Author Archives: mp3monster

Push Notifications with a Bit of Java

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by in Java Cloud, Oracle, Technology

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So continuing from my previous posts:

We’re going to use the Prowl API and create the equivalent classic “Hello World” App using the push framework – but cutting out the need for Growl etc.  For this blog post we’re not going to use the Oracle Java Cloud as we need to see the code working locally and get ready to promote the code to the cloud.  Once we’ve got some code working we can look at setting up the Java Cloud environment, package and promote what we have here using our IDE into the cloud environment.

As we’re cutting Java code now – you can obviously use your own preferred IDE, I’m going to use JDeveloper 12c if for no other reason than it being a huge improvement on 11g (download here) and I’ve become somewhat disappointed with Eclipse.  Whilst talking about IDEs;  you should be aware that Oracle provide an Oracle Cloud SDK which integrates with a number of IDEs to make some of the interactions with the cloud straight forward.

The SDK provides Ant and Maven scripts to help the build and deploy process – so we will be using those later, plus command line tools to help manage other activities, a number of code examples and HTML documentation.  To setup the SDK you will need to unpack the file into a folder and add that folder into your PATH environment variables. The bundle includes a readme that contains just enough to show what is required to get unpacked and make the command line tools work.

To download from Oracle you will need to setup an Oracle Technology Network (OTN) account – so if you don’t have one now is the time to create one – there is no cost to this, we’re going to need

We could use the REST based API that is provided by the ProwlApp, but at least to start with we’re going to follow the approach using a library to make using the API very simple. By using the API provided on SourceForge (jProwlAPI). Using an API will allow us to show the use of 3rd party libraries in the cloud deployment but also follows some of the Oracle ideas of offering ‘adaptors’ to simplify integration.

So you need to download:

So with this downloaded we are going to:

Setup an new Maven based project (or copy my file structure into place and import) using a maven quickstart archtetype (org.apache.maven.archetypes:maven-archetype-quickstart) . We will probably need to modify this later to leverage the full cloud capable archetype. This will build your project environment and retrieve a bunch of plugins you might need.

Next lets take a peak inside of the jProwlAPI download. You’ll see an example bit of java that shows how to fire the API.  Rather than tinker with this we have created a small package and JUnit test as we would if writing a proper solution created with the maven archetype.

PushedHelloWorld directory structure

We also need to make the JProwlAPI jar file available to the project. So we use maven pattern, and create a folder called lib and copy the jar file into it. We then add the lib folder to project setup.

 

 

pushedhello-RunConfig

To be able to create the deployable artefact we need to load the jar file into the local repository, which we can do with a command line instruction (presuming maven is also available by your PATH variable).

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=./lib/JProwlAPI-0.5.jar -DgroupId=prowl -DartefactId=JProwlAPI -Dversion=12.1.3-0-0 -Dpackage=jar

We’ll come back to the command line in a bit, but within JDeveloper the code I have provided needs 1 change from yourself – replace the references to –YourAPIKey– in the run execute command and in the JUnit class with your own key.

JDEveloper 12c Run Config

In the the ProwlProcessor class I have included a man in method so we can just execute the class to see things working. So having done that we can then repeat by running the class via the JUnit test. You should see the same result. When we we’ve deployed or class to the cloud we can use the JUnit test to invoke the cloud.

ProwlProcessor - main method

The last step, within the IDE we have been compiling to get the class, but not creating a deployable jar file. We could do this with the IDE but we would also in a real development condition be creating artefacts via a Continuous Integration tooling which will effectively fire the maven command line like interface. So let’s do that to create the jar files, using the following command:

mvn clean package

You should then see a folder created if not already there and a jar file reflecting the values in the POM file, that we can see below.

JDeveloper 12C - view of a simple POM

So we have enough now we could in theory deploy a jar to a weblogic container and fire it from a Unit test. In the next post we’ll deploy and execute the unit test, and throw a crude front end into the mix.

Oracle Maven Repository – Index now available – more to come

23 Friday Jan 2015

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The support for Maven in the Oracle ecosystem is ever improving as this shows

Mark Nelson's avatarRedStack

I am happy to announce that we now have an index available for the Oracle Maven Repository.  This is a standard Maven index, built with the Maven Core Indexer code (donated by Sonatype to Maven – thanks!) and is available at https://maven.oracle.com/.index/nexus-maven-repository-index.properties and https://maven.oracle.com/.index/nexus-maven-repository-index.gz.

