Archive for January, 2011

How to install a loopback adapter on Windows 2003

Jan
22

A loopback adapter can be very useful for testing networking features on a server that doesn’t have a network adapter already installed, and Microsoft provides this feature in Windows Server 2003.

To install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Start | Control Panel | Add Hardware.
  2. In the introductory dialog box, click Next.
  3. Select Yes, I Have Already Connected The Hardware, and click Next.
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the Installed Hardware list box, select Add A New Hardware Device, and click Next.
  5. Select the Install The Hardware That I Manually Select From A List (Advanced) option, and click Next.
  6. Under Hardware Types, select Network Adapters, and click Next.
  7. Under Manufacturer, select Microsoft.
  8. Under Network Adapter, select Microsoft Loopback Adapter.
  9. Click Next twice, and click Finish.

Unless there are already existing adapters, Windows will install the loopback adapter with the name Local Area Connection. If other adapters exist, Windows will name it Local Area Connection <next number>.

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Which one is your BI Architetcure

Which one is your BI Architetcure
Jan
21
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Got an email with this classic cartoon attached.

Its sooooooo true!

(Makes me wonder when Google and Apple will attempt to provide enterprise BI tools, or then again do they already?)

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Is your Portal Content playing peek-a-boo in 9.2

Jan
19

Saw this interesting SAS Support note “Problem Note 36697: Group member cannot see shared group content in SAS® Information Delivery Portal“ referenced in a discussion on the SAS Support Discussion forums.

It seems a change has been made to make the SAS Portal pages load faster in SAS 9.2 (good!)

But the trick for your players is that the users Portal group membership is cached.

What this means is if you change the users groups, for example add them to a new group so they have access to additional content, the cache needs to be refreshed or they will never see the content.

The support note outlines a couple of options for refreshing the cache.

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SAS Enterprise Miner, Delivers the goods but needs makeup (or makeover)

Jan
19

I was reading this interesting blog here from Jiangtang Hu, where he compares SAS Enterprise Miner with IBM’s Intelligent Miner and SPSS Clementine (interesting he didn’t compare Oracle’s Data Mining offering)

His outcome was SAS EM wins on most areas except the User Interface.

I must say that after doing an upgrade for a client to SAS 9.2 M3 and SAS Enterprise Miner 6.2 the other day, I logged straight into Enterprise Miner to see if it still looked as ugly as it always has, and the answer is yes.

Now I know look and feel doesn’t actually make that much of a difference to actual usability (just sales ;-) , and that SAS Enterprise Miner normally has a very limited set of users in an organisation (compared to Web Report Studio which looks damn sexy in 4.3).

But you would think that at some stage in the many upgrades and updates since SAS Enterprise Miner 4.1 the development team would have at least adopted the nice look and feel of DI Studio or the other good looking Studio interfaces.

SAS Enterprise Miner is starting to look very 80′s (especially those top buttons!) and not in a cool retro Miami Vice sort of way either!

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Top 10 posts by views for 2010

Jan
12

So over the last 12 months the ranking for post views looked like (according to wordpress site stats, rather than google analytics):

Post Views
Home page 11,532
SAS BI Clients 4.3 and SAS 9.3 673
SAS EG 4.3 is here (but its hiding with Elvis) 533
SAS Articles 508
SAS Portlets for Sale 380
Making Libnames read/write in Enterprise Guide 273
SAS 9.3 and 9.4 and 9……… 271
SAS 9.2 Platform Changes 269
SAS 9.2 Office Addin and Excel – Undo doesnt (undo that is) 253
Summary of SAS 9.2 Migration Course Tweets 239
Process Explorer – Enhanced Task Manager for Windows Servers 235

And then the sad news, the amount of spam comment entries, I really dont know why these guys bother (well ok I do its all about money right!)

