OWB - Set-Up Recommendations/Best Practices

OWB Version 10.2.0.2.0/8
What is the recommended configuration, in terms of projects, locations, control centers and configurations, when you have numerous development and test environments (approx. 25)
The configuration should be flexible enough to allow you to easily branch the code base and also be controlled so that the merging of branches can easily be pushed to all projects in order to keep a consistent view across each project.
Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

I'm sorry I don't have any answers for you but I heartily support your request and hope you get some responses.
I would like to add that I have tried to get my arms around the 10gR2 version in terms of how the different repositories interact with the users/servers/instances/etc. Sort of a Concepts Manual like there is for the database.
It's nice to know the product has all these neat features (they sound neat anyway) but they are relatively useless if we don't know how to best use them in our system architectural designs.
I have tried to wade through the Users Guide but that reads like a Reference not a How To.
I wish you luck for all of us.
Where are the Product Managers when we really need them?
-gary

Similar Messages

Needed: system requirements, recommendations & best practices

I realize that this is just a beta release but I think it'd be nice if the system requirements for this VS.NET add-in were clearly defined in a single post/page.
For example, Christian Shay's reply to "Oracle Release Requirements" by [170516] indicates that "For the beta release you should be able to use Oracle Database version 8.1.7 or later." However, Christian's reply in the "Oracle DB 8.1.7 connection problems" thread started by [151631] indicates that "you'd need to upgrade to at least 8.1.7.4.1 for it to work."
Which is it??? I'm using Oracle8i Enterprise Edition Release 8.1.7.2.0 and I don't want to install this add-in if it's not going to work with my current environment. I realize I can download 10g but my employer is using 8.1.7.2 and that's my target DB for now.
In browsing this forum, I've read a number of posts with suggestions (such as installing the version 10 client in a new Oracle Home, etc.) and I think it'd be nice to see a basic set of requirements/recommendations/best practices in a single place for all to read.

Hi
Can you also include the following in the FAQ?
1) ODP.NET if installed prior to this beta version - what is the best practice ? De-install it prior to getting this installed etc ..
2) As multiple Oracle home's have become the NORM these days - this being a Client only should probably be non-intrusive and non-invasive.. Hope that is getting addressed.
3) Is this a pre-cursor to the future happenings like some of the App-Server evolving to support .NET natively and so on??
4) Where is BPEL in this scheme of things? Is that getting added to this also so that Eclipse and .NET VS 2003 developers can use some common Webservice framework??
Regards
Sundar
It was interesting to see options for changing the spelling of Webservice [ the first one was WEBSTER]..

Code Set pattern or best practice?

Hi all,
I have what I would have thought to be a common problem: the best way to model and implement an organization's code sets. I've Googled, and I've forumed - without success.
The problem domain is this: I'm redeveloping an existing application, which currently represents it's vast array of code sets using a seperate table for each set. There are currently 180+ of these tables. Not a very elegant approach at present. The majority of these code sets are what I would class as "simple" - a numeric value associated with a textual description - eg 1 = male, 2 = female, or 1 "drinks excessively", 2 "drinks sometimes" ... etc. Most of these will just be used to associate a value with a combo box selected value.
There are also what I would class as "complex" code sets, which may have 1..n attributes (ie not just a numeric and text value pair). An example of this (not overly complex) is zip code, which has a unique identifier, the zip code itself (which may change - hence the id), a locality description, and a state value.
Is there a "best practice" approach or pattern which outlines the most efficient way of implementing such code sets? I need to consider performance vs the ability to update the code set values, as some of them may change from time to time without notice at the discretion of government departments.
I had considered hard coding, creating classes to represent each one, holding them in xml files, storing in the database etc, but it would seem that making the structure generic enough to cater to varying numbers of attributes and their associated datatypes will be at the cost of performance.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Paul C.

