Andy's Blog

Welcome to OSCON 2005

Whelp, I have finally arrived:

Aside from barely making my flight in Pittsburgh this morning (crazy long lines at the ticket counter and security), my travel today was smooth. I checked into the hotel, grabbed some lunch and supplies, and then registered for OSCON. Tomorrow is going to be busy: there are several tutorials that I want to hop between. And when I have any spare time, I need to prepare for my blogging BOF. :)

-Andy.

Grearing up for travel

As per my last post, I'm going to be heading up to Portland, OR soon, in order to attend O'Reilly's Open Source Convention. But before I go to Portland, I'm actually heading out to Pittsburgh, to attend a wedding of an old friend from CWRU, Ediri. It's actually a little crazy: I'm going to spend practically all day tomorrow flying out to Pittsburgh, I'll have Saturday to spend in and around town (and attend the wedding), then early on Sunday morning I fly to Portland, where I will arrive, fresh-as-a-daisy, for OSCON. I will finally return to the Bay Area on the 7th, sometime in the evening. So, I'm going to be pretty tired when I get back, from all of that flying. But all of my trips sound like they are going to be a lot of fun, so I reckon it is all going to be worth it.

Tangent: it seems a little odd sometimes to advertise the fact that I'm going to be away to the entire Internet. I mean, of course I want to blog about the fact that I am travelling, and what I am seeing and doing, etc. But, if nefarious people were reading this, it seems like I'm leaving "my stuff" unprotected. Lucikly, I have this covered. You see, my roommate, Kevin, won't be going anywhere while I'm gone, and I have sworn him to protect "my stuff" at all costs. Kevin is bulldog, proficient in 8 different forms of the martial arts. He is a firearms expert. He works out constantly. He can kill a man just by looking at him funny. So take that, Internet! Keep your hands off of my stuff, or else!

-Andy.

OSCON: I'm hosting a BOF!

It's that time of year again: O'Reilly's Open Source Convention starts next week. I'm going again this year, and as I was perusing the list of BOFs the other day, I noticed that there weren't any dealing with my current hot-button issue, blogging. So, I done volunteered to host one, and the suckers at O'Reilly fell for it.

Yup, I'm hosting "The blogging BOF". I''m pretty excited about this prospect, but also more than a little nervous. I'm not planning on preparing too much for it (which is good, because I don't have a lot of time), but still, I'm worried that it's going to be all awkward silence and nervous coughs. So, if you're going to be at the conference, please come and join me, because a BOF is only as strong as its participants.

-Andy.

The Weekend of Moving

I had myself quite a bit of physical activity this weekend. And no, it wasn't because I was hiking. On Saturday afternoon, I helped Chris and Tanya move into their new house. It was quite hot, and they had a couple of heavy items, but on the whole, it wasn't too bad. And they bought me dinner for my trouble!

Then today, I drove into San Francisco and helped Stan move into his new temporary apartment. Thankfully, the weather in the city was a bit cooler. But amazingly, it was still quite sunny (normally, SF is all about the clouds and the fog). Stan didn't have too many heavy things, but his new place is up two flights of stairs. :( But, he bought me lunch for my trouble!

I took a fair number of pictures, this one is of a truck near Stan's friend Danielle's house:

(no, we didn't use this to move). The rest of the photos that I took are in this gallery. After all of the lifting, stair climbing, and sweating -- I'm actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow. Sigh.

-Andy.

Introducing Zoey

I went over to Chris and Tanya's today after work, and spent some quality time with their new puppy:

Tanya decided on naming her Zoey, which seems like a pretty good name to me. Also, I finally got the breed straight — Zoey is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. I took quite a few pictures of Zoey tonight, but didn't get many good ones. That is a situation that I'll have to rectify tomorrow when I help the three of them move into their new place...

-Andy.

Damn you, Rushabh!

Last week, Rushabh started poking me about enabling SSL on redefine's webserver, so that we could post to our blogs securely. This has been on my TODO list for awhile, so I decided to start down this long, dark road on Saturday. After decoding much of the SSL certificate generation and Apache configuration crap that I needed to go through, I found out that the version of Apache that I was running didn't have SSL support compiled into it.

Drat.

So today, I uninstalled my old apache, and installed a new one that had mod_ssl compiled in. At first, everything was going swimmingly. I got Apache to agree that my new SSL-enabled config file was okay, and then restarted it. All was well, but SSL didn't work. I found that I had to use the 'startssl' instead of the 'start' parameter. And of course, after I figured that out, all hell broke loose.

To make a long story short, first apache wouldn't start. Some googling told me that mod_ssl rejiggers Apache's internal API, requiring all modules to be re-compiled. Great. After a tense half hour comprised of a lot of hacking (and apache getting random bus errors later), I managed to recompile all of the PHP crap, and now things appear to be stable.

whew

-Andy.

