IBM WebSphere Message Broker introduced Record and Replay as part of its version 8 release. I thought I would just write a brief quickstart guide to getting running with record and replay, and . . . → Read More: Message Broker v8: Record, Replay and REST]]> IBM WebSphere Message Broker v8 was released in December last year – There is an announcement and comparison of versions on the IBM website.

IBM WebSphere Message Broker introduced Record and Replay as part of its version 8 release. I thought I would just write a brief quickstart guide to getting running with record and replay, and in particular with working with the new REST interface which comes with it. There is actually a Record and Replay specific PDF available too, which contains all the details you might want for using Record and Replay (far more detail than I cover here). The main reason I am writing this, is it can be a little daunting trying to get Record and Replay going, as it does have a fair bit of configuration, and involves a few areas of a quite large product.

Setting up Recording

From your WMB install dir, run the db2 schema file to create the sample database for Record and Replay. Edit the file if you want to use a database name other than MB8RECORD, a specific schema or increase the storage size per message above 5mb.

db2 -tvf ddl/db2/DataCaptureSchema.sql

Set the password for your database

mqsisetdbparms MB8BROKER -n MBRECORD -u username -p password

Set the DataCaptureStore configurable service to set where to record to and which EG to do the recording (You can also do any of these configurable service steps via the Message Broker Explorer gui)

mqsicreateconfigurableservice MB8BROKER -c DataCaptureStore -o MyCaptureStore \
   -n "dataSourceName,egForRecord" -v "MBRECORD,default"

Define where to record messages from. Use a wildcard to set all configurable services. Note that double quotes (“”) are required on unix, windows will want single quotes (”)

mqsicreateconfigurableservice MB8BROKER -c DataCaptureSource -o MyCaptureSource \
   -n "dataCaptureStore,topic" -v "MyCaptureStore,$SYS/Broker/MB8BROKER/Monitoring/#"

Alternatively you can list the flows explicitly with topics like “$SYS/Broker/MB8BROKER/Monitoring/ExecutionGroupName/FlowName” While we are configuring everything, set a replay destination too. Set EG default to replay to queue “REPLAY” on queue manager MB8QMGR

mqsicreateconfigurableservice MB8BROKER -c DataDestination -o MyDestination \
   -n "egForReplay,endpoint,endpointType" -v "default,wmq:/msg/queue/REPLAY@MB8QMGR,WMQDestination"

Setting up Monitoring

Now your broker is configured for recording, you will need to setup something to be recorded. Event Monitoring is used to emit data to record, so either follow the monitoring sample, read the docs on Event Monitoring or edit the sample monitoring profile in sample/RecordReplay/basicMonitoringProfile.xml to replace NODENAME with the name of your flow’s input node. Of course you can also configure event monitoring from within the flow editor in the toolkit – simply select a node and you will find monitoring in the properties view. If you have the flow source already, it is much easier to set the monitoring in the toolkit than it is to do it via the command line. You can also then use the mqsireportflowmonitoring command afterwards to give you the xml monitoring profile being used (which is basically what you are setting in the toolkit when setting the monitoring options on a flow)

There are two specific properties which are worth mentioning when it comes to monitoring for Record and Replay.
If you tick the include bitstream option in the toolkit then the body of your message will be recorded. Choose a sensible encoding, as if you select CDATA and your body will not be a valid XML element, you will break the monitoring and no event will be emitted. If in doubt, use the hexbinary or base64 encoding. It is worth saying that if you record MQ headers, and replay that message, the headers will be attempted to be reused. Other transport headers will just end up in the body of your message.
The other option I wanted to mention was the UserData area of Event Monitoring. If you include $ExceptionList in your monitoring settings, then if an error occurs and an event is emitted, the exception list will be included in the monitoring message. This will be recorded, and will be available from the Record and Replay web interface and REST Api.

