All posts by Neil Harwani

Interested in movies, music, history, computer science, software, engineering, management and technology
Liferay

How to take knowledge transfer in a discussion for Liferay engagement – Part 1

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Here is a list of points which will help in taking a knowledge transfer for a Liferay engagement – Part 1:

1. Check which products of Liferay are in use: DXP, Commerce, Analytics and / or Cloud LXC

2. Take the list of osgi/configs & osgi/modules to get configurations of osgi modules and such

3. Check portal-ext.properties and portal-setup-wizard.properties 

4. Understand the functional flow of usecase fully and draw sequence diagrams for the flows 

5. Check control panel in terms of what is in use like number of private / public pages, server administration, OOTB portlets / apps used, web content, templates, foundation, search, instance / virtual settings, redirects, configurations, LDAP, SSO, system properties  

6. Check theme and style books

7. Get information on file-store, index server, database, clustering and deployment via deployment architecture 

8. Check CI/CD & developer environment details in terms of integration and pipeline

9. Check sizes of file-store and database

10. Get details on type of custom portlets, UI frameworks in use and Lifeary DevStudio usage

11. Check integrations with Liferay and the ecosystem like deployment on in-prem infra and cloud deployment

12. Check CPU / memory usage and errors that frequently come from logs. Get logs for last 7-15 days

13. Check the ecosystem of code quality, monitoring & performance tools if any are present 

14. Get a list of problems from developers, inputs from functional managers, any roadmap, upgrade plans for future usage 

Email me: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in

Generative AI

What points can be part of fair use disclaimer for Generative AI? – Part 1

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As per me, 0.1 version (draft) for What points can be part of fair use disclaimer for Generative AI? – Part 1 would be:

  • Reference that it was taken from GAI
  • Prompt/s and prompt sequence used for the solution.
  • Which GAI system was used?
  • Was it real time or non-real time GAI?
  • Was the information verified before posting from GAI?
  • Date-time stamp
  • References provided by GAI
  • Any copyright / legal / intellectual property / patents or other disclosures?
  • Any other points that you could point me to?

Email me at: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in

Education

Some unique courses for working professionals in India post liberalization / reforms in education – Part 1

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Here with I am providing a list of unique courses that I have observed in India post liberalization / reforms in education. Most are online / work integrated or distance learning – this is Part 1 of the list for working professionals:

Email me: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in

Liferay

Checklist for DMS Use Case in Liferay

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Find below a checklist for Liferay’s DMS (Document Management System) Use Case:

  • Size your document average size, range of size, number of documents, type, viewers, thumbnail requirements early
  • Decide the workflow templates for start plus growth per quarter & estimated workflow instances per day / week / month in advance which will run on your documents
  • Size your file store and decide on SAN / NAS requirements early based on latency / size of documents / number of folders and so on
  • Switch to advanced file store early if you have large number of documents – this is preferrable right from the start
  • Consider adding multiple repositories in advance if you have multiple file stores and a very large number of documents across repositories
  • Use case of DMS specific software other than Liferay working alongside Liferay mounted via CMIS protocol should be considered early incase of very large number of documents across repositories
  • Full text / partial / multilingual search requirements should be planned early
  • Scanning integration if needed should be considered
  • Anti-virus considerations should be considered depending on use case
  • Response times should be calculated based on network latency for all users
  • Mobile, responsive, desktop, laptop / universal views for documents need to be planned
  • Cloud deployment use case in terms of blob storage / file store considerations should be done early
  • Separate Elasticsearch should be planned
  • Access control, confidentiality, digital rights management related planning and requirements should be done as a prerequisite
  • Liferay file store, Elasticsearch, data folder, filesystem and database should not be directly worked on – We should work via Liferay UI/Control Panel/Groovy/API and so on. Exceptions are there like reindexing problems, performance tuning and so on but they should be more exceptions than norm.
  • Include backup/restore in sync with database. Also in DR.
  • Leverage Ghostscript and Open Office / Libre Office for text extraction and conversion.
  • Include clam-av for portal-based scans when uploads are supported from external sources.

