An (Idle / Idol) Patriot

Patriotism is being a responsible and understanding part of the community. Patriotism denotes positive attitudes by individuals to their own civic or political community, to its culture, its members, and to its interests. Where each morning flourishes with it a bunch of vibrant rays empowering a flurry of new hopes, exuberance of confidence, and a feeling of oneness in its people. The word is derived from the Latin patria, fatherland, which has a much broader meaning than a geographical territory.

To some, patriotism has connotations of self-sacrifice, implying that the individual should place the interests of the community above their personal interests, and in extreme cases their lives. Others, however, associate patriotism with the common good, with the aim of responding to conflicts in ways which ensure that everyone benefits. As such, patriotism has ethical connotations: it implies that the political community is in some way a moral standard or moral value in itself. The primary implication of patriotism in ethics is that a person has more moral duties to fellow members of the political community, as distinct from non-members.

The people of India were indeed blessed in the galaxy of great men who led the country’s struggle for independence – Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, C. Rajagopalachari, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and many others. Foremost among these was Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of our nation. Albert Einstein said of him “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood walked this earth”. Using against the British rulers in India the techniques of non-violent civil disobedience that he had forged, from 1893 to 1914, in his anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi waged a unique battle with unique weapons. It ended with a victory – independence for India – that was free of the hatred, the bitterness, the smouldering resentment that so often marks the end of such struggles elsewhere in the world.

As we already got the 'Independence' and so now its all of our responsibility to maintain that! So, my dear fellow Indians, according to me, we need not do self-sacrifice, need not change others, need not give any dhamaka ( as in the Movie Rang-De-Basanti). We just need to maintain the moral standard or moral value in ourselves. We just need to be honest to ourselves, honest in the things we do, trustworty towards the people surrounded by us. Let all of us try to be an "Idol Patriot" inspite of idle patriot!

"The day we take complete responsibility for ourself, the day we stop making any excuses, that's the day we start to the top."

Most Often Used Networking Terminology in Business Objects Product Suite

Some of the Networking terminology which is used in the "Business Objects" Product Suite:-

1) Apache is generally recognized as the world's most popular Web server (HTTP server). Originally designed for Unix servers, Apache has been ported to Windows and other network operating systems (NOS). The name "Apache" derives from the word "patchy" that the Apache developers used to describe early versions of their software.

Apache provides a full range of Web server features, including CGI, SSL, and virtual domains. Apache also supports plug-in modules for extensibility. Apache is reliable, free, and relatively easy to configure.

The Apache HTTP server is free software distributed by the Apache Software Foundation. The Apache Software Foundation promotes various free and open source advanced Web technologies.

2) An API (Appilication Programming Interface) allows computer programmers to access the functionality of pre-built software modules. An API defines data structures and subroutine calls. Networking APIs are entry points to libraries that implement network and data communication protocols.

3) The word "cluster" is used broadly in computer networking to refer to a number of different implementations of shared computing resources. Typically, a cluster integrates the resources of two or more computing devices (that could otherwise function separately) together for some common purpose.

A Web server farm (a collection of networked Web servers, each with access to content on the same site) function as a cluster conceptually. However, purists may debate the classification of a server farm as a cluster, depending on the details of the hardware and software configuration. It is important to recognize that network clustering involves a long past history of research and development with many offshoots and variations.

4) The term "crash" refers to a critical failure in a computer, network device, or software. Crashes often occur with little or no warning. As evidenced by the number of different synonyms employed over the years, crashes have a long and colorful history in computer networking.

5) DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) is a firewall configuration for securing local area networks (LANs).

In a DMZ configuration, most computers on the LAN run behind a firewall connected to a public network like the Internet. One or more computers also run outside the firewall, in the DMZ. Those computers on the outside intercept traffic and broker requests for the rest of the LAN, adding an extra layer of protection for computers behind the firewall.

Traditional DMZs allow computers behind the firewall to initiate requests outbound to the DMZ. Computers in the DMZ in turn respond, forward or re-issue requests out to the Internet or other public network, as proxy servers do. The LAN firewall, though, prevents computers in the DMZ from initiating inbound requests.

6) The DNS (Domain Name Server) translates Internet domain and host names to IP addresses. DNS automatically converts the names we type in our Web browser address bar to the IP addresses of Web servers hosting those sites.

DNS implements a distributed database to store this name and address information for all public hosts on the Internet. DNS assumes IP addresses do not change (are statically assigned rather than dynamically assigned).

7) An extranet is a computer network that allows controlled access from the outside for specific business or educational purposes. Extranets are extensions to, or segments of, private intranet networks that have been built in many corporations for information sharing and ecommerce.

8) Filesharing in computer networking involves copying files from one computer to another using a live network connection. Filesharing is sometimes called "file swapping."

