Keith Chapman's Blog

My worst trip to the US - On my way to Purdue

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:17:00 +0000

This has undoubtedly been my worst trip to the US. Oh boy it was all going wrong right from the start. Well I thought that my flight was at 2.15 AM so I planned to get to the airport at 11.45 PM which would give me 2 and a half hours (which is most often than not more than enough). Well we got to the airport around 12 and I proceeded through the security checks to the checking area. Believe it or not the queue was soooo long and I was standing at the entrance to the checking area. I would guess that there were around a 150 passengers ahead of me. To my great relief I was not alone there were several other passengers on the same flight to heathrow around me. Having traveled before it was pretty clear that at the pace the queue was moving I wouldn't get to the checking desk in time. So i went up to a Sri Lankan Airlines ground hostess and inquired about the situation. She didn't seem concerned and simply said that most of the passengers in the queue are on the same flight. Well Sri Lankan airlines should take the blame for putting passengers into that situation. The heathrow flight was to leave at 2 AM and another flight to Rome via Paris was to leave at 2.45 AM and these dumb idiots (Well thats the most decent word that comes to my mind at this moment) were checking in all these passengers on the same queue. I don't think it can get any worser. Anyway around 1.40 AM (there were still more than a 25 passengers ahead of me at that time) they gave priority to the Heathrow passengers and checked us in. Cool so you checking with just 15 mins to go. By this time I was well aware that the flight would not leave on time, to make matters even worse my transit at London was just 2 hours.

Well so I checked in and went through immigration and to my surprise the gate was just at the point where you end immigration. Normally you would do up there stairs and through the duty free area and head towards the gates. Now it was pretty clear to me that this was something new and I heard on news that they had opened up the Airport viewing area just a week ago. This move shows how silly the Sri Lankan authorities are. In order to make use of the viewing area they make a new gate (well renovate the old one) and take passengers on a bus to the plane (Just like they did in the good old days). Well the viewing area makes no sense cause now they have the air bridge which they didn't have back in the time that the viewing area was in place. Having spent so much money, time and effort in a air bridge they abandon that and go back to taking passengers by bus to the air craft. Oh god people cannot do sillier things than that.

Ok so I make it to the aircraft at 2.15 and it was 3 AM when the flight finally left. This meant that my transit time was now cut down to an hour. Luckily there were no other hiccups and I was able to make the connection. This was the first time that I was flying Virgin Atlantic, the flight took off 10 minutes before schedule (I was just wondering, were they able to transfer my luggage in 50 minutes?) and was on track to land at Chicago O'Hare airport at 1.30 PM. 35 minutes out from O'Hare the captain speaks and says that we have started our decent and that we would be on the ground at the scheduled time. Cool, my next flight to Indianapolis was at 6.05 PM so I was making plans for what I would do in O'Hare. Roam around the duty free shops, grad some lunch and maybe have a nap as well. I was watching the flight path on the screen and I noticed that we were making a u turn, well this normally happens at busy airports where you have to roam in the air till you get a landing slot. We went in a circle twice and then the captain comes online again to deliver some news. Well the news was not good at all, he said that the weather down in O'hare was rotten and that there was a storm and that we would have to divert into Milwalki for refueling. So we land in Milwalki around 2 PM. The gentlemen next to me said that we wont be in O'Hare for another couple of hours at least. OK that got me thinking, will I miss my connection? The captain came online and said that we are waiting for a refueling truck and that it would take 20 mins to refuel once the truck arrives and that we should be good to go. Although that news was very encouraging the refueling truck didn't arrive for more than a hour and it was 4 PM when we got off the ground. Whew I thought I've had it all and whats next? So we land in O'Hare by 4.30 and start taxing to the gate. The captain comes online again and says that there is a Air Mexican flight at the gate assigned to us and that the gate would be free anytime between 5 and 25 minutes. My flight was at 6 and by this time I was very concerned as to whether I would make the connection. It was 5.30 when we got to the gate and with just 30 mins to go I had almost given it up. Nevertheless once I got off the flight I start running to the immigration area in a bid to get through immigration and run to catch my flight. Well well it was not to be so, when I got to the queue there were more than 200 passengers in the queue. I gave up hopes of making my connection (Although I was harboring hopes that the American Airlines flight might be delayed too :)). It was 6.30 when I got through immigration, so I go to the baggage belt and look for my bag. I also was on the look out for a cart to get my luggage on to but there weren't any available so I thought that I will first get the luggage and then look for it (Cause I may not need one if it had not arrived :)). There was no sign of my bag and the conveyor was still so I asked the guy over there whether there was more luggage to be unloaded. Just then he asked me my last name and checked a piece of paper and said that both my bags are in London. Cool, so I have no baggages to carry, that made it even easier, so I went through customs and went to the American Airlines desk and asked a guy there about my flight. He said that it has been canceled and directed me to the American airlines desk. So I change terminals and go there to find a 100 people in the queue, all of then been on the same boat (missed connections). Luckily you could call American and request for a re-booking, so I went to there customer service line and tried it out. They said that the other two flights for that night were overbooked too and that the next available flight was at 3.45 PM the following day. I was planning to be at the university that night in order to attend the orientation session on Monday. Next I tried calling Chamikara and discussed what could be done. My options were, Ask Virgin Atlantic for a Hotel and take the 3.45 flight the following day, Try my luck with the 8.30 PM shuttle for Purdue (This was already overbooked otherwise I would have been on that), stay at Chicago and take the shuttle the following day. When I checked with the shuttle there was one available for 12.30 PM the following day. So I went back to Virgin Atlantic and requested for a Hotel, They were kind enough to give me a Hotel room and meals at the Marriot in Chicago. So I stayed at the Marriot and got the shuttle the following afternoon to Purdue. The shuttle normally takes 3 hours but guess what the shuttle had to detour due to an accident on 65. To make matters even worse there was another accident on the alternate path too. Phew is there anything else to happen?

