html5 and css3 frameworks

HTML5 and CSS3 are the new vogue in the web development world.Both bring a variety of feature sets with them which  includes from animation to rounded corners to amazing effects and fonts to easy offline line capabilities.So I have included here a list of best frameworks for HTML5 and CSS3 which can make your job a whole lot easier.Even though many of the features of the above are not fully supported yet and HTML5's recommendations date(2022) is very far,the development in this field is already taking giant strides and we can see a list of browsers starting to make a move to support them already.With the inclusion of third party applications like Microsoft Silver Light,Adobe flash and pick and drop feature HTML5 is already changing the rule of the games.So lets have a look at the best frameworks available to work on these.


1)52framework

It's one of the best available framework present in the market today.It's latest version is 2.0 supporting HTML5,CSS3 plus JavaScript and a hoards of new features which include grid system,CSS reset. It supports all html5 tags, script embed along with features like text-shadow,box-shadow,rounded corners etc.More details regarding other features of the product can be obtained from 52framework


2).Less framework


  It is based on single grid containing 4 layouts and 3 sets of typography presets for designing adaptive websites.So clearly it's a great tool for building  flexible multi column website layout and its compatible with most of the browsers.It is based on the idea that we first need to set the main layout and then code for child layouts,all layout differ from each other in just terms of outer margins.since every layout is based on the same grid it renders reusability to the elements  used in one layout and allows them to use them in other layout without much change.[Less framework]

3)Sencha Touch

This is for mobile application development primarily for Android OS and iPhone.The applications developed have a native look and feel.This uses HTML5 to deliever audio and video and also provides a dummy storage for storing data offline,its more like a proxy for local storage.The framwork makes a powerful use of Javascript and CSS3 to provide a solid styling layer possible.[Sencha Touch]




4)LimeJS

It is HTML5 game framework for building fast,native experience for modern touchscreen and browsers.It automatically adjust the size of the game on the screen as per the size of the screen,no need to redefine the size of players of game with change in screen size.It is compatible for making HD as well as mobile related games.[LimeJS]

5)Sproutcore

It's another HTML5 application framework for building desktop caliber applications in any modern browser.It  actually transfers the logic of your code to the client for all the processing purpose instead of server as such reducing the load on servers and making them more responsive to handle client query once browser gets loaded.The javascript also get's executed on the client side of browser.So overall its a very good framework.
[sprout core]

6)Baseline

This framework has been built by keeping the topology in the mind.It's useful for making grid and topology of a website.It was developed initially to built a website having pleasant grid and basic typographic sort of styling.It supports font metrics also to create nice fixed layout.[Baseline]




7)Cartagen

This is the framework you go for when you want to play with the maps in your application.It lets you develop customized maps as per your need in different simple styling sheets.Since maps of such sort are used in geographical and temporal data which generally work in real time this provides facility to users to integrate real time data stream.This map based functionality is provided by this framework with the help of GSS(Geographic Style sheets) which in general is a language used to deal with styling sheets in geospatial data case.[cartagen]

8)HTML5 Canvas Element

It is not quite a user friendly and requires you to manually manage the updates.It allows for dynamic manipulation of 2D objects with the help of scripts.For these it uses bit map and does not have a build in scene graph.So it basically works on scripts which are dependent on resolution based bitmap canvas.
[canvas]





9)OpenLaszlo

It is an open source platform that uses rapid prototyping and software developments best feature to develop internet applications.With it's 4.0 version they have also provides the option of compilation for DHTML.It is customized to be suitable for out traditional web developers working on html and javascript and supports text based development.It supports LZX declarative language which is used in designing animation and flexible layouts.[open laszlo]


10)HTML5 Reset

It is a ready to use interesting package that comes with HTML5 and CSS3.It contains a rudimentary document which contains information related to structuring of HTML headers and CSS styling sheets to provide you the most basic state design in any browser.It allows you to set your standard for margins,size and other measurements.[HTML5 Reset]

11)CSS3 Action Framework

It brings all the best features of CSS3 under the single hood,hosted on a google code this framework is one to watch out for providng you with fascinating designs using features of CSS like ;hover,;active etc.Google Redesign is one of the fantastic demo of this application framework.[css3 action framework]

12)Alloy UI

This framework is a user interface web application framework which supports many API's for building web applications.This is primarily used for interface designing only to develop nice forms,supports dynamic attributes and unified styling.It just works on tags like html which are usdd in aui forms and some of their attributes.   [Alloy UI]



13)jo

It is used for mobile application development in HTML5 using javascript,it's very lightweight in nature.
It provides consistent and modular event model between objects.With the help of CSS it can handle animation and presentations to a certain extent.It basically embraces loosely typed object model of javascript and support libraries like PhoneGap.[Jo]

14)Baker ebook framework

Its an open source HTML5 framework for publishing ebook for ipad.
However to unleas its power you need to publish HTML5 pages with a fixed width of 768px.It supports audio,video and animations and is compatible with most of the browsers.[Baker]







15)RGraph

Based on HTML5 canvas library,it is used to produce various types of graph and adjusting your graph interactively with loads of other features to play with graphs.[Rgraph]



So this is a list of some of the best frameworks available today to work on HTML5 and CSS and build incredible applications for the web development.At the end I have displayed a comparative study of various frameworks in a snapshot below.

Top 10 iPhone photography apps

With over 2000 photography applications for iPhone present in the market it becomes very difficult to select the best ones out of the lot.Applications can be primarily categorized in three categories i.e.

