Sudhir Kesharwani

Moved to new location...sudhirke.wordpress.com

2010-12-15T06:15:00.000-08:00

Hi,

I have shifted my blog onto new address...

http://sudhirke.wordpress.com/

Thanks for all your support...

Sudhir Kesharwani

jQuery : Enhancing List View web part rendering

2010-08-06T04:58:00.001-07:00

Contents
jQuery : Enhancing List View web part rendering 1

Overview 1

Requirements 1

Solution 1

jQuery – the lightweight magic 2

Overview

The more I work on jQuery + SharePoint the more I get attracted to it. There is limitless possibility when we use jQuery in SharePoint. My latest research includes enhancing the way ListView web part gets rendered.

Once you get hold of the jQuery selector you feel like everything is possible and is very much in your hands. You just have to find a unique way of getting the required DOM element and then it obeys all your orders like a Gin (I am sure I am not exaggerating).

I hope this helps someone in need.

Requirements

The requirement was to display following table in a web part.

Topic	Presenter	Link to Presentation	Link to Video
Some topic	Some presenter	[ICON to download ppt]	[Icon to download video]

I first thought of reading the data using our dear friend SharePoint web services and then rendering it on my own way. But then I thought I should be able to do it in some OOB way. But the issue was that I had to show two icons that are linked to content

- Icon to download presentation.

- Icon to download the video.

Solution

I uploaded all the presentations onto the document library. The default document library did not have the columns to display the additional metadata about the presentation. So I created the columns that described the presentation.

- Topic (Single line of text)

- Presenter (Single line of text)

- Video (Hyperlink that will contain the URL to video)

Figure 1

I uploaded the videos in the same folder and updated the metadata of presentation to contain link to the video file.

The benefit that I get out of this is the "Type" column renders the icon and it is linked to the original document. And I had added the other metadata using columns, this is 70% complete, I still have the task to display the icon that is linked to video.

When I add the list view web part I could see following view.

Figure 2

Note: Video column was getting rendered as the plain hyperlink.

jQuery – the lightweight magic

Since I am a big fan of jQuery and I knew there must be a way to select everything on the page. I did some analysis on how this is rendered. I found that its all Table and TD tags. So the list view table is rendered as

Something worth noting is that the table contains a property called summary and the value contains the web part title. Now the next job is to find how the link is getting rendered further down the line I found something interesting.

<TR><TD Class="ms-vb2"><A HREF="URL of Video">Text to Display</A></TD></TR>

So it was a TD that contained class "ms-vb2" and contained a child node as <a>.

Once I identified the way it renders the link it was just a matter of replacing the text of <a> with <img> of my choice.

By this time all the jQuery folks have an idea of how to do that. Still I thought of copying the magical part of the script.

Note: My apologies for copying this as image, but for some reason I was not able to publish this document when it contained jQuery code. (Google and Blogger started boggling me J)

Figure 3

Just replace web part title with the summary of your list view table. And here is the final output.

Figure 4

Now you see that I have the desired icon to download video and it looks really good. And all that I needed was 4 lines of jQuery and understand how SharePoint renders the contents. 

Regards, Sudhir Kesharwani MCTS - MOSS 2007 | MCTS - WSS 3.0 | MCPD-EA | MCSD.NET

Using LinQ to query xml

2010-06-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

- Create a xml file with following structure.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

</Errors>

- Make sure your code file has following references

using System.Linq;

using System.Xml.Linq;

- Open Visual Studio 2008 and create a new console application. Write following code on the program.cs file.

/// <summary>

/// Class to represent an error message. You can have similar class to represent your data

/// </summary>

public class Error

{

public string VoucherId { get; set; }

public string ErrorMessage { get; set; }

}

static void Main(string[] args)

{

//Load XML document on to XDocument object

XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load("../../ErrorMessages.xml");

//Query the XML document and read all the "Error" element. Prepare a list of Error class from the returned data

List<Error> errorCollection = (from errors in xdoc.Descendants("Error")

where errors.Attribute("voucherId").Value=="1"

select new Error

{

VoucherId = errors.Attribute("voucherId").Value,

ErrorMessage = errors.Attribute("message").Value

}

).ToList<Error>();

//Loop through the returned collection and output the result.

foreach (Error e in errorCollection)

{

Console.WriteLine("Voucher Id: " + e.VoucherId);

Console.WriteLine("Error Message: " + e.ErrorMessage);

}

Console.ReadKey();

}

- Execute this console application and it will print the selected nodes from xml

Regards,

Sudhir Kesharwani

Mob: +91 98225 11209

Updating URL field using Lists.asmx

2010-06-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

Updating URL field using SharePoint Lists Web Service (Lists.asmx)

One thing that I always complain about SharePoint 2007 web service is lack of documentation and samples. This is the most neglected areas of SharePoint 2007. I hope this have been improved in SharePoint 2010 especially since Microsoft has added a lot of new web services.

I had been working on a jQuery based SharePoint solution to display a modal popup to all the visitors. Apart from displaying the jQuery pop up dialogue on page load, I also had to record the history about visitor.

I had to update the list items using Lists.asmx UpdateListItems() method.

My custom list had following fields:-

Field Name	Type	Description
Title	Text	This field is used to record the login name of logged in user
URL	URL	This field is used to store the link of a text file hosted on server.

After struggling for some time I found that updating the URL field requires some additional attention, since the SharePoint URL field value consists of two parts <URL>, <Description>. Even when working with Object Modal we have to use SPUrlFieldValue.

Please make sure to follow these guidelines while updating the URL field through web services.

- Please notice that URL needs to include “http://” e.g. http://www.google.com/, generally we write http://www.google.com/ and think that SharePoint should be intelligent enough to append http, but this is not the case.

- The other thing is that we need to make sure to include a space between the comma (,) and description. So our URL field value needs to have <URL including http://>,<SPACE><Description>, e.g. http://www.google.com/, Google.

Please pay extra attention while updating/Reading the URL field (through Web Service or thorough object modal).

Here is how the element should look in your soap envelope.

<Field Name=”URL”>http:\\www.google.com, Google</Field>

Here is my soap envelop for calling the UpdateListItems() method. I have omitted the other parts of calling the web service for clarity. (You get lots of examples through Google)

// The SOAP Envelope

var soapEnv =

"<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?> \

<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\" \

xmlns:xsd=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema\" \

xmlns:soap=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/\"> \

<soap:Body> \

<UpdateListItems xmlns=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/\"> \

<listName>Audit</listName> \

<updates> \

<Batch OnError=\"Continue\"> \

<Method ID=\"1\" Cmd=\"New\"> \

<Field Name=\"Title\">Some Text</Field> \

<Field Name=\"URL\">http://www.google.com, Google</Field> \

</Method> \

</Batch>

</updates> \

</UpdateListItems> \

</soap:Body> \

</soap:Envelope>";

Hope this helps someone in need J

Regards,
Sudhir Kesharwani
MCTS - MOSS 2007 | MCTS - WSS 3.0 | MCPD-EA | MCSD.NET

Fwd: Hard Work Redefined

2010-05-15T11:16:00.001-07:00

Some of the great words from the real motivator Manish Gupta from Chrysalis....just wanted to spread the word to larger audience. Some people think smart work is a substitute for hard work...

Regards,
Sudhir Kesharwani
sudhir.kesharwani@gmail.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: MG's Desk! <desk.mg@chrysalis.net.in>
Date: Sat, May 15, 2010 at 5:56 PM
Subject: Hard Work Redefined

Dear Chrysalian,

Working Hard is considered as one of the most important pathways to achieving success. Since centuries sages, masters, wise men, elders, consultants have been advocating, endorsing and supporting the above statement. I too am in alignment with these folks. (Should I miss out on an opportunity of being linked to the wise ones? )

New age generation wants to stick on to Smart Work but I believe even Smart Work involves some "Work".( and many a time ends up with lots of Hard Work) There is no substitute for Hard work.