If you used a monitoring profile you will need to configure the profile with the following commands:

mqsicreateconfigurableservice MB8BROKER -c MonitoringProfiles -o MyProfile

mqsichangeconfigurableservice MB8BROKER -c MonitoringProfiles -o MyProfile \
   -n profileProperties -p "sample/RecordReplay/basicMonitoringProfile.xml"

mqsichangeflowmonitoring MB8BROKER -e default -f MyFlow -m  MyProfile

Monitoring normally defaults to off, so you will probably need to turn it on with:

mqsichangeflowmonitoring MB8BROKER -e default -f MyFlow -c active

You can check that monitoring is correctly active with the command

mqsireportflowmonitoring MB8BROKER -n -e default -f MyFlow

You should see output like

BIP8911I: Monitoring settings for flow 'MyFlow' in execution group 'default' -  State?: active, ProfileName: 'MyProfile'.
BIP8912I: Event: 'IN.transaction.End',  Event name: 'IN.transaction.End',  Configured?: yes,  State?: enabled.
BIP8912I: Event: 'IN.transaction.Rollback',  Event name: 'IN.transaction.Rollback',  Configured?: yes,  State?: enabled.

You can now put messages through your flow and they will be recorded.

Enabling the REST interface and Web UI

To enable the REST interface and Web UI you need to enable the HTTP server and set the port for it to run on. You will also need to set which ExecutionGroup will process requests to view recorded messages. (You can also do this via the MBX properties, see the properties for your broker, and for your DataCaptureStore ConfigurableService)

mqsichangeproperties MB8BROKER -b webadmin -o server -n enabled -v true
mqsichangeproperties MB8BROKER -b webadmin -o HTTPConnector -n port -v 8080
mqsichangeproperties MB8BROKER -o DataCaptureStore -c MyCaptureStore -n egForView -v default

You can also configure HTTPS if you prefer, details are in the product documentation.

Viewing recorded data

You can of course view all the data via a web browser by pointing to the url http://localhost:8080 but you can also do it all via the command line. The following will get back the most recent 30 recorded pieces of data from your captureStore MyCaptureStore.

$curl "http://localhost:8080/datacapturestore/MyCaptureStore/"

This returns quite a large XML list of messages, so let’s try getting just one message.

$curl "http://localhost:8080/datacapturestore/DefaultCaptureStore/?numberOfEntriesPerPage=1"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<DataCaptureStore TotalResults="92" NumberOfEntriesPerPage="1" PageNumber="1">
<DataCaptureEntry wmb_msgkey="414d51204d4238514d475220202020203d1bc14e4d290020:414d51204d4238514d475220202020203d1bc14e1b3a0020"
  has_bitstream="Y" has_exception="N" has_userdata="N" event_type="IN.transaction.End"
  event_name="IN.transaction.End" event_srcaddr="IN.transaction.End" broker_name="MB8BROKER"
  broker_uuid="d405fc08-0ec6-11e1-9d9b-7f0000010000" exgrp_name="default" exgrp_uuid="7fd654a2-3301-0000-0080-d4d9103989f9"
  msgflow_name="MyFlow" msgflow_uuid="0a4555a2-3301-0000-0080-e2ed33c9dfcd" appl_name="" appl_uuid="" library_name=""
  library_uuid="" node_name="IN" node_type="ComIbmMQInputNode" detail="IN" terminal_name="" key_fld_1_nm=""
  key_fld_2_nm="" key_fld_3_nm="" key_fld_4_nm="" key_fld_5_nm="" event_timestamp="2011-11-16 11:25:00.647"
  local_transaction_id="9f228bde-1045-11e1-9fac-7f0000010000-1" parent_transaction_id="" global_transaction_id=""/>
</DataCaptureStore>

You can of course filter on any of the data fields above as follows.

$curl "http://localhost:8080/datacapturestore/DefaultCaptureStore/?numberOfEntriesPerPage=1&has_bitstream=Y"

Filtering is possible on all the above columns, with the addition that you can also set a timestamp range with The REST Api has documentation at docs/REST/index.html which covers all these options.

You can also query which DataCaptureStores are setup for viewing by loading the base url “http://localhost:8080/datacapturestore/”

You may then want to download the body of a recorded message. (My example has a shortened url as the message key rather long. Use the wmb_msgkey from your above list requests) Depending on how you set the data to be recorded in your monitoring profile, you will get back a different encoding data

$curl "http://localhost:8080/datacapturestore/DefaultCaptureStore/12345"
<Data encoding="base64Binary">SGVsbG8gV29ybGQK</Data>

You don’t have to get the data back as encoded payloads wrapped in XML. If you set download=true then you will just get the decoded bitstream

$curl "http://localhost:8080/datacapturestore/DefaultCaptureStore/12345?download=true"
HelloWorld

You can also download an ExceptionList if your message has one recorded; set payload=exceptionlist to get the exceptionlist instead of the bitstream. This can also be combined with download=true

$curl "http://localhost:8080/datacapturestore/DefaultCaptureStore/12345?payload=exceptionlist&download=true"

Replaying recorded data

As we already defined a DataDestination called MyDestination above, we have somewhere we can replay to. Again, you can do this via the web browser quite easily, but doing it with curl isn’t hard either.

