A client asked us how we could back-port a small database from MSSQL2012 database back to a MSSQL 2008 database. We know there is direct method of doing this, other than through an obscure process called “Generate Scripts”. Essentially, it exports the database objects as SQL scripts, that are generic enough to be re-run on any version of MSSQL. (For MYSQL folks, this is the default export format from a mysqldump).
Magento Enterprise To the Cloud
The Magento ecommerce system is a very complicated architecture, fraught with hardware and software tuning, caching systems, and database tuning. On a dedicated server, this can be a challenge to manage on a day to day basis. Moving it to the cloud presents a whole set of factors that will need to be considered.
Magento is a very hardware intensive system that requires extremely fast disk speeds. This is why most Magento hosting providers tout SAN and/or 15k RPM disks on all of their hosting accounts. If you try and run it on an ordinary, shared hosting account, you will be in for a very rude awaking.
A SMB Office with Less IT and More Cloud
If you are a start-up company that does not require intensive computing resources, you can easily design a full office computing network, complete with resilient backups and Disaster Recovery, for both low upfront and monthly cost.
The traditional model of having a server or two in house to serve files mail, security and backups is no longer necessary. There are appliances that serve files, handle your firewall, detect intrusions, filter filtering and secure your computer systems. Most if not all of them, can also be installed as software running in the cloud. Software packages are available that can encrypt and backup your file-server appliance into the cloud (S3, Rackspace, etc), giving you nearly unlimited backup storage medium for extremely low rates. There are software packages that can be installed on every client computer, allowing an external IT person secure access to the computers to fix helpdesk-related issues. Mail service is readily available in the cloud from a variety of providers (e.g. Google, Rackspace etc.).
AWS SDK for PHP 2 – Example Program
UPDATE: 5/9/2013: Major kudos to the Amazon SDK PHP team for contacting us and actually listening to our concerns/issues of their SDK. A standalone download … Read More
Data File Processing, Data Mining and Report Normalization Tips
At Silva Tech Solutions LLC, we process and handle a lot of custom reporting tasks for clients in a variety of industries. Typically, we are … Read More
Ubuntu 12.04 Network Connection Issue
Recently we ran into a very bizarre issue with a new VM Ubuntu Server 12.04 image and assigning a static address. Using DHCP, the image … Read More
Magento Enterprise Upgrade Tips
As most Magento developers or administrators know, the upgrade process from version to version can be a bit dicey and time consuming. We have run … Read More
s2Member CloudFront Streaming from Sub-Folder
We have been doing a great deal of work using WordPress and a nifty little plugin called s2Member (http://www.s2member.com). It essentially creates an entire subscription … Read More
WordPress User Profile Picture
Just a quick tip. For some reason, trying to add a plugin to a WordPress User is more difficult than it should be. We tried … Read More
Magento Orphan File Cleaner
While working on a client’s Magento CE cart, we noticed that their diskspace had jumped astronomically over the past few weeks. Coincidentally, this started right … Read More