Call me biased. But I have been a .NET developer for almost 10 years and before that when I was a Java programmer I still used Visual Studio (Remember Visual J++).
And for me it's the best editor a guy can have (if you don't count that fact that it’s slow and heavy).

When I joined TicTacTi I started programming also in AS2 and then AS3. When asking other flash developers, sorry flash designers what editor they are using they all said CS3 with a big smile. But a developer can’t ask a designer a question like this. CS3/4 and probably also 5 are made for designers and not developers and if you like to write more than 10 lines of code don’t go near this editor.

When we started to write in AS3 we started using Eclipse.
Well, this is an editor. But it’s an Open source editor and as such it takes 10 manual pages and 2 full days to learn how to install it so it will compile a simple hello world application. (Why can’t open source application use the wizard concept?J)

At first I had problem understanding the Perspective issue, or the fact that F3 is not used for search.
After awhile I even found out that you can do things with it that you can’t in Visual Studio like compile on the fly, move few rows at once (using Ctrl+Up/Down arrow)
But, what cracks me was a simple task I had to do. I like to compile the code and then run a simple batch file. Simple??? Yes it’s simple if you understand how to write ANS, or some other compiler code. In VS a simple checkbox would allow me to run as much batch file as I like.

I will say this I’m working with Eclipse but every few months I’m looking at different add-on that allow you to write AS code using VS. So far it takes about 10 min of work before I find out that something is missing and the add-on is not ready yet for a real AS application.

So far the Tofino is the best add-on but it’s still isn’t perfect, although I must say that their support team is doing a great job and they did try to help me migrate to Tofino.

I will update this post when I will find a good add-on because I’m sure I will not be an Eclipse developer forever.

If your company is planning on using the Azure platform and SQL Azure for a high load OLTP application, you should change the way you think about application and database design.

The limitation on SQL Azure described in my former post, will force you to think differently regarding scaling your applications. Application wise, you must take into consideration that long running queries will be disconnected by the SQL Azure server and connections which are open for a long period over the internet, tend to disconnect due to network issues.

To limit the effect of these issues you should implement the following:

• Connection polling in your application (built-in feature using .Net), will reduce the load on the database server. Connection polling also saves resources on creation and reduces the latency of creating a connection over the internet.
• Use short transactions\batches, open the connection in the last second, execute the query commit and close the connection as soon as possible.
• Implement retry mechanism in the events you get disconnected or unable to create the connection over the internet.

When you considering scaling options, since you don’t have any control over the hardware resources, scaling out is your only option. You have several options for scaling out, depending on your application. All of them will require a logic method in your application that will select the appropriate connection string, or in other words: your application must be partition aware.

Let’s review some of the options:

• One Database per client- if you are a SaaS provider, you can open a database per client. This option has a few advantages: privacy and security wise, each client has its own database. Billing wise, you can bill your client just for SQL Azure recourses their database is using (see below: Master DB).
• Configuration Database – if your database holds static information, updated once in a long period of time, you can create multiple copies of your database using Sync Framework to synchronies the changes from the primary one. You will also need to add a round robin method on your application side to select the connection string and distribute the load on the different instances.
• Logical partitioning or Elastic provisioning– what if your application design allows that? You might be able to separate your data according to a natural key. Could be as easy as modulo 10 your client user id or opening a database per country\game\event … in your application. Of course, that too will require changes in the application connection string module logic. One company all ready implementing such a solution is www.ticketdirect.com. You can read more on Microsoft Case Studies.

I just had the privilege to join a closed Microsoft Connect session on SQL Azure . It seems that some new exiting features are on the way, which will help with scaling. Some of the performance execution limitations will be reduced and a new clone feature is being developed to help with instantly creating copies of your database for scale out usage and backup.

To enable the partitioning process, Master DB has changed considerably: it no longer sits at the center of the SQL Server and two new role gateways were added to login operation and logger of usage operations.

The login process uses two tables of sys.sql_logins for the login operation a new table sys.firewall_rules for configuring access to the “DataBase Server”. A successful login must be backed up with valid data in both tables (information about the login process can be found in my former post).

The second role as an activity logger for billing process is back up by two new tables named sys.bandwidth_usage sys.database_usage. By monitoring the values on these tables, you can calculate the operation cost of any single DB and add it to your client billing quote or monitor the operation cost of an event on your system.

Guy

Sql Azure is Microsoft’s solution for relational database cloud computing, it comes as part of Azure platform. As with the Azure platform in general, to implement such a solution many limitation were placed on the Azure version of SQL server. The implantation as technical solution is amazing and requires some IT background to figure the complexity of the solution.

