Thursday 21 July 2011

Embedded BI Publisher RD stuck at P

This is the second time (maybe third) that I have seen BI Publisher (BIP) jobs being stuck at P, in terms of the RD.

User Row exit for “View RD jobs” from WSJ and you’ll get a screen like:

image

If jobs are getting stuck at “P” on this screen, this is generally to do with language settings.   A great place to start is https://support.oracle.com and more specifically, https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&doctype=PROBLEM&id=661414.1.

This tells you some good info, but missing a key element, what the data should be.  So if you are an English site (and reading this easily), then your row for UDC 01|LP|E should have ‘en’ as the second description.

image

Without this it’s not going to work.  They tell you to look at the pristine data.  All well and good, but I’m going to go one step further and list it her.  Please also ensure that the user that is running these jobs has the correct language code against their profile.

 

DRSY

DRRT

DRKY

DRDL01

DRDL02

01

LP

 

Domestic Language

en

01

LP

1

North America Public Services

 

01

LP

1B

Single Byte Search Description

 

01

LP

AR

Arabic

ar

01

LP

BG

Bulgarian

bg

01

LP

C

Czech

cs

01

LP

CS

Chinese Simplified

zh_CN

01

LP

CT

Chinese Traditional

zh_TW

01

LP

DN

Danish

da

01

LP

DU

Dutch

nl

01

LP

E

English

en

01

LP

F

French

fr

01

LP

FN

Finnish

fi

01

LP

G

German

de

01

LP

GR

Greek

el

01

LP

HR

Croatian

hr

01

LP

HU

Hungarian

hu

01

LP

I

Italian

it

01

LP

J

Japanese

ja

01

LP

KO

Korean

ko

01

LP

NO

Norwegian

no

01

LP

P

Portuguese

pt

01

LP

PO

Polish

pl

01

LP

RO

Romanian

ro

01

LP

RU

Russian

ru

01

LP

S

Spanish

es

01

LP

TR

Turkish

tr

01

LP

W

Swedish

sv

Embedded BI Publisher additional fonts AS/400

It’s pretty easy at the end of the day.  The job runs on the 400, so you need to get the fonts and the configuration on the 400 so that the JVM which BIP runs in can see them.

A logical place for fonts is your directory equivalent to: 

/E900SYS/RESOURCE/truetype

Load your addition ttf files in here via a UNC share to the 400.

Then, change the xdo.cfg to see these fonts:

goto \\SERVERNAME\E900SYS\CLASSES for xdo.cfg

make a backup of the file, it should look like this:

<config version="1.0.0" xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/oxp/config/">

<!-- Properties -->

<properties>

<!-- System level properties -->

<!-- PLEASE SELECT A VALID TEMPFILE DIRECTORY!!! -->

<!-- <property name="system-temp-dir">/tmp</property> -->

<!-- PDF compression -->

<property name="pdf-compression">true</property>

<!-- PDF security -->

<property name="pdf-security">false</property>

<property name="pdf-open-password">user</property>

<!-- <property name="pdf-permissions-password">owner</property> -->

<property name="pdf-no-printing">false</property>

<property name="pdf-no-changing-the-document">true</property>

<!-- Scalability properties -->

<property name="xslt-scalable">true</property>

<property name="xslt-xdoparser">true</property>

</properties>

</config>

Add a fonts section within the config section:

<config version="1.0.0" xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/oxp/config/">

<!—Properties -->

<!-- Font setting -->

<fonts>

<font family="GnuMICR Normal" style="normal" weight="normal">
<truetype path="/E900SYS/RESOURCE/truetype/GnuMICR.ttf" />
</font>

<font family="OCR-B" style="normal" weight="normal">
<truetype path="/E900SYS/RESOURCE/truetype/Ocrb.ttf" />
</font>

<font family="GnuMICR" style="normal" weight="normal">
<truetype path="/E900SYS/RESOURCE/truetype/GnuMICR.ttf" />
</font>

</fonts>

</config>

Job done, now if you use this font in your RTF, the 400 should be able to create jobs using it.

Friday 15 July 2011

The uses of GoldenGate

Introduction:

Oracle GoldenGate enables the exchange and manipulation of data at the transaction level among multiple, heterogeneous platforms across the enterprise. Its modular architecture gives you the flexibility to extract and replicate selected data records, transactional changes, and changes to DDL (data definition language) across a variety of topologies.

With this flexibility, and the filtering, transformation, and custom processing features of Oracle GoldenGate, you can support numerous business requirements:

  • Business continuance and high availability.
  • Initial load and database migration.
  • Data integration.
  • Decision support and data warehousing.