$curl "http://localhost:8080/datacapturestore/DefaultCaptureStore/12345" -d "replaydestination=MyDestination"

Viewing more about your broker

There are lots of other details about your broker and what is deployed on it available via “http://localhost:8080/admin”. See the REST Api documentation for full details

$curl "http://localhost:7101/admin"
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<brokerResponse brokerName="MB8BROKER" completionCode="ok">
<executiongroup name="default" runstate="running" path="/admin/executiongroup/default"></executiongroup>
<executiongroup name="test" runstate="running" path="/admin/executiongroup/test"></executiongroup>
<log name="Log" runstate="" path="/admin/log/Log"></log>
<adminqueue name="Administration Queue" runstate="" path="/admin/adminqueue/Administration Queue"></adminqueue>
</brokerResponse>

$curl "http://localhost:7101/admin/executiongroup/test/"
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<brokerResponse brokerName="MB8BROKER" completionCode="ok">
<application name="TestXpath" runstate="running" path="/admin/executiongroup/test/application/TestXpath"></application>
</brokerResponse>

$curl "http://localhost:7101/admin/executiongroup/test/properties"
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<brokerResponse brokerName="MB8BROKER" completionCode="ok">
<Name>test</Name><ShortDescription></ShortDescription><LongDescription></LongDescription>
<Type>ExecutionGroup</Type><UUID>3adf66ca-3301-0000-0080-814338bb17bb</UUID><FlowDebugPort>0</FlowDebugPort>
<TraceNodes>on</TraceNodes><Running>true</Running>
</brokerResponse>

“http://localhost:7101/admin/executiongroup/test/extendedproperties” will return a very large amount of information.

Several /admin paths also support recurse=true, for example to see everything deployed on your broker use ”http://localhost:8080/admin?recurse=true”

This was only a brief introduction to Record and Replay in WMB 8, and there is much more detail in the normal documentation. Hopefully a future update to WMB will bring more power and functionality to this area, as well as some more database support. Obviously I can’t say what will be added, let alone when, but I hope you get some value out of what is there currently.

edit 16/01/12 – corrections as supplied by Sebastian

IBM WebSphere Message Broker now uses UnixODBC to connect to many databases. Though not supported by IBM, . . . → Read More: Message Broker v8 with MySQL]]> Now that you know that you can use Message Broker v8 on Ubuntu for development, you may be wondering if you can use some of the databases that are more common on Linux, such as MySQL. You can!

IBM WebSphere Message Broker now uses UnixODBC to connect to many databases. Though not supported by IBM, you can actually connect to MySQL from Message Broker using UnixODBC.

If you are on Ubuntu, you can install the MySQL UnixODBC dirver and the MySQL server with apt-get:

apt-get install libmyodbc mysql-server

Your environment variable $ODBCINI should point to your odbc.ini, mine points to /var/mqsi/odbc/odbc.ini and the base file was copied from /opt/IBM/mqsi/8.0.0.0/ODBC/unixodbc/odbc.ini

You need to set a database definition for a mysql database, something like the following (assuming “wmb” is the name of your MySQL database created later)

[MYSQL]
Description     = MYSQL DB
Driver          = MySQL
Database        = wmb
Server          = 127.0.0.1
Port            = 3306

You also need to make sure your $ODBCSYSINI points to the folder (not the file) where your odbcinst.ini file has been copied to. Mine is set to /var/mqsi/odbc and the odbcinst.ini file was copied from /opt/mqsi/8.0.0.0/ODBC/unixodbc/odbcinst.ini, you also need to add a definition to explain to UnixODBC how to connect to a mysql database

The following should be enough to get UnixODBC working with MySQL

#Sample from package libmyodbc
[MySQL]
Description     = MySQL driver
Driver          = /usr/lib/odbc/libmyodbc.so
Setup           = /usr/lib/odbc/libodbcmyS.so
CPTimeout       =
CPReuse         =

Now create a mysql database (mysqladmin create wmb). You may need to GRANT some permissions to your user in MySQL, or add yourself to the mysql group and logout and back in again.