The best place to start the explaining SQLAzure is with describing the infrastructure. As a user you are granted with a token, this token is used to create all your databases. First DB to set up is the Master DB, very similar the SQL Server Master DB(more on the functionality of the Master DB in the next post). All traffic to the SqlAzure “Server” is routed through a firewall that allows you to limit the accesses to specific sources using a well design web interface. Then the connection is rerouted to a gateway that diverts the connection to the current server hosting the online copy of your database. All SQL server instances that build the SQLAzure platform are installed on cluster machines to support high availability to improve availability the created database is automatically replicated across different machines . In the case of failure the gateway will automatically point to the current online database instance.

To increase scalability of your application and to maintain overall balances of the SQLAzure platform servers, your databases are placed across multiple servers. I.E. even though it looks like it, physically the your company databases are not placed on one server! What actually happens is that several companies share the same hardware! So how do you reach a specific database? The trick is in the login : the connection string must include the destination database, your connection undergoes authentication using the login setting saved in the Master DB and then diverted to the requested database that will probably be located on a different server.

Farther more to allow a fair resource distribution between the different databases and SQLAzure clients, several limitations are set on the databases settings and resource utilization. A detailed list of the limitation can be found in the following link, I bring the highlights:

• The major change is that can’t manipulates local resources:
• There is only one file group per database.

  The following technical resources are a good starting point to understand the SQLAzure platform :

  • Official Azure Site
  • Pricing
  • Videos from PDC
  • MSDN SQLAzure
  • Developer Guide
• No partitioning.
• No fill factor.
• No user define data types.
• No full text indexes.
• No memory settings or any other server level settings.
• All tables must include a clustered index.
• Each connection can only function in the boundaries of the database it is connected to.
• No Trace or Profiler, due to the fact that when you connect to a specific DB you can interact with the Master DB .
• Can’t use the USE <database> command.
• Can’t use distributed transactions or queries.
• Can’t use global temp tables.
• No service broker
• All logins are sql server logins, there is no domain support.
• Maximum database size of 10G.
• No SSIS or SSAS support

• Execution time limited to 5 min
• Maximum open connection time
• Limiting long running transactions and extensive resource usage CPU and memory.

These limitations will actively disconnect the client connection and STOP QUERY PROCESSING. Selecting the 10 GB (Business Edition) version over the 1 GB (Web Edition) version will grant your database with more resources and raise the limitation settings.

It is evident from the description above that SQLAzure is not a straight forward solution for high load OLTP databases or data warehouse implementation. Working tips scalability design considerations and more on the next blog.

Guy

In the last 12 months, virtualization and cloud computing has become one of the hottest issues in the hosting world.It started with companies offering Linux based cloud services for Windows, based on cloud servers and then it expanded to new companies going into elastic computing, such as Rackspace and Opsource. Yet it seems that when it comes to MS-Sql server support and .Net, all current solutions fall short. The major part of the management work ‘falls’ on the user and the cost is far higher compared to Linux solutions. The user is supposed to install anything above the basic OS and to take care of upgrades, monitoring and duplicating resources (servers) on his/her own, for scale out solutions. Some of the solution providers sell their offering as a testing environment platform or as for simulating production environment, reducing client operation costs, compared to purchasing hardware and hosting fees.

Then, a few months ago, a new major player entered the world of cloud computing: Microsoft with WindowsAzure.  Microsoft will officially launch their services in January 2010 as a production hosting platform, and new web server farms will be operational all over the world during 2010. They have currently invited every ISV or Bizspark client to use the WindowsAzure environment as part of their CTP, allocating them with a limited CPU and instances Tokens. We have were able to upload a partial solution (covering 70%) of our application in less than a day’s work.

To solve the versatility of OS configurations and provide an almost instantaneous scale up option, Microsoft Azure takes a different approach than other elastic .Net supporting solutions. Mainly, WindowsAzure solution limits the application working environment physical resources usage and configuration. The most trivial example is that you can’t write to files, writing and saving of local data is done to special blob objects (which by the way can resemble small DBs). The server instances are virtual, and I don’t mean VM or Hiper-V.  The application is running on an AppFabric environment. The Fabric has the ability to run worker-roles that are very close to services and web roles that are very close to web services. The actual code has to be compiled, especially for the AppFabric environment (a very simple process), but anything that was developed in .Net could be converted to Azure.