The easiest way to view it is to use an IDE like NetBeans, as shown below:

repo-index

We are actively working with Maven Repository Manager and IDE teams to make this work for you across a variety of common tools you may use.

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Sending Push Notifications Without Your Own App

24 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in General, Java Cloud, NodeJS Cloud, Oracle, Technology

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So in my opening blog entry I talked about creating mobile push notifications. So before we start playing with cloud solutions and developing anything, the best place to start is be able to push a notification.

We’re going to do this with the use of Prowl. Prowl offers both a mobile application and a cloud service with an API. So setting up an account on Prowl you can connect you mobile Prowl App to then through another app – for example Growl (which is how I came across Prowl) which can be extended by a plugin framework to use Prowl so potentially all your desktop alert can become push notifications if you want.

So if you hadn’t already noticed Prowl is presently an IOS only solution – however there is an Android equivalent called Notify My Android (NMA). I should also be upfront the Prowl App does cost a couple of pounds or dollars (depending upon your App Store).  But this is a small price to pay to avoid having to build an app (which needs to you to be a fully paid up IOS Developer Account holder to play with push notifications as we do).

So I will concentrate primarily on working from a Windows platform to an Apple device – but I will loop back to Android at points as well.  For those who bulk at the idea of Windows and swear only to live with Mac or a proper OS as many Linux fans will say – I will point out where to get the info you need and hack your Linux flavour into appropriate shape. Our goal is to see Oracle cloud in use.

Just as an aside quick detour – Growl is a Mac based notification consolidation tool, which has a Windows implementation as well called Growl For Windows.  The idea is all your applications and system notifications go via Growl which allows your to customise the notifications and route them to lots of different channels such as to browser plugin, push notifications and so on.

So lets get the first steps called out:

  1. Create an account on Prowl or NMA
  2. Install the Prowl App on your IOS device
  3. From the Prowl web app or NMA web send a message to your device

So we have proven notifications to our device from a central device. We are going to go one step further and use a local client to prove we can safely send events to the Prowl or NMA servers. We can do this several different ways – on the Prowl site are several browser plugins that you could use or combine prowl with Growl or Growl for Windows plus the Growl notifier.

So I assume that you have installed Growl or Growl for Windows as previously mentioned. Then the Growl notifier extension needs to be installed from http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/help/growlnotify.aspx. With the extension installed we need to make sure Growl sends its notifications to Prowl and send the notifications from a command line.

To do this you need to create a API Key on the Prowl website. Then in settings part of the app setup the key details as shown below (note I’ve hidden my account and key):
Prowl API Config
So this links the credentials of the account. You could impose local security constraints so the local notification is only accepted by Growl with good credentials.

Then you you need to configure the notifier to use the configured key as you can see below:

In The Network part of Growl's configuration you need to establish the Key

In The Network part of Growl’s configuration you need to establish the Key

The Plus key you can see provides a dialogue like the following where you select the type of notification and then complete the necessary details i.e.  copy in the API Key from the website:

In The Network part of Growl's configuration you need to establish the Key

In The Network part of Growl’s configuration you need to establish the Key

GrowlConfig- forward NotificationsGrowl-setKey

You’ll may have noticed – that the key name carries through from the website – this is more to make it convenient to track the key rather than a necessity.

With the API Key setup we can link the notification side of things via the Notifications section.  You’ll note the App extension is selected and in the notification type I have gone to the Choices menu which provides a popup

Selecting Notification

 

Selecting the key:

Selecting the Destination KeyThe final step is to then run a command line, which would look something like:

 

Growl Notifier Script

You’ll notice the command line is very simple as we’ve not setup an security in Growl the only security is around the API Key.

Then we get the pay off of the pushed notification and you can see your notification history as well in the Prowl app – as this shows:

IMG_1944

Prowl App View

 

So the steps just performed:

  • Created the API key on the ProwlAPI site
  • made sure we’ve got Growl and Growl Notifier installed
  • Established the link from Growl to Growl Web App via the API Key
  • Configured the notifications for GrowlNotifier to go through Growl and get pushed onto the Prowl API
  • Run the command line script
  • Seen the command line message go from the desktop shell through Growl onto the Prowl API and arrive on your smart phone.

 

Summary
So we have shown we can create push notifications without the distraction of building our own app. Not very exciting as we haven’t created anything but does show the art of the possible.