I want you to read the above statement one more time and focus on the fact of Hard work leading to success, which implies that if our understanding of Hard work is not what it should be then chances are high that we may not be anywhere near our desired goal. Lets understand Hard work from a different perspective. Lets understand the difference between hard Work and working hard for success.

When in office an executive works as per his schedule and finishes what he had planned to do , this is called hard work, but when the same executive over and above his daily tough schedule goes for an evening course for technical up gradation – this is called working hard for success . At home when a home maker after a tough morning grind of the daily chores takes out time to learn sitar which she so dearly wanted since childhood- that's called working hard for success. A father on coming home tired and exhausted after a long days haul plays with his children with the same vibrancy and freshness which he had at the start of a new day, then it is called working hard for success. A cycle rickshaw puller works real hard for more than 12 hours a day, but he'll be working hard for success when you spot him talking to a co-operative bank for the loan of his second rickshaw. An Entrepreneur when working hard to set his business in motion also thinks and acts on succession planning then it is said he's working hard for success. ( I wonder how Dhirubhai Ambani missed out on that one)

The concept of working hard for success is the same whether you are a student, a businessman, a sports person or a spouse. Other than our regular work (where we have really worked hard) what are we doing extra to maximise our output is called working hard for success.

Its almost midnight and I feel I have been working hard for success for the day..

Love you lots and wish you a "Hard Working" Life …

jQuery - Announcement carousel for SharePoint

2010-05-14T02:56:00.000-07:00

The Annoucements Carousel
Your web part should look like following image (announcements.jpg). You will see all the announcements scrolling one by one, Announcement items are linked to the actual announcement page. When you hover the mouse pointer over a news item, the scrolling will stop automatically.

Note: All the required files can be downloaded from
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1XvO-SvpjhGYWEyYzNhYTYtZTQ5MS00MGRkLTk2ZmYtYTkwZmNlZDAxNmE2&hl=en.
Code is pasted in the email body for reference.

Overview

Recently I have been working on jQuery Carousel plug in and SharePoint. Accidently/fortunately I was able to develop an announcement carousel solution. I thought of posting this to the broader audience. I find this really useful as we can show all the announcements in the smaller area.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have an announcements list in your SharePoint site with some sample announcements.

Step 1 – Required JavaScript and CSS file.

Following files are required for this carousel functionality.

- jQuery library – jQuery 1.4.1 library, you can download it from the jQuery site. I love to rename it to jQuery-latest.min.js. I have used jQuery-1.4.2.min.js

- jCarousel script –I have updated the original jCarousel script for hoverPause functionality as per the comments given in the plug in page. Make sure to use the same.

- News-Ticker-Source.js – this file contains the actual source code to query the announcements links and making it carousel. Make sure to replace {Site Url} with your site url.

- News-ticker.css - Contains style sheet for the announcements list.

The folder structure that I followed in my site is as following, highlighted the folders in the hierarchy.

- Shared Documents

o BIN

§ JQLIB – this folder contains all the JavaScript files

· jQuery-latest.js

· jcarousellite_1.0.1.hoverPause.js

· news-ticker-source.js

§ CSS - this folder contains folder for the style sheet and required images

· News-ticker : Folder for the style sheet.

o Images: folder for images

§ News1.jpg

§ Mic1.jpg

o News-ticker.css : CSS filefor styling.

Note: I have given this folder structure since my code has all the references based on this folder structure, however you can have your own folder structure; make sure to update the references in the HTML script and news-ticker-source.js files.

Step 2 – The JavaScript Code

All the required files are attached with this email. Still thought of putting the code of news-ticker-source.js on to this post.

$(document).ready(function()

{

//Call the method to read data from annoucements list and display it as carousel.

GetAnnoucementData();

});

This function reads the data from annoucement list and passes the control to processResults method

This makes and ajax call to lists.asmx web service.

Make sure to replace {Site URL} with your SharePoint site url.

function GetAnnoucementData()

{

//Prepare the SOAP envelop for calling GetListItems method from lists.asmx web service

var soapEnv = "<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'> \

<soapenv:Body> \

<GetListItems xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/'> \

<listName>Announcements</listName> \

<viewFields> \

<ViewFields> \

<FieldRef Name='ows_ID' /> \

<FieldRef Name='LinkTitleNoMenu' /> \

<FieldRef Name='Body' /> \

<FieldRef Name='Expires' /> \

<FieldRef Name='Author' /> \

</ViewFields> \

</viewFields> \

</GetListItems> \

</soapenv:Body> \

</soapenv:Envelope>";

/*Post the request envelop to web service thorugh ajax request and pass the results to processResults method*/

$.ajax({

url: "{SITE URL}/_vti_bin/lists.asmx",

type: "POST",

dataType: "xml",

data: soapEnv,

complete: processResult,

contentType: "text/xml; charset=\"utf-8\""

});

}

/* This method parses the resultant xml and prepares the display.

Please replace {Site Url} with your sharepont site url.

function processResult(xData, status)

{

//Select the root element.

var newnews =$("#newsItems");

var rows;

//Check if query returns no rows

if (xData.responseXML.getElementsByTagName("z:row").length==0)

{

//Prepare the display for 0 rows.

var url = "{SITE URL}/Lists/Announcements/";

var head = "<li><div class='thumbnail'> <img src='{SITE URL}/Shared%20Documents/BIN/css/news-ticker/images/news1.jpg'></div>";

var body = "<div class='info'>No news items<a href=" + url + "> Read all</a> <span class='cat'> no items found</span></div>";

var tail = "<div class='clear'></div></li>";

var liHtml = head + body + tail;

//Append the HTML element to newNews element

newnews.append(liHtml);

}

else

{

//Read all the rows from responseXml

rows = xData.responseXML.getElementsByTagName("z:row");

jQuery(rows).each(function()

{

//Read the information from returned rows

var url = "{SITE URL}/Lists/Announcements/DispForm.aspx?ID=" + $(this).attr("ows_ID");

var title = $(this).attr("Title");

var news = $(this).attr("ows_Body");

var author = $(this).attr("ows_Author");

author = author.split('#')[1];

//Prepare the div element

var head = "<li><div class='thumbnail'><img src='{SITE URL}/Shared%20Documents/BIN/css/news-ticker/images/news1.jpg'></div>";

var body = "<div class='info'><a href=" + url + ">" + $(this).attr("ows_Title")+ "</a> <span class='cat'>by " + author + "</span></div>";

var tail = "<div class='clear'></div></li>";

var liHtml = head + body + tail;

//Append the resultant element onto newNews element

newnews.append(liHtml);

});

}

//Append entire newNews element to root Div

newnews.appendTo(".newsticker-jcarousellite");

//Prepare the Carousel of all the returned items

$(".newsticker-jcarousellite").jCarouselLite({

vertical: true,

hoverPause: true,

visible: 4,

auto:500,

speed:1000

});

}

Step 3 – The HTML Script

Add a content editor web part on your home page and add following HTML Script in the source editor. (Make sure to update the references of script and css files, replace {SITE URL} with your site url).