Hi Saish,
Thanks for your response. Yes, this approach is what
I had considered - I'll be using Hibernate so these
values will be cached etc.
I guess my main concern is reducing the huge number
of very small tables in use. I was thinking about
this some more, and for the simple tables was
thinking of 2 tables: 1 (eg "CODE_SET") to describe
the code set (or ref table etc) in question, the
second to hold the values. This way 80 odd tables
would be reduced to 2. Not sure what's best here -
simpler ER diagram or more performance!Tables...
Enumeration
- EnumerationId
- EnumerationName
- EnumerationAbbreviation
EnumerationValues
- EnumerationId
- ValueIndex
- ValueName
- ValueAbbreviation
The above allows the names to change.
You can add a delete flag if values might be deleted but old records need to be maintianed.
Convention: In the above I specifically name the second table with a plural because it holds a collection of sets (plural) rather than a single set.
In the first table the id is the key. In the second the id and the index are the key. The ids are unique (of course). The enumeration name should be unique in the first table. In the second table the EnumerationId and value name should be unique.
Conversely you might choose to base uniqueness on the abbreviation rather than the name.
The Name vs Abbreviation are used for reporting/display purposes (long name versus short name).
It is likely that for display/report purposes you will have to deal with each of the sets uniquely rather than a group. Ideally (strongly urged) you should create something that autogenerates a java enumeration (specific with 1.5 or general with 1.4) that uses the id values and perhaps the indexes as the values and the names are generated from the abbreviations. This should also generate the database load table for the values. Obviously going forward care must be taken in how this is modified.

EWM - set up Slotting / best practice guide

Hi EWM-experts,
who is aware of any best practice guide on how to set up and customize slotting for SAP EWM?
I'm just preparing a conference room pilot for EWM. Following SAP's [integration guide|http://help.sap.com/SCENARIOS_BUS2007/helpdata/EN/45/196435011c0064e10000000a1553f7/frameset.htm], the in- and outbound processes work fine now but I cannot find any documentation about how to customize slotting apart from the insufficient information on the EWM [help.sap.com pages|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_scm50/helpdata/en/5f/c69040bca2ef4ae10000000a1550b0/frameset.htm].
Thanks in advance and best regards,
Martin

Hi Martin,
If you contact me via email (it's on my forum profile) I will put you in touch with one of our EWM consultants. - we can update this thread if they have anything appropriate.
Thanks James

Setting up RMAN -- Best Practice

On the readings I've done regarding RMAN, I've seen recommendations that RMAN should have a recovery catalog configured, even though that's optional. Further, I've seen recommendations that RMAN's recovery catalog should have its own database.
I've got one machine, that I want to run RMAN on, with the backups residing on that machine and disks. I then plan on archiving the backup files that RMAN produces to another set of cheaper, though less efficient, disks.
What I thought I'd do in configuring an RMAN recovery catalog is create a separate tablespace for it, and store the RMAN schema there instead of creating a separate database on the same machine.
It seems to me that unless you have an environment where you have one RMAN backing up multiple oracle instances, a separate RMAN database isn't justified.
Comments?
=== Al

hi,
What I thought I'd do in configuring an RMAN recovery
catalog is create a separate tablespace for it, and
store the RMAN schema there instead of creating a
separate database on the same machine.
However if you just create a separate tablespace and you need to recover that database you will have major problems. If you are going to use the recovery catalog option then create a separate database ideally on a separate machine.
It seems to me that unless you have an environment
where you have one RMAN backing up multiple oracle
instances, a separate RMAN database isn't justified.if you have just a couple of databases to manage then use RMAN controlfile backup.
regards
Alan

Setting up Users - Best Practices

03/28/2007 11:53:42 AM
Reply | Quote | Top | Bottom
Hi there. We are a large organization with a website
consisting of over 40,000 pages. We have multiple users who need
access to various parts of the website. We have discovered
different methods of setting them up in Contribute but wonder if
one method is better than the others.
1. Create a separate new connection for each portion of the
site. This, unfortunately, makes it impossible to share CSS layout
files, images, and library items at the root of the website.
2. Create a single connection to the server and create
mutliple roles - most likely named by the user's name - that limits
directory access. Worried this might create an unwieldly list of
users. This opens up shared assets, though, which will help with
maintaining site standards.
We also tried creating a single connection to the server and
creating new roles - named according to which directory was being
given access to - but quickly discovered that a user can only be
assigned to one role.
Has anyone else run across this?
Thanks.

