WebSphere Dashboard Framework gives application developers the power to create rich graphical interfaces to business data which allow the end user to make key decisons upon that data. WebSphere Dashboard Framework also provides powerful collaboaration features as well as real time alerts to provide an organization with the tools needed to make timely decisions.

This IBM Redpaper provides you with the knowledge to get started with WebSphere Dashboard Framework, as well as an in depth look into some of the key features. Whether you are a line of business user wondering what it is all about or a advanced application developer this Redpaper will give you a greater understanding of how WebSphere Dashboard Framework can be utilized within your organization.

In Order to monitor failed login attempts to WebSphere® Portal version 5.1, for example, for a business requirement for auditing purposes.

Refer to the following Tech Note.

Every body gets confused at times, on how many design patterns are there, what are those design patterns, which are the GOF patterns, what are J2EE patterns and what not. Are there any testing patterns, are there GUI patterns and so on.

Check out the following pages for synopsis of patterns

• Design Patterns
• Coding, Testing and GUI Design Patterns
• Distributed and Enterprise Patterns
  

Martin Fowler has written a very good article on the guidelines to be followed when conducting the Stand Up meetings. Check out the same here.

I will add to that, the team should decide early on the rules that need to be followed for these meetings. In ours, we usually had the following

• If you are coming late to the meeting, make sure to inform.
• Before the start of the meeting, make sure you have updated the white board
• No beating of the dead horse ( meaning - no debates if the team can not make/take decisions in the meeting)
• Switch Off/Turn On Vibration Mode on your cell phones during the meeting
• No cross talks during the meetings
• Violation of any above guidelines leads to a fine ( we had $1 for every offense)
  

The fine money collected for the week was used for having lunch/snacks during the week depending on the amount collected.

Team can decide early on which guidelines make sense and accordingly add/delete to the list. Once agreed, these need to be published and put on display where the meeting is conducted

Mock objects are dummy objects that mimic the behavior of real objects. The use of mock objects for unit testing has really picked up in recent times. Here I list some of the good articles available to helo you get started.

• Mocks aren't Stubs
• Using JMock with TDD
• Mock Roles, not Objects

When using the XML command line client for credential export, the command syntax is slightly different than normal command line client use because there are two additional parameters:

xmlaccess -user user -password password -url https://myhost:9444/wps/config/ -in XML_file -out result_file.xml -credentialexport -passphrase encryptionPassphrase

The following rules apply to the above parameters:

1. The options credentialexport and passphrase are mandatory for export
   or import of encrypted credential secrets during migration.


2. The options credentialexport and passphrase are optional for all XML
   Configuration actions that do not export or import encrypted credential
   secrets during migration.

Additional XML Syntax elements for credential secret migration

Syntax element	Description
credentialexport	A parameter without value that indicates that export of credentials should be enabled
encryptionPassPhrase	The passphrase for the encryption. The minimum length of this string is the number of bits set as export keylength in Credential Vault Service, divided by 8. The passphrase is used to create a key of the specified length for the encryption.

For more information about the XML command line tool, refer
to the XML configuration interface section of the appropriate information
center version.

Sample file

ExportVault.xml for version 5.0.x

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <request xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PortalConfig_1.2.1.xsd" type="export" export-users="true"> <!-- Sample for exporting the credential vault data. --> <portal action="locate"> <credential-segment action="export" objectid="*"/> </portal> </request>

Sample file
ExportVault.xml for version 5.1.x

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <request xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PortalConfig_1.3.xsd" type="export" export-users="true"> <!-- Sample for exporting the credential vault data. --> <portal action="locate"> <credential-segment action="export" objectid="*"/> </portal> </request>

The following is an example of how to use the XML

configuration interface to export credential secrets:

xmlaccess.sh -user wpsadmin -password your_password -url http://portalhost:9444/wps/config/ -in ExportVault.xml -out ExportedCredentialSecrets.xml -credentialexport -passphrase JGD786JHga7kjhUIT7sdj76675zufurz

IBM has released a tool that detects delays and hangs in WebSphere(R) trace and HTTP plug-in trace.

WebSphere® Application Server trace is used to obtain detailed information about running components, including application servers, clients, and other processes in the environment, such as the time and sequence of methods called by base classes.

IBM® Trace and Request Analyzer for WebSphere Application Server allows you to find delays and possible hangs from WebSphere trace files and HTTP plug-in traces by parsing call trees of methods and traces and calculating delays in each method and trace.

The package includes a Java™ graphical user interface (GUI) application that displays delays in lists and tables.


Check out more details here.

IBM® Unstructured Information Modeler is designed for use by data analysts on unstructured data sets. An example of such a data set would be problem ticket logs from a computer help desk. The data analysts' task is to find out what the commonly occurring problems are and to write or find solutions that will solve these problems in an automated way. IBM Unstructured Information Modeler helps the data analyst perform this task by automatically classifying the unstructured data set and providing insight into the categories.

The tool further allows the user to modify the automatically-created categorization to incorporate any domain knowledge that the user may have in order to make the categorization more sensible. After the classification has been completed, the user can generate reports and create a classification engine for categorizing new problem tickets. In addition, IBM Unstructured Information Modeler can analyze trends by day, week, or month and can analyze correlations against a user-supplied categorical feature.

Check out the tool here.