</ul>

</div>

References

- http://sorgalla.com/jcarousel/

- http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2009/05/06/querying-sharepoint-list-items-using-jquery.aspx

Regards, Sudhir Kesharwani MCTS - MOSS 2007 | MCTS - WSS 3.0 | MCPD-EA | MCSD.NET

Creating default Security Groups for new site collection

2010-01-07T09:45:00.001-08:00

Everyday in SharePoint makes you learn something new...this is very true

Al though it is a very small issue and most of us might be knowing this but still thought of sharing with community. In my current assignment we are provisioning SharePoint sites using Workflows and Workflow activities.

I have a list that is used to record a request for new site collection, i have also developed a custom Visual Studio workflow that contains one custom workflow activity to create a new site collection. My list contains a field that accepts Site Template based on which the new site collection gets created.

Till now everything looks good, but when i create a site based on Team Site through code my new site collection looked different then when it is created using central admin.

It just had one security group where as when we create site using same site template using central admin we can see three groups

1. Site Members

2. Site Owners

3. Site Viewers

After googling around i came to know that apart from provisioning site, SharePoint central admin makes some method calls to provision default security group.

SPSite.CreateDefaultAssociatedGroup(string PrimaryOwnerLogin, string SecondaryOwnerLogin, string GropuPrefix)

This method call will make default security groups (Members, Owners, Visitors) for your new site collection with all the required permissions.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spweb.createdefaultassociatedgroups.aspx

This method is called automatically by SharePoint central admin.

Regards,

Sudhir Kesharwani

Notes field is displayed as multi text box

2009-12-30T11:27:00.000-08:00

There is one thing about SharePoint that is very fascinating and frustrating. No matter how much expertise you have gained or since how long you are working with SharePoint. It always defeats you and makes you feel that there is still a lot to learn.

Today i learnt some thing really tiny and good thing about SharePoint notes field.

We had a requirement wherein we wanted to keep the record of activities that a user is performing against a list item.

We created a site column of type “Note” with “AppendOnly” set to “TRUE”. I added it to the required content type and then to list schema in order to provision the list with a field named “Activity Notes”.

Till now everything looks good, but guess what, when i deployed the solution and provisioned a list, the Notes field was displayed as normal “Multi Line text box”, on top of that it was behaving the same way and user was able to delete everything.

Where as i expected it to behave like a “Append Only” text box that shows the history of comments, (the way the Comments field behave in issue list).

Accidently i got to know that in order to “notes” field work with “append only” it is mendatory that “Versioning” is enabled in the list.

I updated the list schema to have “VersioningEnabled” set to “TRUE” and everything started working as expected.

Happy Learning….

Sudhir Kesharwani

Getting Workflow Association from Content Type of Sharepoint Lists

2009-03-18T05:31:00.000-07:00

Recently i have been working on Sharepoint Custom Workflows and Workflow Association with Sharepoint Lists and Content Type within the list. Thought of sharing some of the learnings from my experience.

Once the workflow is associated with Content Type/SPLists, its very common to update Workflow Instances.
As the workflow assembly keep on changing, Whenever you deploy new version of Workflow Assembly/Workflows Solution Package, SharePoint updates the workflow association to restrict new instance of the workflow. Even if the workflow class is not modified.
To over come this we need to get the workflow association object from List/Content type, depending on how we have associated the workflow.
If you want to update workflow association to allow new instances, you need to get a reference of Workflow Association Object and Enable it.
1. Getting Workflow Association Object from Content T(when workflow is associated with content type of Sharepoint List)

private SPWorkflowAssociation GetAnnualApprovalWFAssociation(SPContentType contentType)
{
SPWorkflowAssociation resultWFAssociation= null;
//Loop through all the workflow associations and return the correct one
foreach (SPWorkflowAssociation wfAssociation in contentType.WorkflowAssociations)
{
if(wfAssociation.BaseId == Constants.workflowGuid)
resultWFAssociation= wfAssociation;
}
return resultWFAssociation;
}
}
Note: SPWorkflowAssociations collection class defines two methods that can be used to get the workflow associations

GetAssociationByBaseID(wfGUID)
GetAssociationByName(name,cultureInfo)

This methods will return value only when the WorkflowAssociations are not restricted to allow new instances. Hence you can not completely trust this methods. This is why i have used a work around which loops through all the workflow associations (including deactive one) and compare the workflow association with Workflow GUID.

2. Getting workflow association with Sharepiont List

> SPList object contains a collection called WorkflowAssociations which is same as content type's workflow association object, so you can replace SPContentType object with SPList object and the above method will work.

Enabling WorkflowAssociation to AllowNewInstance

Once you have reference of SPWorfklowAssociation object, you can just set it's enabled property to true and invoke UpdateWorkflowAssociation(SPWorkflowAssociation) method on Content Type or SPLIst object.

SPWorkflowAssociation wfAssociation = GetWorkflowAssociation(myList);

wfAssociation.Enabled = true

myList.UpdateWorkflowAssociation(wfAssociation);

This action will enable the workflow association.

This is perticularly very useful when you have lots of sites already created in your environment that are using the Workflow, and you re-deploy the workflow assembly. So instead of doing it through sharepoint workflow settings page, you can write a tool that leverages the Sharepoint Object Model and updates the workflow associations for all your existing sites.

Iterating through Sharepoint Discussion List Replies

2009-03-03T23:07:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Recently i had been working extensively in the integration of sharepoint discussion list and the document library.

I had one requirement where i have to iterate through the replies of a sharepoint discussion thread, i could hardly find any posts related to that.

First of all Sharepoint discussion lists are very different then other sharepoint lists. It is very different becase it stores the data differently. If you look at the settings of discussion list you will find that it contains two content types

1. Discussion Content Type

2. Messages Content Type

If you digg further you will find that discussion content type is derived from sharepoint folder content type and messages content type is derived from item content type.

Each message(reply) in the discussion list contains a field called ParentFolderId. This field is hidden from the new/edit/view forms of discussion list.

This field always contains id of the root folder for this message (e.g. id of the root discussion thread)

so if you want to get a reference of root discussion thread(aka folder), you can use following piece of code(considering that you have reference to the message)

int rootDiscussionThreadId = ListItem["ParentFolderId"].ToString();

So when you start a new discussion, internally sharepiont creates a folder withthe subject of the discussion, moving forward all the replies to the root discussion thread are nothign but items created inside the root discussion thread.

Discussion List

> Discussion - 1

-->Message 1

-->Message 2

> Discussion - 2

-->Message 1
-->Message 2

> Disccusion - 3

-->Message 1
-->Message 2

So if you iterate through all the items in the sharepoint list using he normal SPList.Items property, you will get reference of all the root folders (not the replies.)

Even when you navigate to flatView.aspx for any discussion thread, or any other page related to discussion thread you will always find a query string parameter named rootFolder, this query string parameter holds the unique id of the discussion folder.

Getting Replies of a Discussion

If you are in a situation where you have to loop through replies of a perticular discussion thread, you can use folowing code (assuming that you have obtained parent folder / reference of discussion item)

SPQuery queryText = new SPQuery();
queryText.Query = <>;
queryText.Folder = discussion.Folder; //IMP: setting the folder will get items from that perticular folder
SPListItemCollection relatedDiscussions = discussion.ParentList.GetItems(queryText);

Please note that since we want to query items from a perticular folder of the discussion list, we are setting the folder property of SPQuery object to the folder that we want to query. Since my discussion is nothign but a folder in the discussion list, i am setting the folder using that discussion object.

When this query is executed, relatedDiscussion collection will contain list of replies for the given discussion folder,

Pune User Group Meet - First Public Appearance

2008-12-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

Saturday13th Dec 2008 was a superb day of my life,

I had taken my first session on Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 with one of my best collegue Akhilesh Nirapure (akhilesh.nirapure@gmail.com).

It was my first public appearance on the Sharepoint. Giving me motivation for futher session.