Well, I definitely think that if you're going to maintain any
level of sanity to your web file organization, you'll have to set
up roles according to logical groupings and then assign folks to
those roles. I would not mess with creating a variety of
connections because that could easily turn into an authentication
nightmare. Stick to one encrypted connection.
The nature of your business organization should dictate how
those role groups are created, for example a role for HR, Finance
or Sales with a corresponding folder on the site. But it might be
possible to do the opposite and create roles based on how your
website is organized. For example, you might have a "Sales" section
on your web site that folks from different departments need to have
edit access to, and another section on your site that deals with
"Administration" that may necessitate adding folks from, again,
different departments within the organization. This is a bit
opposite of the normal routine of setting up role groups based on
the groups that already exist in the organization (HR, Finance,
Sales, etc.).
For us, it was fairly easy to create the groups because we're
a school system and the site is organized by school sites.
It would be great if folks could be assigned to multiple
roles, but it could get messy with the "cascading" of permissions
(i.e. permissions in this role but NOT in that role, however the
second role is a sub-group of role one....see what I mean?).
In the end, you may just need to graph out the type of
organization you need in order to meet the needs of the site and/or
organization. Then replicate that in how you set up roles in CPS.
Hope this helps!

Oracle - SharePoint 2010 Integration Recommendations/Best Practice

Hi,
The client has running oracle based application wherein :-
1) A SQL query is fired to a view
2) The view actually queries different tables (count=10) and fetches the data of different columns.
3) In front-end , custom forms are created using OAF which shows the data of of the required columns in a grid-view (search results).
The oracle version used is “Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.2.0 - 64bit Production”
The above scenario needs to be implemented in SharePoint 2010. I thought of below mentioned design scenarios in SharePoint 2010 :-
Creating a BDC model to integrate Oracle tables (10) data in SharePoint i.e. creating 10 external lists, storing the data in SP and in front-end using .Net C# coding ,using SP queries for diff lists to manipulate
the data and show in grid format. Even if we start full crawl , data will be indexed & crawled but since search is based on different filters/parameters , hence query-based search will be required. How to make query in diff lists in SP for a Search parameter
Directly querying the Oracle DB using BCS
without storing the data in SP – Creating .Net forms - Is it possible ? In this case , each time a query will be fired for each and every search - Performance Hit ?? !!
Pure .Net – Reading data from Oracle DB using Oracle Data Provider for .Net C# & using SharePoint as an interface – How security will be managed and how much valid this solution is ?
Third Party Tools (Telerik Web-parts & ORM) – Whether it can be used for the requirements ?
Kindly share your valuable thoughts and ideas and let me know the recommended design for this scenario !!!!
Vipul Jain

I'd go for building a SharePoint application page or a web part that uses .NET leveraging the Oracle data provider to query Oracle. BCS is great for indexing the info and you can still do that as well, but the UI will look like a SharePoint list and it
sounds as though that's not what you're after.
Kind regards,
Margriet Bruggeman
Lois & Clark IT Services
web site: http://www.loisandclark.eu
blog: http://www.sharepointdragons.com

What is the recommended 'Best Practice' for retaining object instances

I have a window that is constructed in Interface Builder such that the 'File Owner' points to an instance of one of my classes. In this particular case, the entire interaction is between the window and the class instance (which has a file opened to a serial device with a radio at the other end which is being controlled).
Thee are other components of the application that have no interest in what goes on between the window and my class instance.
I'm also using 'garbage collection' memory management.
I can create the class instance which creates the window from the XIB definition and this works well. My understanding of what is happening in the background is that the application is keeping a reference to the window which in turn is keeping the 'File Owner' reference to my class instance. As long as the window is open, my class instance is also kept alive.
Now to my question: Is it OK to rely on this mechanism to keep my class instance alive, or should I also be retaining a pointer to my class instance from some other part of my program myself?
Thanks
Susan

Aussie Susan wrote:
Thanks for this etresoft - I've always maintained my own pointers, but an 'accident' while I was debugging some code (where I didn't set my own pointer but the class instance still remained, I'm assuming because of this mechanism) got me thinking as to whether this was a mechanism that could be relied on.
If you do some research on exactly how you are doing those connections, it may be safe. For example, when you call "NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:toTarget:withObject:" with a target of self, you can immediately release self because the thread will retain the pointer to self. When the thread goes away, the object that spawned it will be released. This is very handy.
I only do this because the documentation explicitly says this is what happens. In your case, I'm not so sure because you are dealing with Interface Builder elements such as the Window class. I'm not entirely sure what happens with a "one shot" window. There are details and options in Interface Builder that could impact your pointer lifetimes. It is safe only if you do the research and prove to yourself it is safe.
I only mentioned the garbage collection aspect because I knew that the retain/release calls do nothing (thanks for the reminder Orangekay) and I've stopped using them in my code. However, I wanted to avoid the "your instance will stay around until you 'release' it" answer.
You might want to consider leaving them in. If you leave them in, then the same code can be used in a non-garbage collected environment.