Applications for editing photos,Application for sharing photos and Video Applications.Each of these applications is designed to primarily have some unique feature from one of the above three categories,though we have hybrid types applications also in the market but they are still tilted to favour feature from one of the category.Now since most of the applications are tailored for category first that is for editing of photos,so the applications that I have selected in my top ten have a major number of applications coming from this category.So,the top 10 best applications for iPhone in the market are as below:-

1) Hipstamatic

The application is for sure gonna take you into the old days of analog cameras.This application has various software filters by which we can make a image look like as if it's taken from an old fashioned analog camera.The most powerful ability of this application is that it gives you power to change the camera configuration and allows you to take a photograph as per your choice.This is achieved with the help of starter lenses,flashes and film stock that comes with this 2$ application. Some of the other applications which offer similar kind of functionality more or less are Camera Bag and Lo-Mob.Both allow more finer control over the photo manipulation than Hipstamatic in terms of more lenses choice and other features but are slower in comprasion to this,so the fun part of quick snapping is really much more in case of [Hipstamatic].

2)PixelPipe

This is for social networking lovers,it directly supports over 50 social networking sites which include facebook,twitter,youtube etc.The application can directly publish photos,audio,text and files to all of the above online destinations.So its quite a great application for sharing of photographs and can be downloaded freely from the Apple Application Store.The application also supports features like geotagging for publishing on social networks.[PixelPipe].Other useful tools that comes handy for sharing of photographs include Phanfare,Kyte Producer,Twitxr.Most of these applications are free and just include a sign up at their respective application accounts.

3)Night Camera

This 1$ application is a must have for photography lovers to enable them to click a nice shot even in night and low light conditions.This tool checks for the steadiness of the phone before firing up the shutter to have clearer pictures in  nights.But sometimes if your hand is not steady the picture may become blury.The applications makes use of adjustable sensitivity to make sure you get a sharp photo even in low light conditions and once you have taken the photo you can geotag it with GPS and publish it online.A similar application to this in functionality is Darkroom which can be downloaded free of cost from itune store but obviously its not that good as this one is when it comes to comparison. [Night Camera]

4)Photocalc

Now if you are a pro in the field of photography this utility is designed for you to take the photograph in the exact fashion as you want to .The calculations which are difficult to do mentally this utility can do it for you.This utility can calculate depth of field (DoF), exposure reciprocation, and flash exposure.The application also has features like to calculate the time of sunrise based on your location and references to its different section with the help of inbuilt glossary make it easy to use.The application costs around 3$ right now and can be downloaded from the Apple itune Store.[Photocalc]

5)Tiltshiftgen

Its one of the most exciting tools available with iPhone that can be used to focus only on a part of photograph and create beautiful photographs.It is done with the help of special lens which are used for selective focus.It produces miniature like photographs of real life scenes which are manipulated to look like real world photographs.However its not a substitution for exact miniature type photography which requires costly lenses this 2$ application is here to give you all the fun of an expensive application.The application is quote cool and sometimes it produce better results when we focus on one area rather focusing on whole subject.[Tiltshiftgen].

6)Quad Camera

Quad camera is typically the only application which makes it possible to take photograph of a high motion object.It's also known as "toy camera".The application takes 4-8 serial shoots and creates one single image.The interval timing with which these images needs to be separated can also be specified.The tool usually performs good in low light conditions as well.The shots taken can be oriented in a line or two parallel rows.The application costs around 2$.[Quad camera]

7)Photogene

Its the photoshop version of your mobile which allows you to edit photos on the fly.It is more than a basic editing tool having facilities like adding text bubbles,adding frames of different shape and sizes,add special effects such as reflection in addition to basic facilities like cropping,straightening and sharpening.It also allows to set the color adjustment of the picture and tinker with the exposed or unexposed areas of the photograph.A similar functionality category application which is popular is Photoshop.com Mobile developed by Adobe for iPhones. Photo gene is a award winning application and is the largest selling photographic application,currently the cost of photogene is 2$ and is available to download from itune stores.[Photogene]

8)Pano

Pano is a third party application costing around 2.99$ which helps you to take panoramic photographs.The application is worth it's price which is reflected when we take a beautiful panaromic photographic snap using this.The application actually takes 3-4 consecutive photographic and then merge them seamleslly to produce a professional looking panoramic photograph.The other application which provides this functionality is named panorama only but I don't like it much in comparison to [Pano].

9)DSLR Remote

It is nothing but a remote for your Nikon or Canon DSLR Camera.Just connect your camera to a wifi enabled computer and you can control these from your iPhone.You can fire their shutter,view images,start video recording etc.It's used mostly in remote kind of photography but nevertheless its an interesting feature to explore.The tool currently costs around 20$ so buy this only after a lot of consideration only if you are ready to shell out more money on your phone.[DSLR Remote]

10)Still Motion

Its fairly a simple application which allows you to experiment with stop frame animation.You can take a series of images from your phone which can then be played as video using this application.Its much more like Windows Movie Maker in functionality but its very enjoyable one.We can change the frame rate for video and share the video after complete editing online on youtube,email etc.The application is marked at around 2$.[Still Motion]

So these are the some of the best photographic applications available for iPhone in the market today which can truly increase the fun and quality of your photography to next dimensions.However it can't be said with surety that these are the best ones as it depends on one's use and need but I'm sure you are going to agree on most of them at least.