I see that WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007 is still a jargon for most ot the people. The crowd was a good mix of people, starting with young studends (member of microsoft student partner) till IT Head of the company who were the decision makers.

It was a wonderful experience, I hope that it is the same for the audience. Apparently i had gone for Pune User Group meet for the first time (that too as a speaker).

Checking if logged in user is member of Sharepoint Site

2008-11-19T22:02:00.000-08:00

To check if current logged in user is member of current site. We could loop through groups available for the current site and check if user is member of the group.

SPWeb object defines a method SPWeb.IsCurrentUserMemberOfGroup(int groupid). This method takes the credentials of logged in user and Group ID as parameter.
Group id can be obtained from SPGroup object. SPWeb object also has one property SPWeb.Groups. Simply loop through this collection and check if logged in user is member of this group.

Following code snippet checks if user is member of group (except visitor group).

SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web;
bool isMember = false;
foreach (SPGroup group in web.Groups)
{
//If it is visitors group, do not check user membership
if(group != web.AssociatedVisitorGroup)
isMember = web.IsCurrentUserMemberOfGroup(group.ID);
//Check if user is member of this site.
if (isMember==true)
break;
}
if (isMember)
{
// other task to do if user is member
}

Note:
SPWeb class has properties that can be used to determine Visitors Groups/Members Groups and Groups associated with web site.

AssociatedGroups
Gets a list of the groups that are associated with the Web site.
AssociatedMemberGroup
Gets the users who have been given contribute permissions to the Web site.
AssociatedOwnerGroup
Gets or sets the associated owner groups of the Web site.
AssociatedVisitorGroup
Gets or sets the associated visitor group of the Web site.

Happy MOSS...ing!!!
Sudhir Kesharwani

Passed 70-542 - MOSS Application Development

2008-10-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

hi,
I completed my sharepoint certification series by passing the other Application Development certification paper 70-542 MOSS 2007 Application Develpoment.
It was relatively much easier then the previous paper (70-541 - WSS 3.0 Application Development).
I had done all the preperation from just one book, "Inside Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007" by
by Patrick Tisseghem, this book contains everything you need to get your MCTS credentials for MOSS- Application Development.

Most of the questions were from following topics, i think you should go through following chapters really carefully before going for exam:
Chapter3- Customizing and Extending the Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007 Search

Chapter4 - Working With Business Data Catelog.

Chapter7 - Integrating with Excel Services.

Chapter8 - Policy and Records management.

Belive me this paper is much more easier then Windows Sharepiont Services paper, and contains most of the questions from sharepiont settings and out of the box functionaliy.

All the best...

Passed 70-541 - WSS Application Development

2008-06-03T04:22:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I cleared 70-541 WSS Application Development, 70% of the questions were from APIs..

Here are some of the areas that i remember :

Features:
- A lot of questions were asked from this area, feature deployment, attaching event handlers with features
- There was a question which asked how we can get a list of features activated in a farm.

Workflows:
- Question on how to associate custom pages with workflows.
- Creating and updating a task using workflows.
- deploying workflows and associating it with document library.
- Deploying workflows and assiciating it with content types.

Admin APIs
- Questions related to changing settings using code.

Alerts & SPJobDefination
- Browsing through user alerts,
- changing frequency of user alerts.
- There was a question in which we have to get user alerts for 1 week using CAML query.
- There was another question where we need to fetch all the alerts that were to be sent on every monday for 5 weeks ( 5 occurances).
- Browsing through all the active job definitions.

Masterpages and Layouts
- Setting masterpages of all the rootsite and subsites using API.

WebParts
- Creating webparts and deploying.
- Deploying webparts as feature and hosting user control.
- Creating connectable webparts and passing data between webparts.

SiteDefinition and SiteTemplates
- Creating site definitions, there were lot of scripts given.
- Specifying a configuration that will be applied to only rootweb.
- Creating site templates that is based on the default site definition.

2007-12-18T05:39:00.000-08:00

Continuous Integration

with

Cruise Control.NET

By
- Sudhir Kesharwani
- Geeta Godbole

2.1Introduction

Integration as the word clearly says integration is about integrating / putting the code fixes to your Software Product. What’s the big deal, definition sounds so simple, but it becomes really painful when we have to do the same process again and again, especially when our product is in test-fix-deploy-test cycle, when we are giving final touches to our product.

Integration becomes part of your daily activity sometimes we end up deploying the same product 2-3 times due to small fixes and miss outs.

Integration should happen continuously, and is more often than we might think. The frequency of integration will vary from project to project, from developer to developer, and from modification to modification.

Best practices says that developer should integrate the changes once every few hours, at least once a day,

A successful integration is a measure of progress. It provides feedback that the new code runs correctly in the integration environment and successfully interoperates with the rest of the code base. Code sitting un integrated in a developer's local box simply does not exist. It is not part of the code base, it cannot be accessed by other developers or tested by the customer. Only when it has been successfully integrated is the benefit of the new code realized.

2.2Benefits

Why one should opt for continuous integration when everything is going fine, why to add additional complexity in the development process, we are already tied up with our schedules, what benefits do I get out of this?

Most of the times it happens that the code working in your local boxes perfectly suddenly stops working when integrated with other developer’s code and starts giving exceptions when deployed on the production. You are in a state of shock. You had done the unit testing perfectly. Why it happens in the integration time only. The problem is while you have been developing the fixes, somebody else was also changing other part of your software, His code working fine in his workstation, your code was working perfectly in your workstation, But the code integration task was scheduled for the later date, so when the Build Man starts deploying it to production, he gets all the hidden surprises.

Continuous Integration completely solves this problem. There's no long integration, you completely eliminate the blind spot. At all times you know where you are, what works, what doesn't, the outstanding bugs you have in your system. And surprisingly all this without any extra efforts, everything is taken care by Cruise Control .NET.

You do not require any human intervention for this, All you have to do is define the build steps for your project in the configuration of Cruise Control .NET, and execute the exe, You have to option of configuring Cruise Control as a window service, so it will keep on executing as a windows service in the server, whenever it detects the changes in your source code, it will automatically take the latest code from your source control and deploy the latest build in your server.

Effectively if you configure CCNET for automating your build process, integration becomes as easy as checking in the code to your version control tools (e.g. Visual Source Safe etc), and you can configure these tools with your ccnet server, CCNET scans the entire source safe database and checks for the modification, if modification is found then it starts with the build process, so by just checking in the code we have the latest build deployed onto our development / test environment. You can easily take out the report of what is working and what is breaking.

Other benefits of cruise control .net include:

Integration with a variety of Source Control systems
Integration with other external tools, such as NAnt and Visual Studio
Can build multiple projects on one server
Remote management and reporting
Email support.

You can configure cruise control with variety of tools, To view the list of third party tools and their configuration please click here

3Installing Cruise Control .NET

3.1Installation Pre-Requisites

CruiseControl.NET Server – For running Cruise Control .NET server you need to have following setup installed on your server.

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (Download)

Cruise Control .NET Web-Dashboard : If you wish to install Web-Dashboard application you need to have following setup installed onto your Cruise Control .NET server.

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (Download)

ASP.NET enabled web server (IIS with ASP.NET configured)

Workstations running ccTray application:

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (Download)

3.2Installation Steps

Cruise Control can be downloaded from following url. http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Download

Latest build available for this is 1.3. Download CruiseControl.NET-1.3-Setup.exe

To install execute the setup file, From the available screen click on the next button, Cruise Control consists of few applications if you wish to install all the components keep the defaults alternatively you may choose to install it partially. Find the screen below.