Recommended best practice to fetch detail block based on procedure

HI
I am creating a detail block (Dept)based on procedure which will be populated from the value from master block 'Emp'.
For example,
Detail block 'Dept' will be populated by calling procedure populate_detail(:emp.empno in number,dept.deptno out number) .
But what are the triggers I need to call to populate detail block and at which level?
I was thinking to call a WHEN-MOUSE-DOUBLECLICK on master block 'Emp' level to populate the detail block 'Dept' by calling the procedure and passing emp.empno as the parameter whenever the user moves from one master record to another.
Please advise.
Thanks in advance.

Download the forms 6i examples CD from the OTN website

ORACLE 11g Database Parameters (Datawarehouse) - Recommended/Best Practice

Hi all
What are the generally recommeded database parameter settings for a a VLDB datawarehouse implementation with regards to:
- Online Redo log file size
- Number of Redo log file

Fahd Mirza wrote:
In My data warehouse of size just above 2TB, I have three tablespaces for three different schemas. One is for staging, other is for history and the other is for analysis and some near real time data. I use 3 bigfile table spaces of sizes 700G. The version of database is 11gR1 on Solaris 5.10, and I use ASM.
Fahd,
What's your backup startegy ?
Have you enabled "change tracking" so that rman can use proper incremental backups, or do you let rman scan the entire 700GB file to identify changed blocks, or do you use some type of "split mirror"/"snapshot" method offered by the hardware vendor ?
What's your resilience/recovery strategy ?
The OP is talking about lots of "nologging" activities - is your system similar, or do you force logging and run with a standby to protect yourself against failure.
(I kow I'm addressing the questions to you, but they're really there to prompt the OP to think about some of the related issues, and you may have some good answers that will help him/her.)
Regards
Jonathan Lewis

Best practice recommendation for locale-specific text/labels

What is the recommended best practice approach to supporting locale-specific
text for labels, messages when using Jdeveloper to create applets and applications.
I am familiar with resource bundles, but wonder if there is a better approach within
JDeveloper. Are there any plans to enhance this area in 9.0.3?

I am familiar with resource bundles, but wonder if there is a better approach within
JDeveloper. Resourcebundles are the java-native way of handling locale-specific texts.
Are there any plans to enhance this area in 9.0.3? For BC4J, in 9.0.3, all control-hints and custom-validation messages (new feature) are generated in resource-bundles rather than xml-files to make it easier to "extend" for multiple locales.

Best practice for responding to keyDown event

I am writing my first Cocoa application. It's a simple utility app -- a calculator. I've got everything working, the last thing I want to add is I want the app to respond to key press events. So, you could click the "4" button with the mouse, or you could just press the "4" key on the keyboard. I'm reading all the event handling documentation, but I'm not picking up on the recommended approach for getting an NSResponder (or NSView) that handles the event.
I can make a subclass of NSWindow and tell the interface builder to make the main window of that type. Then when I override the keyDown message in my new NSWindow subclass, it gets the events, but I'm not sure how to connect it to my application delegate class (since I basically just want to switch on the key pressed and call the corresponding message in the delegate that the button "select" action targets.
Or, I think I heard something about doing this by changing the super class of the application delegate class from NSObject to NSView, or NSResponder or something. I haven't poked at that idea much, but I'm not sure how to actually get the application delegate object then actually set up as the first responder (I think that's what I'd want to do).
So, I'm hoping someone can give me specific directions on how/where I should implement my keyDown method, but I'd also like to understand what the recommended "best practice" is for doing this. What would Apple say is the right architecture for doing this? I'm as much interested in learning how to make this work as learning the Apple design pattern behind it.
The structure of my program is as follows:
I have one nib file (actualy a .xib) where I've designed my window with a textbox for display and a hand-ful of buttons. I've registered outlets and actions from there to the AppDelegate class (the one that the standard project template sets up for you). Following the MVC pattern, I then have a Calculator class that the AppDelegate initializes and all the actual logic of the calculator is in that class. The AppDelegate basically just responds to messages from the buttons, passes them along to methods in the Calculator class, and then asks the Calculator for the current display value and updates that back into the textbox. So, the graphical elements in my nib file are the "view", the AppDelegate is the "controler" and the Calculator class is the "model". Right?
So, who is supposed to be handling keyDown events? Seems like the view should capture them and send them to the controller, but how do I set that up?

