Architecture on Janik von Rotz

Unicorns of Berlin

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 07:54:38 +0000

Unicorns are unique and might not exist. This is a collection of unique pictures of Berlin. I took them since staying there for 3 months. Berlin is quite a special place and will probably attract me a few more times.

Fleemarkets everywhere! Shiny stuff, weird stuff, nice stuff, horrible stuff, obscure stuff, wtf is this for kind of stuff. Fleemarkets are perfect for curious people.

Spring in Berlin sure is beautiful. The weather gets nicer, the people get nicer and city gets nicer. After a harsh neverending winter spring in Berlin is an amazing cure.

This picture was taken in Mauerpark. On sunny sunday it seems all people of Berlin end up there. There's a huge fleemarket, music, karaoke, shows and a lot more. So the perfect way to spend a lazy sunday.

Living in Berlin is quite different compared living in other big cities. You can always escape the busy traffic and enjoy a nice day in a park.

Berlin is known for it's tolerance to minorities, refugees and everybody. This picture was taken on chemtrail demo. There were no aggressions only resprect for each others opinion.

Most of the historic were bombed in world war 2. Whenever you'll see some fine architecture in Berlin you have to appreciate it.

There are many ways of begging. This is one. I always try to figure out how integrate these people into society. But it's a difficult and complex issue.

He told her about ducks.

Seeds cover the ground like thick snow in winter.

This tree decided to grow on a roof.

The Bundestag dome. Should be on the list of every Berlin visitor.

A beautiful picture surrounded by burned wood. How long will it last? What's the painters intention, when sooner or later his art is destroyed? Graffiti never lasts long and that's what it makes special to me.

The rails of a rollercoaster. Part of the abandoned Spree entertainment park. Around next year the whole place will be rebuilt, so make sure to visit before.

Meteor and Mantra - Routing redirect

Thu, 26 May 2016 10:03:22 +0000

Recently I started using Mantra to develop my Meteor apps. As with any other framework You’ll find a lot of answers to common questions in a related forum or any other resource. However I couldn’t get a good answer on how to implement routing logic properly. The Mantra specs also don’t tell much about how to approach it. So here’s my solution.

First I want to tell you about a little drawback, which is essential to understand the whole issue with routing in Mantra. The Flowrouter redirect statement can only work in the componentDidMount directive of an React component.

componentDidMount(){
  FlowRouter.go('/login');
}

As I don’t want load a component and then doing a redirect I had to make the redirect on a higher level of the Mantra architecture.

So where else could it be than in the route file? To give you a better understanding I’ll use the post module which is part of a blogging app.

client/modules/post/routes.jsx

...

  FlowRouter.route('/posts', {
    name: 'post.list',
    triggersEnter: [function(context, redirect) {
      actions.posts.access_route('post.list', redirect);
    }],
    action() {
      mount(AppLayout, {
        content: () => (<MainPage />)
      });
    }
  });

...

As you can see I’ll use a trigger action, despite the Mantra specs tell me not do so. For now it’s the only practical approach.

Import the action in the route and call the access_route function.

client/modules/post/actions/posts.js

import {cannot_access, redirect_login, redirect_verify} from '/lib/access_control';

...

access_route(routename, redirect) {
    if(redirect_login(routename)){
      redirect('/login');
    } else if(redirect_verify()){
      redirect('/email-verification');
    } else if(cannot_access(routename)){
      redirect('/');
    }
  }

...

This is done for every module. Then you get a custom routing logic for every module while still using the same function to verify f.g. a user can access a specific route.

/lib/access_control.js

// client side
export function redirect_login(routename){
  var roles = _.findWhere(Meteor.settings.public.routes, {name: routename}).roles;
  if(!_.contains(roles, "Public") && !Meteor.userId()){
    console.log("redirect login");
    return true;
  }
  return false;
};

// client side
export function redirect_verify(){
  if(Meteor.userId() && !Meteor.user().emails[0].verified){
    console.log("redirect verify");
    return true;
  }
  return false;
};

// client side
export function cannot_access(routename){
  var roles = _.findWhere(Meteor.settings.public.routes, {name: routename}).roles;
  if(_.contains(roles, "Public") || Roles.userIsInRole(Meteor.user(), roles)){
    console.log("allow route " + routename);
    return false;
  }
  console.log("deny route " + routename);
  return true;
};

Here I’ll bundle everything that is related in someway with permissions and access rights. The functions in this library are either used by the client or the server. I will use alanning roles to check role membership later on.

When assigning and checking for permissions with user, groups and rules I always use this schema:

Object <-> Access Group <-> Role <-> User

This schema is not a new invention, it’s a copy of Microsoft’s AGDLP idea.