In the next screen the setup asks you if you wish to install Cruise Control as a Windows Service, so that it will keep on running in the background. However using the ccnet.config file you can specify the build schedule, so build will be forced automatically depending on the schedule specified by you (e.g every Monday at 8:00 etc)

It also asks if you want to create a virtual directory in your IIS for the Cruise Control Web Dashboard, Web-Dashboard is an ASP.NET application which shows the current build status and other reports, it will be accessible to all the workstations in your Intranet, this web application is also useful if you want to check the build status as well as want to force build your solution. It lists down all the projects from your ccnet.config file and you can see a report of all the builds for any project and their status ( e.g if build was successful, the compilation errors, warnings). Find the screen shot below.

Click on next, specify the installation directory (we will refer to this as ccnetdir ) and click on finish to complete the installation of Cruise Control .NET. Generally it is best to use the roots for installing cruise control .net (e.g. c: )

So all the files will be copied inside <installdir>Cruise Control .NET

3.3Components of Cruise Control.NET

Cruise Control .NET mainly consist of three applications

Cruise Control .NET Server – This is the server application that runs on the server, either as an exe or as a service (depending on the installation), all the client applications (web-dashboard, ccTray) connects to this application (for generating reports).

When you install cruise control .net server as a windows service, you can find the entry into the services console for cruise control.net, Please note that you may require starting this service; once you have configured your ccnet.config (this is the xml based configuration file that contains the project build steps. You can find this file inside <ccnetdir>serverccnet.config) for your project build steps. Please make sure to stop this service while you are making changes to your configuration files. Find the screen shot of the Cruise Control .NET Service.

If you do not want the Cruse Control .NET server to run in the background as a windows service, You may still do that, make sure to uncheck “Install CC .Net server as windows service” checkbox in the installation procedure. After installation is complete browse to <ccnetdir>Server directory, You will find ccnet.exe executable file, once you run this executable, it will start reading the ccnet.config file for your project configuration and start getting newer version of the code from source safe database. Once the build process is completed you can close this command window. You can run this executable as and when you want to take out fresh build.

Cruise Control Web Dashboard – This is the asp .net web application which is accessible to everyone via Intranet/Internet, this application can be used to monitor the status of any build of all the projects that resides on the cruise control server. User may also force build using this application. When you install Cruise Control .NET automatically all the files (aspx and dlls) are deployed to your installation directory and a virtual directory is created inside your default web site with name ccnet, Any workstation can access this application by going to http://servername/ccnet url. Find screen shot of the homepage of Cruise Control .NET Web-Dashboard.

As you can see, the web-dashboard home page displays all the projects configured in the server, there last build status.

There is a force button displayed after each project row, this will be used to start the build of that project forcefully.

Project name is shown as hyperlinked and when you go inside that hyperlink you will get a detailed report of all the builds for that project. It gives all the builds as hyperlinked in the left hand side, and when you click on any of the build you will get the detailed report about that build, it lists all the modifications done since last build, Warnings and errors. Please refer to screen shots below.

As you can see in the left hand side, the successful builds are shown in green color and failed builds are shown in red color, when you click on any of the builds you get a detailed report for that build.

ccTray Application – This is an optional application that can be installed, the setup file for this application is available in the Cruise Control .NET Web-Dashboard application (in the homepage you will find the link to download ccTray application), alternatively you can copy the setup from your Cruise Control .NET installation directory (<ccnet directory>webdashboardcctray). This application is installed onto your workstation and you can check status of all the projects onto your Cruise Control .NET server, you can also forcefully build the project using ccTray application, however you can not see the detailed report for your project build status,

it will just show your project icon as Green if last build was successful, it will show the icon in red color if the build was failed, and it will show the icon in gray color if your server is not started or ccTray is unable to connect to the server.

If you want to forcefully build any project, just select the project from the projects list and click on “Force Build” button.

Configuring ccTray Application:

ccTray desktop application can be configured to show any no of projects either from one cruise control server or many cruise control server. In order to configure ccTray application follows these steps.

Open ccTray application, click on FileSettings, following dialog box will be opened

Click on “Add” button, a window will appear from where you can add the server.

Click on “Add Server” command button. Dialog box will appear asking you for the server settings and how you want to connect to server

You can specify the Web-Dashboard URL (e.g. http://servername/ccnet) or you can specify the server IP address, if you wish to connect through .Net Remoting

Once you specify the server address, it will automatically list down all the configured projects, select any of the projects and it will be listed in your ccTray application. You can add multiple projects from the same server by repeating these steps.

4ccnet.config File:

When Cruise Control is installed, in installed directory there is a Folder created with the name ‘Server’. In this folder one can find a file named as ccnet.config file. This file acts as the base for every build that is generated through Cruise Control. It is an XML file that stores the entire configuration with predefined Elements and attributes associated with each of the element. It is not mandatory that all the Elements shall be included, but there is minimum configuration that is needed for Cruise Control to process the build successfully. We will study the Elements in detail here.

Once you installed the cruise control ccnet.config look like

<!--

-->

</cruisecontrol>

It is blank file with only one empty element.

4.1Structure of CCNET.Config file

CCNET.config file is the heart of Cruise Control .NET, it contains information about all the projects in the server that are to be built using cruise control.net.

Structure of this file is something like given below:

<workingDirectory>yourWorkingDirectory</workingDirectory>

<category>Category 1</category>

<webURL>http://server/ccnet/server/local/project/testProject/ViewLatestBuildReport.aspx</webURL>

</triggers>

</sourcecontrol>

</labeller>

</prebuild>

<tasks>

</tasks>

</publishers>

</externalLinks>

</project>

</cruisecontrol>

4.2Elements of ccnet.config

cruisecontrol: this is the root node for ccnet.config file, all the project in the servers are defined as child nodes of <cruisecontrol> node.
Project Block : this node represents a single project in the cruise control server, all the child nodes of project nodes specify project details, like source control settings, trigger intervals, publisher settings for the project.
Click Here to see various child elements of the project element.
Trigger Block : this node defines various trigger types associated with the project. A trigger specifies the build schedule for the project. Please see Trigger Block to get more details about various types of triggers supported by cruise control .net and their syntax.
Sourcecontrol Block : this node contains information about the source control integration, cruise control .net supports verities of source control software. Please have a look at the Source Control block to see the structure of source control block and supported source control tools.
Labeller Block : this node defines the labeller settings, once the build for the project is successful, cruise control can automatically apply a label for the code in your source control tool. This label can be used to take out reports and maintain history of various builds for the project. Please have a look at the labeller blocks to get the details about this block.
Tasks Block : tasks block defines the steps required to build the project. There are various types of tasks supported by cruise control .net, for e.g. Executable Tasks (.bat, exe etc), visual studio task (devenv). To see a detailed list of tasks supported by cruise control .net please check Task Block. Task blocks can be nested inside <tasks> section or <publishers> section. Please note that <tasks> section is executed before <publishers> section regardless of their order in the ccnet.config file.
Publishers Block : This block defines the set of tasks that run after the build is complete. These tasks are used primarily to clean up after the build and to publish and report on the build results. All tasks in this section will always run regardless of whether previous tasks fail or the build is broken. In general we specify the tasks to publish the reports e.g Email Publisher and Build Publisher tasks inside this.

4.3Project Configuration Block:

A <project> block defines the entire configuration for one project running in a CruiseControl.NET server. All the elements of a project configuration block are shown below.

