Author Archive: Phil Jackson

When I present about the SoftLayer API at conferences and meetups, I often use an image that shows how many of the different services in the API are interrelated and connected. As I started building the visual piece of my presentation, I noticed a curious “coincidence” about the layout of the visualization:

What does that look like to you?

You might need to squint your eyes and tilt your head or “look beyond the image” like it’s one of those “Magic Eye” pictures, but if you’re a geek like me, you can’t help but notice a striking resemblance to one of the most iconic images from Star Wars:

The SoftLayer API looks like the Death Star.

The similarity is undeniable … The question is whether that resemblance is coincidental or whether it tells us we can extrapolate some kind of fuller meaning as in light of the visible similarities. I can hear KHazzy now … “Phil, While that’s worth a chuckle and all, there is no way you can actually draw a relevant parallel between the SoftLayer API and The Death Star.” While Alderaan may be far too remote for an effective demonstration, this task is no match for the power of the Phil-side.

Challenge Accepted.

The Death Star: A large space station constructed by the Galactic Empire equipped with a super-laser capable of destroying an entire planet.

The SoftLayer API: A robust set of services and methods which provide programmatic access to all portions of the SoftLayer Platform capable of automating any task: administrative, configuration or otherwise.

Each is the incredible result of innovation and design. The construction of the Death Star and creation of the SoftLayer API took years of hard work and a significant investment. Both are massive in scale, and they’re both effective and ruthless when completing their objectives.

The most important distinction: The Death Star was made to destroy while the SoftLayer API was made to create … The Death Star was designed to subjugate a resistance force and destroy anything in the empire’s way. The SoftLayer API was designed to help customers create a unified, automated way of managing infrastructure; though in the process, admittedly that “creation” often involves subjugating redundant, compulsory tasks.

The Death Star and the SoftLayer API can both seem pretty daunting. It can be hard to find exactly what you need to solve all of your problems … Whether that be an exhaust port or your first API call. Fear not, for I will be with you during your journey, and unlike Obi-Wan Kenobi, I’m not your only hope. There is no need for rebel spies to acquire the schematics for the API … We publish them openly at sldn.softlayer.com, and we encourage our customers to break the API down into the pieces of functionality they need.

-Phil (@SoftLayerDevs)

SoftLayer is in a constant state of change … It’s not that bad change we all fear; it’s the type of change that allows you to stretch the boundaries of your normal experience and run like a penguin … Because I got some strange looks when coworkers read “run like a penguin,” I should explain that I recently visited Moody Gardens in Galveston and saw penguins get crazy excited when they were about to get fed, so that’s the best visual I could come up with. Since I enjoy a challenge (and enjoy running around like a penguin), when I was asked to design the new version of SLDN, I was excited.

The goal was simple: Take our already amazing documentation software infrastructure and make it better. A large part of this was to collapse our multi-site approach down into a single unified user experience. Somewhere along the way, “When is the proposal going to be ready?” became “When is the site going to be ready?”, at this point I realized that all of the hurdles I had been trampling over in my cerebral site building were now still there, standing, waiting for me on my second lap.

I recently had the honor to present our ideas, philosophy and share some insight into the technical details of the site at OSCON 2011, and KHazzy had the forethought to record it for all of you!

It’s a difficult balance to provide details and not bore the audience with tech specs, so I tried to keep the presentation relatively light to encourage attendees (and now viewers) to ask questions about areas they want a little more information about. If you’re looking at a similar project in the future, feel free to bounce ideas off me, and I’ll steer you clear of a few land mines I happened upon.

-Phil

Deep in the depths of an ancient tomb of the great Abswalli, you and your team accidentally awaken the Terbshianaki ghost army. You’re disconnected from the supply caravan with the valuable resources that could not only sustain your journey but also save your team. As Zeliagh the Protesiann hunter fires his last arrow, you come to the sudden realization that continuing your quest is now hopeless. Alas, true terror was unknown before this moment as you come to the most surprising realization: The one thing you truly can’t live without is your trusty server that converts one type of media into another.

