Open source ESBs

ESB Introduction

In computing, an enterprise service bus (ESB) refers to a software architecture construct. This construct is typically implemented by technologies found in a category of middleware infrastructure products, usually based on recognized standards, which provide foundational services for more complex architectures via an event-driven and standards-based messaging engine (the bus).

Enterprise Service Bus is an evolving architecture technique to integrate incompatible business applications over a common messaging bus. The ESB lies between the business applications and enables communication among them. Ideally, the ESB should be able to replace all direct contact with the applications on the bus, so that all communication takes place via the bus. In order to achieve this objective, the bus must encapsulate the functionality offered by its component applications in a meaningful way. This is typically accomplished through the use of an enterprise message model. The message model defines a standard set of messages that the ESB will both transmit and receive. When it receives a message, it routes it to the appropriate application. Often, owing to the fact that the application was not built with the message model in mind, the ESB will have to transform the message into a legacy format that is understandable by the application.


Role of ESB in SOA world

ESB is one architecture style that abides by the rules of a Service Orientated Architecture.


Figure 1 explains the basic architecture of any ESB binding. All ESBs support a set of protocols for endpoint binding. Messages received at an end point undergo transformation using message transformer provided. Message transformation is done to convert the request to a data structure known by the service to be invoked. It can then be passed to the component service like Java POJO itself, EJB, JDBC, etc. Integration with other container frameworks like Spring or PicoContainer also happened at this logical stage. The response from service invocation is then routed an appropriate outbound endpoint. Response message is transformed appropriately to match a format known by the receiver before it is sent to the receiver endpoint.

Main advantages that the ESB architecture inherits to the SOA world are given below.

•Faster and cheaper accommodation of existing systems. Increased flexibility makes it easier to change as requirements change.
•Predefined ready-for-use service types.
•No central rules engine, no central broker.
•Incremental changes can be applied with zero down-time.


There also are a few overheads that need to be considered before one goes the ESB way.

•Requires ongoing management of message versions to ensure the intended benefit of loose coupling. Incorrect, insufficient, or incomplete management of message versions can result in tight coupling instead of the intended loose coupling.
•Extra overhead and increased latency caused by messages traversing the extra ESB layer, especially as compared to point to point communications.
•All benefits and cost advantages of ESB come into play only when you have a SOA based system in consideration.

Component integration standards

There is no de-facto standard for SOA service/ component integration as of today. ESB is only a mechanism to make this integration easier by making communication between components independent of the service.

There are two emerging standards in component integration which look very good in what they promise and there are ESB tools that support either of these standards.

There also are tools that just do what ESBs are supposed to do without going by a particular standard. E.g.: Mule

Reason for mentioning these standards in this document is that one of the criterions in selecting an ESB could be selecting, if need be, the standard itself that one want to pick for component integration.


a.JBI

Java Business Integration (JSR208) is an emerging standard that defines common interfaces for components and message exchanges for application integration. It is a JAVA community process initiative.

JBI is built on a Web Services model, and provides a pluggable architecture for a container that hosts service producer and consumer components. Services connect to the container via binding components (BC) or can be hosted inside the container as part of a service engine (SE). The services model used is Web Services Description Language 2.0.

The central message delivery mechanism, the normalized message router (NMR), delivers normalized messages via Message Exchange Patterns (MEPs).

b.SCA

Service component architecture, as a standard for assembling services together, stands one step ahead of JBI in the fact that it supports multiple technologies and languages whereas JBI is limited to Java components. This means, SCA services can be implemented in languages and technologies more than just Java [For e.g.: An implementation of SCA supports invocation of services implemented in EJBs, Java POJOs, BPEL process, COBOL, C++, PHP, Ruby etc.]. SCA standard is promoted by vendors like IBM, Oracle, TIBCO, BEA and supported by OASIS committee.

Service Component Architecture defines a simple, service-based model for construction, assembly and deployment of network of services (existing and new ones) that is language-neutral. Main artifacts in an SCA style design are

Service Data Object (SDO) provides a uniform interface for handling different forms of data, including XML documents that can exist in a network of services and provides the mechanism for tracking changes.

Data Access Service (DAS) provides a simple SDO interface to relational databases.

Even though SCA looks more promising and futuristic in terms of acting as a framework for SOA, it is too early to write a verdict on the success of this technology as it is in its incubator stages.