Well at last it was 5.30 PM when I got to Purdue. I was glad that Chamikara was there to pick me up. Well I had planned for delayed luggage and carried cloths for a week in my hand luggage :). So I didn't have to sleep under bed sheets like a few of my friends had to do once. Well they would be laughing there guts out now if they were reading this. Well thats not the end of the story though but thats more than enough for this post....

live web panel discussion: Componentization and enterprise SOA

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:38:00 +0000

Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, WSO2 founder and CEO, and Paul Fremantle, co-founder and CTO, will be leading the discussion titled "What does componentization really mean for your SOA? tomorrow (April 30, 9:00-10:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00-1:00 p.m. Eastern). They will bring extensive expertise in SOA and the OSGi specification that is enabling SOA middleware componentization.

They will be drawing from the experience they have gained in developing the revolutionary Carbon platform.

For more details on this discussion please refer here.

LTTE's Connections to the WEST

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:28:00 +0000

The following banners depict how much the WEST is supporting the LTTE a banned terrorist organisation.

WSO2 Mashup Server - What can it do for you?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:18:00 +0000

If you were wondering what the WSO2 Mashup Server can do, here is a nice little flash demo that explains that very thing in a couple of minutes.

How will the Recession Effect SOA's

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:29:00 +0000

Lots of companies are cutting IT costs and IT projects are put on hold, so how would the recession effect SOA projects?

One might think that there will be a reduction in SOA projects but that's not true, this poll shows that 85% believe that SOA projects could reduce cost and hence increase your chances of facing this recession.

Whats more mature Open Source SOA frameworks such as WSO2's SOA framework help you reduce cost further. So make sure you have a peep at it if you are on the hunt for SOA products.

The role of ESB's in a SOA

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:48:00 +0000

ESB's (Enterprise Service Bus) have a big role to play in an SOA. Don't take my word for it take a look at the results of this poll which shows that 84% use an ESB in there SOA. Some use multiple.

If you are on the look for an Lightweight Open Source ESB make sure you checkout the WSO2 ESB.

Creating OSGI Bundles using the Maven Bundle Plugin

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:17:00 +0000

If you are involved with a project or a piece of Software that requires that your jars be OSGI bundles then this tutorial is for you. This tutorial by Sameera explains how the Maven bundle Plugin comes to your rescue. We use it extensivelyy in are WSO2 Carbon based projects at WSO2.

This article would also help users who are trying to deploy custom mediators on the WSO2 ESB 2.0.

The need for Business Processors in your SOA

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:06:00 +0000

What is a business process?
Why are business processors important in an SOA?
Can your SOA be more agile with the use of a business process?
Do we need a standard to describe business processors?
What role does BPEL play in a business Process?
What is the WSO2 Business Process Server?
Can a business process be secured, made to be reliable or its access be throttled?

Are you looking for answers to these questions? Then this Webinar is for you. This Webinar is presented by Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO of WSO2 and founding author of BPEL4WS, and Milinda Pathirage, project lead for WSO2 BPS.

