Apr 02 2010
Virtual Teradata Progress Report
Yesterday I wrote a post about finding a virtual machine image for Teradata 13 that I could download and play with. I somewhat optimistically said the following:
I can get up and running with a “play” Teradata system in just a few minutes.
It turns out that was very optimistic. I finally did get the VM up and running, but it was far from a few minutes.
Getting To The Download
First I had to download the image. I provided a link to the download page on the prior post before I tried anything. Once I clicked on the link to download my desired image, it asked me to log on or create an account. No problem, I thought, I don’t mind registering on the site. After filling out my profile it asked me to accept the license terms (no production use) and proceed. I accepted the terms, and it returned me to the download page. I clicked the download link, and it asked me to log in. I did, and it asked me to accept the terms. Now I don’t mind doing this once, but twice?
I went back to the Teradata home page and searched for a better download link. I found another alternative, and decided to try that. It asked me to register. It didn’t recognize my prior registration. 😯 Perhaps that was the problem? So I registered. Again. I was asked to accept the terms of the agreement. Again. And it returned me to the download page. Again. By now I’m getting frustrated, and decided that maybe I had a cookie problem on my computer. I switched computers to try again.
This time when I got to the first page I was able to sign on and go to the download page, click the link, and accept the terms of the agreement one more time. This time the site confirmed my request and told me an email would be coming shortly with a link to download the software.
Two hours later, no email, no link.
I poked about the site for a while, and found someone else was having problems getting the download to work. They had posted a link to a different Teradata virtual machine, but by looking at their link and looking at what I was trying to download I was able to construct a link that got me the file I wanted. Success!
After The Download
The download took quite a while as it the file was quite large. Once I completed the download I tried to unzip it with my trusted utility WinZip. It failed, saying the file was empty or corrupt. I have encountered this before with large downloads so I went back to my link and downloaded the file again. Once again, WinZip reported the file was corrupted. Once is not unusual, but twice in a row? Time for more reading.
The VM image that I was downloading was a 64bit SUSE linux image. That meant that it would only work on a 64bit system. My version of WinZip is not a 64bit application, could that be the problem? I did a quick search and found an application called 7-Zip that offered a 64bit version. I downloaded and installed that and was able to proceed with the extraction. After running for quite some time, the program told me one of the files was corrupted and it was unable to continue. Argh!
By now it is many hours after I started the process, so my optimistic estimate of “a few minute” was obviously very wrong. I downloaded the file. Again. I unzipped using 7-Zip. Again. This time the files were all correct and the extraction ran to completion. (If you’re counting, that’s the 3rd time I downloaded a 3GB file. My ISP probably loves me at the moment.)
Invoking the Machine
I copied the extracted files to my laptop which is running Vista 64bit as the host operating system. I put the files into my VM host folder and started up the server. It failed to launch. It said it would only run on a 64bit system. I told it to look harder. 🙂
Ultimately it turns out that there is a BIOS setting that I had to change in my laptop in order to make everything work. Once I flipped the switch I was able to boot up the Teradata VM just fine.
What’s Next?
The system booted up. The username is “root” and the password is also “root” which makes things easy to remember. I had to tweak a few configuration items (I set up the system to use a static IP and updated the /etc/hosts file accordingly) but finally I was able to log in and verify that Teradata was up and running.
Next? I will create a new user account and load some data into the system so I have something to query. Why not just install XI 3.1 on my TD virtual machine? Because it’s running SUSE linux, which as far as I remember is not a supported platform for the XI software. Besides, it will be fun to see if I can make the two machines talk to each other.
Teradata’s process to download content could definitely be improved. Although I didn’t have as many problems as you did getting the VM to download. I did find that my laptop was marginal to run the VM with 2GB of memory and an AMD Turion 64 X2 processor. I have been able to play with it some, but should spend more time with it.
The Express editions that you can install locally are convenient as well. However, you can’t have nearly as large of an installation or be able to switch between versions as easily. I’ll be following your series along here to see how things progress. If you run into problems, you can ask questions on Teradata’s Developer Exchange (http://developer.teradata.com).
Hi, Rob, thanks for your comment. I have already looked at the developer forum, in fact that’s how I got the hints that allowed me to figure out how to successfully download the virtual image.
As configured for the download, the VM tries to use 1.5GB of memory, so it does not surprise me that a 2GB laptop is “marginal” as you say. You could try to reduce that down to 1GB using the VMware console and see if it runs any better. It runs okay for me but I have memory to spare. 🙂
Any updates on how you are using this VM? SAP BusinessObjects supports both SUSE and Red Hat, so theoretically you could put BI on the same VM. Also, does the Teradata VM contain sample databases? If not, any suggestions? For example, have you ported e-Fashion to Teradata? 😉
I still have the VM, but I have not done much of anything with it. I had time when I started, now, not so much. You know how it is. 🙂
Dave,
I have loaded my VM with 13.10 for Linux and so far it is running fine. My biggest issue with 13.1 is the lack of sample database and tables. (It used to be simple with 12X or 13 where there were default tables like Financial / Accounting / Retail)
Any simple way to create all this tables and load data? Also the problem is SQL assistant Java edition – it is not as good as previous versions. (too much user friendly so to say)