Types of Photography

As we know Photography is more than just clicking the button of your camera,but we seldom know about the various categories of photography.And as a amateur or a professional photographer we favor one type of photography over other.But one thing for sure is that photography is more diverse than photo shoot of glamors models or taking breath taking photos for national geographic.So lets see what are the different categories of photography.There are at least 13 different kinds of photography.The names of these 13 types of photography are listed below:-
1)Photojournalism
2)Action/Sports Photography
3)Macro Photography
4)Glamour Photography
5)Document Photography
6)Aerial Photography
7)Art Photography
8)Underwater Photography
9) Micro photography
10)Advertising Photography
11)Wedding Photography
12)Portraiture Photography
13)Travel Photography
Each field differs from other on the basis of the objectivity of subject that needs to be captured while taking a soulful photograph.Now lets discuss the major one of them in a bit detail:-
1)Photojournalism:-This field is primarily for the professionals.The basic aim of this sort of photographer is to capture the main part of a news story in a photo.It's dedicated to taking accurate shot of the event and not even a slightest manipulation is preferable here because it aims at capturing the mood of the moment in the exact replica way.A slight tinker here and there can destroy your career in this field.A true Photojournalism attracts viewers towards it and reader should get a whole idea about the text before delving into the subject.Though these field is mainly for professionals,often we see amateurs making a place here for themselves.
2)Action/Sports Photography:-This is one of fastest growing category of photography where the photographer needs to gets his frequency matched with his subject of interest.He should know or be able to anticipate when his moose is going to make any noteworthy action.It's much like wild life photography
where we should know when tiger is going to jump on deer and when we should capture it.
3)Macro Photography:-This was once a field of high end professional photographers only because it includes taking photograph of objects from a very close distance.A good macro photography reveals details about texture and structure of the object that can't be possibly figured out in a normal photograph.The object of interest in this category were mostly insects,flowers,animals.So the photography we see in channels like Discovery or National Geography predominantly falls under this head.And this requires accurate precision and focus which comes in expensive equipments it was once restricted to professionals now with good quality digital camera available at cheaper rates amateurs are slowly entering the field.
4)Glamour Photography:-The category which enjoys most of the lime light.Fashion Photographers,portfolio shoots all fall under this head of photography.The objectivity of Glamour photography is to not make a model sensuous as people often confuse it with but it seeks to capture its subject in suggestive poses that emphasize curves and shadows. But at the end as the name suggests its all about glamour the models we see are naturally dressed to attract lime light be it in a short skirt or a sensuous pose.
5)Portraiture Photography:-It's the most primitive form of photography.The aims of this photography is to capture the personality of the object or person being photographed.The old photographs of families or simply yourself are categorized under this hood.
6)Document Photography:-Its like reciting a chapter of history with the help of images.The Document Photography is involved with documents of some historical importance and document usually signify a story of an era.
Rest all types of photography are self explanatory as such with their names however each differs from other as to what attention to detail of object is required.In some places we requires we require more light,in some we don't,in some we capture texture,in some structure.Now each of these intricacies are mastered by the experts of that category before they can be called as professionals in their line.So next time you click a photograph ask yourself to which category you actually belong.

Abstract Photography

Abstract Photography is one of the field with no definition at all,it has mesmerized photographers since the days of the invention of camera.Till date no common grounds have been achieved by different photographers and photo galleries as to what this abstract photography is all about.However to put in simple terms in abstract photography you are not concerned with the actual appearance of the object,it leaves us to imagine more and concentrate on texture,colour,form or a portion of photo rather than the whole subject.

Most of the people take it  ass modern or abstract art where the objectivity is generally the same but most people are not able to make sense from the modern art and are not able to appreciate the beauty or abstraction behind it while in case of abstraction photography its quite reverse,even normal people do get to make sort of sense out of the photo because most of the photo don't have a defined subject so the curious human mind is able to make some sort of subject out of a photo and say "what's this,this looks great" and this is what drives our abstract photographers who are able to isolate the beauty of a portion of the subject and then objectify it to a greater extent.

Primarily abstract photography can be divided into three categories:-
1)Abstraction of the whole Photo:-In this you look at the object as a whole and you try to first figure out the basic message or subject of the photo.However abstraction comes into existence when you look beyond the subject and try to realize the other dimensions of the object and capture that part of abstraction which is clearly visible in the photographic subject matter.
2)Abstraction of the part of the photo:-In this you concentrate on a part of the photo that has got a artistic value of its own.You are able to capture the intrinsic or hidden beauty of a portion of photo by removing all the portions of the object or in other words scrapping up the other details of the photograph.
3)Abstraction within photo:-Sometimes you see weird objects and looking at them for sometime you start feeling they actually make some sort of real world object like a shape of cloud suddenly making some sense.This is what you capture in this category of abstraction photography.

Now if you look at a photo and say what does this photo actually mean,you are asking the wrong question because most of the photographers don't take photographs with the intention of any particular meaning instead they try to capture the beauty trying to balance the colour harmony,new texture which overall brings a new sense of charm in itself and our mind begins to feel soothed.Most of the abstract photographers tinker with the colour part of the photographs mixing them in a unusual manner to produce the desired effect.Now a days with the use of new technology and many special type of filters available photographers are able to separate the colors of photographs in a rainbow fashion.Thats why we see a photograph of a beautiful girl half as black and white and half coloured with  just the right amount of sunshine on her.This is just a example of abstract photography.

Just making pretty photographs isn't the aim all the times,Aesthetic boundaries are broken down without necessarily being rebuilt,however others tinker with photograph to make it abstract in the way they want it to.
Now the subjectivity of a photograph is entirely dependent on the user,what may seem to be a perfect photograph to someone may  not convey a meaning at all to some,thats why there is a tremendous variety in the field of abstract photography.So those are masters of this field bring in a lot of imagination and creativity in the process and again set the new benchmarks in the process of experimentation and stretching the boundaries of photography.