WSO2 Business Process Server and Carbon - Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:06:00 +0000

In this Podcast Dennis Byron talks to Paul Fremantle the CTO of WSO2 on the newly launched WSO2 Business Process Server. Paul also touches on the benefits the WSO2 BPS got by being built on the Carbon Platform.

Axis2 - First Element must contain the local name, Envelope

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:58:00 +0000

This Exception could occur on both the server side or the client side. This exception is thrown when trying to build the SOAP envelope from the response (or request in the case of server side). The server is expecting a SOAP response but it receives something else (That does not have a SOAP envelope).

The easiest way to resolve this issue is to use a tool such as TCPMonitor and monitor the request and response. That will help you diagnose where the problem is.

Terror Attack on Cricket - Our Beloved Game

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:11:00 +0000

Today was a sad day for Cricket. The reason was the terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. Reading through the news it does seem that the Sri Lankan team was extremely lucky.

It was reported that a rocket flew past the bus. Imagine what would have happened if the driver was hit? What if they took our whole team hostage? What if that rocket hit the bus? The results would have been tragic. We should be happy that it was a lucky escape.

I saw in one of the news that Kumara Sangakkara was quoted as saying" i do not regret playing in lahore". Kudus to the spirit that Sangakkara showed. Terror is everywhere, there is no place thats a 100% safe.

Some people may argue saying that Sri Lanka should not have toured Pakistan, I dont agree with them a bit though. It was a united team from Pakistan and India that came down to Sri Lanka in 1996 when several teams (Australia and the West Indies) refused to come and play in Sri Lanka. This was during the world cup of 1996. We should stand for each other especially in times of difficulty. A stick can be broken easily, but it takes a mighty effort to break a pile of sticks tied together.

Imagine what would have happened if this was the Indian team been attacked in Pakistan? India would have put the blame on Pakistan saying that they were involved. There is so much that the military can do to avoid these incidents.

I sinceerly hope that the 2011 world cup would stay in the Sub Continent.

How to set up WSO2 WSAS on Apache Tomcat

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:27:00 +0000

WSO2 WSAS can be run standalone (When WSAS is run standalone it runs on a embedded instance of Apache Tomcat), but there may be instances where users would want to run it on another Application Server. This Knowledge-Base article from Chamara explains how WSO2 WSAS can be set up on Apache Tomcat.

Note : This applies for WSO2 WSAS 3.0 and above.

Open Source SOA Platform - Everything you need to build SOAs

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:25:00 +0000

There are many proprietary as well as Open Source SOA products in the market. Most of these vendors (if not all) do not offer a Complete set of tools to build SOA's. Some of them may offer an ESB and a Governance Solution while another may offer just an ESB and so on. So isn't there a single Vendor that offers a Complete SOA stack?

Well not really, If you've heard of WSO2 then you would have heard about our SOA platform. I see three distinct advantages in WSO2's SOA platform.

Its a Complete Platform which offers everything you need to build your SOA - What WSO2 provides is not a set of isolated products, its a complete SOA platform where each product can work with another on the same platform. It provides tools for Service creation in Various Languages (Java, C, C++, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, JavaScript) , Service Composition, SOA Governance, Tools to Consume Services in various languages (Java, C, C++, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, JavaScript), and tools for Connecting Services.
Its completely Open Source under the Apache License - No Gimmicks, No Community version or Enterprise Version. What you get is Production quality code and its free for you to use the way you wish.
Enterprise level Support from WSO2 which comprise of a set of leaders in the SOA space. You get consultancy from the Architects and the Engineers themselves, Engineers who know every hook and corner of the products.

Interested? All of these products are released under the Apache Licence (No Strings attached) so go ahead download it and try it out yourself. You can provide us your feedback by posting your comments on our forums or dropping us a mail.

Show Twitter Updates on Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:14:00 +0000

I just added a widget that shows my Twitter updates on this blog. This could be done trivially by visiting this page.

What is the WSO2 Business Process Server?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:00:00 +0000

The WSO2 Business Process Server which was released a couple of weeks ago is the latest addition to its Open Source SOA Stack. In this podcast Milinda Pathirage the lead developer of the project explains what the WSO2 Business Process Server is and how its fits into your SOA. He also touches on the advantages the business process server gained by been built on top of the WSO2 Carbon platform.

The Financial Crisis - What is it really?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:03:00 +0000

We've been hearing of this Financial Crisis for a few months now. We've heard of banks going bankrupt, people loosing jobs and so on. We've also heard about the whole financial system falling down and the notion of this been a vicious cycle. How did the world get into this mess?