You can now check the database connection using the WMB mqsicvp command, which will also describe which database functions are available:

mqsicvp -n MYSQL -u anton -p password

BIP8270I: Connected to Datasource 'MYSQL' as user 'anton'. The datasource platform is 'MySQL', version '5.1.58-1ubuntu1'.
===========================
databaseProviderVersion      = 5.1.58-1ubuntu1
driverVersion                = 05.01.0006
driverOdbcVersion            = 03.51
driverManagerVersion         = 03.52.0002.0002
driverManagerOdbcVersion     = 03.52
databaseProviderName         = MySQL
datasourceServerName         = 127.0.0.1 via TCP/IP
databaseName                 = wmb
odbcDatasourceName           = MYSQL
driverName                   = libmyodbc5.so
supportsStoredProcedures     = Yes
procedureTerm                = stored procedure
accessibleTables             = No
accessibleProcedures         = No
identifierQuote              = `
specialCharacters            = None
describeParameter            = No
schemaTerm                   =
tableTerm                    = table
sqlSubqueries                = 31
activeEnvironments           = 0
maxDriverConnections         = 0
maxCatalogNameLength         = 192
maxColumnNameLength          = 192
maxSchemaNameLength          = 0
maxStatementLength           = 8192
maxTableNameLength           = 192
supportsDecimalType          = Yes
supportsDateType             = Yes
supportsTimeType             = No
supportsTimeStampType        = No
supportsIntervalType         = No
supportsAbsFunction          = Yes
supportsAcosFunction         = Yes
supportsAsinFunction         = Yes
supportsAtanFunction         = Yes
supportsAtan2Function        = Yes
supportsCeilingFunction      = Yes
supportsCosFunction          = Yes
supportsCotFunction          = Yes
supportsDegreesFunction      = Yes
supportsExpFunction          = Yes
supportsFloorFunction        = Yes
supportsLogFunction          = Yes
supportsLog10Function        = Yes
supportsModFunction          = Yes
supportsPiFunction           = Yes
supportsPowerFunction        = Yes
supportsRadiansFunction      = Yes
supportsRandFunction         = Yes
supportsRoundFunction        = Yes
supportsSignFunction         = Yes
supportsSinFunction          = Yes
supportsSqrtFunction         = Yes
supportsTanFunction          = Yes
supportsTruncateFunction     = Yes
supportsConcatFunction       = Yes
supportsInsertFunction       = Yes
supportsLcaseFunction        = Yes
supportsLeftFunction         = Yes
supportsLengthFunction       = Yes
supportsLTrimFunction        = Yes
supportsPositionFunction     = Yes
supportsRepeatFunction       = Yes
supportsReplaceFunction      = Yes
supportsRightFunction        = Yes
supportsRTrimFunction        = Yes
supportsSpaceFunction        = Yes
supportsSubstringFunction    = Yes
supportsUcaseFunction        = Yes
supportsExtractFunction      = Yes
supportsCaseExpression       = Yes
supportsCastFunction         = Yes
supportsCoalesceFunction     = Yes
supportsNullIfFunction       = Yes
supportsConvertFunction      = No
supportsSumFunction          = Yes
supportsMaxFunction          = Yes
supportsMinFunction          = Yes
supportsCountFunction        = Yes
supportsBetweenPredicate     = Yes
supportsExistsPredicate      = Yes
supportsInPredicate          = Yes
supportsLikePredicate        = Yes
supportsNullPredicate        = Yes
supportsNotNullPredicate     = Yes
supportsLikeEscapeClause     = Yes
supportsClobType             = Yes
supportsBlobType             = Yes
charDatatypeName             = char
varCharDatatypeName          = varchar
longVarCharDatatypeName      = long varchar
clobDatatypeName             = N/A
timeStampDatatypeName        = N/A
binaryDatatypeName           = binary
varBinaryDatatypeName        = varbinary
longVarBinaryDatatypeName    = long varbinary
blobDatatypeName             = N/A
intDatatypeName              = integer
doubleDatatypeName           = double
varCharMaxLength             = 0
longVarCharMaxLength         = 0
clobMaxLength                = 0
varBinaryMaxLength           = 0
longVarBinaryMaxLength       = 0
blobMaxLength                = 0
timeStampMaxLength           = 0
identifierCase               = Mixed
escapeCharacter              = \
longVarCharDatatype          = -1
clobDatatype                 = 0
longVarBinaryDatatype        = -4
blobDatatype                 = 0

BIP8273I: The following datatypes and functions are not natively 
supported by datasource 'MYSQL' using this ODBC driver:
Unsupported datatypes: 'TIME, TIMESTAMP, INTERVAL' Unsupported functions: 'CONVERT'

Examine the specific datatypes and functions not supported
natively by this datasource using this ODBC driver.
When using these datatypes and functions within ESQL, the
associated data processing is done within WebSphere Message
Broker rather than being processed by the database provider.  