Node	Description	Type	Required	Default
name	The name of your project - this must be unique for any given CruiseControl.NET server	string	yes	n/a
queue	The name of the integration queue that this project will use. By default, each project runs in its own queue. (Added in CCNet 1.3)	string	no	the project name
queuePriority	The priority of this project within the integration queue. If multiple projects have pending requests in the specified queue then these requests will be executed according to their priority. Higher priority numbers indicate that integration requests for this project will execute before other projects in the same queue.	string	no	0
workingDirectory	The Working Directory for the project (this is used by other blocks). Relative paths are relative to a directory called the project Name in the directory where the CruiseControl.NET server was launched from. The Working Directory is meant to contain the checked out version of the project under integration.	string	no	WorkingDirectory
artifactDirectory	The Artifact Directory for the project (this is used by other blocks). Relative paths are relative to a directory called the project Name in the directory where the CruiseControl.NET server was launched from. The Artifact Directory is meant to be a persistence location for anything you want saved from the results of the build, e.g. build logs, distributables, etc.	string	no	Artifacts
webURL	A reporting URL for this project. This is used by CCTray and the Email Publisher. Typically you should navigate to the Project Report on the Dashboard, and use its URL	string	no	http://localhost/ccnet
category	A general category for this project. This will be used by CCTray and the dashboard in the future to provide groupings to the project. The groupings can span servers in the farm.	string	no	empty string
modificationDelaySeconds	The minimum number of seconds allowed between the last check in and the start of a valid build. If any modifications are found within this interval the system will sleep long enough so the last checkin is just outside this interval. For example if the modification delay is set to 10 seconds and the last checkin was 7 seconds ago the system will sleep for 3 seconds and check again. This process will repeat until no modifications have been found within the modification delay window. This feature is in CruiseControl.NET for Source Control systems, like CVS, that do not support atomic checkins since starting a build half way through someone checking in their work could result in invalid 'logical' passes or failures. The property is optional though so if you are using a source control system with atomic checkins, leave it out (and it will default to '0')	integer	no	0
sourcecontrol	See Source Control Blocks	Source Control Block	no	Null Source Control Block
triggers	See Trigger Blocks	List of Trigger Blocks	no	Specifying an empty element (<triggers />) means integrations are only ever forced manually (for example using CCTray or the Web Dashboard.) Not including a <triggers> element at all means the project has a single Interval Trigger with default configuration.
state	See State Manager Blocks	State Manager Block	no	Project State Manager
labeller	See Labeller Blocks	Labeller Block	no	Default Labeller
tasks	A set of Tasks to run as part of the build. A failed task will fail the build and any subsequent tasks will not run. Tasks are run sequentially, in the order they appear in the configuration.	List of Task Blocks	no	empty list
prebuild	A set of Tasks to run before the build starts and before the source is updated. A failed task will fail the build and any subsequent tasks will not run. Tasks are run sequentially, in the order they appear in the configuration. *This section is available in the CCNet 1.1 release.	List of Task Blocks	no	empty list
publishers	A set of Tasks that are run after the build is complete. These tasks are used primarily to clean up after the build and to publish and report on the build results. All tasks in this section will always run regardless of whether previous tasks fail or the build is broken. You should always set an Xml Log Publisher in this section so that your Web Dashboard will be able to report results.	List of Task Blocks	no	If you don't specify a <publishers /> section at all then a default Xml Log Publisher is used as the sole publisher.
externalLinks	See ExternalLinks	List of ExternalLinks	no	empty list

4.4SourceControl block:

This block contains the entire configuration of integration with any source control. This is an inner element of Project Configuration Block.

Example:

Get Source Code From VSS-->

</sourcecontrol>

Node	Description	Type	Required	Default
executable	Path of the source control tool exe	String	Yes
Project	Project path in VSS	String	Yes
username	Login name for VSS	String	Yes
password	Password for VSS	String	Yes
Ssdir	Path of the project database	String	Yes
workingDirectory	Mapped Path on local	String	Yes
Culture	Culture to be applied	String	Yes
cleanCopy	Boolean value for cleaning the copy	String	Yes

4.5Labeller Blocks:

Labellers are used to generate the label that CCNet uses to identify the specific build. The label generated by CCNet can be used to version your assemblies or label your version control system with each build.

Commonly used types of labeller supported by cruise control are

Date Labeller – generates the label in the format of yyyy.mm.dd.build (e.g 2007.12.18.9)
Default Labeller – most commonly used labeller, here you can specify the prefix and the automatically it will append the current build no with the prefix (prefix.<build number> e.g. RMSWA.10). You can specify if the build number should be
Iteration Labeller - The Iteration Labeller is similar to the Defaul Labeller; however, it maintains a revision number that is incremented by one for each iteration from the release start date. For example, if the release start date was June 1, 2005 and the iteration duration was 2 weeks, the iteration number on July 1, 2005 would be 3. This would create a label of <prefix>.3.<build number>.

Example:

</labeller>

Node	Description	Type	Required	Default
Prefix	Label to be given to all files		False
incrementOnFailure	If true, the label will be incremented even if the build fails. Otherwise it will only be incremented if the build succeeds.		False	False

4.6Tasks Block:

Task Blocks are the action elements of CruiseControl.Net. They're the elements that do things, like executing a program, running tests, or send email results.

Types of Tasks blocks:

Task blocks must appear in either the <tasks> section or the <publishers> section. The <tasks> section is always run before the <publishers> section, regardless of the order in which they appear. However, within each of these sections, the tasks are run in the order they appear.

Below we are explaining mostly used blocks.

4.6.1Build Publisher:

The Build Publisher lets you copy any arbitrary files on a successful build.

Example:

<sourceDir>C:myprojectsproject1</sourceDir>

<publishDir>\myfileserverproject1</publishDir>

<useLabelSubDirectory>false</useLabelSubDirectory>

</buildpublisher>

Node	Description	Type	Required	Default
sourceDir	The source directory to copy files from. This path can be absolute or can be relative to the project's working directory. If unspecified, the project's working directory will be used as the source directory.	string	false	n/a
publishDir	The directory to copy the files to. This path can be absolute or can be relative to the project's artifact directory. If useLabelSubDirectory is true (default) a subdirectory with the current build's label will be created, and the contents of sourceDir will be copied to it. If unspecified, the project's artifact directory will be used as the publish directory.	string	false	n/a
useLabelSubDirectory	If set to true (the default value), files will be copied to subdirectory under the publishDir which will be named with the label for the current integration.	bool	false	true

4.6.2Email Publisher:

The email publisher can be used to send email to any number of users. It is common to include one user who gets an email for every build and then also send email to every developer who checked code in for this build.

Example:

<users>

</users>

</groups>

</email>

4.6.3Executable Task:

The Executable Task lets you invoke any command line executable.

Minimalist example:

Full example:

<exec>

<baseDirectory>D:devMyProject</baseDirectory>

</exec>

Node	Description	Type	Required	Default
executable	The path of the program to run. If this is relative, then must be relative to either (a) the base directory, (b) the CCNet Server application, or (c) if the path doesn't contain any directory details then can be available in the system or application's 'path' environment variable	string	true	n/a
baseDirectory	The directory to run the process in. If relative, is a subdirectory of the Project Working Directory	string	false	Project Working Directory
buildArgs	Any command line arguments to pass in	string	false	no arguments
buildTimeoutSeconds	Number of seconds to wait before assuming that the process has hung and should be killed.	int	false	600 (10 minutes)

4.6.4Visual Studio Task:

Most complex build processes use NAnt or MSBuild to script the build. However, for simple projects that just need to build a Visual Studio.NET solution, the Visual Studio task <devenv> provides an easier method.