Dear Noppong,
You can do it with multiple ways like :-
1. Get the current host name and make complete URL with using host name for the webdynpro iview.
request = (IPortalComponentRequest) this.getRequest();
HttpServletRequest req = request.getServletRequest();
StringBuffer strURL = req.getRequestURL();
2. Create the KM Document or Link for webdynpro Iview OR Create the WPC Web Page for the webdynpro ivew
Refer to [http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/06/4776399abf4b73945acb8fb4f41473/frameset.htm|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/06/4776399abf4b73945acb8fb4f41473/frameset.htm]
[http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/06/4776399abf4b73945acb8fb4f41473/frameset.htm|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/06/4776399abf4b73945acb8fb4f41473/frameset.htm]
[http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp1/helpdata/en/ff/681a4138a147cbabc3c76bde4dcdbd/content.htm|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp1/helpdata/en/ff/681a4138a147cbabc3c76bde4dcdbd/content.htm]
Hope it will helps
Best Regards
Arun Jaiswal

ASA 5505 Best Practice Guidance Requested

I am hoping to tap into the vast wealth of knowledge on this board in order to gain some "best practice" guidance to assist me with the overall setup using the ASA 5505 for a small business client. I'm fairly new to the ASA 5505 so any help would be most appreciated!
My current client configuration is as follows:
a) business internet service (cable) with a fixed IP address
b) a Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band router (currently setup as gateway and used for internet/WiFi access)
c) a Cisco SG-500-28 switch
d) one server running Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard (primary Domain Controller)
     (This server is currently the DNS and DHCP server)
e) one server running Windows Server 2008 R2 (secondary Domain Controller)
f) approximately eight Windows 7 clients (connected via SG-500-28 switch)
g) approximately six printers connected via internal network (connected via SG-500-28 switch)
All the servers, clients, and printers are connected to the SG-500-28 switch.
The ISP provides the cable modem for the internet service.
The physical cable for internet is connected to the cable modem.
From the cable modem, a CAT 6 ethernet cable is connected to the internet (WAN) port of the Netgear N600 router.
A Cat 6 ethernet cable is connected from Port 1 of the local ethernet (LAN) port on the N600 router to the SG-500-28 switch.
cable modem -> WAN router port
LAN router port -> SG-500-28
The ASA 5505 will be setup with an "LAN" (inside) interface and a "WAN" (outside) interface. Port e0/0 on the ASA 5505 will be used for the outside interface and the remaining ports will be used for the inside interface.
So my basic question is, given the information above of our setup, where should the ASA 5505 be "inserted" to maximize its performance? Also, based on the answer to the previous question, can you provide some insight as to how the ethernet cables should be connected to achieve this?
Another concern I have is what device will be used as the default gateway. Currently, the Netgear N600 is set as the default gateway on both Windows servers. In your recommended best practice solution, does the ASA 5505 become the default gateway or does the router remain the default gateway?
And my final area of concern is with DHCP. As I stated earlier, I am running DHCP on Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard. Most of the examples I have studied for the ASA 5505 utilize its DHCP functionality. I also have done some research on the "dhcprelay server" command. So I'm not quite sure which is the best way to go. First off, does the "dhcprelay server" even work with SBS 2011? And secondly, if it does work, is the best practice to use the "dhcprelay" command or to let the ASA 5505 perform the DHCP server role?
All input/guidance/suggestions with these issues would be greatly appreciated! I want to implement the ASA 5505 firewall solution following "best practices" recommendations in order to maximize its functionality and minimize the time to implement.
FYI, the information (from the "show version" command) for the ASA 5505 is shown below:
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software Version 8.4(7)
Device Manager Version 7.1(5)100
Compiled on Fri 30-Aug-13 19:48 by builders
System image file is "disk0:/asa847-k8.bin"
Config file at boot was "startup-config"
ciscoasa up 2 days 9 hours
Hardware:   ASA5505, 512 MB RAM, CPU Geode 500 MHz
Internal ATA Compact Flash, 128MB