Microsoft has even taken its solution one step forward, and offers the WindowsAzure platform for private cloud implementation. Your organization can install the Azure platform as a virtualization solution for internal environments solution such as QA and staging (just think what can be done when it comes to load testing), or as part of your organization SaaS solution, providing a private application environment for different clients, installed on the same hardware.

What Azure is offering for SQL cloud solution- on my next post.

Coming soon …

I love looking at the sky and staring at the clouds, your imagination can run wild and you can invent wonderful stories about the shapes you see in the clouds, but they always seem so far away out of your reach. For me, especially as a DBA, it was same with cloud computing.

Cloud computing has been around for a long time, starting with on Google Apps and Amazon AWS. Working in medium size companies has limited my exposure to them. About a year ago I was asked to join a panel discussing “IT for startups”, when one of the most interesting issues raised was ‘should we use the cloud hosting solution?’ My answer then was no. Along the last year my view about cloud computing has shifted to favoring cloud computing as a partial solution for startups.

What are the benefits of cloud computing?

1) Scaling up and down is possible within a matter of hours. Moreover, you only pay for what use, and on an hourly basis. Meaning, if a new client comes along, you can place a request for ten new servers, and within the next day or hour you’ve receives them fully load-balanced and ready to go.
2) All hardware and OS management are the provider’s responsibility. No need for highly qualified IT tech that has wide knowledge in networking, security, virtualizations, storage, and FW.
3) You receive fully monitored OS and hardware services, including reporting and alerts.
4) You receive a fully redundant solution with an obligation for high availability.
5) Worldwide location distribution brings the application closer to your clients.
6) No need to upgrade your hardware every three years.

What are the problems with cloud computing?

1) These are not your servers! Your control on selected OS versions, maintenance and patches is limited.
2) These are not your servers! Placing sensitive data from passwords to your core technology is an issue.
3) These are not your server! If it crashes, nobody promises you how hard they will try to save the data stored on the hard drives.
4) These are not your server! For some reason, I can’t see a cloud solution passing a credit card organization inspection…
5) These are not your servers! You will probably have to make changes to your application to fit cloud computing, due to limitation of installed environment.
6) Windows .net based applications are not native to this environment. If you want to enjoy the monitoring and management benefits, you will have to use a non .net language.
7) Database solutions are very limited either in capacity and version or in manageability.

Deciding if to use cloud computing or not is not an easy decision. It will affect your application design and development environment. I can help with some point for consideration:

CDN on cloud?

Downloads require a lot of bandwidth. Your organization will probably want a redundant network (which cost a lot of money), and there is always an issue of being close to your clients (which require multiple locations). In order to solve these issues, you’re probably using some kind of a CDN solution. If you’re total download is not in Terabytes, I recommend looking into a cloud solution such as Amazon S3. In S3 payment is per usage that alone makes a huge difference (I’m talking about thousands of dollars per year) over buying a minimal quota package per month from major CDN providers.

Cloud computing?

If you are a new upcoming company, requiring just a few dedicates server including load balancing and firewall services , a managed dedicated solution will cost you 1,000-1,500$ per month per server. Each cloud server is about 200-500$ and you only pay for what you use on hourly basis. The key benefit is the ability to scale up in a matter of hour and not weeks or days. And it’s important to place your server close to your client, the latency is amazing a minimum of 1-2 second latency from US and some parts of Europe and far east to reach servers in IL.

Database?

If you require a simple DB services with storage requirements lower then 10G, and the number of hits on your server per second is not in lower thousands, finding an adequate SQL or MySql solution should not be a problem. Your solution will enjoy high availability redundancy and will be located near your clients. I’m fooling around with the lasts solution for cloud databases SQL Azure, actually it is the trigger for writing this blog but that will be on my next post. For now, I’m going to stare at the sky and look at the far away clouds.

How easy is it to embed Ads into a flash player?

If you have looked at our demo sites or our widgets site from a developer point of view, you have probably noticed that the Ads seem to be integrated as a part of the Flash layer.

It looks obvious, just call the ad jpeg or flash file and place them in the correct location. right? Correct , but...
And here comes a big BUT. The ad URL is not something given to you on a golden plate.

Big Advertisement companies and AdNetwors don't think about the possibility that some strange programmer would like to retrieve the ad URL from their server using client side code embedded in flash.

Their systems are built to support calls for ads URLs using iFrame URL or a JavaScript code.

Try and get the Ad URL from an iFrame URL while in flash. You just can't, since it's in a different domain the browser security infrastructure prevents you from reading the HTML DOM of an object residing in a different domain.

So you like to know how we did it?
You can’t .It's confidential. Believe me I like to say more (and I did post it until our panic team read about it and i had to remove the paragraph about our solution) I promise that once I'm able to disclose how it all works I will.