Some of the examples of the abstract photography I have displayed below.

Brief guide to Landlord Insurance

A person puts in the savings of his lifetime when he goes about investing in property.The household goods and personal belongings represents many years of financial and emotional investment over the time that you make for your dreams to come true.So it becomes our duty that to make sure that we have covered all the risk factors to safeguard our life time's biggest investment.Landlord Insurance is one such important thing that you need to have to insure that you have safeguarded your property.Whether you are a professional builder who invests huge amount in real estate or a normal person who has just rented his second property to provide support to his income you both have one thing in common you need a Landlord Insurance policy,since just because you now don't live in that place doesn't mean it's not yours now it's the fruit of your entire life's hard work.

Landlord Insurance Policy aims to cover landlords or property owners financial losses at times when they are not able to use their property to earn income.Now there can be a number of circumstances when a landlord is not able to utilize his rented property.Some of them can be dispute between landlord and tenant,property gets damaged to an extent that it's not possible anymore to in habitat that building.In such cases what you need isLandlord Insurance.However, before going to buy it you must carefully read it to make sure that it is comprehensive enough to cover you against most of the odd situations.

A normal Landlord Insurance would safeguard your interest against perils like natural disasters which include earthquake,lighting,flood,storm,fire etc.Most of them include coverage against theft of belongings to landlord and any malicious damage done to the premises of the building.However each policy differs in its coverage some cover only exterior of the building some only interiors and also policy mentions the things that can be taken under coverage in case of any damage so please read the offer document carefully before choosing anyone.Now if you want your policy to be more exhaustive one you can include your policy to have coverage for legal expenses to pursue legal case for damages and other things against tenants who have breached their tenancy agreements.Other things that can be included in a Landlord Insurance are optional coverage to accidental damages,terrorism,liability insurance,insurance to libel which means an attempt to degrade your public reputation or discrimination practices.So more options you wanna include in your coverage you can but obviously you then need to pay the premium according to that only so just be more cautious when you go to buy a comprehensive insurance or one which just list down things covered.

Now this Landlord Insurance works like just other policies.They give you two options to cover your assets,one is actual cash value and the other one is the replacement value.Now most of the people go for settlement by actual cash value settlement because it generally amounts to low premium values for the landlords.When a landlord goes for a claim against some damage covered under the policy the company first subtracts the depreciation cost from the current market price of the property and accordingly compensate the landlord so this generally accounts for low premium.However if you opt for replacement value in your Landlord Insurance Policy then company bears the cost of once refurbishment of the damaged property.Again it depends what all things are covered under the replacement contract otherwise by default it is settlement against cash value.However if it comes under replacement value part only no depreciation is considered by the companies and they around with actual market price.

Now if you want to lower the burden on your pocket regarding your yearly premium for aLandlord Insurance policy you can avail a feature called as deductible offered by the companies in which landlord agrees to a amount of money which he/she would bear in case of any damage to the property.More is the deductible part you go for more heavier discounts you are bound to receive but again that thing basically is decreasing the coverage from insurer so wisely choose the part that you want to pay under deductible.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that many people think there property is covered under Home insurance which is not true.Home insurance policies are not valid if you are earning from your property so you need a separate Landlord Insurance.There are number of other policies available in the market some of which are Landlord Liability Insurance,Landlord Property Insurance,Landlord Rental Insurance etc.Each one concentrating on the specific feature as the name suggest which you can include in your comprehensive Landlord Insurance Policy.

So Landlord Insurance is not something which you must have legally but its a precautionary measure that you must take to protect your future and investments because no matter how good a tenant is he is never going to care about your property you feel about it so it becomes your responsibility to cover your assets properly so you don't have to look here and there in turbulent times. 

How to configure send Mail or smtp in AIX

In this post I am going to explain how to configure a mail server in AIX because several times we need to receive mails from a server on completion of some script or for mailing regular reports about health of server to our mailbox.However I am gonna assume here that your mailbox is allowed to receive mail from the mail server and there is no issue of firewall and all.In such a case it's very simple.
1)Ping the mail server first of all to check there is no connectivity issue in between and the mail server and our server can talk to each other i.e if you want to configure mail server abc or smtp on server named xyz then first of all issue ping abc from server xyz aftrer loging into it to check for proper connectivity between two.
2)If step goes successful then we can move forward else you need to check with your networking team.Now open file /etc/sendmail.cf i.e vi /etc/sendmail.cf
3)In this file go to escape mode and search for pattern DS by pressing escape key and then enter /DS and again followed by enter.
4)Now After hitting enter once above press n to move to next occurrence in the file for the pattern.You will find something like DS only as written there.
5)Now put the name of the mail server after this DS like if our mail server here is abc then insert the entry like DSabc and save and exit.
6)Now we need to refresh the send mail daemon(thread).
7)So First check for the current condition of sendmail thread by
lssrc -s sendmail,it should display the state for the thread as active.
8)Refresh the daemon by
refresh -s sendmail
9)This completes your mail server installation,so now check by dropping a dummy mail to your mailbox.
10)You can send a dummy mail by following command.
mail -s "SYSTEM REPORT" -r abc.com mymailbox@asd.com < /etc/motd
where system report denotes subject of mail,abc.com denotes name of sender, mymailbox@asd.com denotes name of recipient and /etc/motd denotes matter of email.Refresh your mailbox to receive it.

