Retrieve Dell Warranty Information From VB.Net

Hi

At work, we have been wanting to populate an internal IT asset database with warranty information from our major vendors Dell and HP.

I decided to write a VB.Net application that would use the Dell web service found at http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx.

This web service has one operation GetAssetInformation.

Here is the code.  Note that this sample is a synchronous call.

The iData.Entitlements has one element in the array for each year warranty was renewed post purchase.  For my purpose, I only require the current information.  That is the reason I have exited the "For Each item" loop.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Iyer



Dim myGuid As Guid = Guid.NewGuid()  'create a new GUID
Dim applicationName As String = "AssetService" 'anything will work here
Dim oAssetServiceProxy As New DellServiceReference.AssetServiceSoapClient 'instantiate the proxy
Dim oData = oAssetServiceProxy.GetAssetInformation(myGuid, applicationName, "xxxxx") 'call the service



 For Each iData In oData
            ListBox1.Items.Add("System Mode : " + iData.AssetHeaderData.SystemModel)
            ListBox1.Items.Add("System Ship Date : " + iData.AssetHeaderData.SystemShipDate)
            ListBox1.Items.Add("System ID: " + iData.AssetHeaderData.SystemID)
            For Each item In iData.Entitlements
                ListBox1.Items.Add("Warranty Start Date: " + item.StartDate.ToLongDateString)
                ListBox1.Items.Add("Warranty End Date: " + item.EndDate.ToLongDateString)
                ListBox1.Items.Add("# of days Left : " + item.DaysLeft.ToString)
                Exit For
            Next
            'ListBox1.Items.Add(iData.
 Next

Interoperable Volumes - Apple, Windows, Linux

Hi

At our organisation, we use Apples, Windows and Linux based systems for a variety of high-end work.  Moving material within them was always a challenge - but we managed to with a combination of FTP, SMB and WebDAV access.  It was rather slow and painful but it worked.

Finally, when our XSAN reached end of life and we had to replace it, we replaced it with a Quantum StorNext system running on top of a Fiber Channel SAN from a leading vendor.  Any FC SAN will work - just check with Quantum for compatibility - though I do not expect any problems with any FC SAN that follows standards.

It works like a dream - Windows, Linux and Apple users can all mount and share the same volume - not just transfer files - they can seamlessly read/write to the same volume from multiple platforms - no more FTP / WebDAV access to shared folders.

The whole user experience of sharing files has become seamless and transparent.  Help desk calls from those departments have disappeared.

Quantum StorNext is a good solution for organisations with a variety of platforms that need to share data with each other.

Cheers

Iyer

Cheap Storage - Reliable, too

Hi

At the place I work, we generate a lot of video content that is huge in size and numbers.  We have been on the lookout for a cost-effective NAS solution for a while and finally decided to take the jump by buying storage boxes from Super Micro.

In addition to the HDD storage with a lot of RAID level options, we also got two Flash drives in RAID-1 for the operating system.

We chose http://www.openfiler.com/ as our NAS operating system.  This is a very mature product now with tons of features to make your NAS and its data accessible from a variety of platforms.

Active Directory Integration
One of our most important requirements was the ability to allow folder access using Windows Active Directory groups.  It took a while for us to get this configured but we managed to in the end and it is working seamlessly.

FTP Server
We are also using the same OpenFiler storage box as our FTP server for the hundreds of video files we receive daily over the Internet using FTP.

SMB Access
As OpenFiler exposes all volumes as CIFS/SMB as well, our internal Windows and Apple clients can easily share and access videos and images from this NAS from around the organisation.

NIC Bonding
The storage box supports teaming of upto 6 1Gbps network interfaces for  performance that exceeds our needs for this application.

Openfiler supports many other features that allow for high availability and data protection.

Check it out.

Good combination - Super Micro storage and OpenFiler.

Cheers

Iyer

Mobile Web Development

Hi

It's been a while since I posted.  For the past month or so, I have been dabbling with developing mobile web applications.  As I always want something useful to try out anything new, I decided to take my organisation's internal processes - approvals of various requests by heads of departments and team leaders - mobile by writing a mobile friendly web application.

I tried out a couple of mobile frameworks but finally settled on jQuery Mobile.  You can check this out at http://jquerymobile.com/.

I find this an excellent work in progress library that is built on top of the super jQuery JavaScript library.

There are some who say that jQuery Mobile is not suited to development of dynamic sites - but I have found that to be not completely true.

The application I have built is completely dynamic, talks to a bunch of .ashx pages that run on our internal IIS web server and reads and updates our internal, production database in real time.

The jQuery Mobile application uses jQuery AJAX calls to ASHX (Generic Handlers) that return JSON data to display and process user actions.

Here is a screenshot of the home screen

And here is a screenshot of the page where leave applications can be approved.

While processes like leave applications may not be time critical and not really required to be available at all times but there are other time critical processes that benefit from being mobile and accessible to employees around the clock and from a device of their choice.

Try out jQuery Mobile.  It's good fun.

Cheers!

Iyer