In the meantime if you are a JavaScript freak and like to talk more about the different format of JavaScript code the advertisers use on their systems place a comment or send me an email.

Understanding ad placements key concepts is crucial to understanding the blogs that will be posted here. This blog will be dedicated to explaining player, concepts and obstacles to overcome for successful presentation of ad on a rich media client.

Key players,

Publishers – organizations that hold assets on which and ad can be displayed, such as web sites, toolbars, game providers or video content providers.

Advertisers – company’s who advertise their products on the web, or represents such clients.

AdNetworks – provide a market place were an advertiser can place his ad and reach multiple publishers and the other way around. Multiple advertiser results in the better coverage and a bidding war on the publisher assets, many publishers allow better targeting higher effectiveness of the ad campaign. So the bigger the market place is the higher the benefit is for all the players.

Concepts :

Assets – a place on which an ad can be presented.

Coverage – the percentage the AdNetwork will successfully return an ad to the certain publisher per geo location of the client and demographic consideration of the asset. There are several ad networks that hold inventory just for certain regions like the USA or Europe. If you are a publisher and have users from all over the world you might be forced to work with several AdNetworks to improve your coverage and better monetize your asset.

Impression –the presentation of an ad on the client side.

Click – click on the ad presented, result in redirecting to the advertiser site.

CTR – Click-through rate is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. Representing the ratio between the number of ad presented (impressions) and number of clicks.

Acquisition – an impression that resulted in a user actually registering or buying the advertised service.

CPA – Cost Per Action\ Acquisition a contract in which the advertiser pays for each specified action(perches, registration…)

CPC – Cost per click is the amount of money an advertiser pay per click on the ad.

eCPM – the value paid to the publisher per 1000 impressions. Actually all ad networks present earnings in their reports as eCPM values, even if payment resulted from CPA or CPC deals.

Obstacles to overcome:

• Flash and SilverLight clients used to display rich madia (movies and games) do not integrate with the format an ad is returned by the AdNetworks (iFram or JavaScript).

• When the game is developed or a movie filmed it is not designed for ad int0egration. To present the ad you have to find a location and a time on which to place an ad, and of course some code is required for the actual presentation. Last I heard there is no code integrated in avi or divx files and the requested add must fit the location found on the asset without interfering with the actual content presented on the client.

• Hopping – to retrieve an ad the client navigates to an AdNetwork server if there is no coverage he must navigate to the next AdNetwork. Navigation loss stands at about 5%-10%, and you have to develop a complicated to execute all of these hops.

There are two great blog posts that I urge you to read, they perfectly explain the process of placing an ad on an asset.

http://www.mikeonads.com/2007/05/01/the-ad-exchange-model-part-i/

http://www.mikeonads.com/2007/05/02/the-ad-exchange-model-part-ii/

A few days ago Nir (our CTO) , who always think we are very bored and have nothing to do, told us “Guy’s we find so much help in the open code sources on the internet I feel like we are abusing the development community, I think it is time to return some of our debt back to the community. Will you be interested in writing to TicTacTi Blog?” and then he added “the only time I seem to get to writing a post is in the evenings at home”. Surprisingly Ziv and I said we will be glad to write to the blog, especially since it is not a marketing oriented blog! We decided it will be a technical oriented blog that will provide a window to our life at a young, innovating ,cutting edge fun to work in startup(oops it came out marking oriented).

At any case Nir was right, it is about 00:30 AM my wife just woke from her third dream, and ask if I’m still thinking about what to write in the blog or actually started writing the blog. I tell you guys, writing a blog is not an easy task.

At our first “editorial staff meeting“ near the coffee machine (even our “staff meetings” are agile orientated), we decided on the content of our blog: our personal life and events will not be part of the blog that is why we have Facebook accounts... we will be writing on the life in a startup from the developer’s point of view, design consideration for scalable web application, how to develop light but smart clients, coding examples for the more interesting challenges we encountered, and our patented pending solution NO actually we can’t write about that, it will be like giving our edge to the competitor!

Let me introduce the our blog team members:

Ziv Rosenzweig – blogging on: Flash clients, Flexes, Silverlight, WPF, C#, Web application, .Net in general, JavaScript, HTML and Cell Phones gadgets.

Guy Rafalovich – blogging on : IT Issues, Design and development of OLTP and DWH Systems, Operation of web applications, clouds and general life in a startup.

Nir Hargsury – on : how to build a startup and whatever he like he is the CTO after all.