This is a standard method to configure mail server in a company environment when mail server and our server are in customized domain.

ControlM Enterprise Server and Control Agent Processes

 In this post I am just going to mention about the process of ControlM EM server and controlM agent which should be up for a healthy system.So if you wanna check if your system is running fine just make sure each of these process is up.So first let see ControlM EM server.
EM server has 7 components ,each component has got a process associated with it.If process related to that component is running that means that component is running.

1)GUI Server Process--ecs.guisrv
2)Global Alert Server---ecs.gasrv -name <controlM EM server name>
3)Global Condition Server--ecs.gcsrv
4)Gateway Server--ecs.gtw -DC <Datacentre Name> which means basically controlM server name the output of which needs to be displayed by it.
5)Administrative Agent--ecs.maintag.
It is the first process to run and bring other process up as required.
6)Database:- Database process can be greped to check to check if database is running.

To start all components of EM directly go to home directory of EM server user and then go to scripts folder i.e go to %homedir/scripts and issue
./start-all for starting all components and
./stop-all for stopping all the components.
Now as far as Control M agent is concerned there are two process running in agent one is Tracker and other one is called as Listener.The tracker process name is p_ctmat while the name of the process for listener is p_ctmag.However in newer versions only listener process exists no tracker process is there.
There is also a third process called as p_ctmar(for routing purpose) but its a limited one.

So if both server and agent are installed on one machine then
ps -ef | grep -i p_ctm would display all process for servers as well as agent.
Another intresting thing to note is agent process are run by root not agent user unlike the case with EM server and  controlM server where there user is able to run these process here we need root priviliges for executing these.start-ag and shut-ag are the commands used to start and stop agent respectively.

So these are all the processes that needs to keep running on EM server and agent for them to keep running.Each of these process can be grep in UNIX boxes to see their PID and status.

Solution to Common issues with controlM server.

In this post I have tried to provide a solution to common issues faced by system administrators with contolM server.I will try to give a basic solution for the problems generally faced not each and every one and are in particular reference to system admins only.

Q1. How to upgrade ControlM Server and ControlM EM server?
Ans.It's not an easy task to upgrade controlm and EM server.First we need to take a dump of the database to have all the previous information then we need to stop the server then database then upgrade it obviously jobs needs to be on hold for that but its a very heavy exercise and should be avoided by you until you are experienced with it.

Q2. How to install and upgrade ControlM Agent?
Ans. Installing controlm agent is simple and menu driven just download the set up and install it.Now a days with new version of 6.4 agent gets installed automatically when server gets installed,however in previous versions you needed to install it seprately.
Upgrading a controlM agent is a simple task.You just need to download the updates from the net and then install them on the agent from the installation directory folder under controlm agent folder.The installation is simply menu driven simple next next types.

Q3. How to restart ControlM agent?
Ans.Go to the home directory of your controlm user,then go to ctm directory and in that go to scripts directory so if your control agent user is ctmu then go to /home/ctmu/ctm/scripts
there you will find two scripts start-ag for starting the agent and stop-ag for stopping the agent.So to restart or stopping the agent just issue start-ag or stop-ag in scripts folder if your environment variable are not set.
Log files for above would be formed in /home/ctmu/proclog.

Q4. How to enter the controlM server database?
Ans.Since controlM is not such a big application that we need separate database team to look after it generally admins only look after it.I am gonna describe about postgre database here only.So to enter database on controlm server just enter sql its a shortcut to enter database.Else issue command
psql -u username -p passowrd.

Q5.How to check connectivity between server and client.
Ans.To know the status of any agent from server we will issue   ctm_diag_comm <name of agent machine>
From Agent to server connectivity we issue.    ag-diag-comm no control me server name needed because one agent gets connected to one server only whose name we define at the time of installation.
These commands do two level of pinging one unix level ping and one controlm server level swing which take ports into account as well.So if your agent becomes unavailable then first check with unix level ping which is normal ping if that comes as fine then check for the agent to server port and server to agent port.So above commands can be used to look for connectivity or agent becoming unavailable issues.Also check if naming services are on.

Q6.How to stop and start the database?
Ans.Look for the proper script in script folder like check_all to display overall health
start-all and stop-all to start and stop server plus database while start-server and stop-server for stoping and starting server only not database.

Q7.How to configure database and check mirroring of database.
Ans.check_mirror is the command to check if mirroring is abled or disabled.However to set the mirroring use ctm_menu.To check the configuration file in case of postgre database go to /home/controlmuser/pgsql/data and edit postgresql.conf.To check database log go to pmg-log directory.

Other useful commands are:
ctmrpln-->run from controlm user used in case of mismatching of scheduling between EM server and controlM server.
ctmpsm-->Listing jobs and menu for all kind of work that can be done from EM server.Used in case of outage on EM server and from mainframes to handle jobs.

So these are some of the common questions and useful commands that come in handy while handling controlM server.

ControlM Server Processes

ControlM Architecture is built on 10 processes.
SU,SL,NS,TR,LG,CO,CD,CS,RT and WD
I am going to take up each process one by one and then explain the functionality for it.In UNIX we have processes and in windows these things are covered under services.Each process can have only one of the three defined states namely Running,Suspended or Terminated.
All these 10 process should be running and up for our controlM server to work fine else our server goes down.Before I start it better to mention that the parameters related to these process are stored in PREFLAGS directory i.e. whether the state of process is up or down.The directory is located under home directory(%homedir) of controlm user in version 6.2 and in version 6.4 uder %homedir/ctm-agent for agent and %homedir/ctm-server for server.There is also a directory called PID which contains the id of the processes.The logs are created in the directory called as PROCLOG.However,if we restart our controlM server the logs move from here to PROCLOG.SAVE.
Now lets take up each process one by one.