Here are a couple of great presentations by Jonathan Jarvis, that explains this using visuals. Its a great resource for people like me who do not understand this financial jargon.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized - Part 1

The Crisis of Credit Visualized - Part 2

Looking to expose legacy data as Web Services?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:09:00 +0000

If you are looking to unlock data that's locked up in databases, CSV's or Excel files then the WSO2 Data Services Solution is what you've been looking for. It helps Database administrators expose data selectively within a matter of minutes by simply following a Wizard. Check out this compact flash demo that explains what the WSO2 Data Services solution can do for you.

How to add mediation to WSO2 WSAS

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:40:00 +0000

In a previous post I spoke about how service hosting capabilities can be added to WSO2 ESB. Now its time to do the reverse and show how mediation capabilities can be added to WSO2 WSAS.

This article from Ruwan explains the process in details. If you feel that you would like to see it in action instead of reading it then you could follow this screen case as well.

How much do we take Technology for Granted?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:56:00 +0000

We live in a age of cutting edge technology (if not bleeding edge) and how much do we take it for granted? I remember the days when I used a dial-up connection to access the Internet (Not too long ago, may be 5-6 years ago) and now I'm using an ADSL connection which has like 512K download speed and contemplating whether I need an upgrade :). I cant imagine how I would live without an Internet connection.. Oh man the world has changed so much.

This clip makes us realise how much we take technology for granted. It comes with a dash oh Humour (More than a dash may be).

Came across this clip thanks to Jonathans post.

20th February 2009 - An Unforgettable Night

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:30:00 +0000

Friday night was one of those nights that you'd remember for a long time. I got a news alert around 9.25 PM Saying that the air defence system was activated in anticipation on a possible LTTE air attack. That was when we were going down for dinner. Around 9.40 I heard a weird sound, something like a motor. That was when I decided to step out and look up towards the sky. The sound was getting louder and within a minute or so I saw a small plane fly over us. As it was passing over us there was firing in the direction of the light aircraft. The firing came from the direction of the army camp which is located around 500m from our place (It used to be a commando training camp but now its a staff training college).

My initial suspicion was that they might attack the Sapugaskanda oil refinery which is located around 1Km from our place. Luckyly that was not the case, if it was I could have been toast :).

This was the 7th time the LTTE carried out an air attack. And the 7th time which is lucky for most people sealed their fate. It could well be their last air attack as well.

This was not the first that I experienced such terror. I remember the JVP attacking the Sapugaskanda police station in 1988, I was 7 then. I was fast asleep and suddenly woke up to the noise of gun fire. My mom and dad who slept in the room adjoining us came rushing in. My dad was over me shielding me while my mom was shielding my sister. We heard people firing along the road and that was a horrifying might. Last Friday was not that bad but it sure brought back memories of that incident.

Need for New Global Conventions in area of Conflict

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 07:00:00 +0000

"Due to the fact that communities and their aspirations continue to change, conflicts are an indispensable reality in our societies. My definition of peace is an atmosphere in which harmonious change can occur. Therefore, I am stressing the need to introduce innovative global conventions to exert balanced pressure on all stakeholders in a conflict zone. This would keep disturbances within the frame of humanity, just as gravity orchestrates droplets colliding without repeatable pattern into a waterfall. "

In an Insightful article Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara raises the need for new global conventions to validate politically sensitive claims made by the various parties in a war zone. He uses the conflict in Sri Lanka and a few incidents that unfolded in the recent past to make his points clear.

I sincerely hope that his voice wouldn't fall on deaf ears and that adequate action will be taken to resolve this.

Personally I have a high regard for Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara, he conducted our Artificial Intelligence course back in University. He is a fabulous teacher and a wonderful person.

Holiday at the Kandalama Hotel

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Last weekend we (me and my wife) went for a holiday to the Kandalama Hotel. I don't believe in Marketing crap such as Valentines day, but it just happened to be that Valentines day fell on that weekend (Also Kandalama had a good offer for that weekend).

Kandalama Hotel is located on the hills overlooking the Kandalama Tank. The length of the hotel is around 1 KM from end to end (Dambulla Wing to Sigiriya Wing). From the Sigiriya Wing you could see the Sigiriya fortress in a distance, hence its a wonderful place to stay for anyone wanting to visit Sigiriya. A unique feature of the hotel is its commitment to protecting the environment. The hotel is built into the mountains and is surrounded by plenty of trees and creepers. You wake up to the cheeping sounds of plenty birds found in the vicinity. It is said that if the buildings of the hotel are removed that the area would look just like it was before the hotel was build. The Architect Deshamanya Geoffrey Bawa has designed it in such a manner that the hotel was built without damaging anything in the surrounding environment.