The messaging infrastructure would help ease application integration

a.Via loose coupling of components, including legacy assets, communicating over disparate transport protocols
b.With minimal re-programming effort for message transformations

The supporting tools should enable

a.Quick development and configuration of messaging channels though established frameworks and patterns
b.Administration of the messaging infrastructure elements by operational staff

Please note that #1 above implies assurance of inter-operability of components residing on diverse technology stack like .net, j2ee, AS400, mainframes over a messing infrastructure only.

Transaction and security support is also desired from the ESB framework.

ESB Options

Some of the best and popular open source ESBs are

��. Mule
��. Mirth
��. Apache ServiceMix
��. OpenESB
��. FuseESB
��. Apache Tuscany
��. Fabric3



Recommendations

Mule stands as an excellent choice if alignment with a particular component integration standard is not desired. The fact that it supports POJO message objects is very much suited for normal development models.

In the availability or plan to have the availability of standard messaging models with WSDL, a JBI container based routing is the best option to go for. An alternate option to this is to additionally develop marshallers at endpoints so that JBI containers still get to work with normalized XML messaging model.

The decision for JBI over SCA can be well supported by the fact that there already are a number of JBI components that stand good and ready to use for most of the domains. Having said this, the future of SCA in the commercial arena doesn’t look dim at all provided the fact that it is supported by many of the industry giants like BEA, IBM, Oracle, and TIBCO and supported by OASIS.

SCA, as already mentioned in the previous sections is too early for serious adoption unless decided to go for a commercial framework like the one from TIBCO.

This evaluation was only limited to open source candidates in the industry. Provided commercial tools are an option, frameworks like Fiorano or Sonic MQ could prove a better solution to our requirement in terms of performance and support.

Glossary

��. ESB – Enterprise Service Bus
��. JBI - Java Business Integration. A standard for component integration for application development.
��. SOA – Service Oriented Architecture
��. SCA – Service Component Architecture. A standard for component integration for application development.
��. JSR208 – This is the Java Community Process specification for JBI standard.
��. BPEL – Business Process Execution Language. A language for Business Process Modeling.
��. IONA – A software firm focused on distributed middleware solutions for IT.
��. JMX – Java Management Extension.


References

1. Enterprise Service Bus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_service_bus

2. Java Business Integration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Business_Integration
http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=208
http://wiki.open-esb.java.net/Wiki.jsp?page=Jbicomps

3. Service Component Architecture
http://www.osoa.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=46
http://dev2dev.bea.com/pub/a/2005/11/sca.html
http://www.davidchappell.com/articles/Introducing_SCA.pdf

4. Mule
http://mule.mulesource.org/display/MULE/Home
http://mule.mulesource.org/display/MULE/Transports+Guide

5. ServiceMix
http://servicemix.apache.org/home.html
http://servicemix.apache.org/components-list.html

6. OpenESB
https://open-esb.dev.java.net/

7. Fabric3
http://fabric3.codehaus.org/

8. Tuscany
http://incubator.apache.org/tuscany/home.html

9. Open source licenses
http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical

Opera Unite is making clouds around the web

This is the Web 3.'Oh' kind of stuff for me. Opera has launched their 'Unite' platform and changed the way web has worked for you all this time. Unite combines the good concepts of cloud and P2P computing.

With Unite, one can run a web site from a home computer. That means a lot if you really think about the possibilities. Unit already comes up with file sharing services that can utilized to share your files (including pics and songs) with the whole world.

Remember the days when you had to zip a bunch of pictures and videos from your last vacation and send it to your friend!? Or, the times when you had to pick snaps because of the size limitations of a website!!? All that is history with Unite. Send them your website address and let them see it on your website that is running right off your PC.

Start here and you'll have your website up in no time.



I've got mine running

Eventually, I want to have a JBoss running behind that page and run stock-suggests on it. See what i mean now!? I see possibilities...lots of them.

Thank you Opera for Unite.

Not so trivial: I wonder what the security threats are...!

stocks-suggest is now on Java 6

My general depression on the stock market had put down all my excitement on stocks-suggest. This is the application i had been writing for a while that can suggest changes (BUY or SELL) on a given portfolio based on a set of rules;besides the fact that it is one of the most interesting architecture i have ever done. Here is the report from some of my past runs.