Next post we’ll cut some code to perform the same process using the Prowl API directly.

Oracle Java & Node.JS Cloud Blogs Coming

23 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by in General, Java Cloud, NodeJS Cloud, Oracle, Technology

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Over the coming months I’m planning on running a series of blogs on getting setup and using Oracle’s Java Cloud and the upcoming Oracle Node.JS Cloud when we can get access to it.

In both cases we’re aiming to demo the capabilities, setup eyc around the classic Hello World – but with a bit of a twist. Rather than simply sending to the console we’re going to use a mobile push notification – without resorting to having to build a mobile app.

By taking this approach to hello world aside from keeping it simple we can see how to bring 3rd party APIs into the mix.  The first couple of posts wont need to much on the Oracle front – as we’ll walk through getting things setup and running a proof without the cloud stuff. As they say keep it simple stupid.

So that you can see the blog entries for each of this two stories, I specifically setup in my blog two entry categories:

A few posts will obviously be common to both.

Free Network Security eBook

23 Tuesday Dec 2014

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I came across the following promotion via LinkedIn. The book isn’t that new, but looking at Amazon reviews suggests that there maybe some value still:

“Network Security For Dummies — eBook (usually $22.99) FREE until January 1st!“

Get quick, easy, low-cost solutions to all your network security concerns.

CNN is reporting that a vicious new virus is wreaking havoc on the world’s computer networks. Somebody’s hacked one of your favorite Web sites and stolen thousands of credit card numbers. The FBI just released a new report on computer crime that’s got you shaking in your boots. The experts will tell you that keeping your network safe from the cyber-wolves howling after your assets is complicated, expensive, and best left to them. But the truth is, anybody with a working knowledge of networks and computers can do just about everything necessary to defend their network against most security threats.

Whether your network consists of one computer with a high-speed Internet connection or hundreds of workstations distributed across dozens of locations, you’ll find what you need to confidently:

  • Identify your network’s security weaknesses
  • Install an intrusion detection system
  • Use simple, economical techniques to secure your data
  • Defend against viruses
  • Keep hackers at bay
  • Plug security holes in individual applications
  • Build a secure network from scratch

– Download from: http://opensourceuniverse.tradepub.com/free/w_wile145/?p=w_wile145#sthash.i4fHNQgA.dpuf

Oracle Press Celebrates 20 Years of Support for the Global Oracle Workforce – – Originally @UKOCN

19 Friday Dec 2014

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Oracle Press Celebrates 20 Years of Support for the Global Oracle Workforce  

Happy 20th Birthday, Oracle Press! Since 1994, McGraw-Hill Education has partnered with Oracle Corporation to help Oracle professionals develop the skills they need to be successful with Oracle’s products and technologies.

What started out as one book on Oracle’s groundbreaking database, Oracle: The Complete Reference, has grown to 120 titles covering the entire Oracle ecosystem-databases, middleware, applications, servers, and certification. Oracle Press titles have sold more than 3 million books in print around the world, with thousands of eBooks accessed via devices and platforms, including Safari, Books 24X7, and McGraw-Hill Education’s own McGraw-Hill Education eBookLibrary.

Working closely with Oracle’s internal product development teams, Oracle Press has developed rigorous best practices for producing the highest quality content on the topics most critical to our readers.

More than half of Oracle Press’s authors are Oracle employees–the technologists driving Oracle’s products forward. And we’re always looking for new book ideas, authors and technical advisors.

  • To get an amazing 20% off all Oracle Press titles from McGraw-Hill please Click here

Enterprise Architect Cloud

18 Thursday Dec 2014

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With version 11 of Sparx‘ Enterprise Architect tool a new cloud feature was introduced to support team working, which previously had been achieved using a shared Database.

When we heard about EA Cloud, both myself and my colleagues got rather excited, thinking that this would be the opportunity to offload the effort of looking after a central DB (making sure backups happened, fine tuning the DB settings and so on) plus maintaining the platform’s patching for security etc. Not only that through the cloud capability we could host the repository that made it very easy for the team to access the repository on the move without needing to have another whole in our corporate firewall etc.

Unfortunately, EA Cloud provides all the software to establish a cloud based repository – which can be used through firewalls etc – HTTPS traffic rather than DB connectors on unusual ports but not the hosting.  This seems to a bit of a missed opportunity for Sparx who already have to deal with all of these points to host 3 demo cloud servers.  So the next step of instantiating a server for a regular on going fee doesn’t seem too challenging, not to mention promotes customer tie in, plus the ability to capture some potentially interesting metrics about its users (e.g. which modelling techniques are most popular etc).  Having looked at Sparx partners they don’t offer the capability either which is a shame.