Minimalist example:

<solutionfile>srcMyProject.sln</solutionfile>

<configuration>Debug</configuration>

</devenv>

Full example:

<solutionfile>srcMyProject.sln</solutionfile>

<configuration>Debug</configuration>

<buildtype>Build</buildtype>

<project>MyProject</project>

<executable>c:program filesMicrosoft Visual Studio .NETCommon7IDEdevenv.com</executable>

</devenv>

Node	Description	Type	Required	Default
solutionfile	The path of the solution file to build. If relative, it is relative to the Project Working Directory.	string	true	n/a
configuration	The solution configuration to use (not case sensitive).	string	true	n/a
buildtype	The type of build. Valid values are Rebuild, Build or Clean (not case sensitive).	string	false	rebuild
project	A specific project in the solution, if you only want to build one project (not case sensitive).	string	false	The default is to build all projects selected by the configuration.
executable	The path to devenv.com.	string	false	If not specified, CC.NET will try to find this path from the registry for VS.NET 2003 and 2002 in that order. If you need to use VS.NET 2005, or if you need to use VS.NET 2002 when VS.NET 2003 is installed, you should specify this property to point to the location of devenv.com for the correct VS.NET version.
buildTimeoutSeconds	Number of seconds to wait before assuming that the process has hung and should be killed.	int	false	600 (10 minutes)

5Reference:

To get the detailed information on remaining blocks, please follow below link.

http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Task+Blocks

http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Welcome+to+CruiseControl.NET

http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html

http://programcsharp.com/blog/archive/2006/07/23/21483.aspx

2007-11-21T04:02:00.000-08:00

TAGS Training

11/21/2007

Technology Architecture Grooming School

Context Settings

Curriculum

MIT - ASDA

TAGS – Technical Architecture Grooming School

TAPS (2 days) – Technical Architecture Principle school

TADS/TASA (5 days) - Technical Architecture Design School

APW – Architecture Principle Workshop

MTA – Master Technical Architecture

Role of an Architect

Idea of how something should be accomplished.

Defines how the pieces put together.

Role of each pieces.

How they work together.

Architecture Vs Software Design

“Architecture is a design but not all the design is architecture.”

Architecture

Stability against forces.
Overall structure
Ground Load
Technology Choices

Design

Interior layout
Furnishings
Rooms and amenities
Look and feel

Discipline of Architecture

- Understand the problem.

- Define the structure for a solution.

- Decompose the problem into smaller manageable pieces.

- Resolve the details of the smaller pieces.

- Ensure that each pieces fit in an integrated manner to complete the overall solutions.

- Ensure that solution meets expectations, functional and technical requirements.

-Ultimately solve the problem and achieve the initial version.

Systems Development Engagement

Bigger the engagements, sharper the skills required for Technical Architects to solve complex problems.

Role and Relationships

Manages the analysis, design, build and integration of the solution components.

Technical Architects Responsibilities

Analyze

Define application and technical requirements.
Define the structure of the application and technical arch.
Ensure the structure meets the business requirements and performance goals
Ensure the technical direction is consistent with the client’s log term direction.

Design

Design development operations and execution environments
Maintain quality, development and change control processes
Drive the design of application data and UI classes and components via the application architecture specification.
Ensure training and performance support service introduction and deployment are adequately considered against the design
Decide on hardware, networking systems software and security.

Build and Test

Iteratively improve environment designs
Maintain quality development and change control processes
Conduct or administer code reviews, as appropriate
Drive issue management and resolutions.
Assist in deployment planning.
Develop technology policies and procedures.

“Design patterns are guidelines of how you solve business problems.”

Characteristics of Successful Technical Architects

A solid foundation of coding, testing and development skills.
A broad skill set, in addition to deep skills in specific technology.
- They know what they don’t know
Good understanding of architectural principles.
Ability to network and sought out for their capabilities
Manage team and projects effectively.

Architecture Types

Application Architecture

maps the functional requirements to discrete software solutions it defines the technical services that are needed by application.

Technical Architecture

refers to the blueprint or design of technical services that are required to support an application.

Technical architect is typically responsible for both technical architecture and application architecture.

Case Study - 1

Business Requirements:

Financial Services Client, to build a intranet based solution with following requirements

Company Info and news
Employee Tools
- Pay slips
- Vacation Policy
- Form 16 A
News feeds (top news relevant to industry)

Functional/Technical Requirements:

Browser accessible
Leverage existing infrastructure.
Should be developed fully by partner.

Thoughts On:

Application Architecture
Non functional requirements
Development environment

Team Members:

Mihir.Anil.Mone

Veera.Mangipudi

Sudhir.Kesharwani

The Ilities

Architectural goals are often refereed to as the “-ilities”, since they end with the word “ility”

Scalability
Security
Performance

Performance

Measures the speed with which a single request can be executed.

Performance Drivers

Reduced response time
Availability
Internet traffic

Best Practices

Benchmark early against peak loads and worst case configurations
Can I get the individual response times I need ?
80:20 rule - do the important things fast, not everything.
Does the required transactional volume fit on the platform?
Typically need a local or remote reference data cache
1. Key trade off is performance versus ability to keep cache current.
2. Portioning data and executing parallel job streams
Performance is driven by bottlenecks.
Target bottleneck by
1. Doing expensive things (like I/O) less frequently.
2. Doing repetitive things more intelligently; use caching.

Performance Improvements:

Tuning the runtime for better heap management, memory management accelerators.
Concurrency through multithreading
Asynchronous usage patterns
Entity caching
Minimize individual database operations, batch up requests
Optimize log settings.

Scalability

Scalability is related to the ability of the application to respond to multiple separate interactions. Under these circumstances

Is the performance of the application downgraded?

Some patterns for scalability

Connection pooling in JDBC
Object pooling
User Session / State caching
Sever affinity and sticky sessions
Clustering and load balancing of servers (web, application and database)

Security

-Different user levels, allowing access to different parts of the application.

- Layers of Security

> Authentication, authorization, access auditing

> Physical vs. electronic

> Systems administration

> Encryption services

> Fraud services

> balance risk/reward on investment

- Build security in from day one

- Considerations

> International issues

> Separation of duties

> A security policy

> Security Standards

> Administration Procedures

> Testing procedures

> Training programs

> Consequences of not getting the right security.

Resilience

What happens to working storage at a checkpoint? To files? To databases?
Design for failure, allow processing to continue if at all possible and provide detailed and accurate diagnostics.

Interoperability

Do all of the components work together smoothly? Interoperability is ensuring that all the parts of the systems work together. Failure to address interoperability issues will reduce your ability to run, maintain and extend the architecture.

What types of bridges are required to connect the technologies? Are they readily available?
Have you verified all vender claims?
Have you prototyped anything new or complex?
Conformance to standards
Plug and play
Test under production like environment

Flexibility

Can the technical architecture change quickly to meet new business requirements>

Use standard design methods, programming techniques and tools to simplify maintenance.

Availability

Maintainability

Consider configuration management and application packaging early.
Consider distribution of software updates.

Architectural Styles

The word architecture is both about designing something and about making, building or constructing something

Therefore architecture can be thought of in a theoretical and a practical basis

Architecture is about designing and building something from a set of basic components, and also about the interrelations among the components

Client/Server Architecture

Support a style of computing where processes on different machines communicate using messages.

The “client” processes delegate business functions or other tasks to one or more server processes.
The server processes respond to messages from clients.
Business logic can reside on both client and server.
Clients are typically PCs or workstations with a graphical user interface
Servers are usually implemented on UNIX, NT or mainframe machines.
For e.g. Desktop applications.

Integration Architecture and Patterns

Getting different application talk together using common language.

File Transfer:

Have each application produce files of shared data for others to consume, and consume files that others have produced.

Shared Database

Have the applications store data they wish to share in a common database.