********************************************************
Report at: Tue Jan 29 11:38:02 IST 2008
********************************************************
[Report: stockName: RENUKA.NS result: BUY buyPrice: 1003.7 change: -9.700000000000045]
[Report: stockName: JPASSOCIA.NS result: BUY buyPrice: 374.5 change: -1.1999999999999886]
********************************************************
Report at: Tue Jan 29 11:44:36 IST 2008
********************************************************
[Report: stockName: RENUKA.NS result: BUY buyPrice: 1003.7 change: -11.700000000000045]
[Report: stockName: JPASSOCIA.NS result: BUY buyPrice: 374.5 change: -4.699999999999989]
********************************************************
Report at: Sun May 10 22:35:24 EDT 2009
********************************************************
No stock decisions for the moment
********************************************************




Tonight, i got it compiled successfully on Java 6. Boy, it took a lot of commitment from me to finally start on this again. Latest source is at stocks-suggest google code repo.

Drools and JibX dependencies had to be updated to the latest to get rid of the Xerces Abstract method error after migrating from Java 1.5. Here is the output of mvn eclipse:eclipse for all dependencies.

o commons-logging:commons-logging:1.1
o log4j:log4j:1.2.12
o logkit:logkit:1.0.1
o avalon-framework:avalon-framework:4.1.3
o javax.servlet:servlet-api:2.3
o junit:junit:4.4
o org.drools:drools-compiler:5.0.0.M5
o org.drools:drools-core:5.0.0.M5
o org.mvel:mvel2:2.0.6
o org.drools:drools-api:5.0.0.M5
o joda-time:joda-time:1.5.2
o org.antlr:antlr-runtime:3.1.1
o org.eclipse.jdt:core:3.4.2.v_883_R34x
o janino:janino:2.5.15
o org.jibx:jibx-extras:1.2.1
o org.jibx:jibx-run:1.2.1
o org.codehaus.woodstox:wstx-asl:3.2.1
o stax:stax-api:1.0.1
o quartz:quartz:1.5.2


I am gonna work on this for a while now. Changes i intend to do in future releases.

1. Refactor test cases
2. Change rules appropriately.
3. Load it on a Spring DM server
4. Create a UI on Webflows (Not decided on the framework. Might as well do it on something simpler like Struts also)
5. De couple reader, binder, renderer, rule engine and report generation modules and have them talk to each other on Mule bus.

Setting cutom screen resolution on Sabayon

My Dell XPS 1330 has 1280x800 as standard screen resolution; but the Sabayon installation didn't pick it up because 1280x800 is not one of the standard screen resolutions. At least that is what i understood from my readings. 1280x800 is one of those wide screen resolutions which is pretty normal is every other laptop these days. Then why didn't Sabayon pick it up on my installation on Virtual Box!! That is not a good thing.

However, you can tell Sabayon to pick up 1280x800 with a small configuration.

'su' to root


pjames@localhost ~ $ su
Password:
localhost pjames #


open xorg.conf in your favorite editor. I am using 'nano'


localhost pjames # nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf



Under screen section, look for default depth.


# **********************************************************************
# Screen sections.
# **********************************************************************

Section "Screen"

# The Identifier, Device and Monitor lines must be present

Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "VESA"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
#Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"

# The favoured Depth and/or Bpp may be specified here

DefaultDepth 24

SubSection "Display"




Now look for display configuration for depth 24.

The Modes line will be commented by default. Uncomment this line, and add your custom screen conguration to it. Here is how it looks on my machine for 1280x800.


SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
ViewPort 0 0
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection


Now, save the file and reboot system for new resolution to become effective.

Sabayon 4 Oh!

Last night, i upgraded my Sabayon 3.5 pod installation to the new Sabayon 4.0. Its a simple 2 step process

1. Change equo repository configuration to point to the new 4 branch

For this, edit /etc/entropy/repositories.conf file and look for the branch entry.
Change current branch to 4 (In my case, i changed 3.5 to 4)


#
# syntax for branch:
#
# branch: in Sabayon Linux each release has its branch that is the version name (eg. 3.4, 3.5)
# branch|actual branch string (no spaces!)
#
# example:
# branch|3.5
# or:
# branch|3.6
#
# Branch default setting
branch|4



2. Run equo world

Wait for equo to compare and upgrade your Sabayon to latest 4 packages and say 'Oh!!'.