BIOS Flash M50FW016 @ 0xfff00000, 2048KB
Encryption hardware device : Cisco ASA-5505 on-board accelerator (revision 0x0)
                             Boot microcode   : CN1000-MC-BOOT-2.00
                             SSL/IKE microcode: CNLite-MC-SSLm-PLUS-2.03
                             IPSec microcode : CNlite-MC-IPSECm-MAIN-2.06
                             Number of accelerators: 1
0: Int: Internal-Data0/0    : address is a493.4c99.8c0b, irq 11
1: Ext: Ethernet0/0         : address is a493.4c99.8c03, irq 255
2: Ext: Ethernet0/1         : address is a493.4c99.8c04, irq 255
3: Ext: Ethernet0/2         : address is a493.4c99.8c05, irq 255
4: Ext: Ethernet0/3         : address is a493.4c99.8c06, irq 255
5: Ext: Ethernet0/4         : address is a493.4c99.8c07, irq 255
6: Ext: Ethernet0/5         : address is a493.4c99.8c08, irq 255
7: Ext: Ethernet0/6         : address is a493.4c99.8c09, irq 255
8: Ext: Ethernet0/7         : address is a493.4c99.8c0a, irq 255
9: Int: Internal-Data0/1    : address is 0000.0003.0002, irq 255
10: Int: Not used            : irq 255
11: Int: Not used            : irq 255
Licensed features for this platform:
Maximum Physical Interfaces       : 8              perpetual
VLANs                             : 3              DMZ Restricted
Dual ISPs                         : Disabled       perpetual
VLAN Trunk Ports                  : 0              perpetual
Inside Hosts                      : 10             perpetual
Failover                          : Disabled       perpetual
VPN-DES                           : Enabled        perpetual
VPN-3DES-AES                      : Enabled        perpetual
AnyConnect Premium Peers          : 2              perpetual
AnyConnect Essentials             : Disabled       perpetual
Other VPN Peers                   : 10             perpetual
Total VPN Peers                   : 12             perpetual
Shared License                    : Disabled       perpetual
AnyConnect for Mobile             : Disabled       perpetual
AnyConnect for Cisco VPN Phone    : Disabled       perpetual
Advanced Endpoint Assessment      : Disabled       perpetual
UC Phone Proxy Sessions           : 2              perpetual
Total UC Proxy Sessions           : 2              perpetual
Botnet Traffic Filter             : Disabled       perpetual
Intercompany Media Engine         : Disabled       perpetual
This platform has a Base license.

Hey Jon,
Again, many thanks for the info!
I guess I left that minor detail out concerning the Guest network. I have a second Netgear router that I am using for Guest netowrk access. It is plugged in to one of the LAN network ports on the first Netgear router.
The second Netgear (Guest) router is setup on a different subnet and I am letting the router hand out IP addresses using DHCP.
Basic setup is the 192.168.1.x is the internal network and 192.168.11.x is the Guest network. As far as the SBS 2011 server, it knows nothing about the Guest network in terms of the DHCP addresses it hands out.
Your assumption about the Guest network is correct, I only want to allow guest access to the internet and no access to anything internal. I like your idea of using the restricted DMZ feature of the ASA for the Guest network. (I don't know how to do it, but I like it!) Perhaps you could share more of your knowledge on this?
One final thing, the (internal) Netgear router setup does provide the option for a separate Guest network, however it all hinges on the router being the DHCP server. This is what led me to the second (Guest) Netgear router because I wanted the (internal) Netgear router NOT to use DHCP. Instead I wanted SBS 2011 to be the DHCP server. That's what led to the idea of a second (Guest) router with DHCP enabled.
The other factor in all this is SBS 2011. Not sure what experience you've had with the Small Business Server OS's but they tend to get a little wonky if some of the server roles are disabled. For instance, this is a small busines with a total of about 20 devices including servers, workstations and printers. Early on I thought, "nah, I don't need this IPv6 stuff," so I found an article on how to disable it and did so. The server performance almost immediately took a nose dive. Rebooting the server went from a 5 minute process to a 20 minute process. And this was after I followed the steps of an MSDN article on disabling IPv6 on SBS 2011! Well, long story short, I enabled IPv6 again and the two preceeding issues cleared right up. So, since SBS 2011 by "default" wants DHCP setup I want to try my best to accomodate it. So, again, your opinion/experiece related to this is a tremendous help!
Thanks!

