DoubleCloud.org

Web flow is the most confusing part so far in RIA with Spring training, therefore a whole day was dedicated to this.

From a very high level, a Web flow is just like a wizard in a stand-alone application. It guides a user through several steps of interactions. Complicated wizards may branch out depending on the information entered in early steps, so do the Web flows.

Well, Web environment has its uniqueness and challenges. Spring Web Flow is designed to ease it. Like any other framework, you have to overcome the learning curve before you can really take advantage of it.

The good news is the Web Flow still fits in the MVC framework overall, just with a new set of handler mapping, handler adapter, plus the new flow executor.  Read more... (334 words, 1 image, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

It’s the second day of the four day training. A lot of things were covered:

• Modern Web UI including progressive enhancement, accessibility, and design.
• Applying Spring JS, an abstraction around other AJAX toolkit. The coverage includes AJAX events, client side validation, and rich widgets.
• Working directly with Dojo Toolkit, including DOM scripting and Dojo widgets (Dijit).

The progressive enhancement is a great concept. The basic idea is to have your web pages start with plain HTML and then “decorates” them with richer L&F and more interaction on the fly. The key benefit is better compatibilities with different browsers which all support HTML but not necessarily JavaScript. When JavaScript is supported by the browser, the pages are enhanced by the embedded JavaScript; when not, the pages just render well as normal HTML.  Read more... (436 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Today is my first day in a four day training – Rich Web Applications With Spring. It’s a pretty intensive day from 7AM to 3PM which covered the following:

• Quick start with Spring Tool Suite  and reference application.
• Spring MVC essentials, including architecture, controllers, conventions.
• Using layouts and views, including composite views with Apache Tiles, and multiple rendering technologies like Excel, PDF in addition to the HTML.
• Processing form pages, including data binding, validation, and form tags.

I used Java Servlet and JSP about 10 years ago while working on a NMS project. At that time, there was no good MVC framework for developing a large web application. You had to program against the Java Servlet APIs directly. Jason Hunter’s book Java Servlet Programming was my favorite book.  Read more... (511 words, 2 images, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

During VMware PEX last week, a partner told me a story. His wife’s company had a party where he had a conversation with the company CEO. Being asked what he did for his company, he explained the cloud related projects and his roles. In the end, the CEO said, “Oh I see, you are a meteorologist in a computer company.”

Well, this is an interesting story. But I take it as a sign that as an industry we haven’t done enough to explain the cloud computing to the potential customers like the CEO. This eventually hurts the transformation of IT toward this new computing model.  Read more... (274 words, estimated 1:06 mins reading time)

I know I haven’t written the day three of my PEX yet. You know there was a celebration party at that night and we had a really good time there. Now I’m back and have more time to write about day three.

CTO Steve Herrod’s Keynote

This is the most important part of day three, followed by the celebration party:-). If you are interested in knowing what is happening in VMware R&D and what new products are coming from VMware, you don’t want to miss a single minute of Steve’s keynote. That is why I got there early and sat in the front.  Read more... (946 words, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)

After my presentation yesterday, I had more time on the break-out sessions and self paced lab today.

Accelerate Your Services With VMware Services Automation Tools

This session is by Budianto Bong, VMware Sr. Product Manager. He demoed three tools from VMware PSO that help consulting partners: Migration Manager, Desktop Reference Architecture Workload Simulator, and HealthAnalyzer. The first one is not the P2V converter, but a management tool that tracks, manages, and reports large scale migration projects.

Using the VMware vSphere PowerCLI for Automated Installation And Configuration of ESXi and vCenter for ISV Partners

This is a joint presentation by VMware TAM Ken Brady, and CareFusion network engineer Fisk Shogren. Ken introduced the basics of PowerCLI and VMware TAP programs. Fish showed off his PowerShell code that is used to set up the environment, which took 2 days, if lucky, of manual work before. It’s a great example on how much you can get by automating vSphere API, particularly with PowerCLI. I handed over my business card so that Fisk can show more of his code later.

Getting Stoned With “Project Onyx”  Read more... (736 words, estimated 2:57 mins reading time)

The day started with the keynote by Carl with lots of coverages on cloud computing and what that means for VMware partners. Backed by virtualization, cloud computing brings in efficiency, agility and freedom of choice to the cloud adopters. It’s interesting to see that even CostcoConnection has an article about “computing in the cloud.”

After the keynote, I went to the self paced lab and then the Exhibit Hall. That is the most fun part for me to be in a VMware conference. I can see how our partners use our technologies and product, how they use our SDKs/APIs, what more they want from us in terms of partner enablement. You don’t normally see so many demos in time and have deep conversations face to face.  Read more... (536 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

After posting my last blog yesterday, I went on to the reception party. Besides good food, I had opportunities to talk to several companies with cool technologies and services.  Read more... (225 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

Today is the first day of VMware Partner Exchange. According to a company news,

VMware Partner Exchange 2010 Kicks Off With Record-breaking 2,600+ Attendees, 55 Sponsors and 45 Countries Represented

Third Annual Event Grows More than 60 Percent Year over Year; VMware Continues to Invest in Solution Competencies, Partner University and Education to Help Partners Deliver Virtualization Solutions to Customers on the Journey to Cloud Computing  Read more... (130 words, estimated 31 secs reading time)

While reading my personal emails today, I also checked the spam folder. One email title caught my eyes instantly, “Express Your Love with A Domain Name.” That sounds like an interesting idea for techies.

Following the lead, I was thinking what VMware can offer to help you to express your love. Obviously VMware has done far more than expressing. According to our CTO Steve Herrod, VMware VMotion had saved 74 marriages by the time of his keynote at VMworld 2009 (32’35”). I bet the number is even more today.

With that statistical in mind, one quick solution is the VMotion and DRS which balance the computing workload, also your work and life I suppose. It’s great but only for the system administrators who have access to vSphere and VMware Infrastructure. For other people, it’s not that practical.

Luckily, VMware is not only about business, but also about personal. Here are several ideas you can consider for this coming Valentine’s day:  Read more... (384 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)