I quite liked the way they use 'Oh' in 4.Oh! (4.0)

I have always liked Sabayon anyways.

Schmap Chicago Guide published my photo

Schmap Chicago Guide published the picture of "The Grand Ballroom by Navy Pier"; the way my camera saw it.






You've been sent a Flickr Mail from Emma J. Williams:

------------------------------------------------------------

:: Schmap Chicago Sixth Edition: Photo Inclusion


Hi Prasanth,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released sixth
edition of our Schmap Chicago Guide:

Grand Ballroom At Navy Pier
http://www.schmap.com/chicago/entertainment_concerts/p=321649/i=321649_5.jpg

If you use an iPhone or iPod touch, then this same link
will take you directly to your photo in the iPhone version
of our guide. On a desktop computer, you can still see
exactly how your photo is displayed and credited in the
iPhone version of our guide at:

Grand Ballroom At Navy Pier
http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=chicago&sid=entertainment_concerts&p=321649&i=321649_5

Finally, if you have a blog, you might also like to check
out the customizable widgetized version of our Schmap
Chicago Guide, complete with your published photo:

http://www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=97292732N00/c=SJ20152142

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please
enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
www.schmap.me/emma.williams

------------------------------------------------------------

To reply to this message, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/messages_read.gne?id=72157613414979059

To update your email settings, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/account/prefs/notifications/

The Flickr Team

www.flickr.com

Schmap Chicago Guide shortlisted my photo

Okay, I am very excited about this one. Schmap magazine has shortlisted one of my photos on chicago for its 6th edition. Though this is not the best photograph i have ever taken, and i am not gaining anything financially, a pat on the back always feels good; especially when its a magazine.

They picked this picture from my Flickr stream

Here is the picture they picked and mail from their editor.






From: Emma Williams
Date: Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 9:27 AM
Subject: [Flickr] Schmap: Chicago Photo Short-list
To: prasanth.james@gmail.com


You've been sent a Flickr Mail from Emma J. Williams:

------------------------------------------------------------

:: Schmap: Chicago Photo Short-list


Hi Prasanth,

I am writing to let you know that one of your photos has
been short-listed for inclusion in the sixth edition of our
Schmap Chicago Guide, to be published mid-February 2009.

http://www.schmap.com/shortlist/p=97292732N00/c=SJ20152865

Clicking this link will take you to a page where you can:
i) See which of your photos has been short-listed.
ii) Submit or withdraw your photo from our final selection
phase.
iii) Learn how we credit photos in our Schmap Guides.
iv) Browse online or download the fifth edition of our
Schmap Chicago Guide.

While we offer no payment for publication, many
photographers are pleased to submit their photos, as Schmap
Guides give their work recognition and wide exposure, and
are free of charge to readers. Photos are published at a
maximum width of 150 pixels, are clearly attributed, and
link to high-resolution originals at Flickr.

Our submission deadline is Tuesday, January 27. If you
happen to be reading this message after this date, please
still click on the link above (our Schmap Guides are
updated frequently - photos submitted after this deadline
will be considered for later releases).

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
www.schmap.me/emma.williams

Best $100 speakers

I need a good pair of speakers for my limited $100 budget. My expectation from them would be,

1. Medium to good quality high range frequency production
2. Good quality mid range frequency (vocal quality if very important to me - for music and movies)
3. Low to medium quality low range frequency (Obviously i can't expect more than that from a $100 speaker)
4. Good stereo imaging
5. Compact size
6. Aux input for my old iRiver H120
7. Should be able to connect to my TV if need be.
8. Headphone jack


After hours of research, i have closed on Logitech Z2300, M-Audio Studiophile 30 and Bose companion 2. Though i don't think Z2300 will make the cut with its competitors, i am going to decide that only after listening to one of them at a store. If one prefers bass over vocal performance, Z2300 is the choice. I am not much after rap, R&B or house as my Last.fm library would tell you and so, the 2.1 Z2300 need not be the one for me.

Z2300 is $85 and the others sell at $99/pair on Amazon and BestBuy and hence technically in my budget. All of them seem to have the audio reproduction characteristics that i am looking at and i am already a little biased towards M-Audio from what i have discovered about them so far.