9) A network firewall protects a computer network from unauthorized access. Network firewalls may be hardware devices, software programs, or a combination of the two.

Network firewalls guard an internal computer network (home, school, business intranet) against malicious access from the outside. Network firewalls may also be configured to limit access to the outside from internal users.

10) FTP allows one to transfer files between computers on the Internet. Technically, FTP is a simple network protocol based on IP, but many also use the term "FTP" to refer to this type of file sharing service.

The FTP service is based on a client/server architecture. An FTP client program initiates a connection to a remote computer running FTP server software. After the connection is established, the client can choose to send and/or receive copies of files, singly or in groups. To connect to an FTP server, a client generally requires a username and password as set by the administrator of the server.

11) HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is an application layer network protocol built on top of TCP. HTTP allows Web browsers and Web servers to communicate. HTTP clients and servers communicate via request and response messages.

HTTP utilizes TCP port 80 by default, though other ports such as 8080 are also used.

12) A hub is a small, simple, inexpensive network device that joins multiple computers together.

13) IIS (Internet Information Server) is Microsoft's business-class Web server. Although Apache boasts more total worldwide installations than IIS, many corporations choose IIS as their Web server because it is supported by a commercial organization.

14) Intranet is the generic term for a collection of private computer networks within an organization. Intranets are communication tools designed to enable easy information sharing within workgroups.

15) Ping (Packet Internet Gopher) is the name of a standard network utility packaged with popular network operating systems. The utility can be used to determine if a remote device (such as Web or game server) can be reached on the network and, if so, roughly how fast the current connection is.

16) A port number represents an endpoint or "channel" for network communications. Port numbers allow different applications on the same computer to utilize network resources without interfering with each other.

17) A VPN (Virtual Private Network) utilizes public telecommunications networks to conduct private data communications. Most VPN implementations use the Internet as the public infrastructure and a variety of specialized protocols to support private communications through the Internet.

18) A WAN (Wide Area Networks) spans a large geographic area, such as a state, province or country. WANs often connect multiple smaller networks, such as local area networks (LANs) or metro area networks (MANs).

19) In computer networking, a workgroup is a collection of computers on a local area network (LAN) that share common resources and responsibilities. Workgroups provide easy sharing of files, printers and other network resources. Being a peer-to-peer (P2P) network design, each workgroup computer may both share and access resources if configured to do so.

20) Authentication is a procedure that establishes the legitimacy of users and defines the parameters of the sessions they establish. As such, authentication can be thought of as a security measure that controls and defines network access. It is always the first part of a session; the range of authentication parameters that can be set depend upon the specific authentication system employed.

Intro to Oracle10G - Grid Computing

Grid is a type of parallel & distributed system that enables the sharing, selection, and aggregation of geographically distributed "autonomous" resources dynamically at runtime depending on their availability, capability, performance, cost, and users' quality-of-service requirements.

Oracle 10G Overview

The main thrust of the new features and enhancements of Oracle 10g are towards grid computing which is an extension of the clustering features (Real Application Clusters) introduced with Oracle 9i.

The 'G' stands for Grid Computing. A common missconception seems to be that grid is just the new name for RAC (having improved RAC). This is not the case. 10g comes with both RAC and grid. One will be able to install 10g with RAC only or with grid only, without either and with both.

Grid Computing

Way back in the 1980s companies like Digital Equipment Corp developed clustering technology which allowed two or more computers to to appear as if they were just one to the end-user, thereby enabling load-balancing and hot standby. Oracle (for release 9i) absorbed this technology into the database software so that databases could benefit from the load-balancing and hot-standby capabilities without having to worry about installing addditional clustering software or manually switching users from one database instance to another should a failure occur and just as importantly, without the application having to be cluster-aware.

That was one stepping stone in the evolutionary process, but recently companies like Sun Microsystems have been extending the concept of clusters to be able to include different types (makes) of computers running different operating systems in a "pool" of computing resources that can be made available as and when required to meet peak demands and then released back into the pool when no longer needed (so that other applications may use the resources). The idea of Oracle10g is that the database will be able to dynamically "requisition" resources from the pool (the grid) to meet levels of peak demand. Again the grid can be heterogeneous (i.e. different types of hardware and/or operating systems).

The motivation for the developmnet of grid computing is to reduce the need to have dedicated resources sized for peak capacity. Research has shown that the average CPU usage is only 15-20% and storage usage is only 50%. Having dedicated resources for each major application also means that there can be a large number of systems to maintain. The solution to this is to create a grid - a pool of low-cost servers + storage that can be allocated to applications to meet peak loads.

Other enhancements for Oracle10g are aimed at reducing costs and improving the quality of service by making the database easier to deploy and manage including backup and recovery and data warehosuing enhancements.