, performance with heavy loads, and different durations. Load testing uses a set of computers, which consists of a controller and agents. These are called rig. The agents are the computers at different locations used for simulating different user requests. The controller is the central computer which controls multiple agent computers. The Visual Studio 2008 Test Load agent in the agent computers generates the load. The Visual Studio 2008 Test Controller at the central computer controls these agents. This article explains the details of creating test scenarios and load testing the application. Creating load test The load tests are created using the Visual Studio Load Test wizard. You can first create the test project and then add the new load test which opens the wizard, and guides us to create the test. We can edit the test parameters and configuration later on, if required. Before we go on to create the test project and understand the parameters, we will consider a couple of web applications. Web applications or sites are the ones accessed by a large number of users from different locations at the same time. It is quite required to simulate this situation and check the application performance. Let’s take a couple of web applications. It is a simple web page, where the orders placed by the current user are displayed. The other application is the coded web test that retrieves the orders for the current user, similar to the first one. Using the above examples we will see the different features of load testing that is provided by Visual Studio. The following sections describe the creation of load testing, setting parameters, and load testing the application. Load test wizard The load test wizard helps us create the load test for the web tests and unit tests. There are different steps to provide the required parameters and configuration information for creating the load test. There are different ways of adding load tests to the test project: Select the test project and then select the option Add | Load Test... Select the test menu in Visual Studio 2008 and select New Test, which opens the Add | New Test... dialog. Select the load test type from the list. Provide a test name and select the test project to which the new load test should be added. Both the above options open the New Load Test Wizard shown as follows: The wizard contains four different sets with multiple pages, which collects the parameters and configuration information for the load test. The welcome page explains the different steps involved in creating a load test. On selecting a step like Scenario or Counter Sets or Run Settings, the wizard displays the section to collect the parameter information for the selected set option. We can click on the option directly or keep clicking Next and set the parameters. Once we click on Finish, the load test is created. To open the load test, expand the solution explorer and double-click on the load test, LoadTest1. We can also open the load test using the Test View window in the Test menu and double-click on the name of the load test from the list to open the Test Editor. For example, the following is a sample load test: The following detailed sections explain setting the parameters in each step: Specifying scenario Scenarios are used for simulating the actual user tests. For example, there are different end users to any web application. For a public web site, the end user could be anywhere and there could be any number of users. The bandwidth of the connection and the type of browsers used by the users also differ. Some users might be using a high-speed connection, and some a slow dial-up connection. But if the application is an Intranet application, the end users are limited within the LAN network. The speed at which the users connect will also be constant most of the time. The number of users and the browsers used are the two main things which differ in this case. The scenarios are created using these combinations which are required for the application under test. Enter the name for the scenario in the wizard page. We can add any number of scenarios to the test. For example, we might want to load test the WebTest3 with 40 per user per hour and another load test for WebTest11Coded with 20 per user per hour. Now, let us create a new load test and set the parameters for each scenario. Think time The think time is the time taken by the user to navigate to the next web page. This is useful for the load test to simulate the test accurately. We can set the load test to use the actual think time recorded by the web test or we can give a specific think time for each test. The other option is to set the normal distribution of the think time between the requests. The time varies slightly between the requests, but is mostly realistic. There is a third option, which is configured not to use the think times between the requests. The think times can also be modified for the scenario after creating the load test. Select the scenario and right-click and then open Properties to set the think time. Now once the properties are set for the scenario, click Next in the New Load Test Wizard to set parameters for Load Pattern. Load pattern Load pattern is used for controlling the user loads during the tests. The test pattern varies based on the type of test. If it is a simple Intranet web application test or a unit test, then we might want to have a minimum number of users for a constant period of time. But in case of a public web site, the amount of users would differ from time to time. In this case, we might want to increase the number of users from a very small number to a large number with a time interval. For example I might have a user load of 10 initially but during testing I may want the user load to be increased by 10 in every 10 seconds of testing until the maximum user count reaches 100. So at 90th second the user count will reach 100 and the increment stops and stays with 100 user load till the test completion. Constant load The load starts with the specified user count and ends with the same number. User Count: This is to specify the number of user counts for simulation. Step load The load test starts with the specified minimum number of users and the count increases constantly with the time duration specified until the user count reaches the maximum specified. Start user count: This specifies the number of users to start with Step duration: This specifies the time between the increases in user count Step user count: This specifies the number of users to add to the current user count Maximum user count: This specifies the maximum number of user count We have set the parameters for the Load Pattern. The next step in the wizard is to set the parameter values for Test Mix Model and Test Mix. Test mix model and test mix The test load model has to simulate the accuracy of the end-users count distribution. Before selecting the test mix, the wizard provides a configuration page to choose the test mix model from three different options. They are based on the total number of tests, on the virtual users, and on user pace. The next page in the wizard provides the option to select the tests and provide the distribution percentage, or the option to specify the tests per user per hour for each test for the selected model. The mix of tests is based on the percentages specified or the test per user specified for each test. Based on the total number of tests The next test to be run is based on the selected number of times. The number of times the tests is run should match the test distribution. For example, if the distribution is like the one shown in the image on the previous page, then the next test selected for the run is based on the percentage distributions. Based on the number of virtual users This model determines running particular tests based on the percentage of virtual users. Selecting the next test to be run depends on the percentage of virtual users and also on the percentage assigned to the tests. At any point, the number of users running a particular test matches the assigned distribution. Based on user pace This option determines running each test for the specified number of times per hour. This model is helpful when we want the virtual users to conduct the test at a regular pace. The test mix contains different web tests, each with different number of tests per user. The number of users is defined using load pattern. The next step in the wizard is to specify the Browser Mix, explained in the next section. Browse mix We have set the number of users and the number of tests, but there is always a possibility that all the users may not use the same browser. To mix the different browser types, we can go to the next step in the wizard and select the browsers listed and give a distribution percentage for each browser type. The test does not actually use the specified browser, but sets the header information in the request to simulate the same request through the specified browser. Like different browsers, the network speed also differs with user location, which is the next step in the wizard. Network mix Click on Next in the wizard to specify the Network Mix, to simulate the actual network speed of the users. The speed differs based on user location and the type of network they use. It could be a LAN network, or cable or wireless, or a dial-up. This step is useful in simulating the actual user scenario. The next step in the wizard is to set the Counter Sets parameters, which is explained in the next sections. Counter sets Load testing the application not contains the application-specific performance but also the environmental factors. This is to know the performance of the other services required for running the load test or accessing the application under test. For example, the web application makes use of IIS and ASP.NET process and SQL Server. VSTS provides an option to track the performance of these services using counter sets as part of the load test. The load test collects the counter set data during the test and represents it as a graph for a better understanding. The same data is also saved locally so that we can load it again and analyze the results. The counter set is for all the scenarios in the load test. The counter set data is collected for the controllers and agents by default. We can also add the other systems that are part of load testing. These counter set results help us to know how the services are used during the test. Most of the time the application performance is affected by the common services or the system services used. The load test creation wizard provides the option to add the performance counters. The wizard includes the current system by default and the common counter set for the controllers and the agents. The following screenshot shows the sample for adding systems to collect the counter sets during the load test: There are lists of counters listed for the system by default. We can select any of these for which we want to collect the details during the load test. For example, the above screenshot shows that we need the data to be collected for ASP.NET, .Net Application, and IIS from System1. Using the Add Computer... option, we can keep adding the computers on which we are running the tests and choose the counter sets for each system. Once we are done with selecting the counter sets, we are ready with all the parameters for the test. But for running the test some parameters are required, which is done in the next step in the wizard.