M-Audio Studiophile 30


Best in the category for its low to mid range reproduction. Most people who bought this felt that this pair produces the complete spectrum accurately.




Logitech Z2300


8" woofer for the beats




Bose Companion2


Famous for its stereo imagining capability


In part 2 of this blog, i'll update my in store experience with these speakers and my decision.

Cisco VPN client setup on Sabayon linux 3.5

I have a Cisco VPN at work and CIsco provided VPN client won't install on my 64 bit windows Vista. Hence, i set it up on my Sabayon 3.5 mini linux box using 'vpnc' and 'rdesktop'. This is how you do it.

Install vpnc. 'vpnc' is the application that sets up a network connection with the VPN server by adding a rounter configuration.

Find the latest version of vpnc available to you by running


equo search vpnc



Install it



equo install net-misc/vpnc-0.5.2_pre20080509-r1



Next step is to create a vpnc configuration. If you have a 'pcf' file, you can do this by running the 'pcf2vpnc' utility. PCF is the CISCO client configuration file. Ask your network admin to procide you one. I am writing the configuration to vpnc's default configuration file so that i don't have to specify a configuration file when starting vpnc.


pcf2vpnc <pcf file> /etc/vpnc/default.config


Double check the configuration is intact. Also, if you are manually setting up configuration and not creating it from a pcf file, this is where you do it.


nano /etc/vpnc/default.config


## generated by pcf2vpnc
IPSec ID <connection_name>
IPSec gateway <vpn_ip>
IPSec secret <vpn_pwd>

Xauth username <domain name\username of the network you are connecting to> # domain\userId
Xauth password <domain password> #pwd
IKE Authmode <authmode> # Leave this to default


Start vpnc.


localhost pjames # vpnc
VPNC started in background (pid: 8138)...


If you get this message, we are good. vpnc deamon has started successfully.

Verify the connectivity. Check 'netstat -r' and make sure you see the new network connection to VPN server. Then, ping a machine in your VPN network.

So far, we have established a connection to the VPN. However, for a connection to the terminal desktop, you need a GUI tool - 'rdesktop'.

Install rdesktop.



equo install rdesktop



Now run rdesktop from console.


rdesktop -d <domain> -u <user> -p <pwd> <machine name>


You should get the target machine's desktop now. Disconnect from the machine and run rdesktop with '-f' flag for full screen.



rdesktop -f -d <domain> -u <user> -p <pwd> <machine name>


Now, let us add 'vpnc' as a start up service so that you don't have to do it manually every time.

rc-update add vpnc default


Last thing you may want to do is to create launcher for 'rdesktop' and place it as a short cut.

Thats it. I am one click away from my office machine now.



Update: The default conf file name for vpnc should be vpnc.conf (not default.conf) for the deamon to load it while start up.

Selenium Vs Watir

Selenium and Watir the best front end based web application testing frameworks at present. Even though there are other frameworks out there, like webtest, they cannot scale up to the web 2.0 style client heavy web applications. They are not good with XHRs are Javascripts. Both selenium and watir supports test suites in Java or Ruby and you can replay them subsequently.

Selenium has a firefox based recorder tool also, that can capture browser actions and create test cases in multiple languages like Java and Ruby.

Best way to start on Selenium is by watching the tutorial they have on their website. Setup and running it is as easy as they tell us in this tutorial.

The IDE can show you Java/Ruby code for the recorded test case. Copy that and run as java test case with selenium apis in classpath.

This is for simple scenario testing. For a larger, concurrent load testing, use Selenuim RC framework. This is capable of running tests in parallel threads.

Even though Selenium is cool, my personal favorite is Watir. There is only one factor that makes Watir the winner, according to me that is, and that factor makes all the difference. It is the philosophy with which these tools have been made. Watir is a tool that is made by testers and for testers, by focusing on what really should be the focus point for the person who uses it.

A simple scenario discussion will prove this. In Selenium, after a request submit is done by the script, it doesn't know how to detect the arrival of response. So, technically it waits for a specified amount of time and then assumes the page has been loaded with response content. In test suites, it comes as a line like this one-selenium.waitForPageToLoad("30000");Defining this wait period becomes the script writer's (tester) responsibility. Should they be?

If you have a process to run test cases on multiple environment's, it can worsen the scenario so quickly.

Also, your load testing results are not accurate when you have ambiguous wait periods defined all over request submissions.

