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Businesses are starting to rely on business intelligence solutions more and more. In fact, SAP has stated that all reporting from their core ERP systems will be moved into the Business Warehouse in future. That means more data and more time spent searching through it. Now, with the co-operation of Intel, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, SAP have developed the Netweaver BI Accelerator. Sounds fancy, but it’s really nothing more than a dedicated piece of hardware with blade servers, external storage and a fast indexing engine.

In traditional BI, the searching and aggregation of data is a lengthy and tedious process. The difference in database design and configuration for OLAP and OLTP applications used to be a big deal. Nowadays, hardware capabilities are such that these design considerations matter less and less. The BI Accelerator appliance available from HP and IBM comprises a large expanse of disk that stores an index if all the data in the data warehouse. The more blades the appliance has at its disposal, the quicker the processing of the index. Running Linux and the SAP search and classification engine TREX, the net effect is a Google for your enterprise. Any search result that can be satisfied directly from the BI Accelerator’s cache is rerouted to it, and all other search and aggregation queries run the traditional route of being processed by the BI backend.

The diagram below is from an IDC white paper:

1. Data is loaded from source systems into an SAP InfoCube.

2. An index is built for this InfoCube and stored inside the BI accelerator appliance. These are search engine indexes built using SAP’s TREX search technology. They are stored in a file system (not a database system) using vertical decomposition (a column-based approach as opposed to the row-based approach that requires more read time). This results in highly compressed data sets that further contribute to fast processing speeds.

3. BI accelerator indexes are loaded into memory where the query is processed. In memory, joins and aggregations are done at run time. Loading of indexes into memory happens automatically at first query request, or it can be set for preloading whenever new data is loaded.

4. At run time, query requests are sent to the analytic engine, which reroutes the query to the BI accelerator.

5. Query results are returned to the end-user application.

Note: Steps 1 through 3 above typically are performed offline, (e.g., during less critical times). Steps 4 and 5 below are executed at actual query time.

So, the trend in SAP continues. More and more hardware and more and more complex system environments. The hardware vendors have every reason to smile! More information on the BI Accelerator here.

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I’ve finally had the time to install a weather plug-in. If you don’t see it on the right of the page, something’s gone wrong

No big issue with the installation of the plug-in. But there was quite an issue once I had the php file copied down. I hardly managed to get into the WordPress administration screens. Warnings such as

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at …/wp-content/plugins/getweather.php:2) in …/wp-includes/pluggable-functions.php on line 220

had me scratching my noggin for quite some time. The resolution is quite simple: ignore the “on line xxx” comment in the warning and examine the file mentioned in the ouput started section instead. So, my issue had nothing to do with pluggable-functions.php line 220 but rather with getweather.php line 2. I had mistakenly added a blank line before the php tag. At the same time, I upgraded to WordPress 2.0.2 – only 81 or so days late! And activated the Akismet plug-in to combat those bloody spam comments. Not bad for a bit of blog maintenance!

Next is the well-deserved switch-over to a new theme. That may take another 30 days or so

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How to secure your teaspoon:

Office environments…what can I say

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Hope you’ll know what to do in an emergency…

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Alonso continues his blistering pace and maintains his ability to stay ahead of the pack. Monaco, a very twisty circuit leaviing little overtaking opportunity, became the latest race won by the Spaniard. This time, a safety car phase prevented Räikkönen from launching a sustained attack. The McLaren’s engine didn’t last, giving Alsonso plenty of time to make it to the finish without too much stress.

Ferrari’s weekend was bleak. Massa damaged the spare car and Schumacher caused a hindrance after qualifying in pole position. That positioned both Ferraris at the back of the grid. The different in points is starting to increase, from Alonso’s first to Schumacher’s second position in the championship table.

Current championship standings:

Position Driver Country Team Points 1 Fernando Alonso Spain Renault 64 2 Michael Schumacher Germany Ferrari 43 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Italy Renault 27 3 Kimi Räikkönen Finland McLaren-Mercedes 27 5 Juan Pablo Montoya Colombia McLaren-Mercedes 23 6 Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari 20 7 Jenson Button Great Britain Honda 16 8 Rubens Barrichello Brazil Honda 13

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It’s here… Originally uploaded by MHertenberger.

Winter time is fire time… This one frightened the hell out of everyone. Took a lot of effort and dedication to eventually put out…

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I think this bookmark from Exclusive Books is pretty cool:

Let me know if you happen to find him

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Took me a while to figure out why the Virsa Compliance Calibrator became unstable. Everything worked without a hitch, except that certain reports couldn’t be displayed and the SAPGUI would constantly crash without warning. Had a look at the trace file from the SAPGUI:

sapfewdbg version= 6405.5.18.52 08:50:24 16.05.2006 A Win32 exception has been caught: ExceptionCode= 0xC0000005 (Access Violation) (unhandled) ExceptionFlags= 0×00000000 () ExceptionAddress= 0x58D153D4 LastError= 0x0000007E The specified module could not be found.ExceptionParameter[0]= 0×00000000 ExceptionParameter[1]= 0×00000000 Thread: 0x135C Exception-ID=0x58D153D4/0x58D153D4

Detailed stack dump: ————————————————————– =>58D153D4: saphtmlp.dll! DllUnregisterServer + 3265 bytes () // symbols not found 61440E66: urlmon.dll! CoInternetIsFeatureZoneElevationEnabled + 504 bytes () // symbols not found 61423AE8: urlmon.dll! CreateURLMonikerEx + 8833 bytes () // symbols not found 61424F40: urlmon.dll! CreateURLMonikerEx + 14041 bytes () // symbols not found 61424BA1: urlmon.dll! CreateURLMonikerEx + 13114 bytes () // symbols not found 6143716E: urlmon.dll! IsStringProperty + 7126 bytes () // symbols not found

then investigated what the problem could be. Seems that I forgot that I had installed Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 preview. That replaced the file URLMON.DLL in the windows SYSTEM32 directory. It’s that file that is used by the SAPGUI to render lists (in my case, tried to use to render lists). So, an uninstallation of the IE 7 preview was performed and all is well! In my case, uninstallation from the Control Panel was not possible. Use the operating system command

%windir%\$NtUninstallie7bet2p$\spuninst\spuninst.exe

if you are having a problem with the removal of IE7.

The degree of dependence of applications and components in the Windows world is scary!

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Not that I fancy downloading 1GB of software. I’ll wait for a DVD.

For the rest of you with the bandwidth and cap to spare, get the Microsoft Office 2007 Beta 2 here.

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HTC have a new device that has already been snapped up by i-mate and, in true i-mate fashion, has been given a rather ridiculous name. The new JASJam is available as a pre-order item from the USA-based On The Go Solutions. I suspect this is the follow-on to the KJam, as the JASJam has a slide-out keyboard, Windows Mobile 5.0, Wifi, Bluetooth, quad-band GSM, GPRS, EDGE and …HSDPA!

These devices are really cool, but i-mate should start working on some new names – they’re running out of JAM!

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