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article-image-building-personal-site-using-drupal-6

Packt

01 Oct 2009

10 min read

Building a Personal Site Using Drupal 6

Packt

01 Oct 2009

10 min read

Isaac wants his web site to have the following features: An "About me" page—showing his personal profile and interests A page that will list all of his publications A Blog to tell the world what he is currently doing, with a list of the latest blog posts displayed on the front page A Contact form that site visitors can use to send an email to I.M. Smart Theme Smart has chosen the "AD The Morning After" theme (which is a contribution to the Drupal project) because he loves the design. The front page will feature a teaser for Smart's profile at the top of the content area, and a list of his most recent blog posts in a block at the bottom of the front page. The final layout of Smart's web site can be seen in the following screenshot: Build I.M. Smart's site Okay, this guy Smart doesn't appear particularly likeable does he, and isn't this quite typical of university professors? But let's put our prejudices aside for a couple of hours and get his work done for him. The major tasks in building the web site for Isaac Smart will be: To create a new Content type called "Publication", under which he can list all of his work To be able to allocate terms to describe each added work To be able to display a Page view of the list of publications To be able to create a Block view of the list of his daily blog posts To create a simple Contact form Modules In order to create the desired web site, we will be using some essential Drupal modules. Optional Core modules The following optional Core modules will be required: Blog—will enable him create his blog posts Taxonomy—will enable him to classify his blog posts Comment—will allow all visitors to his web site to comment on, and to discuss his blog posts and publications Contact—will allow site visitors to send him personal messages Upload—will allow the upload of files into content Contributed modules The following contributed modules will also be used: Taxonomy Menu—will allow taxonomy vocabularies to be transformed into menus easily IMCE—will give the ability to upload and manage files and images Image—will allow the inclusion of images in content Basic content Smart's site is quite basic. The About Me page can be safely created from the Story Content type, and that is what we are going to do. However, to add an element of danger to the project, we will be including a new Content type for his publications, and we will call it just that—"Publication". Create a new Content type By navigating to the Administer page of the site and then to the Content management section, we will find the Content types link. If we access this page, then we will see the various Content types listed there. Here, we need to create a new Content type for "Publication". To create the "Publication" Content type: Click on the Add content type link at the top of the page. You will then be presented with a form. Add the Content type description and the general rules for the adding and display of content for this new Content type, in the places where they need to be in the form. Here are some guidelines: In the Identification fields, add the Name and the Description of the Content type (in this case "Publication"). In the Submission form settings, you can choose the titles that you want to give the fields. By default, you are presented with Title (for the title of the submission), Body (for the main story), and also fields specifying the minimum length of the article before it can be accepted for submission, as well as another place where you can describe submission guidelines for this Content type. Leave this at the system default setting. In the Workflow setting we need to determine the default options: Do you want the article to be immediately published and available for use on the site, immediately after submission? If so, select the Published checkbox. Do you want to promote the article to the front page? If so, select the Promoted to front page checkbox. Do you want the article to remain at the top of the list of contents on the site? If so, select the Sticky at top of list checkbox. In the Comments settings panel, indicate whether you want to allow comments to be made on articles of this Content type or not, and if you do, how these comments will be handled. As previously mentioned, Smart wants to allow comments to be added to his publications by site visitors. Categorize content We first need to establish how the content is going to be organized for use on the site. This is quite easy because we have created only one new Content type, named Publication, that will have taxonomy terms—Books and Papers—attached to it. By doing this, we will have set the ground rules for how content will be created and displayed on the site. Categories or terms may be used to further classify items that, even though they fall under the same Content type, need to be grouped with others with which they bear a close similarity. In this case, Smart's Publication list includes Books and Papers, which, even though they are both publications, would do well if grouped separately. So we must now create the new categories and establish relationships between these new categories and the new Content type. Go to the Taxonomy link under the Content management section on the Administer