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Posts Tagged "in the trenches"
Posted
on Mar 21, 2011 in Technical Tips | 0 comments
There are a couple of different ways you can verify you are running Oracle Application Server 10.1.2.3. Perhaps the simplest is to navigate to the EM Consile about page typically found at:
http://[domain]:18101/emd/console/aboutApplication
Another option is to use oPatch by running the following command:
[ORACLE_HOME]/opatch/opatch lsinventory -detail
Then, navigate to [ORACLE_HOME]/.patch_storage and look for the latest log file. You will have a full listing of products installed in your ORACLE_HOME.
If you have just upgraded Oracle Portal to 10.1.4.2 and want to verify its version as well, you can simply navigate to Portal Administer tab > Global Settings.
Posted
on Mar 21, 2011 in Technical Tips | 2 comments
I was losing my mind with trying to print a PDF I had opened in Google Chrome. I also missed some of the Adobe Reader features like bookmarks that I was accustomed to. I like the speed of Google Chrome’s rendering of PDFs, but these things were sorely missing in some cases, so I thought I would show how I got back my old Adobe functionality by disabling the PDF plugin.
In your Chrome browser, simply navigate to chrome://plugins. You will then be able to disable the Chrome PDF Viewer.
I hope this saves someone else some headache and maybe is useful for disabling other Chrome plugins down the road.
Posted
on Mar 3, 2011 in Technical Tips | 0 comments
This walkthrough provides step-by-step screens for the installation of a Nagios XI Agent installation. The install was performed in Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (32-bit). You will notice that this is downloading and installing NSClient++.
Free Download
Please complete the following for access to the free download.
Posted
on Mar 3, 2011 in Industry Trends, Technical Tips | 0 comments
I had OIM installed in a sandbox VM a few months ago and decided to spin it back up in our private cloud environment. The novelty of being able to so very simply allocate, deallocate, and reallocate resources when needed to various environments still hasn’t worn off for me.
I’m sure one day in the somewhat near future, this luxury will be commonplace even for lesser-sophisticated IT shops…and we will be telling stories to new team members of “the [not as good] old days” when we had to actually purchase physical hardware for each new project, how sizing hardware was a carefully meticulous process for every single server instance, how cloning environments required a [sometimes complicated] plan to be executed, and how sometimes the fastest way to get back up and running from a hardware failure was to actually fix the hardware.
Click for digressions
I can envision witnessing the conversation: “Hey Jimmy. Back in 20XX, can you imagine places existed where it would be acceptable to take the necessary downtime on their applications and actually wait for the Dell rep to come in to replace their faulty RAM!? Yes, applications ran directly on OS’s that were installed directly on physical hardware. What’s Dell you ask? Why, that was a company that made server hardware. My goodness, have you ever seen a physical server before, Jimmy?” Okay, I might have gotten a little carried away there — but then again, maybe not. (I tend to believe that promising, compelling technology will advance much faster than we expect. I know the people who devised IPv4 never dreamed they would ever run out of IP addresses, yet here we are just 30 some years later and we allocated the last available block last month.)
Food for thought: Why do we refer to spinning up or spinning down VMs? I tend to hear it more for VMs as opposed to physical hardware, which seems kind of funny does it not? Further, as we make a move to solid state hard drives, the analogy of “spinning” for computers, hard drives, etc. — let alone logical entities like VMs — seems it will soon become a complete misnomer.
On a slightly less nostalgic note, as I look at this OIM environment, I have to mention that I do like the latest look-and-feel that is part of the Oracle Middleware 11g stack. In addition to the niceties of a richer experience with ADF, Oracle has even taken the time to design icons and, in some cases like OIM, a nice-looking diagram on the login page.
Posted
on Feb 22, 2011 in Industry Trends, Technical Tips | 0 comments
I was slightly excited about WebCenter 11g PS3′s ability to run on IBM WebSphere — not because I run WebSphere, but because it could open the doors for WebCenter at places that run an IBM infrastructure. I was disappointed to find that I couldn’t even download the WebSphere trial from IBM’s site (see the accompanying video). Ironically, the [WebSphere] server that is serving the download produces an Internet Server 500 error. Yes, I verified that others also received the error. I’ll stick with WebLogic for now.
Posted
on Feb 21, 2011 in Business Strategy, Industry Trends, Offerings, Technical Tips | 0 comments
You are not alone. Many organizations are going through the same analysis and process. There are many possible options/variables to consider, but “should I roll-my-own custom site vs. leverage [open-source] products?” is one of the most common questions to answer today when considering a new web project. Following is a quick list of reasons you might want to consider choosing one over the other.
Custom-Built Solution
- Complete Flexibility: Build a relevant solution without any, or many, compromises — whatever compromises you do make will likely be based on time and money as opposed to wrestling the wisdom of someone else’s architectural choices
- Smaller Footprint: Along the same lines, only write code and maintain what is vital to your specific needs
Liferay
- Why build that?: Liferay handles aspects of the implementation that you simply do not want to have to build and maintain on your own unless you have a compelling reason to do so
- authentication options – pre-built integration with LDAP and other technologies like CAS
- security – roles-based permissions model
- technology architecture (db abstraction, UI design, templating, page structure, etc.) – Liferay has already thought through flexible approach
- Learning curve: though there is a learning curve to Liferay (or any other product), it you can actually find external resources who understand Liferay, but anyone outside the organization will need time to pick up on all the nuances of your custom code/architecture
- Still Custom: We have built enterprise web applications in portal environment where one would have to dig a bit to determine a portal framework was used. You can still build custom features and drop in standards-based portlets where you need in a solution like Liferay’s. Also, remember, you have access to the source code, unlike other products on the market.
Click here to learn more
There are certain use cases where I generally lean to one side more than the other. In cases where Liferay’s features related to page structure, templating, collaboration, and security are useful, I tend to go in that direction. For scenarios where I know my user community and stakeholders have very specific workflow and UI needs for a web-based application where requirements are clear, I consider custom code more carefully.
Posted
on Feb 17, 2011 in Industry Trends, Offerings, Technical Tips | 0 comments
In case you are having trouble finding the Kerberos Module for Apache like some of our customers have, we have decided to host it on our website as well. With more organizations interested in securing their applications with native Windows authentication, this is becoming more and more popular.
We have been devising integrated Windows authentication identity management solutions with Apache for years, so we’re quite comfortable with the best ways to implement with this. Many large software vendors actually leverage this same approach in their enterprise identity management solutions. Feel free to download mod_auth_kerb using the below form.
Free Download
Please complete the following for access to the free download.
Click here to learn more
Following are prerequisites in case the main Kerberos Module for Apache site is not accessible, which we have noticed from time to time:
Prerequisites
- Development enviroment (i.e. libraries and header files) for Kerberos5 and/or Kerberos4.
- Apache server installed – Both 1.x and 2.x series of Apache are supported (make sure the apache installation contains the apxs command)
Posted
on Feb 8, 2011 in News and Updates, Offerings | 0 comments
We just started into installs for four middleware servers for a customer. These will each run DB, WebLogic, IdM, SOA/BPM, UCM, and WebCenter — all 11g.
There’s nothing like getting fresh, fast, functionally-useless hardware and turning it into a powerful piece of problem-solving equipment. – Historic M&S Dogma
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