1)SU-The Supervisor Process  ProcessName: p_ctmsu
*Performs heartbeat monitoring for all other process.
*First process to start,very light.
*Responsible for changing any process to needed status and if any process is down tries to make it up till MAX-RETRY times.
*If process doesn't respond even after MAX-RETRY times then SU shuts down all other processes and suspends itself as well and server goes down.

2)SL-The Selector Process ProcessName: p_ctmsl
*Determines which jobs will be submitted for execution to OS.
*Maintains information about ControlM Server active environment
*Checks whether proper condition for the job to run and resources required by the job exist or not.
*Performs partial job processing action.
*Responsible for updating the AJF(Active Job File) after each job,so whenever we see a color change in our monitoring tool it's due to this process.

3)NS-The Network Server Process Name: p_ctmns
*Manage the communication to all ControlM agents.
*Listen Agent to Server Port-default:7005
*When a message arrives from the agent,NS send a trigger to a process that will handle the request.
*Maintain list of agent and check the status of agent.
*Updates agents status files and notifies TR,SL,CD and CS process by trigger.

4)TR-The Tracker Process Name: p_ctmtr
*Updates status of jobs(Ended,Executing,Analyzed)
*Performs late execution shouts
*Performs periodical 'Track All' operation to update job in case controlM server was down,a Trigger to NS was lost or a message from controlM /Agent was lost.

5)CO-Communication Gateway Process Name: p_ctmco
*Serialize request that comes from Control-M/EM or from the CD
*Handles request like DB-UPDATE,SYNC,Download
*It analyzes request and then send them to appropriate destination
*CO refreshes gateway when NDP(New Day Procedure) happens.

6)LG-The Logger Process Name:p_ctmlg
*Performs all the logging related tasks

7)CS-The Communication Service Process Name: p_ctmcs
*No entry for CS in the PREFLAGS directory because its a temporary process.
*User limit can be set(min/max)
*All request to CO pass through CS.

8)RT-The Communication Router Process Name: p_ctmrt
*Used for internal routing

9)WD-The WatchDog Process Name: p_ctmwd
*Monitors essential controlM process and resources and sends an appropriate alert when there is a problem.
*Can be enabled via configuration parameter in config.dat file
*Works at diiferent level than SU to prepare log at different levels.

10)CD-The Data download Process Name: p_ctmcd
*Responsible for exchanging dat with RT.

So this a detailed view of the architecture of the controlM server at the architecture level regarding to the process.All these process should be up and running for the server to run fine.

Campus Placements at Tihar Jail

Today I read an article about 14 inmates at Tihar Jail getting recruited in campus placements.Now this was something unusual and at least I heard of something like that for the first time.All the time we keep reading about the campus placements of the premier technical and management institutions of the country where we hear or read about the success stories of the creamy students getting landed into dream jobs offering millions of dollars but that was something which was clearly off the track.

You don't get to hear the name of Tihar jail in papers for any careers and placements related cause,all the time its about landing of some high profile criminals landing there when we see its name in the news papers.So a new like campus placements for prisoners was something catching the attention automatically.

In today's world when so called colleges which charge you a hefty amount of money are not able to make sure you land in a well deserved job or some which don't even get a single company on their campus but display 100% placements in their big ads leaving their students all cheated for their money such an effort by Tihar jail administration deserves a laud right from the heart for giving such an important opportunity to a prisoner to once again start his life from a new beginning.

46 inmates were interviewed out of which 14 got the offer letter and those who didn't are waiting for the next company to make their cut.The position offered varied from data entry operator to executive in marketing in companies of National Repute like Agarwal Packers and Movers,leading company in its niche.

I would really like to salute the spirit of jail officials and companies which came forward to help these people and gave them once again a chance to live life with dignity.

Among them there are many people who have completed their entire education in jail and now hold master level degrees.It clearly reflects their will to succeed in life because studying at a place like prison which I think is gonna to be the last place to be associated with something called education.These are the people which glarify the thought that nothing is impossible in life but at the same time it brings out a lesson for us that we sometimes don't understand the value of things we have,we don't care about how fortunate we are that we are able to go to good college and receive education and many of us just squander this opportunity.

So initiatives like this should be rewarded by the government and get support from our entrepreneurs and local pubic so that prisons no longer remain a place to rot and underground offices of our mafias but a place for reform which is the basic aim of making prisons. 

So instead of filling the columns of newspaper with praise of somebody who gets 1crore job in a MNC from topmost college of country its more fruitful to bring initiatives like this to the limelight because a person who lands in 1crore job doesn't need any top most college to transform him,you take the cream so you produce the cream as simple as that.That person was already polished diamond you just wrapped it up nicely and sold it in market.But it's people like prisoners who understand the value of freedom and to maintain a descent image in society once transformed so any effort which helps a man to give him another shot at life is worth the support and time to spend.So I hope all the deserving inmates land in a descent job and have a nice new life.