page, and click on it to get to the Taxonomy page. If you have started a new site, then at the foot of this page, you will see a notice that there is no vocabulary available for your new categories. The vocabulary is a term by which a collection of categories (or terms) can be collectively described. In this case, let us create a vocabulary that we will call Publications Type. We will do this by clicking on the Add vocabulary link at the top of the page. This is what we will be entering into the form for this new vocabulary: In the Identification panel, let us enter the Vocabulary name, and a Description, as well as any Help text that will guide Smart when he comes across this vocabulary. For Publication, we have used Publications Type as the Vocabulary name. For the Description, we have entered The type of publication. Is it book or paper? For the Help text, we will be instructing Smart to Select appropriate publication. We need to associate this vocabulary with a Content type. We have created it specifically for Publication, so we will naturally select the Publication checkbox. For the Settings, we declare that the selection of a term from this vocabulary is Required, and that Smart must choose a term from the supplied list. Moreover, because a Publication can be either a Book or a Paper but never both, a posted content may not have more than one term associated with it. Therefore, leave all of the other checkboxes with the system default settings. The completed vocabulary page is shown in the following screenshot: On returning to the Taxonomy page, we can see the new vocabulary that we have just created is listed. Now we need to add the terms for the vocabulary. We do this by clicking on the add terms link and completing the form that we will be presented with. At this stage, forget about the Advanced Options link at the bottom, because we only have a single level of terms. If you click on the list terms link on the vocabulary, then you will be presented with a list of the terms that you have created, in the order that these terms will be presented to Smart. If you don't like this order, then just drag the ones you want to change to the location that you want. Test the submission form Now, let us test our content submission form and see how it works. In order to do this, you click on the Create content link (on the lefthand side of your page), and select Publication. You will then get a form, as shown in the following screenshot: Using this form, Smart will be able to post the details of his many publications to his web site. However, he doesn't know a thing about HTML (which proves that he isn't so great after all) and will definitely have problems while uploading images into his posts. So, we will give him an easy way to do this. Images Download the IMCE and Image modules. Install and enable them. It is also essential that you have the Upload module enabled. The TinyMCE editor (even though it is not essential) will permit Smart to edit his pages without knowing any HTML. Download the editor, if this feature is required. Having done this, return to Administer | Content management | Content types, and select the Publication Content type. At the bottom of the page, you will see a new panel for Image Attach settings. Enable Attach images, and now the Publication Content type will be ready to incorporate images. To confirm this, go to the Create content link for the Content type. Near the bottom of the page you will find the Attached images panel, as shown in the following screenshot, where you can upload images for your content. Do the same for the Blog entry, Story, and Page Content types. If you have configured your TinyMCE editor correctly, then you can similarly post images into the Body of your article by using the image upload function in TinyMCE. We will also ensure that the Attach images functionality has been enabled in all of the other Content types. Then, in the Workflow settings for each Content type, deselect the Promoted to front page checkbox, or else you will end up with a very unruly front page display. Create the About Me page The About Me page, as we have decided, should really be quite straightforward and will be created from the Story Content type, which is recommended for content that is static. From the admin menu, click on the Create content link, and then select Story. This will give you a form, which is similar to the following screenshot: The handy WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, which is an emulation of desktop software like MS Word or Open Doc (with which most people will probably be accustomed), will make it easy for Smart to create his personal information page, and format it to his satisfaction. Tips and trapsWe have used this approach because Smart is the only person having a personal profile on this web site. Otherwise, it will not be adequate, and we may have to call up some other modules, especially the CCK module, which will enable us to create new form fields to make submissions more intuitive (for example, to present defined fields for name, education, interests, and so on). Because Smart wants this to feature on the front page, we will just promote the About Me page to the front page before saving it. The Menu settings field is optional, and it is only used if you want to add the item to the menu system. We will add the About Me page to the <Primary links>.

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