Note that "functions" within this message can refer to functions or predicates. 

BIP8071I: Successful command completion.

There – done! Now you can use MySQL with WebSphere Message Broker on Ubuntu. Don’t forget to set the database password with mqsisetdbparms before trying to actually connect from your database nodes.

Also, the name of the database according to WMB is “MYSQL” as that is what I defined in the odbc.ini. The name of the database according to mysql is “wmb”. They don’t need to be different, but it might help having unique names if you are trying to track down a database connection issue.

Of course, the mysql database server does not need to be local to the broker – The mysql odbc driver should allow you connect to any accessible tcpip mysql server.

I have been running MQ and Message Broker on Ubuntu and Debian since shortly after I joined IBM in 2005, and it seems there are lots of other people doing this too despite it not being a supported platform before . . . → Read More: WebSphere Message Broker on Ubuntu]]> WebSphere Message Broker v8 now supports Ubuntu for development systems (i.e. not production use) - http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27023600#Ubuntu

I have been running MQ and Message Broker on Ubuntu and Debian since shortly after I joined IBM in 2005, and it seems there are lots of other people doing this too despite it not being a supported platform before now.

Lots of people have advice on how to install MQ and WMB, and it is worth mentioning them in case you have problems.

http://www.reidmorrison.com/linux/install-websphere-mq-on-ubuntu

http://www.gefira.pl/blog/2010/07/03/websphere-mq-and-ubuntu-howto/

http://blog.herbert.groot.jebbink.nl/2009/06/wmb-61-ubuntu-904.html

The best advice I can give for installing MQ and WMB on Ubuntu is:

• change the /bin/sh symlink to point to /bin/bash – MQ Doesn’t like installing with dash as the default shell.

• use rpm to install MQ – Alien is a bit of a hack, and does not work well. You will need to use the “–force-debian” flag on rpm to make it install.

• One other thing which might help is to run the mqlicense.sh script with the ‘-console’ flag as it may not find your X applications properly.

Some user’s have noticed that chown on Debian and Ubuntu strips the setuid bit from the binaries (Debian and Ubuntu consider leaving setuid set on an executable when you change it’s owner a security flaw, whereas Redhat and SuSE appear not to) so you may need to fix the permissions (best to check the permissions of the same level of MQ from a RHEL or SLES box and set them the same) though I have not seen this with recent versions of MQ.

Message Broker v8 installs quite happily on Ubuntu. The only issues that I know of are that some of the eclipse based gui applications do not draw everything correctly. This is a known eclipse-GTK bug, and is more common on releases after Lucid Lynx (10.04). A workaround is to set the environment variable  GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1

Update 05/01/12 – I have just noticed that the script ‘mqsicreateworkpath’ which is used to initialise /var/mqsi correctly still uses ksh. Either install ksh on your system or edit the script to say bash in the first line instead of ksh (it should work fine then)

I have to say that most of . . . → Read More: Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL]]> I have been flicking through the following FAQ on the GNU GPL: Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF). I am trying to understand the risks that we are told about regularly in IBM of working with/on Open Source code.

I have to say that most of the risks are rather undefined, and no real examples are given. I am having trouble figuring out why IBM is so scared of its employees working with Open Source, and yet at the same time encouraging it (I run Debian on my laptop, and in fact run a Debian server distributing internal tools packaged specially for other Debian users).

The one big concern is of course patents. Personal views on software patents aside, if I were to code a patented idea into some GPL’d code and release it (as an IBM employee) then quite likely that patent will be considered GPL’d and could be used by others – the extent of patents in GPL’d code is untested in court, hence the reason for v3 of the GPL, which will probably explicitly state that any patents are given away under the terms of the GPL if in GPL’d code.

