Complex investigation, easy solution

Yesterday I was facing one production issue where somehow at some time the connection to a database which is located at another server will be reset. I was getting java.lang.SqlException(io exception: connection resrt). I have reused a method that will reconnect to the database. I hope it works in the next deployment and i believe it should work. Code snippet as below:

public Connection getDBConnection(String dbName) throws OracleConnException, Exception { if (logger.isInfoEnabled()) { logger.info("getDBConnection(String) - String dbName=" + dbName); //$NON-NLS-1$ } Connection cachedConnection = null; if (ocDataSource == null) { ocDataSource = new HashMap(); this.printSQL("new HashMap"); } OracleDataSource ds = (OracleDataSource) ocDataSource.get(dbName); if(ds == null){ this.printSQL("creatingNewOracleDS"); ds = createNewOracleDS(dbName); this.printSQL("createdNewOracleDS"); ocDataSource.put(dbName.trim(), ds); } int i = 0; int retry = KenanAdaptorProperties.getORACLE_RETRY_NUM(); for(i = 0; i < retry; i++){ try { this.printSQL("ds.getConnection() " + ds.getPortNumber()); cachedConnection = ds.getConnection(); this.printSQL("error in connection? "); if(!isConnectionAlive(cachedConnection)){ this.printSQL("connection is not alive???"); try { ds.close(); } catch(Exception e){ //log.debug("Can't close DataSource object!"); } ds = null; ocDataSource.remove(dbName); ds = createNewOracleDS(dbName); ocDataSource.put(dbName, ds); } else { break; } } catch (SQLException se){ logger.error("getDBConnection(String)", se); //$NON-NLS-1$ } catch (Exception e){ this.printSQL("Exception:\r\n" + Util.getStackTraceForLog(e)); } // sleep for a specific amount of time! //make it configurable try { Thread.sleep(KenanAdaptorProperties.getORACLE_RETRY_SLEEP_TIME()); } catch (InterruptedException e) { // log.debug("Interrupted Exception:\r\n" + Util.getStackTraceForLog(e)); } } if(i == retry){ throw new OracleConnException("Connection is not established. Failed after " + retry + " retries."); } return cachedConnection; }

production rollout for Kenan Adapter running on Websphere Business Integration Adapters is successful!

Finally the production rollout for Kenan Adapter is successful!

This is the third deployment after the unsuccessful first two. Well it went well in spite of some minor issues. Most of the scenarios are catered this time. The client's testing team had done a good job this time for testing thoroughly on all kind of possible scenarios! Yeah they should have done that during the UAT time! If they would allocate some time for more scenario testing, the deployment would have gone well even before year 2009! No it's approaching March and the client only managed to use it now. Well, this project does not bring any income to my team anyway. My project manager took this project to cover up some other unit's shit. Now that the long term outsource deal has been closed.

I am studying Websphere Process Server now. It looks far more complicated. I think i need some time to digest some new terms here. I should get myself involved in at least one project related to this product so that i can gain more expertise in this product.

All in all, good news this week. I am glad especially for the successfull rollout for Kenan Adapter. I have put very much effort in making this successful. I would like to thank my project manager for the support! That is important to continue to boost my morale.

Terrible Project, Terrible Day

Bad news hit me last Thursday, i would have to help out in a Proof of Concept(POC) project for a famous Telco company in Malaysia!

I went to the meeting place in the morning. Met with new teammates. Obviously everyone was still trying to adapt to this adhoc situation.

On the first day, I was spending the whole day getting help from a few experts to set up the development and testing environment. They helped me to install IBM Websphere Portal Server, IBM Rational Software Architect for Websphere and etc. All these are resource hungry giants. They made the computer to run so slow! Also, in order to make sure i am developing on the same environment, they migrated their Virtual Machine Image to another laptop that has higher spec than my computer.

I started building simple stuff the second day. After several trials and errors, i managed to build and test run the first portlet! This is my first ever portlet that i built in my life! I was excited and i thought mission completed. Well, demand is never enough. I was assigned a few more tasks and my attendence was expected the next day.

On Friday the POC initiator expected to wrap up everything so that the sales team is able to present a nice thing to the potential client! I was thinking things were done so hurrily the quality will surely does not meet client's expectation. In the end i managed to built 4 portlets: some with static data, some queries data from the DB2 database. During the migration of my war file to the core laptop which one of the technical sales guy is going to use to present to the client, i was facing some database connection issue. Well that was easily solved. After that i was asked to enhance the UI on the portlet. Man! what is this! The scope of work will never end?! It's too much!