Finally update the settings.json with access rules. Make sure to add it to the public part, otherwise the client can’t load the settings.

settings.json

...

{
  "name": "post.list",
  "roles": [
     "Admin",
     "Author",
     "Manager"
  ]
},

...

Yay! you did it. So do you like my idea? Would like to hear from you in the comment section.

Install SharePoint 2013 Three-tier Farm - Designing the Logical Architecture

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 09:10:29 +0000

This post of is part of my Install SharePoint 2013 Three-tier Farm project.

I assume that the reader of this tutorial has already defined the business requirements for this SharePoint installation.

The physical architecture depends on the requirements of the logical design. That’s why you have to define you logical architecture first.

The logical architectures unites the business requirements and the possibilities of SharePoint to set up multiple site collections with different urls, templates and databases.

The easiest way to write down these resources is a table or a note like this:

Intranet

Site collection: sharepont.domain.com Hostname: https://sharepoint.domain.com Site url: / Template: Blank Sites Database: SP_Content_Intranet

Site collection: sharepont.domain.com Hostname: https://sharepoint.domain.com Site url: /search Template: Enterprise Search Center

My Site

Site collection: mysite.domain.com Hostname: https://mysite.domain.com Site url: / Template: User Profile Database: SP_Content_MySite

IT Wiki

Site collection: sharepont.domain.com Hostname: https://sharepoint.domain.com Site url: /itwiki Template: Enterprise Wiki Database: SP_Content_ITWiki

Extranet VR

Site collection: extranetvr.domain.com Hostname: https://extranetvr.domain.com Site url: / Template: Blank Sites Database: SP_Content_ExtranetVR

Extranet VR - Search

Site collection: extranetvr.domain.com Hostname: https://extranetvr.domain.com Site url: /search Template: Enterprise Search Center

Install SharePoint 2013 Three-tier Farm - Architecture and Licensing

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 12:35:07 +0000

This post of is part of my Install SharePoint 2013 Three-tier Farm project.

As the server architecture is already given in this case, I’m only going to show you the hardware requirements of those servers.

Each server installation provides:

Hardware and Software Requirements: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff512684(v=WS.10).aspx Server: Windows Server 2012 R2 Service: FIM 2010 R2, SQL Server 2010 R2 Name: w2k12fim1 CPU: 64-bit, 4cores RAM: 8 GB Disk: System 80 GB, Data 100 GB (dynamisch)

Hardware and Software Requirements: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff512684(v=WS.10).aspx Server: Windows Server 2012 R2 Service: FIM 2010 R2 Service Portal Name: w2k12fim2 CPU: 64-bit, 4 cores RAM: 4 GB Disk: System 80 GB

Hardware and Software Requirements: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx Server: Windows Server 2012 R2 Service: SQL Server 2010 R2 DNS (Alias): sp1sql Name: w2k12spsql1 CPU: 64-bit, 4 cores RAM: 12 GB Disk: System 80 GB, Data 100 GB (dynamic)

Hardware and Software Requirements: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx DNS: sp1app.vbl.ch Server: Windows Server 2012 R2 Service: SharePoint Server 2013 Name: w2k12spapp1 CPU: 64-bit, 4 cores RAM: 12 GB Disk: System 80 GB, Data 100 GB (dynamic)

Hardware and Software Requirements: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx Server: Windows Server 2012 R2 Service: SharePoint Server 2013 DNS: sharepoint.domain.ch, sp1web.domain.ch Name: w2k12spweb1 CPU: 64-bit, 4 cores RAM: 12GB Disk: System 80 GB, Data 100 GB (dynamic)

Hardware and Software Requirements: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219435.aspx#software Server: Windows Server 2012 R2 Service: Office Web Apps Server 2013 Name: w2k12was1 DNS: was1.domain.ch CPU: 64-bit, 4 cores RAM: 12 GB Disk: System 80 GB, Data 50 GB (dynamic)

The installation and deployment of this servers won’t be part of this project.

sp1web.domain.ch CNAME w2k12spweb1.domain.ch sp1app.domain.ch CNAME w2k12spapp1.domain.ch was1.domain.ch CNAME w2k12was1.domain.ch

Install SharePoint 2013 Three-tier Farm

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 11:20:29 +0000

Based on new business requirements our intranet SharePoint needs an update from version 2010 to 2013. The new installation will be part in our existing Office 365 hybrid environment. As I’ve completed the Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 course I going to perform this project on my own. In this series of posts I would like to share my knowledge and experience in building this new intranet based on SharePoint 2013.