Email me: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in

Liferay, Search

Elasticsearch with Liferay – Notes & Links – Part 1

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Below are the important notes & links for configuring Liferay DXP with Elasticsearch.

Email me: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in

Architecture, Cloud, Cyber Security

Security best practice, patterns & architecture links from AWS, GCP & Azure – Part 1

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Herewith I am providing a curated list of links for security best practices, patterns & architecture for AWS, GCP & Azure – Part 1.

AWS:

GCP:

AZURE:

Also, check out security as code products like oak9:

Email me: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in

Education

List of good executive education programs in India – Part 1

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Since the last few years (5 to 10 years) there has been an exponential growth in executive education courses and market across India. Herewith, I am compiling some of the good options for executive education in India – Part 1.

If you have more links, please share with me over email for Part – 2 of this series.

Email me: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in

Liferay

How to debug Liferay? – Some pointers – Part 1

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How to debug Liferay? Some pointers. – Part 1. Many a times, we only check at specific places and forget other areas while debugging. This small blog acts as a checklist to check and debug Liferay.

  • Look at installing and using GLOWROOT
  • Check the slow traces / web transactions / errors and the related graphs in GLOWROOT
  • Check the logging levels module wise and overall
  • Check all the Liferay nodes if in a cluster
  • Check the app server logs
  • Check JNDI & JDBC settings
  • Check the things by simulating on default vanilla instance / bundle
  • Use help center articles
  • Check your webserver, load balancer and database configurations plus logs
  • Check your portal & system properties
  • Check configurations in control panel for the related work
  • Check your custom API list
  • Check details via GoGo shell commands
  • Check the code in Liferay DevStudio or your favorite IDE
  • Check marketplace apps that are installed
  • Consider using Groovy scripting for debugging
  • Check virtual instances if in use
  • Check OSGI configurations if added
  • Check your elastic search server status
  • Check your heap size and thread dumps plus configurations in setenv.sh/bat

Blog also gives you an idea on the configurability and extent of Liferay modularity. It makes our work easier when many of the things are configurable.

References:

Business Process Re-engineering, Mini Caselets

Business Process Reengineering with a fictional Information Technology company

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Here is a fictional case study for a business process reengineering class exercise in MBA / PGDM / PGPM classroom. We look at the three phases of an IT founder driven successful startup. Typically, many startups go through these phases. Such examples can be found in many news articles related to Information Technology industry across the world.

Phase 1 – Founder driven startup:

  • Founder driven, liberal culture, no set timings for entry and exit, free snacks, product type employee empowerment driven, work hard, 5 days a week working, flexible hours type culture in an IT company
  • Good salaries & benefits
  • Onsite opportunities
  • Most people are with experience with a small percentage of fresh engineers
  • Work on niche products & services with good margins
  • Few strong partnerships with customers & products / ecosystems
  • Small group of founders & investors with clear goals

Phase 2 – Sale to a larger entity / induction of investors or venture capitalists / investment bankers:

  • Induction of professional management
  • Drive towards IPO
  • Drive towards larger revenue & higher growth
  • Change in services, partnerships & product mix
  • Churn in employees & their loyalty
  • Changes in profitability based on services & product mix
  • Change of branding
  • M&A with other companies or investor portfolio firms
  • Related work with similar companies in investor or buying entity group
  • Focus on long term sustainability
  • Focus on operational excellence

Phase 3 – Stabilization and finding of the “mojo”:

  • Stable partnerships, customers & products / services
  • Stable margins
  • Finding of the mojo product & services mix
  • IPO / Investor / VC / M&A stabilization
  • Mature phase of branding
  • New product / service / offering mix creation
  • Newer ventures in new areas

Email me: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in

Liferay

Links on important technical concepts of Liferay – Part 1

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Here are some links on important technical concepts of Liferay – Part 1. Hope this is helpful to all using and learning Liferay.

Email me: Neil@HarwaniSystems.in