Fear not great adventurer, for I, Phil of the SLAPI, have come, and I bear the gifts of empowerment, automation and integration. Freedom from the horror of your epiphany can be found in our complementary media transcoding service.
Before we can begin, some preparation is required. First, you must venture to our customer portal and create a transcoding user: Private Network->Transcoding. As you know from the use of your other SoftLayer spoils, you shan’t be obligated to access this functionality from your web browser. You can summon the API wizardry bequeathed to you by coders of old in the the SLDN scroll: SoftLayer_Network_Media_Transcode_Account::createTranscodeAccount.*

*For the sake of this blog, we’ll abbreviate “SoftLayer_Network_Media_Transcode_Account” as “SNMTA” from here forward … Shortening it helps with blog formatting.

You must then construct an object to represent a SoftLayer Network Media Transcode Job, like our SoftLayer Network Media Transcode Job template object. This template object will be built with a number of properties. Your pursuit in relieving your aforementioned horror only necessitates the use of the required properties.

You will need to decide in which format the final treasure will take form. You may find this information with the SNMTA::getPresets method.

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$client = SoftLayer_SoapClient::getClient('SoftLayer_Network_Media_Transcode_Account', $trandcodeAccountId, $apiUsername, $apiKey);
$transcodePresets = $client->getPresets();
print_r($transcodePresets);
Array
(
    [0] => stdClass Object
        (
            [GUID] => {9C3716B9-C931-4873-9FD1-03A17B0D3350}
            [category] => Application Specific
            [description] => MPEG2, Roku playback, 1920 x 1080, Interlaced, 29.97fps, 25Mbps, used with Component/VGA connection.
            [name] => MPEG2 - Roku - 1080i
        )
 
    [1] => stdClass Object
        (
            [GUID] => {03E81152-2A74-4FF3-BAD9-D1FF29973032}
            [category] => Application Specific
            [description] => MPEG2, Roku playback, 720 x 480, 29.97fps, 6.9Mbps, used with Component/S-Video connection.
            [name] => MPEG2 - Roku - 480i
        )
 
    [2] => stdClass Object
        (
            [GUID] => {75A264DB-7FBD-4976-A422-14FBB7950BD1}
            [category] => Application Specific
            [description] => MPEG2, Roku playback, 720 x 480, Progressive, 29.97fps, 6.9Mbps, used with Component/VGA connection.
            [name] => MPEG2 - Roku - 480p
        )
.....

The freedom to use this power (the more you know!) is yours, in this instance, I scrolled through let my intuition find the option which just felt right:

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stdClass Object
	(
            [GUID] => {21A33980-5D78-4010-B4EB-6EF15F5CD69F}
            [category] => Web\Flash
            [description] =>
            [name] => FLV 1296kbps 640x480 4x3 29.97fps
        )

To decipher this language we must know the following:

1. The GUID is the unique identifier which we will use to reference our champion
2. The category section is used to group like presets together, this will be useful for those who’s journey leads down the path of GUI creation
3. A description of the preset, if one is available, will be listed under description
4. name is simply a human-readable name for our preset

You are nearly ready to restore your yearned for transcoding service as the ghostly horde presses the defensive perimeter. We have but one more task of preparation: We must provide the transcoding service a file! Using your Wand of File Transference +3, or your favorite FTP client, you enter the details for your transcode FTP account found on the Transcoding page of the IMS (or of course SNMTA::getFtpAttributes) and choose the “in” directory as the destination for your source file. Lacking no other option, you may call upon Sheshura, a fairy sprite, specializing in arcane documents for a source video file: Epic Battle

The battle rages around you, as the Wahwatarian mercenaries protect your flank. The clicking of your laptop keys twist and merge in the air around your ears only to transcend into a booming chorus of “The Flight of the Valkyries” as you near transcoding Utopia. You strike:

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<?php
//  Create a transcoding client
$client = SoftLayer_SoapClient::getClient('SoftLayer_Network_Media_Transcode_Job', null, $apiUsername, $apiKey);
 
// Define our preset GUID and filename
$presetGUID = '{95861D24-9DF5-405E-A130-A40C6637332D}';
$inputFile = 'video.mov';
 