OS X Server 3.0 new setup -- best practices?

Alright, here's what I'm after.
I'm setting up a completely new OS X Server 3.0 environment. It's on a fairly new (1.5 year old) Mac Mini, plenty of RAM and disk space, etc. This server will ONLY be used interally. It will have a private IP address such as 192.168.1.205 which will be outside of my DHCP server's range (192.168.1.10 to .199) to prevent any IP conflicts.
I am using Apple's Thuderbolt-to-Ethernet dongle for the primary network connection. The built-in NIC will be used strictly for a direct iSCSI connection to a brand new Drobo b800i storage device.
This machine will provide the following services, rougly in order of importance:
1. A Time Machine backup server for about 50 Macs running Maverics.
1a. Those networked Macs will authenticate individually to this computer for the Time Machine service
1b. This Server will get it's directory information from my primary server via LDAP/Open Directory
2. Caching server for the same network of computers
3. Serve a NetInstall image which is used to set up new computers when a new employee arrives
4. Maybe calendaring and contacts service, still considering that as a possibility
Can anyone tell me the recommended "best practices" for setting this up from scratch? I've done it twice so far and have faced problems each time. My most frequent problem, once it's set up and running, is with Time Machine Server. With nearly 100 percent consistency, when I get Time Machine Server set up and running, I can't administer it. After a few days, I'll try to look at it via the Server app. About half the time, there'll be the expected green dot by "Time Machine" indicating it is running and other times it won't be there. Regardless, when I click on Time Machine, I almost always get a blank screen simply saying "Loading." On rare occasion I'll get this:
Error Reading Settings
Service functionality and administration may be affected.
Click Continue to administer this service.
Code: 0
Either way, sometimes if I wait long enough, I'll be able to see the Time Machine server setup, but not every time. When I am able to see it, I'll have usability for a few minutes and then it kicks back to "Loading."
I do see this apparently relevant entry in the logs as seen by Console.app (happens every time I see the Loading screen):
servermgrd: [71811] error in getAndLockContext: flock(servermgr_timemachine) FATAL time out
servermgrd: [71811] process will force-quit to avoid deadlock
com.apple.launchd: (com.apple.servermgrd[72081]) Exited with code: 1
If I fire up Terminal and run "sudo serveradmin fullstatus timemachine" it'll take as long as a minute or more and finally come back with:
timemachine:command = "getState"
timemachine:state = "RUNNING"
I've tried to do some digging on these issues and have been greeted with almost nothing to go on. I've seen some rumblings about DNS settings, and here's what that looks like:
sudo changeip -checkhostname
Primary address = 192.168.1.205
Current HostName = Time-Machine-Server.local
The DNS hostname is not available, please repair DNS and re-run this tool.
dirserv:success = "success"
If DNS is a problem, I'm at a loss how to fix it. I'm not going to have a hostname because this isn't on a public network.
I have similar issues with Caching, NetInstall, etc.
So clearly I'm doing something wrong. I'm not upgrading, again, this is an entirely clean install. I'm about ready to blow it away and start fresh again, but before I do, I'd greatly appreciate any insight from others on some "best practices" or an ordered list on the best way to get this thing up and running smoothy and reliably.