However, even if not modifying the code there is still a huge concern about working with it. Even releasing code that is dynamically linked against a LGPL’d library is incredibly hard to get approved. Why should it be? The FAQ above makes clear that if the library is LGPL’d, then dynamic linking (i.e. using a JAR file in Java) means that the library source must be available and some reverse engineering of the interaction between the two is allowed (in case someone wanted to rewrite the library). Your code does not have to be Open Sourced. Is it simply that shipping the source code is too much effort? Surely if I use a prebuilt JAR, and dump a zip of the corresponding source of a LGPL’d library in the zip I am shipping then that is it. I am complying with the terms of the GPL.

The only thing I can think of is the other side of Patents – somebody else has a patent on something in the GPL code, but the authors of the GPL code were not aware of this. If IBM were to ship GPL’d code that a competitor had a Patent on part of then indeed they would be liable for infringement, not just the author of the code. Is this risk likely? Well, SuSE have just signed a deal with Microsoft for this reason, but RedHat and Ubuntu have declined the deal. Maybe with the GPLv3 this will be less of a problem, as if another company releases GPL code then they will be explicitely releasing any patents on it too.

What if the patent holder is another third party. IBM could still be in trouble if a competitor finds they have a patent on some GPL’d code we are shipping. They won’t bother suing small linux vendors, but IBM has lots of money to claim from, that would be worth going to court for. Could they claim only for IBM and not all the little guys who have already been using it?

Is it too much risk to work on the fact that we could always change the code to avoid the patent at a later date?

HURSLEY, U.K. - 11 Mar 2011: More than 450 students from 80 schools across the South of England will be celebrating National Science . . . → Read More: Blue Fusion 2011]]> As it is National Science and Engineering week, IBM Hursley are running Blue Fusion 2011 - The official press release summed it up quite well, and also contains a list of this year’s activities:

HURSLEY, U.K. - 11 Mar 2011: More than 450 students from 80 schools across the South of England will be celebrating National Science and Engineering Week at IBM’s 16th annual Blue Fusion event. The students will need to use quick thinking, scientific knowledge and teamwork in a number of fun activities, designed to inspire and encourage young people to develop their interest in Science, Technology and Engineering.

“Communication” is the theme for National Science and Engineering Week 2011 and volunteers from IBM Hursley, Europe’s largest software development lab, have put together a wealth of fun, inspiring and engaging activities.

Each day, teams from 16 schools will participate in a variety of specially-designed activities promoting innovation, teamwork, problem solving and communication skills. Students solve puzzles and technological challenges that explore basic concepts in some of the most interesting areas of modern technology. The activities will include building network communications to cracking codes to designing an ecologically friendly house. The students will experience first hand how science benefits our everyday lives and how instrumented, interconnected and intelligent technology can help build a smarter planet.

Approximately 200 IBM employees volunteer their time and experience to Blue Fusion, many of whom are recent graduates who can share their passion and experience of working in the industry with the next generation. Local dignitaries will be attending the event throughout the week to see the impact and success of Blue Fusion in inspiring young people into Science, Technology and Engineering.

I look forward to hosting schools on Thursday – it has been fun being involved for the last five years, so should be great this year too! I wrote briefly about Blue Fusion and Bright Sparks in 2007 (I can’t remember if that was the year I organised and ran Blue Fusion with Dan)

There are one or two videos about Blue Fusion which really show what the event is about:

Fix Pack 7.0.0.1 (V7.0 Fix Pack 1) for WebSphere Message Broker v7.0 is now available. http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?&uid=swg24027267

You can see what is new in 7.0.0.1 by looking in the Information Center

We had a good set of talks, including Andy Stanford-Clark talking about his twittering house and mousetraps as well as the twittering Red Funnel Ferries [telegraph.co.uk] and his energy monitoring via Current Cost devices. I did . . . → Read More: Linux User Group @ Hursley]]> On Saturday I hosted a group for 30 people at IBM Hursley for a Hampshire Linux User Group meeting.

We had a good set of talks, including Andy Stanford-Clark talking about his twittering house and mousetraps as well as the twittering Red Funnel Ferries [telegraph.co.uk] and his energy monitoring via Current Cost devices.
I did a brief (although rather technical) introduction to Debian packages (which will turn into a blogpost soon with any luck).
Laura Cowen did a nice talk on InfoSplicer which was originally designed for the Sugar platform of the OLPC hardware.
Tony Whitmore gave a rather interesting talk on podcasting, from his experience in doing the Ubuntu UK Podcast
Adam Trickett talked about book reviews, and gave out a pile of free books for people to have in return for writing a review.