Remote Procedure Invocation

Have each application exposes some of its procedures so that they can be invoked remotely, and have applications invoked those to run behavior and exchange data.

Messaging Framework (Point to Point Messaging)

Each application talks to its collaborators via a dedicated pipe, ensures that only one system gets the message, useful for workflow.

Publish / Subscribe Messaging

Application publishes a message to a queue, other applications subscribe to the queue, useful for event propagation.

Message Broker

Message Broker ca receive messages from multiple destinations, determine the correct destination and route the message to correct channel.

Emerging Integration Architecture

And EAI solution serves as a centralized location for development and control of applications, enabling visibility of information across the enterprise.

Advantages:

Hum/Spoke of bus messaging architecture reduces number of connection
Loose coupling of integrated applications
Pre build adapters reduce efforts to integrate with packaged applications.
Reusable data/message transformation and formatting functions
Near real time and batch integration
Inter enterprise connections
Central Control of multi step business processes across multiple application.

Data Architecture

Data architecture focuses on both tactical (short term) and strategic (long term) uses of data at both the application and enterprise wide levels

It is not just the “documentation that the DBA has to do”

Logical Data Modeling
Physical Data Modeling
Sizing, Naming Standards

This is not “design- build-run-away” task.
At the enterprise level is about data mastery and data flow.
More and more this involves XML schema & message definitions, data mappings, message transformation and common data definitions.

What is not covered in this

Development architecture, Operational Architecture and execution architecture
Infrastructure Architecture
Architectural Frameworks
Other architectural styles
- Portal
- Data Warehousing

2007-11-21T02:34:00.000-08:00

TAGS Training

11/20/2007

Technology Architecture Grooming School

Context Settings

Curriculum

MIT - ASDA

TAGS – Technical Architecture Grooming School

TAPS (2 days) – Technical Architecture Principle school

TADS/TASA (5 days) - Technical Architecture Design School

APW – Architecture Principle Workshop

MTA – Master Technical Architecture

Role of an Architect

Idea of how something should be accomplished.

Defines how the pieces put together.

Role of each pieces.

How they work together.

Architecture Vs Software Design

“Architecture is a design but not all the design is architecture.”

Architecture

Stability against forces.
Overall structure
Ground Load
Technology Choices

Design

Interior layout
Furnishings
Rooms and amenities
Look and feel

Discipline of Architecture

- Understand the problem.

- Define the structure for a solution.

- Decompose the problem into smaller manageable pieces.

- Resolve the details of the smaller pieces.

- Ensure that each pieces fit in an integrated manner to complete the overall solutions.

- Ensure that solution meets expectations, functional and technical requirements.

-Ultimately solve the problem and achieve the initial version.

Systems Development Engagement

Bigger the engagements, sharper the skills required for Technical Architects to solve complex problems.

Role and Relationships

Manages the analysis, design, build and integration of the solution components.

Technical Architects Responsibilities

Analyze

- Define application and technical requirements.

- Define the structure of the application and technical arch.

- Ensure the structure meets the business requirements and performance goals

- Ensure the technical direction is consistent with the client’s log term direction.

Design

- Design development operations and execution environments

- Maintain quality, development and change control processes

- Drive the design of application data and UI classes and components via the application architecture specification.

- Ensure training and performance support service introduction and deployment are adequately considered against the design

- Decide on hardware, networking systems software and security.

Build and Test

- Iteratively improve environment designs

- Maintain quality development and change control processes

- Conduct or administer code reviews, as appropriate

- Drive issue management and resolutions.

- Assist in deployment planning.

- Develop technology policies and procedures.

“Design patterns are guidelines of how you solve business problems.”

Characteristics of Successful Technical Architects

- A solid foundation of coding, testing and development skills.

- A broad skill set, in addition to deep skills in specific technology.

o They know what they don’t know

- Good understanding of architectural principles.

- Ability to network and sought out for their capabilities

- Manage team and projects effectively.

Architecture Types

Application Architecture

- maps the functional requirements to discrete software solutions it defines the technical services that are needed by application.

Technical Architecture

- refers to the blueprint or design of technical services that are required to support an application.

Technical architect is typically responsible for both technical architecture and application architecture.

Case Study - 1

Business Requirements:

Financial Services Client, to build a intranet based solution with following requirements

- Company Info and news

- Employee Tools

o Pay slips

o Vacation Policy

o Form 16 A

- News feeds (top news relevant to industry)

Functional/Technical Requirements:

- Browser accessible

- Leverage existing infrastructure.

- Should be developed fully by partner.

Thoughts On:

Application Architecture
Non functional requirements
Development environment

Team Members:

Mihir.Anil.Mone

Veera.Mangipudi

Sudhir.Kesharwani

3. The Ilities

Architectural goals are often refereed to as the “-ilities”, since they end with the word “ility”

- Scalability

- Security

- Performance

Performance

Measures the speed with which a single request can be executed.

Performance Drivers

– Reduced response time

– Availability

– Internet traffic

Best Practices

- Benchmark early against peak loads and worst case configurations

- Can I get the individual response times I need ?

- 80:20 rule - do the important things fast, not everything.

- Does the required transactional volume fit on the platform?

- Typically need a local or remote reference data cache

i. Key trade off is performance versus ability to keep cache current.

ii. Portioning data and executing parallel job streams

- Performance is driven by bottlenecks.

- Target bottleneck by

i. Doing expensive things (like I/O) less frequently.

ii. Doing repetitive things more intelligently; use caching.

Performance Improvements:

- Tuning the runtime for better heap management, memory management accelerators.

- Concurrency through multithreading

- Asynchronous usage patterns

- Entity caching

- Minimize individual database operations, batch up requests

- Optimize log settings.

Scalability

Scalability is related to the ability of the application to respond to multiple separate interactions. Under these circumstances

- Is the performance of the application downgraded?

Some patterns for scalability

- Connection pooling in JDBC

- Object pooling

- User Session / State caching

- Sever affinity and sticky sessions

- Clustering and load balancing of servers (web, application and database)

Security

-Different user levels, allowing access to different parts of the application.

- Layers of Security

> Authentication, authorization, access auditing

> Physical vs. electronic

> Systems administration

> Encryption services

> Fraud services

> balance risk/reward on investment

- Build security in from day one

- Considerations

> International issues

> Separation of duties

> A security policy

> Security Standards

> Administration Procedures

> Testing procedures

> Training programs

> Consequences of not getting the right security.

Resilience

- What happens to working storage at a checkpoint? To files? To databases?

- Design for failure, allow processing to continue if at all possible and provide detailed and accurate diagnostics.

Interoperability

- What types of bridges are required to connect the technologies? Are they readily available?

- Have you verified all vender claims?

- Have you prototyped anything new or complex?

- Conformance to standards

- Plug and play

- Test under production like environment

Flexibility

Can the technical architecture change quickly to meet new business requirements>

- Use standard design methods, programming techniques and tools to simplify maintenance.

Availability

Maintainability

- Consider configuration management and application packaging early.

- Consider distribution of software updates.

4. Architectural Styles

The word architecture is both about designing something and about making, building or constructing something

Therefore architecture can be thought of in a theoretical and a practical basis

Architecture is about designing and building something from a set of basic components, and also about the interrelations among the components

Client/Server Architecture

Support a style of computing where processes on different machines communicate using messages.

Ø The “client” processes delegate business functions or other tasks to one or more server processes.

Ø The server processes respond to messages from clients.

Ø Business logic can reside on both client and server.

Ø Clients are typically PCs or workstations with a graphical user interface

Ø Servers are usually implemented on UNIX, NT or mainframe machines.

Ø For e.g. Desktop applications.

Integration Architecture and Patterns