In my experience, i have seen the recorded tests not functioning properly because the way page elements are automatically detected may not be the way you want it to be. You will understand this if you write a test case to login to your gmail account and read a mail or study the recorded test case source in detail.

Watir, on the other hand works embedded within the browser in a way. This means, it can detect when the server response comes back. Tester can focus on what the response value should be rather figuring out what the approximate wait period on each page should be. Watir is also tested to be better for Ajax based testing.

Watir has the full API set support from Ruby, which makes it much more powerful than Selenium. For load generation and parallel threads, one needs to write Ruby scripts for test cases. All that is covered in their test case.

On the cons side, Watir doesn't have a matured recorder tool. Watir is a Ruby framework and knowledge of Ruby is mandatory. But hey, if you are of the learner type Ruby is a cool place to hang around. So, if you are in the mood, jump on to Watir::IE.new.goto "Watir website"


Trivia: Ruby is really good when it comes to utility frameworks like Watir, BuildR, some report generation with the good regex support or quick prototyping. You can always build small applications with Ruby and Rails. But will it ever be on par with an enterprise platform like Java? Not at the moment, i guess. Had that been the case, we would never have had to come up with J2EE; programmers would have been happily coding in C and Perl. Ruby guys need to talk more about scalability, transaction managements and other enterprise application attributes if they want Ruby to be anything more than what it is currently.

TV++, watch it anywhere

Continuing from my previous blog, this is the last blog of this series that will talk about options that will get your favorite programs and media files for view anywhere. You don't really need that TV set in your home to watch the last episode of "The Family Guy". You can watch it over the internet from anywhere - your office (you don't really wanna do that), coffee shop, airport lounges, etc., etc., any place with a wi-fi. All you need is to add this one more box to your home theater setup, called 'SlingBox'.

SlingBox can connect to a DVR or TiVo and broadcast your signals across the internet so that you can watch them on a laptop from any place. They also have a product called Sling Catcher which can grab signals from a SlingBox within the limited radius and let you watch TV on another television or laptop within the house.

On their website, they have shown the various uses of a SlingBox. watch it here.

So, If you recognize yourself as someone who is addicted to television, spends a lot of time in front of it; and often misses other things in life, this is the setup for you- LCD/Plasma TV, TiVo and a SlingBox. And maybe a good BlueRay player for those rentals.

What can be the next development in television broadcast? I am guessing it going to become even more mobile. Like, for eg., you can connect to your channels using a mobile phone. You need a media streaming client in your mobile phone that can connect to your home DVR/TiVo and get your personal media; or watch your channels on a mini TV in your car. Wait and watch!!

GA, are they watching us?


You : GA**, are they watching us?
GA : Lemme check the radar
You : What does it say?
GA : As a matter of fact, they are..including three new from Russia, you have been in their views for the last 3 days, 200 of them, to be precise.
You : Emmm...do i have reasons to panic?
GA : I am sorry, i can't tell you that. I am only a website analytic robot.

{John Williams play 'Prologue' in the background}

=== End of chapter 3: the unknown element===
=== Curtains ===


GA**: Google Analytics is a website traffic analizer from google. It can tell you quite an interesting number of facts about your website, like

• how many visitors have been on your site
  
• how many of them are new visitors
  
• which page attracts more users
  
• what parts of the world your users are from
  
• how much time do they spend on your site
  
• traffic source to your site
  

You also have the option to set goals for your site and map it against the actual.

What you need first is a google user account and profile. Then go to google analytics and access analytics. Register your website address in your analytics profile. You are almost done.

Google needs to put a small javascript snippet in your website to send traffic information to analytics engine. This javascript code, which google will provide you once you register your website, needs to go between the <head> and </head> tags of your website HTML.

PS: If you want to track traffic on your blog site; you can do that buy going to your blogger account->Layout->Edit HTML. make sure to put this script in <head> section itself, though google will ask you to put it in <body> tag. <head> is the right place for javascript and everything will work properly. It only makes a difference if you have Ajax style body rendering without loading the entire page. Since that is not the case with blogger, we are good.

You are all set. Give google 24 hours to collect the initial stats from your site and be surprised to see who your users are.

For more details, go to analytics help


=== Curtains up ===
{John Williams play 'Duel of the fates'}
=== Chapter 4 : duel of the fates===