Mt. Tamalpais Hike

I went on a hike in Mt. Tamalpais yesterday:

The hike was pretty spectacular. We started up in Mt. Tamalpais, and hiked down to Stinson Beach. There we ate lunch and lounged around, before starting the trek back to the cars. It was about a 7 mile round trip, but the only arduous part was on the way back up the mountain. Along the way though, we were treated to some incredibly lush scenery. Along for the hike was a whole cast of characters including Mike, Kevin, and many of Sheila's GSPP friends and hangers on. You can view the entire group here, and see my gallery of photos from the hike as well.

-Andy.

Puppy!

Tanya (and Chris) bought a new puppy today:

They haven't chosen a name yet, and I cannot remember what breed Tanya said that the dog is (Irish something). But she (the puppy) is super-cute. Still not acclimated at all to her new environment, but I'm sure that will change soon. I forgot to bring my "good" camera, so the Internet will have to make due with the quality of the camera in my phone (for now).

-Andy.

RUG: SLM317: Adding Value with Automated Trouble Ticketing

The focus of this talk is on improving incident management, more for resource failures than end-user requests. Focus of this talk is on SIM. In the past, auto-generated tickets haven't been correlated, and there has been duplicate tickets submitted by users. Technology of Event Manager and Help Desk is advanced that it is worth another shot. Help Desk has more automation capabilities, Event Managers more dynamic.

Central issue is that alerts say what physical resource is broken, not what service is affected. Not possible to automatically notify users.

Solution: In the CS tradition, insert another layer in between EM and Help Desk. This is SIM (Service Impact Manager). Event Management can reduce event flow (filtering, duplicate detection, enrichment, etc.). Correlation not required by SIM model. Needs work to define service model -- can use discovery to determine infrastructure & some config/topology, but need to define actual user-preceived services by hand. Can do master/child tickets automatically. List of services affected in ticket can be dynamic (as additional services go down or get fixed).

IDEA: event suppression? Change tickets that you cut in HD could have CI information in them, and that could then flow into EM, to automatically suppress alerts during change.

My summary: The idea of a SIM seems like a reasonable one. I didn't get a lot of details about BMC's product, so I can't say if that is something that I would want to see in our environment or not. But I think that there is a lot of potential in the EM/SIM/HD combo for doing automation (which is my bread and butter at EDS).

RUG: ATR521: Integrating your IT Management tools with BMC Atrium

BSM: aligning business with IT

• requires business awareness and context across IT silos
• tools need service centric view instead of infrastructure centric
• ability to manage business services across entire IT infrastructure

Design around architectural linchpins

• CMDB
• Shared service model
• Dashboards

BMC Atrium

• Open foundation for information sharing and process collaboration across BMC products and 3rd party solutions
• shared data repository, common user interface

Components

• CMDB (Core BSM Data)
• Service model (business relevance) (Core BSM Data)
• web services and data access (common data abstraction layer)
• reporting -- aggregates (presentation layer)
• view -- management dashboards (presentation layer)

BMC Atrium Service Model

• Provide Service Model Editor (operates on CMDB -- where model is stored?), API for accessing Service Model
• Examples: SLAs, Change Management (determine which components affected are part of business service), asset management from service perspective

Notes:

• In order to get Service Model Editor, have to buy SIM (today)
• SIM maps incoming events to service model, and correlates to CI

My summary: It sounds like IT is evolving to think of services instead of just raw infrastructure components. I think that this has been happening for awhile now, and it is good thing, but it looks like the vendors are finally catching up. This presentation was pretty high level, so I don't have a concrete view of how good/bad BMC Atrium is. But, at least now I know what it is.

RUG: DEV562: Safely Modifying a Packaged Application to allow Upgrade to Future Versions

NOT basic philosophy for upgrades: re-do all customizations for new version; Want to try and make it more automatic (or at least, as automatic as possible)
Automatic upgrades are possible, but there are some manual steps, and care must be taken.
The merge problem:

 * original app -> vendor new version ->
                |-> my updates to app -> NEW MERGED VERSION

• How do you make it so that to independent teams making changes, don't conflict with each other?

What do you need to do?

• Decide whether modification is really needed?
• Keep an eye on where development is going (vender and internal)
• Plan and follow process during upgrade
• Test and resolve conflicts

Modification needed?

• Important to the business, or just legacy?
• Is it an add-on or built-in to the application?
• Add-ons generally safe, built-in is intrinsic to application, much trickier

Where is vendor going?

• Know vision and direction of the application supplier
• consider the philosophy of the application
• more likely to be compatible as upgrades happen

Where are you going internally?