At Kandalama there are plenty of activities that one could indulge in. These include Elephant rides, boat rides, Bird Watching, Mountain Biking, Hiking and so on. Most of the hotels boast about having bird watching and so on when they do not have anything to offer. This is not the case with Kandalama though. As the hotel is surrounded by trees and the Kandalama Lake, birds are a familiar sight. If you look up towards the sky at any given time you would see at least a couple of Eagles soaring over the skies. Monkeys are also a familiar sight. They come to eat seeds and fruits as well as drink water from the lake as well as the swimming pool.

We also took the opportunity to visit the Eco Park at Kandalama. Its a place where they house an Animal Rehabilitation Centre. As Kandalama is situated in a rural part of Sri Lanka Surrounded by a jungle Serpents are a familiar sight. This also means that accidents do happen and that injured Serpents and Animals can be found on the roads. Sanath who is specialist in Serpents and Animals runs the rehabilitation centre in which he brings in and treats these injured Serpents and Animals. He also maintains a collection of Serpents for people to see. These Serpents which are captured from the area of the hotel itself are not kept for long at this centre. They are released to the wild after a couple of months. Sanath also did mention that he gets telephone calls from villages when they encounter Serpents. Sanath then rushes to the rescue of these serpents and bring them over to the rehabilitation centre. The 12 foot Python that he had was such a Serpent which was captured in a neighboring Temple. Sanath is also competent in handling wild snakes. He demonstrated this by handling a Spectacle Cobra as well as petting a Forsten's Catsnake. I would call him Sri Lankas Steve Erwin.

Another environment friendly action of the Kandalama hotel is that they try to recycle everything. The hotels garbage is brought to a special centre where it is sorted and put into several categories. These are then sent to the various recycling centres. Kandalama also recycles their waste water.

We had a wonderful learning experience by visiting the Paper recycling and production plant. This was a small factory that made paper using Elephant Dung. I would cover the details of that in a separate post.

All in all Kandalama was a wonderful holiday as well as a learning experience. We thoroughly enjoyed our holiday. I would like to encourage anybody who has not visited the Kandalama Hotel to do so. Its a unique experience.

I've uploaded the photos of the trip here.

WSO2 Mashup Server 1.5.2 Released

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:10:00 +0000

Its been some time since we released the 1.5.1 version of the WSO2 Mashup Server. The main reason for doing the 1.5.2 release was a memory leak that was present in the release which was inherited from Axis2. This memory leak was fixed in the 1.41 release of Axis2 but we could not focus on doing a release because of the effort that was put into WSO2 Carbon.

So Mashup Server users should upgrade to the latest version. The upgrade is pretty straight forward and is just a matter of preserving the scripts and the database folder of the old installation.

In addition to this memory leak there were a few other issues that we fixed. You could have a look at the release note for full details.

Using Eventing and EDA with the WSO2 ESB

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:51:00 +0000

In a previous post I mentioned of an Article that explains about Eventing, EDA and how it could be used in an SOA environment. This time Asanka goes on to explain the usage of Eventing and EDA with the WSO2 ESB 2.0.

How does Apache Axis2 Differentiate SOAP from REST

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Chapman) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:55:00 +0000

Apache Axis2 supports both SOAP as well as REST. The default behaviour is that any service deployed on Axis2 can be accessed as using SOAP or REST style request. So how does Axis2 differentiate SOAP from REST request?

It first looks at the HTTP Method of the incoming request. If its GET, PUT or DELETE it is processed assuming its a REST request, but if its POST we need to do some checks. These include checking the content-type of the incoming request. SOAP 1.2 uses the content-type of application/soap+xml while SOAP 1.1 uses text/xml as its content-type. Hence using this we could differentiate SOAP request from REST style request. Does that mean that we are done? Well no. There is a little glitch though. The content-type text/xml is used to send REST (POX to be exact) style request as well. So if the content-type is text/xml we need to do further processing. The field we look for in such cases is the SOAPAction header. According to the SOAP 1.1 spec the SOAPAction header is mandatory (Its optional in SOAP 1.2 though). Therefore if a request comes in with the content-type text/xml that has a SOAPAction header it is treated as SOAP.