 

image

GoldenGate supports the above topologies

image

GoldenGate 11G currently supports the above configurations.

live reporting

The most basic Oracle GoldenGate configuration is a one-to-one configuration that replicates in one direction: from a source database to a target database that is used only for data  retrieval purposes such as reporting and analysis. Oracle GoldenGate supports like-to-like or heterogeneous transfer of data, with capabilities for filtering and conversion on either  system in the configuration (support varies by database platform).

image

real time data distribution

A data distribution configuration is a one-to-many configuration. Oracle GoldenGate supports synchronization of a source database to any number of target systems. Oracle GoldenGate  supports like-to-like or heterogeneous transfer of data, with capabilities for filtering and  conversion on any system in the configuration (support varies by database platform).

image

real-time data warehousing

A data warehousing configuration is a many-to-one configuration. Multiple source databases send data to one target warehouse database. Oracle GoldenGate supports like-to-like or heterogeneous transfer of data, with capabilities for filtering and conversion on any system in the configuration (support varies by database platform).

 

image

maintain a live standby database

Oracle GoldenGate supports an active-passive bi-directional configuration, where Oracle GoldenGate replicates data from an active primary database to a full replica database on a live standby system that is ready for failover during planned and unplanned outages.

image

active-active high availability

Oracle GoldenGate supports an active-active bi-directional configuration, where there are two systems with identical sets of data that can be changed by application users on either  system. Oracle GoldenGate replicates transactional data changes from each database to  the other to keep both sets of data current.

image

Thursday 14 July 2011

Myriad and Resco partnership announcement

Myriad are proud to have partnered with Resco, who are the creators of MobileCRM. Resco MobileCRM is a Microsoft Dynamics CRM mobile client solution offering advanced customization capabilities. The application allows you to work in a disconnected mode with the  capability of synchronizing local data with Microsoft Dynamics CRM on-demand. The in-built visual customization tools allow for comprehensive customizations to be made to the interface and allow all of your entities and fields to be brought to your mobile device.

The application reflects on all modern UI trends of the current mobile technology. It supports various mobile platforms:

  • Windows Mobile, Win CE, Tablet PC
  • Windows Phone 7
  • iPhone, iPad
  • Android

Do you want to?

  • run Microsoft CRM on iPad
  • run Microsoft CRM on iPhone
  • run Microsoft CRM on Andriod
  • run Microsoft CRM on Windows Phone 7

If you would like to know more about Resco and how we can get your staff more mobile with their important business data, please contact us.

The new equation: Oracle GoldenGate + JDE Upgrade = 0 Downtime

Ever wondered how you are going to go live with your JDE upgrade and have 0 downtime.  Ever wondered how you are going to go live with an upgrade and only have  a weekend of downtime?  GoldenGate might be the solution that you are looking for.

GoldenGate will give you the ability to code real time data conversions into your “pre-upgrade” environment so that they appear in real-time in your upgraded environment.  How I hear you asking?  Golden gate will give you the ability to code the same “Table Conversion” TC logic into it’s real-time replication scripts.  Therefore, when a transaction is inserted into F0911, F4201, F4211 etc. in your XE environment, GoldenGate will execute the equivalent TC logic for each of these tables to ensure that your E9 environment has the committed data also – in real-time.  So your XE environment will be kept in synch with your E9 environment…  How can you test?  Run any integrity you want – one in Xe and one in E9 – it’s that simple!

This gives your ultimate flexibility in how and when you are going to upgrade.  Take your time, module at a time or big bang!

from http://www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/data-integration/059240.html

Oracle GoldenGate moves committed transactions with transaction integrity and minimal overhead on your existing infrastructure. Its wide variety of use cases includes real-time business intelligence; query offloading; zero-downtime upgrades and migrations; disaster recovery; and active-active databases for data distribution, data synchronization and high availability.

The flexibility does not end with the upgrade options, because you can lease the software for the time that you need it.

GoldenGate can be leased yearly at 20% of retail.  Myriad have been told that the software can be purchased for $17,500.00 yearly per CPU.  This is a super low cost for a no downtime upgrade.  Note that there will be costs for consulting to program the TC logic into GoldenGate.

If you want a no downtime upgrade of JDE you need GoldenGate.  Currently this product is not certified for AS/400 databases, but it’s on the roadmap.

Of course, GoldenGate is not just limited to JDE upgrades, it could suit ANY scenario that requires real-time replication with complicated logic involvement.

Please contact us for more information.

Wednesday 13 July 2011

JDE Archiving – a pragmatic approach

Introduction:

Myriad have been involved in a number of JDE related archive projects, they’ve involved using 3rd party software and not. At the end of the day, creating a robust and repeatable archiving solution is simple using both JDE tools and native database products.

Investing time and money into third party tools that are database or ERP specific is not generally a good long term plan. Creating a flexible and repeatable framework that can change with the business, but provide the FASTEST and most ROBUST archiving solution is the best solution.

clip_image002[10]

 

The 90:20 rule:

Generally we find that 90% of a company’s data is found within 20 tables. Depending on which modules you use in JDE and how much you use them will change which tables fill up – and how fast.