/*
 * The transcoding service will append the new file extension to the output file
 * so we strip the extension here.
 */
$outputFile = substr($inputFile, 0, strrpos($inputFile, '.'));
 
try {
    // Create a SoftLayer_Network_Media_Transcode_Job template object with the required properties
    $transcodeJob = new stdClass();
    $transcodeJob->transcodePresetGuid = $presetGUID;
    $transcodeJob->inputFile = "/in/$inputFile";
    $transcodeJob->outputFile = "/out/$outputFile";
 
    // Call createObject() with our template object as a parameter
    $result = $client->createObject($transcodeJob);
    // $result will contain a SoftLayer_Network_Media_Transcode_Job object
    print_r($result);
} catch ( Exception $e) {
    die( $e->getMessage());
}

If your will did not waver nor did your focus break in the face of ever-closing ghouls pounding your resolve, your treasure will be waiting. Brandish your Wand of File Transference +3, or utilize your favorite FTP client to retrieve your reward: “out/video.flv”

If the gods be with thee, your resulting file should look like this: Epic Battle (in .flv)

With your victory fresh upon the tablets of history, you can now encode to any of our supported formats. Try using the process above to convert the video to .mp4 format so your resulting file output is Epic Battle (in .mp4)!

-Phil

P.S. If you’re going to take off your training wheels, the second example uses “[description] => MPEG4 file, 320x240, 15fps, 256kbps for download” for the bandwidth impaired.

‘We\’ve’ . “all $een” . ‘this’ . $problem . ‘before’ . $and->it . ((1==1) ? ‘seems’ : ‘dosen\’t seem’) . sprintf(‘about time to %s things’, ‘clarify’);

PHP string handling can be a tough concept to wrangle. Developers have many options: single / double quotes, concatenation and various string manipulation functions. The choices you make have a significant impact on the readability and performance of your script. Let’s meet the line-up:

The Literal
Single quotes are used to define a string whose contents should be taken literally. What this means is that PHP will not attempt to expand any content contained between the ' '.

This is the way to tell your favorite Hypertext Preprocessor, “That little guy? Don’t worry about that little guy.”

In most cases this is the de-facto standard for strings. However, when a decent number of variables become involved it tends to become difficult to keep your quotes accounted for. When combining simple strings with variables and single quotes, the “.” operator is needed between each variable/string. That “.” is known as the concatenation operator.

Input:
$date = 'Yesterday';
$location = 'outside';
$item = array ( 'description' => 'lovely', 'name' => 'butterfly');
$content = $date . ' I went ' . $location . ' and caught a ' . $item['description'] . ' ' . $item['name'];

Output: Yesterday I went outside and caught a lovely butterfly

The Interpreted
Using double quotes will cause PHP to look a little closer into the string to find anywhere it can “read between the lines.” Variables and escape characters will be expanded, so you can reference them inline without the need for concatenation. This can be useful when creating strings which include pre-defined variables.

Input:
$file = 'example.jpg'
$content = "<a href=\"http://www.example.com/$file\">$file</a>"

Output: <a href=”http://www.example.com/example.jpg”>example.jpg</a>

In previous versions of PHP there was a significant performance difference between the use of single v. double quotes. In later versions performance variations are negligible. The decision of one over the other should focus on feature and readability concerns.

The Thoughtful
Unlike single and double quotes, the sprintf function comes to the table with a few cards up its sleeve. When provided with a formatting “template” and arguments, sprintf will return a formatted string.

Input:
$order = array ( 'item' => 'RC Helicopters', 'status' => 'pending');
$content = sprintf('Your order of %s is currently %s', $order['item'], $order['status']);

Output: Your order of RC Helicopters is currently pending

When constructing a complex string such as XML documents, sprintf allows the developer to view the string with placeholders rather than a mish-mash of escaped quotes and variables. In addition sprintf is able to specify the type of variable, change padding/text alignment, and even change the order in which it displays the variables.

The debate over the most efficient method of string definition has raged for years and will likely continue ad infinitum. However, when the benchmarks show their performance as almost identical, it leaves you with one major question: What works the best for your implementation? Typically my scripts will contain all of the methods above, and often a combination of them.

print(sprintf('The %s important thing is that %s give them all a try and see for %s', 'most', 'you', 'yourself'));

-Phil