Historical Stats

Spam detected Ham detected Missed spam False positives
2011-01 1,688 4 0 0
2010-12 3,636 0 5 0
2010-11 2,724 16 0 0
2010-10 2,924 4 4 0
2010-09 2,224 8 4 0
2010-08 1,364 0 0 0
2010-07 724 4 4 0
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Reporting Principles – TOGAF

Jan
12

On one of the projects we have been working on we were required to define some reporting principals using the TOGAF style.

I had never used this style/methodology before, but found it great as it forced us to focus on describing these principles in a very succinct (saasinct ;-) way.

We also found there was a wealth of information publicly available on the internet that helped us define and refine these (while of course tailoring them to the customers unique business environment and needs)

So the principles we defined were:

  • Continuous Improvement
    The reporting environment and capabilities should be continuously improved with the goal of moving the organiation up the reporting maturity model.
  • Consolidated Capability
    A single integrated capability will be utilised unless it cannot meet a key business requirement.
  • Build vs. Buy
    Where possible packaged or out of the box components should be implemented, rather than custom built solutions.
  • User Self Service based Reporting
    Users will access the information they require via Self Service reporting capability.
  • Single Integrated Business Intelligence Capability
    All reporting interfaces will be delivered via a single integrated Business Intelligence suite to provide a primary authoritative system avoiding confusion through duplication and reducing the cost of integration.
  • Reporting Interfaces fit for purpose
    All reporting interfaces will be fit for purpose, matching the majority of the user’s requirements for a given task.
  • Role based security
    Reports will be secured and access granted based on users role.
  • Single Consolidated and Trusted Data Repository
    All reporting data will be accessed via a single consolidated data repository. The EDW will be the single source of truth for operational, time series, management, analytical, strategic and externally reported orgamisational data.
  • Published Reporting Metadata
    Metadata describing the business rules that are used to transform data will be published in a format readily accessible by business users.
  • Source applications data integration
    Source applications data will be easy to access and integrate.
  • Data Cleansing
    Data will be cleansed at source.

Then the expanded TOGAF style of a principle:

Name: User Self Service based Reporting
Statement: Users will access the information they require via Self Service reporting capability
Rationale: The ability for users to access their own reports and content reduces the cost of IT having to develop and deliver this content.

In addition it decreases the time to serve for reporting content.
Implications:
  • All users have targeted tools available that deliver the functionality they require, when they require it
  • Users will be able to create their own reports if so inclined, minimising the need for specialist IT intervention
  • Templates will enable easy reuse of reports and layouts, ensuring efficiency
  • Reports will be published to a common area for subscription rather than directly sending reports to users.
  • Users will be provided access to, and appropriately trained in, the reporting environments that will help them do their jobs
  • Online eLearning will be available for relevant staff for relevant tools.

As you can see a simple but informative way of defining the principal, its intent and its impact!

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Uninstalling SAS 9.2 on Windows – Be Gone Damn Spot!

Jan
11

If you have the pleasure of installing SAS on a Windows server and then trying to uninstall and reinstall it multiple times, you will know that the uninstall process is time consuming and painful.

You have to go through the standard windows add/remove programs process for each SAS component/product, or restore a clean copy of the server image in the pre-install state.

(Now why would you do this multiple times you ask, well often becuase you have mucked up the install or you are trying to install a version of SAS that matches your client to test something for them or you)

SAS have issued a tech note that makes life so much easier:

Installation Note 39894: Using the SAS Uninstall Wizard to remove SAS® 9.2 from Microsoft Windows operating environments

The wizard assumes a raft of defaults that you will probably need to overide (i.e c:\) but provides parameter options to let you do this.

And of course if you are on Linux/Unix then there is no Windows registry to get in the way, so ignore the tool and just delete the files!

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New Sysinternals Process Explorer

Jan
09

Im a great fan of the System Internals process explorer as a great way of getting a better handle on what is happening on a windows server, compared to the standard task manager.

Looks like they released a new version in Nov 2010 which you can downlaod from here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653

There is also a suite of other utilities (including process explorer) called the Sysinternals Suite which can be downloaded from here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb842062

Its not often you can get something that is free and useful, but this is one of those occasions.

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