F0911 is always going to be a large table, it’s the centre of all financial transactions. Keeping the detail in this file is essential for tracking back problems for customers and suppliers alike. Myriad ensures that all relational integrity is maintained when archiving is performed.

What our solution can do:

We offer you the following:

· Allow you to see ALL archive and ALL existing data as a superset

· Native use of ALL JDE functionality (read-only we suggest) in the archive environment

· Additional environment in JDE, which could have different menus and security to control access to archive information.

· Ability to query (read-only) through JDE web and JDE UBE’s

· Easy to add additional tables to the archive set .

· Ability to use robust database specific functionality to execute the archive process, not be limited to RAT (row at a time) processing.

clip_image002[4]

Specific not Generic:

Most archiving solutions (if not all) do not use the power of your database to perform the archival tasks – we do. The archiving tools are written to support heterogeneous databases and never use the power of the database to perform the task at hand. Many of them process your data row-at-a-time and require a lot of manual configuration anyway.

Myriad ensure that you are using specific SQLServer, Oracle, DB2/UDB or DB2/400 functions to allow you to have seamless access to ALL of your data when you need to. Not just your archived data.

We also ensure that your bespoke modifications are taken into consideration when establishing an archive set. All your F55-F59 data will be moved with the same relational integrity that is maintained with standard tables.

We don’t change the configuration in your production environment - Period. We only remove data, there are NO configuration changes to JDE and therefore no instability problems.

You archive environment is strictly read only. We ensure that the database security profiles that are used in the back end to access you data are ready only. The environment look and feel is also changed to ensure that users know they are in the archive environment.

Myriad ensure that the data stored in your “archive” environment is as efficient as possible. This is an environment used for read only transactions, so Myriad make the most of the latest compression offered to you by your database vendor. The use of VARCHAR as opposed to CHAR fields can cut the size of some tables by a factor of 10!

We’ve seen compression get an amazing 720% reduction in the size of indexes on the F0911 – this is just the beginning!

Finally Myriad know that there is some “heavy lifting” when you first put in an archiving solution, once that has been done the scheduled regular archive operations are relatively innocuous and can occur generally online and “out of hours”.

Want to know more, please fill out your details on our contact page.

Thursday 7 July 2011

End of Support for XE and ERP8 coming soon!

image

 

Please remember that if you are running XE or ERP8, you are not going to be supported from December 2013.  These products are not going to go into extended support, they are going straight to sustaining support.  What does this mean?  No legal fixes, not tax fixes, no new supported platforms or software.

If you are on XE or ERp8, it’s time to start planning your upgrade NOW!

Since release 9.02 has been stamped an official release, if you upgrade to this release you’ll enjoy premiere support until Many, 2015!

image

Sustaining Support

Our Sustaining Support puts you in control of your upgrade strategy. For as long as you
license your Oracle products, you will receive technical support, including access to our
online support tools, knowledgebases and technical support experts. Sustaining Support
provides:
• Major product and technology releases
• Technical Support
• Access to MetaLink/Customer Connection
• Pre-existing fixes for your solutions
Sustaining Support does not include:
• New updates, fixes, and security alerts
• New tax, legal, and regulatory updates
• Certification with new third-party products/versions
• Certification with other Oracle products

Listen to John Schiff on this podcast: http://streaming.oracle.com/ebn/podcasts/media/10131832_JD_Edwards_062311.mp3

Tuesday 5 July 2011

forefront killing my CPU

I was seeing that Forefront was killing the CPU on my host laptop.  This was not during a scheduled full scan, just general real-time protection.  I was running a couple of VM's, outlook, word, browsers -  nothing too bad, but the CPU was getting killed.  I'd disable realtime protection and things would go back to normal.  msmpeng.exe was the offending pid.

So, process monitor helped me find out that the oracle install for my fat client was causing all of the problems.  As soon as I made an exception of c:\oracle, I get a nice smooth (relatively) CPU graph.

Monday 4 July 2011

SQL using native AS/400 timestamp fields and SQL, qsys2/systables qsys2/sysindexes

I was struggling to find out how many tables were being generated as part of my upgrade audit scripts.  I like to report on the number of tables and indexes that are created during various stages of the JDE upgrade process, so that it’s uber repeatable…  The environment workbench creates and bunch, and the initial tasks workbench, etc etc.

The SQL below allows you to show the date / time as a long string – ‘YYYYMMSSHHMMSS’, so you can then see how many tables / indexes were created bwtween certain hours, before some hours and after others!

Indexes:

select * from qsys2.sysindexes where created_timestamp > timestamp('20110621114100' ) and table_schema = 'CRPDTA';

Tables:


select * from qsys2.systables where last_altered_timestamp > timestamp('20110614114100' ) and table_schema = 'CRPDTA';

I commonly do lots of SQL over these catalogs, as you would for oracle all_tables and all_indexes.