deltalounge

While creating a Ubuntu 12.10 machine VirtualBox I ran into an error – VirtualBox VERR_VMX_MSR_LOCKED_OR_DISABLED – on my company issued HP ProBook. This halts the startup process of the virtual machine. You won’t be able to use it.

Here is the complete log and a screenshot:


Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Ubuntu 12.10.

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {db7ab4ca-2a3f-4183-9243-c1208da92392}


I remembered that there were issue were issues with HP bios from the VirtualBox FAQ using ENABLE VT-X/AMD-V:

some HP BIOSES have a glitch, When You ENABLE VT-X/AMD-V, You DISABLE it, so do try both ways.

So the first solution I tried was to uncheck the box to ENABLE VT-X/AMD-V. That solved my problem. Now VirtualBox was able to start my Ubuntu machine. Check the screenshot how to disable (or enable the) VT-X/AMD-V setting.

Yep, I know this is against the advice I gave to improve VirtualBox performance. However I need it on this hardware to get my machines running…

Where does the downloaded stuff go after you installed JDeveloper extensions, like SOA Composite Editor, Oracle BPM Studio, or AIA Service Constructor?

On Windows you can find them here:

C:\Users\_your_username_\AppData\Roaming\JDeveloper\tmp\update

Shouldn’t you be able to access the AppData directory, follow these instructions:

• Go to the folder options, on Windows7 by clicking the Organize menu and the Folder and search options.
• Choose the tab view.
• Choose Show hidden files, folders and drives.

Virtual Machines are a great way to test stuff or use valuable tools in a separate environment. Think of test driving an OS, like Ubuntu 12.04 or Windows 8. Other examples include using pre-build appliances to use Oracle SOA Suite and BPM or WebLogic Server and Java tools.

Improve VirtualBox appliance performance

These Virtual Machines can be quite demanding for resources on your PC or laptop. Fortunately there are ways to speed up VirtualBox appliances. Besides increasing the allocated CPU power and RAM there are a few less expected things you can do:

• Create fixed size disks – A preallocated disk will have less fragmentation. Adding of files to the virtual disk will be faster (spaces is already reserved). The downside is that a fixed-size disk uses more space on your hard disk.
• Exclude the Virtual Machine directory from the virus scanner – Scanning there from the host isn’t very useful either. So add this directory to the exclusion list.
• Put the VirtualBox files on non-system disk – Put the VirtualBox files on a non-system disk. The virtual disk and your hosts’s OS won’t be competing to read from or write to these same disk.
• Make shure the Intel VT-x and AMD-V setting is ON – These are processor extensions that improve virtualization performance.

Oracle released the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Administration Guide 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.1) documentation. It is part of the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Documentation.

Enterprise Manager Cloud Control is system management software that delivers centralized monitoring, administration, and life-cycle management functionality for the complete IT infrastructure, including systems running Oracle and non-Oracle technologies.

While the NoSQL Database Community Edition still waits for final license approval, Oracle has released it’s NoSQL Database, Enterprise Edition 1.1.100. The download is available on OTN.

The Oracle NoSQL Database is a distributed key-value database. It is designed to provide highly reliable, scalable and available data storage across a configurable set of systems that function as storage nodes.

The documentation page is still rather empty. However Technical Overview and a Data Sheet are already available.

Oracle NoSQL is a key offering in Oracle’s portfolio of Big Data products. The product is based on the Java version of Berkeley DB, an open source database used in embedded systems.

Update

• The NoSQL documentation is available.
• A great in depth look into Oracle NoSQL. Also read the discussion over there.

Whitehorses published the results of their Oracle Forms Survey on their blog. I’ll share three remarkable results. Please read the whole post on their blog:

• Over 30% is still running Client – Server (Forms 4.5 or 6i).
• Over 50% doesn’t consider upgrading their unsupported version.
• When replacing Oracle Forms APEX is the most considered alternative.

The results are mostly in line with the findings in Germany (on which the survey was based).

Recently I wanted to share a VirtualBox Appliance with a colleague. So I tried to export the created appliance. Unfortunate this failed with a:

VBoxManage.exe: error: Code VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80BB0004) – File not accessible or erroneous file contents (extended info not available)

So I thought why not just copy it… Oh wait, first compact it to save some space and time using VBoxManage modifyvdi some.vdi compact:

>VBoxManage modifyvdi Windows7.vdi compact
0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...
Progress state: VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR
VBoxManage.exe: error: Code VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80BB0004) - File not accessible or erroneous file contents (extended info not available)

When I tried to copy or zip the file there were errors accessing it. Somehow the VirtualBox Appliance was still running fine. The files that make up the appliance weren’t locked.

Use CHKDSK

My laptop (the host of the appliance) is is running Windows7 and I decide to run chkdsk and found:

CHKDSK controleert de bestandsgegevens (stap 4 van 5)...
Leesfout met status 0xc0000185 op offset 0x17410c9000 voor 0x10000 bytes.
Leesfout met status 0xc0000185 op offset 0x17410d6000 voor 0x1000 bytes.
Er zijn beschadigde clusters in bestand 37907 met naam \Users\ppvdbeek\VIRTUA~2\Windows7\Windows7.vdi vervangen.