Laura Cowen also did an excellent writeup for eightbar

On Saturday, we were mostly in the Auditorium (where Spitfires were built during WWII), then when we led everyone down to the Clubhouse for lunch, we took the usual site tour scenic route via the Sunken Garden and fish pond. Although Hursley is out in the country, seemingly the middle of nowhere, it’s actually on the bus-route from Winchester so we had an excellent turnout of about 30 people. IBM Hursley also has a lot of cool people who do cool things that we can tell people about (although one piece of feedback I heard from a LUG person was that they thought we didn’t talk enough about what IBM does!).
…

It was a really enjoyable and relaxed day; kudos to Anton, Stephen, and John for organising it from the IBM end. Thanks also to the IBMers who came along and to the many HantsLUG members who turned up. I’d say it was a success and we should definitely do it again.
Linux Users descend on the House | eightbar

The day was terrific (at least for me) and I hope to organise another one in the near future, as it turned out to be nowhere near as hard as I thought it was going to be (I thought it was going to be difficult persuading security etc to let me bring 30 people on site over a weekend when the site only has minimal staff).

Thanks to all those that helped, particularly John Wesley and Stephen Godwin, and also thanks to all those who turned up!

Reuters – International Business Machines Corp said on Wednesday it became the first company ever to win more than 4,000 U.S. patents in a single year, citing a new report from research firm IFI Patent Intelligence.

Not entirely surprising… there is huge drive in the labs to submit . . . → Read More: IBM wins most U.S. patents in 2008]]> IBM wins most U.S. patents in 2008

Reuters – International Business Machines Corp said on Wednesday it became the first company ever to win more than 4,000 U.S. patents in a single year, citing a new report from research firm IFI Patent Intelligence.

Not entirely surprising… there is huge drive in the labs to submit patents

I suspect IBM has had this title for quite a few years.

The new WebSphere Message Broker Accounting and Statistics facility can help you monitor message flow performance and resource usage of a broker or execution group at the message flow, node, or terminal level, . . . → Read More: Monitoring message flow performance with IS02]]> My DeveloperWorks article on Monitoring message flow performance with the WebSphere Message Broker Explorer Accounting and Statistics facility has finally been published!

The new WebSphere Message Broker Accounting and Statistics facility can help you monitor message flow performance and resource usage of a broker or execution group at the message flow, node, or terminal level, and can thus be a tremendous help in solving performance and resource utilization problems.
Hopefully you will find it a good starting guide for working with the new Accounting and Statistics views in IS02

Full details in the official . . . → Read More: IBM SOA 6.1 range announced]]> I had meant all along to blog a little about work, so to reiterate a post from SOA Tips ‘n’ Tricks, the Websphere SOA 6.1 range has been announced by IBM: Websphere Message Broker, WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus, WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere Message Broker, the WebSphere Service Registry and Repository.

Full details in the official release letter

The same is also true for testers: “My tests are running”…

It provides a single point for administering your Message Brokers and can be used side by side with your current Message Broker Toolkit. The Broker Explorer (IS02) has the following features…

I certainly learnt a hell of a lot, and the 4 day course was a lot of work and very tiring. The exam however made all that seem relaxing. I have never sat a . . . → Read More: Red Hat education]]> I spent all of last week on the Red Hat Rapid Training and Certification course trying to learn more about linux.

I certainly learnt a hell of a lot, and the 4 day course was a lot of work and very tiring. The exam however made all that seem relaxing. I have never sat a full day exam before, and it is not exactly a peacful exercise. Unfortunately I cannot say much about the exam as I have signed a non-disclosure agreement about it, but parts were easy and some parts were hard.

As it turns out some parts were very hard as I did not get enough marks to qualify for Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) – I did get enough for Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT).

I am really a Debian user at heart, but the Red Hat course showed how similar the two can be, though there are certain parts that have differences. The biggest difference is probably that when you install a new server program/package in Debian, it comes with a fairly normal config file and starts up running. In Red Hat the config will be fairly restrictive and the service will not be started for you, nor will it be set to restart on reboot.

I have no plans to move away from Debian though, but the Red Hat experience was really informative and the course certainly got me setting up things I would probably never have done otherwise…