Project Information

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Announcements

There is now a handout available about project demonstrations, which will be held on Monday 11th December, 10-12 in 315 Upson Hall, the smaller room off the main undergraduate lab. Further details are here.

Problem with Cloudscape resolved

The problem with Cloudscape, the WebLogic database, has been resolved. For those of you who haven't seen it, the problem is that the Cloudscape license expired on Monday, and this meant that all the demos were unavailable, and WebLogic persistence didn't work -- basically, a whole lot of things went wrong on startup. There is now a fix, which you get to do yourself if the computer you use hasn't had the problem fixed.

• You need to get the three files in \\duck\ntfiles\cs514-software\cloudscape-fix, and put them in the c:\weblogic\WebLogic\eval\cloudscape\lib directory on the computer you're using, replacing the files which are already there.
• You shouldn't have any problems, but Cloudscape has a page describing the problem and how to fix it, if you're interested (it's method 2). Thanks Cloudscape!

New username/password combination for connecting WebLogic console to running server

The username/password combination I gave earlier is probably not the one you want. To connect to a running WebLogic Commerce Server, use system/weblogic. Make sure that you change the port number to 7601 on the "advanced" sub-window, as well. If you are running just the WebLogic Server, with no Commerce Server, use system/isis+horus, port 7001.

Dedicated machines for each group?

Several people have asked if it's possible to assign workstations to groups. While I agree that this would be a good idea, given that the labs you're using are shared with other courses, I don't see how we can ensure "your" machine would always be available for you. But if you can come to some kind of agreement amongst yourselves about this, then that's good.

In any case, I would advise you to store copies of the files you write or modify yourselves (this includes WebLogic and E-Speak configuration files you change!) in your home directories, in case someone does overwrite or change your files! I know that this is a headache, if anyone has a nice solution to copying these files back and forth on every login/logout, please tell the TA about it!

Latest version of E-Speak available

The latest version of E-Speak is available at \\duck\ntfiles\cs514-software\E-speak-3.01.zip.

Since E-Speak 3.01 from the HP web site requires administrator access to install, I installed it on my computer and then zipped it (it doesn't appear to make any serious changes to the registry). Be aware that to get this working, you will have to make a few extra changes:

• set the ESPEAK_HOME environment variable to point to the root of the new version's installation directory tree. 
• add <espeak-root-directory>\lib\escore.jar and <espeak-root-directory>\lib\esclient.jar to your CLASSPATH.
• add <espeak-root-directory>\lib to your PATH.

If you want to enable web access for E-Speak, you will also need to install Apache and run it at a user port (not the default port). Once again, zipped files from installations on my computer are at at \\duck\ntfiles\cs514-software\apache.zip for the server, and \\duck\ntfiles\cs514-software\apache-jserv.zip for the Java servlet module which E-Speak requires. I haven't managed to get web access working, but you are happy to try for yourselves! I don't think it's required to do the project, a Java interface (at least, for the stock trading project) would be fine.

General guidelines

You should work in groups of 2-3 people (any more or less only by special request, send mail to Professor Birman if you want to enquire about this). Code should be written in C or C++ or Java, or appropriate Microsoft variants.

You have two e-commerce toolkits to choose from in order to do the project:

1. HP E-Speak. This is "open source", so we don't need a license. At the moment, there is a version of E-Speak installed downstairs in the undergrad lab, but it is not the most recent one. In particular, it doesn't incorporate the features necessary to allow web access. In the event that you can't get E-Speak to work, then Jini would be an acceptable alternative.
   • E-Speak.net. This is where we downloaded the old version of E-Speak. Be careful, the information here may be stale!
   • E-Speak site at HP. This seems to have the newer version.
   • Miscellaneous E-Speak documents: Installation Guide, Architectural Specification, Programmer's Guide, WebAccess Programmer's Guide, Service Framework Guide, Contributed Services, Migration Guide, System Deployment Console User Manual.
   • Jini, for those who aren't getting any satisfaction from E-Speak. E-Speak claims to be similar to Jini, only better. Sun would presumably say something analogous about Jini.
2. BEA WebLogic. We have an educational license for this, so it can only be used in the undergrad labs downstairs. The newer computers in the main lab have WebLogic installed. It comes in two parts: the back-end "WebLogic Server" and the "WebLogic Commerce Server", which incorporates a web server and a lightweight version of the CloudScape database, from Informix.
   • BEA Homepage
   • WebLogic Server documentation
   • Commerce Server documentation

Once you look at the documentation, you will notice that these toolkits are designed for somewhat different purposes: E-Speak is for building distributed "e-services" (generalised client-server systems, where a server be a client of another server transparently to the end user), while BEA WebLogic is more geared to the e-commerce web portal development niche and Java Beans. Hence the different styles of project.

Additional useful software

Here are some pointers to other software which is likely to prove useful. Most of it has not been installed in the undergrad lab, but you are welcome to download it yourselves.

• NS-2, one of the most popular and detailed network simulators, available from UC Berkeley.
• Ensemble, a system for reliable group communication, designed and implemented by Professor Birman's research group here at Cornell. The Maestro toolkit may be of particular interest, since it supplies a C++ and Corba interface to Ensemble (other interfaces exist; see the web page).
• Microsoft Access, Excel can be used to store data, which can be retrieved using SQL from your programs.

This web page is maintained by Ben Atkin. Mail him at batkin@cs.cornell.edu.