Everything in OS X is dependant on proper DNS. You probably should start there. It is the first service you should be configuring and it is the most important to keep right. Don't configure any services until you have DNS straight. In OS X, DNS really stands for Do Not Skip.
This may be your toughest decision. Decide what name you want the machine to be. You have two choices.
1: Buy a valid domain name and use it on your LAN devices. You may not have a need now for use externally, but in the future when you use VPN, Profile Manager, or Web Services, at least you are prepared. This method is called split horizon DNS. Example would be apple.com. Internally you may name the server tm.apple.com. Then you may alias to it vpn.apple.com. Externally, users can access the service via vpn.apple.com but tm.apple.com remains a private address only.
2: Create an invalid private domain name. This will never route on the web so if you decide to host content for internal/external use, you may run into trouble, especially with services that require SSL certificates. Examples might be ringsmuth.int or andy.priv. These type of domains are non-routable and can result in issues of trust when communicating with other servers, but it is possible.
Once you have the name sorted out, you need to configure DNS. If you are on a network with other servers, just have the DNS admin create an A and PTR record for you. If this is your only server, then you need to configure and start the DNS service on Mavericks. The DNS service is the best Apple has ever created. A ton of power in a compact tool. For your needs, you likely need to just hit the + button and fill out the New Device record. Use a fully qualified host name in the first field and the IP address of your server (LAN address). You did use a fixed IP address and disabled the wireless card, right?
Once you have DNS working, then you can start configuring your other services. Time Machine should be pretty simple. A share point will be created automatically for you. But before you get here, I would encourage starting Open Directory. Don't do that until DNS is right and you pass the sudo changeip -checkhostname test.
R-
Apple Consultants Network
Apple Professional Services
Author, "Mavericks Server – Foundation Services" :: Exclusively in the iBooks Store

Best Practices for Connecting to WebHelp via an application?

Greetings,
My first post on these forums, so I appologize if this has already been covered (I've done some limited searching w/o success). I'm developing a .Net application which is accessing my orginazation's RoboHelp-generated webhelp. My organization's RoboHelp documentation team is still new with the software and so it's been up to me to chart the course for establishing the workflow for connecting to the help from the application. I've read up on Peter Grange's 'calling webhelp' section off his blog, but I'm still a bit unclear about what might be the best practices approach for connecting to webhelp.
To date, my org. has been delayed in letting me know their TopicIDs or MapIDs for their various documented topics. However, I have been able to acquire the relative paths to those topics (I achieved this by manually browsing their online help and extracting out the paths). And I've been able to use the strategy of creating the link via constructing a URL (following the strategy of using the following syntax: "<root URL>?#<relative URI path>" alternating with "<root URL>??#<relative URI path>"). It strikes me, however, that this approach is somewhat of a hack - since RoboHelp provides other approaches to linking to their documentation via TopicID and MapID.
What is the recommended/best-practices approach here? Are they all equally valid or are there pitfalls I'm missing. I'm inclined to use the URI methodology that I've established above since it works for my needs so far, but I'm worried that I'm not seeing the forest for the trees...
Regards,
Brett
contractor to the USGS
Lakewood, CO
PS: we're using RoboHelp 9.0

I've been giving this some thought over the weekend and this is the best answer I've come up with from a developer's perspective:
(1) Connecting via URL is convenient if (#1) you have an established naming convention that works for everyone (as Peter mentioned in his reply above)
(2) Connecting via URL has the disadvantage that changes to the file names and/or folder structure by the author will break connectivity
(3) Connecting via TopicID/MapID has the advantage that if there is no naming convention or if it's fluid or under construction, the author can maintain that ID after making changes to his/her file or folder structure and still maintain the application connectivity. Another approach to solving this problem if you're working with URLs would be to set up a web service that would match file addresses to some identifier utilized by the developer (basically a TopicID/MapID coming from the other direction).
(4) Connecting via TopicID has an aesthetic appeal in the code since it's easy to provide a more english-readable identifier. As a .Net developer, I find it easy and convenient to construct an enum that matches my TopicIDs and to utilize that enum to construct my identifier when it comes time to make the documentation call.
(5) Connecting via URL is more convenient for the author, since he/she doesn't have to worry about maintaining IDs
(6) Connecting via TopicIDs/MapIDs forces the author to maintain those IDs and allows the documentation to be more easily used into the future by other applications worked by developers who might have their own preference in one direction or another as to how they make their connection.
Hope that helps for posterity. I'd be interested if anyone else had thoughts to add.
-Brett

OWB - Set-Up Recommendations/Best Practices

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