Architecture of ControlM Enterprise Server

In my previous post I described about the basic architecture of ContolM Enterprise Server.In this post I am going to describe the architecture of ControlM Enterprise Server in further detail.Before that I am going to just review back the basics discussed in previous post.
ControlM EM server is primarily used for GUI process.It is used to display the status of information related to the processing of jobs in GUI form,also it is used for connecting two different ControlM servers which can't talk directly to each other.As far as architecture part is concerned its primarily defined into 4 parts as described in my   previous post.
1)Database
2)Configuration Agent
3)ControlM Web Server
4)Naming Services (NS)
Database which is in sync with with database of controlM server holds information about jobs of one or more controlM server and is divided into two partition one having active job information and one having permanent job defintion.
Configuration Agent which is used for routing information between EM server and database and deciding the state of EM server components whether we want them to be up or down.The information between GUI server and database also goes through Configuration Agent.
ControlM Web Server is used to generate a url so that we can using that url connect to EM server and its database,no need to install large umber of clients on different machines.
Naming Services which act as a repository and resolves the name of Control M EM server for the gui client.


So this was the basic structure of Control M EM server as discussed previously by me
Now I am going to further discuss about the 7 other components of EM server which acts as add on and can be made up or off as per requirement.


The 7 other components are:

1)GUI Server also called as GSR

2)Global Alerts Server(GAS)

3)Configuration Manager Server(CMS)

4)Forecast Server(FS)

5)Batch Impact Manager(BIM)

6)Global Conditions Server(GCS)

7)Gateway

GUI Server:-This is the main server which is responsible for handling all the GUI related issues.If this server is down we wont able to handle or see information about the alerts on GUI panels.Though we will be able to login to the server if naming services are up but if GUI server is down we wont be able to see anything.


Global Alert Server(GAS):-This is responsible for shouting of alerts which gets generated when jobs overrun or gets delayed.This is the screen where monitoring team people in companies see the alerts and then generate the tickets for the corresponding teams.Now third party tools can be integrated in this component like patrol.
But this part is dependent on GUI server since we can see alerts only if  GUI server is up.


Configuration Manager Server:-This part is responsible for routing the information within the components.TCP/IP is the protocol used for communication within these components.So this part need to be up for proper communication within these components.


Forecast Server:-This is more of a Data mining sort of tool which is used to predict some information about the jobs by studying about the permanent job definitions stored in the database of controlM server.We can query from the databse about the job and see when is job next time scheduled to run,what conditions does it nedded etc.Also it need GUI server for the display purpose.

Batch Impact Manager:-This is used to self troubleshoot the machine means suppose we want some component to be up then BIM will try to make that component up when it goes down and suppose we have a flow of jobs with us which needs to start at some particular time and get finish at some particular time then if by any reason jobs gets stuck in between and are not able to move further from a particular node point in path flow of jobs BIM will automatically check if that node point can be ignored and jobs can be transfered to next node point , in case its not posssible to move jobs to next node point then BIM is going to notify us how much time more its gonna take to finish up the jobs or what's the shortest path that we can follow now so as to finish the jobs on the required time.

Global Condition Server:-This is required when we have a job which needs to get executed on two or more different controlM server so the global conditions for that job are executed from this component because we need a EM server for the connectivity between two control M server.

Gateway:-as the name suggest is responsible for connecting Control M EM server with Control M server.All the traffic passes through it,however it doesn't has got any buffering capacity of its own like a Global Alerts Server so if large number of request are sent for processing more than the capacity of gateway to handle the request they often get dropped and we see gateway error.

So this completes a basic overview of the architecture of ControlM EM server.For more details refer the site of BMC. 

Basics of Control M Architecture

As a system administrator or scheduler you will frequently hear about Control M and will frequently come accross issues associated with it.In this post I am gonna tell about the basics of Control M architecture and will try to give a fair idea about what control M is all about.It's basically aimed for new bees to help them generate an overview about what the tool is used for , what's its utility and what is the architecture behind it.
So let's start first by defining what is control M

What is Control M ?
Control M is nothing but a scheduler.Its a software produced by BMC corporation.It can be said as a scheduling plus monitoring tool.For those of you who don't know what scheduler is and what is its function,scheduler can be described as a software or program which runs your jobs(basically means scripts to be run ) automatically at a specified time.Like for those who have a idea of UNIX crontab file is nothing but a OS level scheduler where we mention date and time for the required job or script to run and the OS runs that scripts for us on appropriate time.But the handling capacity of crontab is not much and we cant have complex conditioning involved in scheduling a job with crontab so in more complex environments we need some automation tool like Control M which automatically schedules jobs based on their scheduling criteria of date,time,priority,pre conditions and resource availability.To know in detail what is scheduling click here.So now we know what is control M

Schematic view of Control M suite

                                    Schematic View of Controm M Architecture

Description of Control M Product Suite

So now lets have a brief description of each component of ControlM Suite.

Essentially ControlM suite consists of three basic components namely

a)Control M Enterprise Manager Server(EM server)

b)Control M Server

c)Control M Agent(Agent) 

So lets talk about each one.

a) Control M Enterprise Manager Server(EM Server):

This part is primarily responsible for the GUI part.Its always installed on midrange server.EM server has got 4 major components.The prime functionality of this EM server is to display you the output in GUI format of information regarding the processing of jobs.It is to this component that monitoring teams or those of us who use client of Control M Desktop connect to.So all the information that we want to see regarding alerts,jobs condition,job processing are done by this part.Mind it this doesn't process jobs.It only shows or display you the processed output jobs are executed at controlM server level only.Also a EM server can connect to many controlM server but not vice versa.The second utility that this part has is that it is used to connect two or more different ControlM servers together.Two different controlM servers cannot directly talk to each other,they need a ControlM EM server in between them to communicate.The EM server has 4 major components:

Database                                                    Configuration Agent

ControlM Web Server                                 Naming Services(NS)

Besides these 4 major components EM server has got 7 different add on components which can be turned off or on as per the requirement.