• Develop a vision and direction around the application

3 simple rules to follow when making updates

• Do not repurpose fields (OK to add fields; OK to use existing fields for intended purpose; DON'T arbitrarily re-purpose fields)
• Do not change existing workflow (OK to add workflow; OK to copy existing workflow and change the copy [pick different name prefix]; OK to disable existing workflow [upgrade will re-enable] - only change allowed
• Do not change permissions (Add new groups/permissions, don't touch BMC's)

BMC Commitment (fields)

• All fields and VUIs of BMC forms will have IDS in reserved range
• During upgrade, will not modify or delete any field that is not a BMC field
• BMC is free to change definitions of fields they own (OK to add new groups and permissions; don't modify perms on BMC's groups)

BMC Commitment (workflow)

• During upgrade will not modify or delete any workflow that is not BMC's
• BMC free to modify its own workflow in existing way

Make backups first

• generate an export file of all definitions in the AR system server
• can also backup at database level

"ardisabled" utility

• Available from developer site
• makes list of all disabled workflow (will need later)
• Helps you find what needs to be re-disabled after upgrade
• Run in import mode to do re-disabling for you

"arpermission" utility

• records all permissions for your groups
• creates a file containing a list of all workflow/fields/forms in the system and the permissions assigned for specific groups
• developer community (soon)

After upgrade

• Restore disabled forms and permissions
• Restore views (which were exported before-hand) -- note that new fields will not show on view, and will have to be added manually
• History/change data will be preserved

post-upgrade manual work

• direct modifications to factory definitions, make again
• modified qualifications of any application table fields need to be restored

testing

• you need to run a suite of tests for the application after the upgrade

At RUG 2005 today

I am attending the last day of the Remedy User Group (RUG) conference today. Much like I did for JavaOne, I plan to blog about each session that I attend. So, to all of my non-nerd readers: you have been warned.

-Andy.

"Millions"

Pratima and I went to the Cinema Saver last night and saw "Millions". It was pretty-darn-tootin' good. The movie is a little hard to pin down -- it is a comedy, for sure, but not a laugh-riot. Nor is there a joke every minute. And it isn't slapstick comedy, or situation comedy, or foul-mouthed comedy. But yet, the film is quite humorous. Other than the humor, the movie is a little hard to describe. It has a good story, is well shot, and has an ending that is both happy and delivers a message. There are religious overtones, yet it doesn't preach.

In short, this movie is just good. If you are in the mood for a whimsical, fun movie, then I certainly recommend "Millions".

-Andy.

iPhoto -> Gallery

So, I've been using iPhoto to manage my pictures ever since I got my first mac. And while I'm not always happy with it, iPhoto does allow me to at least keep track of the pictures that I'm taking with a minimal amount of effort. iPhoto really falls down when you want to export your photos to the web. I don't have .Mac, so the only other option is some canned HTML that looks kindof funky.

So, I have been using Gallery to fulfill my pictures-on-the-web needs for some time now. However, one pain point has been getting my photos from iPhoto into Gallery. Basically, I have been doing a lot of manual effort, which has consisted of exporting pictures from iPhoto, scp'ing them to my server, then manually importing them into Gallery. The whole process is slow, repetitive, and generally sucks.

I had been thinking about trying to make things easier via Automator, when I stumbled across the free iPhotoToGallery software. This software does exactly what I want -- it provides an easy-to-use interface for exporting my photos directly from iPhoto to Gallery, without any of the annoying pain in-between. It seems like this software is a little rough around the edges, but so far, it has been working for me.

To celebrate, I have posted two new galleries of pictures: July 4th pictures from Chicago, and pictures from my trip to Antioch last Friday.

-Andy.

Big Basin hike

Went on a 5+ mile hike in Big Basin today:

Along for the hike were Mike, Koji, Chris, and Tanya. The hike was a bit arduous, but pretty fun. I didn't really know what sort of view I was expecting at the top -- but it certainly wasn't bad. Mostly trees, and the ridgeline. It's not quite the splendor of seeing the entire bay area that Mission Peak provides, but still, it was worth the effort. I have posted all of the pictures that I took today in my gallery.

-Andy.

Pictures from Steve's wedding

I have finally posted all of the pictures that I took from my jaunt out east, in five galleries:

• Albany
• Rehearsal dinner
• Wedding Ceremony
• Reception
• Manhattan

I actually managed to take a little over 200 pictures this trip -- it seems like I am slowly getting better at taking pictures, although I am still nowhere near what some of my friends achieve when they travel...

-Andy.

Finally, a break!

So, last week was pretty crazy. On Monday morning, I woke up in Manhattan. Tuesday through Thursday, I hoofed it into San Francisco, for JavaOne. And on Friday, I woke up in Chicago, where I went to the Cubs game, and finally to see Woven Hand live at Schuba's in downtown Chicago. After all of that, I was ready to just kick back and relax for a few days (which I did). The Cubs game was pretty fun, even though they lost. The weather was absolutely beautiful for July in Chicago -- partly cloudy, nice breeze, not humid, and most importantly, not too hot.

After the game, the family and I checked out Chicago's new Millennium Park. Seems like a pretty sweet deal -- Chicago definitely has another showpiece to add to the attractions that they already have.

Woven Hand didn't disappoint, as well. David Eugene Edwards is simply amazing, and with Woven Hand, he is really cutting loose a bit more -- the performance veered a lot more towards hard rock, much more so than I expected.

Did the 4th of July with the family -- everybody came over to our house, and we had food, home-made ice cream (yum), and lots of good family time. My family is still doing their thing, and providing a good time as per usual.

But, it is back to the grind tomorrow -- after I fly back to San Francisco, of course.

-Andy.