This is Dutch stating that there were bad sectors in the vdi file that had to be corrected. After that I could run the appliance, compact the disk and export the appliance successful.

On Linux you could use fsck (for “file system check”) in a similar case.

When you are using Oracle ESB 10g and encounter the message No WebService Provider is registered at this URL when testing a web service from the ESB Console try the following:

EM OC4J_SOA

• Login into Enterprise Manager
• Go to the Application Server Control
• Click OC4J_SOA oc4j instance
• Click Web Services tab
• Verify the deployed web services are listed here, and test that services.

In case there are no web service from the ESB runtime (esb-rt) the service providers were not generated correctly, restart ESB-RT:

• Click OC4J_SOA oc4j instance
• Click the Applications tab
• Expand Middleware Services, ESB and esb-dt
• Check the esb-rt and click the restart button

Now check the j2ee/_instance_name_/log/*/oc4j/log.xml to see if the ESB application has started correctly. Verify that ESB-RT application is initialized correctly by searching for ‘ESB bootstrap: Runtime initialized‘ message in the log file. If you also restarted the ESB-DT, verify that ESB DT application is initialized correctly by searching for ‘ESB bootstrap: Repository initialized‘ message in the log file. And finally check that the ESB web service providers were generated correct (see above).

Some notes and dump of thoughts on the second day of the SOA and E20 Partner Community Forum. A day filled with interesting breakout sessions. Some of them were discussing roadmaps and future developments in the stack, and thus subjective to an NDA.

SOA platform

Again after this session I came to the conclusion that in my opinion BAM is used too little.

During the session was raised whether people in the audience were using non-Oracle databases as dehydration store and Meta Data Store. The mainstream is using Oracle as dehydration store. And although it is certified, it is advised to use Oracle as the database for this purpose. On the Application Server, given the maturity of the J2EE platform, there is less discomfort in operations to deploy the SOA Suite on a non-Oracle App Server.

ADF

Only today I found out that there is an interesting JDeveloper 11g extension. The extension validates ADF code quality. Seems an interesting extension to check code quality besides the already available Java tools.

BPM

When comparing BPEL and BPM and looking into when to use what tool, the following was stated: For all things with human interaction BPM is the tool of choice. In integration driven appraoches BPEL is the tool of choice.

In Oracle point of view BPM includes:

• People
• Systems
• Documents

without the need for separate platforms.

Example of a custom Spring Java worklist application for Oracle BPM.

Today I attended the first day of the SOA and E2.0 Partner Community Forum. For a detailed agenda of the event check this link. The event with 200 registrations was hosted at Capgemini in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Tattie picking

The first keynote by Andrew Sutherland had a few great stories that leaded the way to show the rationale behind the Exalogic platform. This included a personal story on “tattie picking”. The larger part was on productisation and gave examples on increasing effiency in IT. One of the ways for the Exalogic platform is the one that is also used by Apple: If you limit the amount of hardware your OS of software stack has to be compliant with, that introduces a better controlled and optimized environment; “If you know the machine you need less code”. This is resulting in several efficiencies. Efficiencies both in the One Time Costs (CTB) and Recurring Costs (RTB).

One of the sound bites that stayed with me was:

The most sticky stack is the least sticky one

Indicating that the stack that is the most open and complying with standards is the one that is most likely to survive…

SOA/ BPM Reference Case

In the Partner SOA/ BPM Reference Case Leon Smiers of Capgemini introduced us to the BPM practise of Capgemini and two of their BPM cases. One of the quotes that I think is very true was:

SOA supports the success of BPM.

Besides that Leon stressed the structure, insight and compliance advantages that BPM efforts deliver. One of the things they learned by doing was the importance of showing BAM to business people. This really enables you to get visibility on a lot of stuff that is under the hood. Besides that it is a catalyst for generating more business value with ideas from the people you are showing BAM to.

WebCenter/ UCM Reference Case

During the WebCenter/ UCM Reference Case Vikram Setia of Infomentum shared great insight on how to deliver an excellent web site using Oracle technology. He did this in a very lively session showing us around a live site and telling what Oracle technologies were used behind the scenes. Besides the UCM and WebCenter stuff there were some cool uses database thingies like:

• Text Clustering
• Thesaurus
• Locator

SOA and BPM 11gR1 PS3 Update

Another intresting session was the SOA and BPM 11gR1 PS3 Update by David Shaffer. Mr Shaffer showed us some of the history and some of the highlight in the current stack. A more detailed dive into the latter will be on day 2 of the conference.

Wednesday’s Breakout Sessions

On the second day I will be attending the following breakout sessions:

• SOA Suite 11g PS3 & OSB
• ADF/WebCenter 11g integration with BPM Suite 11g
• BPM 11g, Whats New