I kept quiet and finally completed my tasks at 2am in the morning. After that the technical sales guy was able to ping from A machine's VM to B machine's VM! Double good news! He said i stayed to help and that boost his morale and actually i did not find out the solution. It's him who found it.

I learnt a lot of things in this POC project. I learned how to use Rational Software Architect for Websphere to build portlet. I learned how to deploy a portlet using Websphere Portal Server. Also i have explored a few good features in the WPS. I also learned a lot of things on Virtual Machine. The idea of using Virtual Machine is cool. The Virtual Machine helps each developer to counter the barrier of different development & testing environment. It can reduce unexpected events especially due to environment setup when you are demoing your application to your client!

My teammates also shared some valuable stories with me. For e.g. the technical sales guy told me this is also his worst ever project in our company. Normally some other POC projects are simple. I was considered very unfortunate to get involved in this.

Anyway, i don't really like this kind of ad-hoc call up for help. I hope this is my first time and last time doing this shit. At least please tell me one week earlier, and also let me know the overall plan so that i can get ready.

I still prefer a plan. Hurry can't help win a client.

Production Rollout for WBIA for Kenan

Following the unsuccessful production rollout for WBIA for Kenan on December 2008, the client has put a more business knowledge rich human resource to verify the screwed-up production data. Also she has informed me what to change and what not to change. I have also fixed the problem where a 'dynamic' database connection is not 'cached'.

This morning we reached office before 6am. I packed for McDonald's big breakfast. So far no bad news. I think this time the production rollout will go very well.

Something funny has happened!

I am not sure why. Somehow the XML message that was passed to my request queue contains response tag which is not supposed to be attached to it.

What annoyed me was my WBI adapter for Kenan kept processing the same XML message over and over again! Thank to this and only i found out that there was one database connection remained opened thus causing more and more database sessions created!!! This could be a serious issue and luckily i tackled the problem before the system goes for production! However, i still need to find out why sometimes the XML message is redirected to the request queue even tough it has been processed by the adapter without encountering any Tuxedo connection error! The only clue i know now is this kind of 'problematic' XML message contains response tag! Could it be an error from the portal side? Could it be they acquired the processed XML message from response queue and then sent to request queue again? Well, it is doubtful.

Scratching head... continue tomorrow....

跨年佛学讲座

我在2008年的最后两天参与了一个佛学讲座。主讲人是来自台湾的慧律法师。法师演讲时还真七情上面，表情丰富，让观众们都不至于闷了睡去。

开场都有一段的唱经。平时有唱经的我也自然而然能随之起哼。

法师主要是说什么是正信佛教。华人社会活在儒、释、道的文化太多年了，导致个宗教都变质了。法师该是想尽力协助大众了解何谓真正的佛教。

法师也强调佛教各派该团结一致，不因些微分歧而闹内讧。

法师的演讲大多时候都简易有趣，可惜有几段因应用经文用语而让佛学初学者如我脑袋转不过来。

有些美中不足的是，以我所了解，佛陀已经涅磐了，那么法师怎么可以说“愿佛陀保佑你”和“愿佛陀保佑我们伟大的祖国-马来西亚”呢？而且第二句让人感到有些怪，但又说不出来其怪在何处。

大会还请来了马来西亚的口琴高手以呈献高水准的演出，我只能说，很棒！

大会负责人上台演讲时也几乎掉泪，主办过程想必艰辛。

在接近2009年的时候，法师们也为大众祈福，观众们全都亮起了手上的莲花灯，场面庄严壮观。

不虚此行。

The end of year 2008! 2008年结束了!

2008 is a year full of sorrows. A lot of people are suffering from the Economic Tsunami caused by the losing credibility of the financial system in the U.S due to the sub-prime crisis. The negative effect of this man made disaster is likely to continue in the coming few years. Fortunately many countries are showing positive attitude to work among all of them together to overcome this problem as soon as possible. I hope the level of confidence will restore next year, which is year 2009. I wish everyone a good year of 2009!

2008年，对于人类，尤其中国人来说，是蛮多灾多难的。最重要的世界大事莫过于起源于美国次贷危机的金融海啸了！至今各国的对金融海啸的反应都非常的积极，我觉得主要是信心崩塌的问题。相信当每个人的信心渐渐恢复了之后，全球将重新迅速迈入了又一个欣欣向荣的阶段。最重要的是各国都能把这次的事件当作反面教材，牢牢记得，如此错误千万莫重犯！最后，期待经济能于2009年复苏！人人皆能分得糖果！