1)GUI Server also called as GSR

2)Global Alerts Server(GAS)

3)Configuration Manager Server(CMS)

4)Forecast Server(FS)

5)Batch Impact Manager(BIM)

6)Global Conditions Server(GCS)

7)Gateway

Thee functionality of each component is self explanatory by the name of the component,however detailed study of them I will cover in next post.So as for now we will stick to 4 major components

a.1)EM Server Database:-->EM server has got its own database which is in real time sync with the database of controlM server.Database can be primarily divided into two parts: one having Permanent Job Definitions and one having Active Job Definitions.Though I am still going to cover controlM server database but its better here only to differentiate between the two.

The database of controlM server is also divided into same two category like that of controlM EM server,however the difference in architectural level comes by the fact that in the Active job part of database contains jobs from different control M servers unlike control M server level where only jobs of that controlM server exists in it's database.The jobs are stored in tables form in database which are stored as NETs at database level in EM server database.

a.2)Configuration Agent(CA)--->It's is primarily used for routing information between database and EM server.Also information regarding the states of 7 add on components mentioned above is stored here that whether we want them to be up or down.The information between database and GUI server goes through CA.

a.3)Naming Service(NS)----->It's based on server-client model.It is based on CORBA.It's nothing but a repostiory used to connect desktop GUI client to controlM EM GUI server by resolving the name of the EM server.If the NS are down we wont be to connect to EM server because of the inability of the client machine to resolve the name of client and get address of server to connect to.  

a.4)ControlM Web Server---->Introduced in version 6.4.It primarily frees us from installing many client machines.No need to install seprate client,install web server it will generate a URL for all clients to access EM and database via it.Advantage comes when we need tp patch our server and clients.Single patching of web server saves us from trouble of installing patch of different version on different machines.                          

So this covers the basic architecture of control M EM server.Moving to ControlM server

b)ControlM Server

Next is heart of the system controlM server.Its primarily divided into

Configuration Agent                          ControlM server                    Database

b.1)Configuration Agent:---->This is responsible for connecting ControlM server to ControlM EM server.It basically connects to CMS part of EM server so that one can control the controlM server from controlM EM server via GUI mode,so this is basically used for the connectivity purpose between ControlM EM server and ControlM server

b.2)ControlM Server---->This is the main central point of whole system.It is the part which fetched job from the database checks their scheduling criteria that their time,conditions etc are matched and then schedule the jobs and sends them to agent for execution while keeping track of the status of job on agent continuously.

b.3)Database--->The database is obviously needed here to store the permanent definitions of the jobs.The architectural difference between database at EM level and controlM server level I have already discussed above,rest all is same for both.

Now we come to final component 

c)ControlM Agent

This is where the jobs actually executes when scheduled by controlM server.The server checks the agent regularly and communicate via fixed port number.Often we here about term "agentless" it means there is only one agent machine connected to controlM server and all other agents connect to that machine to get in touch with server.This helps when agent needs to be upgrades however single point of failure also comes into picture.Otherwise nothing much to discuss here in architecture level.

So that wrap's it up.I have tried to give the basic understanding og ControlM at architecture level,some of the points worth mentioning here that,Each of the component ControlM EM server,controlM server,Agent are platform independent and there mutual communication is also platform independent,one can on UNIX other on Windows.SecondlyTCP/IP is the protocol used by these components to exchange information within themselves however CORBA is used to talk between ControlM Desktop GUI client and EM Server.

The process level differentiation involves advance things so not tried to touch those things here.

BP and Reliance enters $7.2billion deal,lets hope its not a scam this time.

If all goes well BP(British Petroleum)-Reliance deal could turn out to be the biggest FDI investment in India.Estimated at $7.2Billion  currently,if all other factors for the deal are taken into account the deal is valued at around $20billion surpassing Posco's $12 billion FDI deal.


BP has agreed to buy 30% stake in 23 oil and gas exploration blocks of Reliance for about $7.2billion  to explore for deepwater oil and gas.BP would also pay an additional $1.8billion to Reliance if any commercially viable exploration or findings are achieved after the tie up.


This is the second major deal signed by BP under its new CEO Bob Dudley.Previous one was agreement of joint exploration of oil and gas in the Arctic with Russian govt. owned Rosneft.BP is betting big here with such deals especially when its recovering itself from the last years loss due to Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill when it wpas made to pay billions of dollars as punitive measure.


However as BP people say its a part of BP strategy to gain its ground in emerging energy needs markets.The companies said the future performance payments and the combined investment could amount to $20 billion in total. 


Reliance Industries are set to gain access cutting edge technology with this deal while BP is said to gain  access to new deep water blocks for gas and oil exploration purpose including KG D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari basin which is the richest block of RIL and is aimed to reach a peak production capacity of 80million cubic meters in 2013.


So its all good that India is finally attracting foreign investors for such huge investments but a word of caution should be used here,because it has become a trend here in India that you pay bribe to some minister to win cheap contracts of anything from spectrum allocation to oil exploration blocks and then you sell that thing to some foreign MNC on huge amounts and become one of the richest man in India,similar case must be kept in mind here unless we don't want again to see a 2G spectrum fraud,because point to come in mind is if Reliance or India doesn't have required technology expertise of oil and gas sector wouldn't it be better we import that new technology from outside instead of allotting already scarce and so valuable national resources to some foreign giant.And if Reliance doesn't have the required technology expertise how were they qualified to go for exploration bids,so I hope this time our government properly gear up the channels because every time we see or hear of India rising we see a scam behind it