More Packt news – Christmas $5 offer

18 Thursday Dec 2014

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So you may have guessed Packt are running the Christmas promotion again – ebooks for $5 (or £3.60 to us Brits). The promotion runs until Jan 6th.5-dollar-promo

As you can see through my blog, Packt have some great books – https://mp3muncher.wordpress.com/tag/packt/ some of which I have helped with during their development (a little shameless self promotion).

So head over to http://bit.ly/1C4FAaQ

Packt has sent another Camel along

08 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in Books, Packt, Technology

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 Having been a little inactive on the book reviewing front with Packt in the last couple of months.  They have been working on a new Camel book – in addition to the excellent Apache Camel Developer’s Cookbook and several smaller Instant books (Instant Apache Camel Message Routing, Instant Apache Camel Messaging System) and asked me to again prepublication review.

Does Packt need another Camel book?  Maybe, this new volume from what I have reviewed so far is focusing on custom development and certainly starts with the real Camel development basics.  So feels like it is more targeted to a complete newbie to Camel. Several chapters in and the book hasn’t faced into how Camel supports Enterprise Integration Patterns in a deep manner – although that may yet come.  Watch this space as I’ll  post on how the book is likely to shape up.

Mitigating Risks of Cloud Services

08 Monday Dec 2014

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As previously blogged there are risks with using cloud that differ from self hosting solutions. SaaS, PaaS and all the other XaaS offerings aren’t a panacea. Hopefully you won’t become the next Sony as the provider keeps you patched etc. But if you’re using a SaaS provider that goes bust or you get into litigation with your provider, as result losing access to your data. It could be potentially be months whilst the lawyers sort things out. A horrible situation that no one wants to find themselves in. But how to mitigate such risks?

Any half decent SaaS provider should give directly the means to get a view of all your data through a generic or custom report (s), or will should make available the means for providing an export of your data. The later approach may well come with a cost. If your SaaS solution has a lot of data in place – for example a multinational’s HR solution you may want to just target the extract of deltas. This means extra donkey work and someone to ensure it is happening. How frequently that should depend upon your business needs through an agreed Recovery Point Objective and the tolerance to potential data loss as you can assume you’ll lose everything from the last snapshot. If you have middleware in front of your SaaS service you can have a wiretap to reduce the risk here.

Your net position is in the event of a loss or possibly a prolonged service outage (remember even Amazon have had multi-day failures & not all SaaS solutions follow good cloud practise of being able to fail to secondary centres) is that you have your data and can atleast cobble something together to bridge the gap. Unless you SaaS vendor is offering you something very unique then they’re probably going to have competitors that are more than likely to be glade to help you import the data into their solution for you.

All this for a case of paranoia? Well actually you can have harvest a raft of other benefits from taking full data extracts – for example reconciliation with a view to managing data quality – statistics from Experian show the value of resolving discrepancies. This is to say – that you might find data errors between systems as a result things like edge scenarios such as handling errors in the integration layer. To illustrate the point, let’s assume that your web sales channel is via a SaaS provider and you’re receiving the sales into your on premise ERP for fulfilment and accounting. By taking every week all transactions in the SaaS solution you can identify and discrepancies and reconcile any issues between the sales solution, your finance and fulfilment capabilities to ensure what you have sold is what you have accounted for.  If we’re talking about solutions that impact your financial accounting, then for atleast US declarations it maybe necessary to perform such reconciliation in support of Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) requirements.

Add to this a richer data set can be added to your Big Data or Data Warehouse environments allowing you to gain potentially further insights into your activities.

When you are running a hybrid of on premise and cloud solutions or event just cloud but a mix of vendors don’t just think about you application data, but consider whether audit and web traffic information can be retrieved from the vendor – there maybe value in feeding that data into a solution such as Splunk which may then find a pattern of misuse or attack that may not show up with just the monitoring data from your on premise solutions.

The final point I should make, is don’t assume your service provider will let you at the data as described – look at your contracts before any payment or act of agreement. Ideally such checks should be part of your service due diligence activities (along with ESCROW) etc. There are SaaS providers who will consider the data as their property not yours even when the data might be about your employees.