Apr 02 2010

Virtual Teradata Progress Report

Categories: Virtual Machines Dave Rathbun @ 7:48 am

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. Continue reading “Virtual Teradata Progress Report”

Apr 01 2010

Virtual Teradata

Categories: Virtual Machines Dave Rathbun @ 9:34 am

While researching a Teradata syntax question earlier this morning, I discovered that I can download a virtual machine with Teradata 13 (or 12) that will run on my laptop.

The best part about this is I already have the VMware server up and running. Once I complete the download of the TD image (it’s about 4GB for the 1TB Teradata installation, or 2.3GB for a 40GB Teradata configuration) I can get up and running with a “play” Teradata system in just a few minutes. How cool is that? 😎

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Mar 31 2010

Virtual Machine Upgrade To XI 3.1 SP2 Complete

Categories: Virtual Machines Dave Rathbun @ 11:36 am

One of the reasons I have been slowing down on blog posts is my virtual machine / blog development environment was still running XI 3.0. Over the past week I have managed to get my VM upgraded to XI 3.1 SP2 and that gives me quite a few new goodies to play with. I am looking forward to seeing how I can use and abuse input controls among other things.

I did encounter one slight issue. My VM host operating system is Windows Server 2003. The XI 3.1 install went fine. The SP2 install never did anything. During the install process it was complaining about a server issue and said something like, “… you may encounter isssues and if you do please read Microsoft KB article blah blah blah…” After I finally decided to pay attention and look up that KB article (and apply the fix available) everything went fine. It had to do with the .msi file (installation file) being too large for my server operating system to validate.

I took a BIAR file from my XI 3.0 virtual machine and restored it on the 3.1 system. My reports and universes all moved over just fine.

I have to say that virtual machines are AWESOME. 🙂 I now have VM images for 6.5, XI R2, XI 3, and XI 3.1 SP2. I can launch any of these as I need them. Perhaps I need to confirm that a technique that I am using in XI 3.1 is backwards compatible… I can do that. Maybe I want to test the impact of an upgrade, I can start in 6.5 and roll it forward through various versions. All it takes is disk space, and disk space is cheap today. When I was a consultant it was a great way for me to create separate environments for each client. Now I just use it to maintain different environments without having to manage multiple installations on one hardware. It’s also a great way to set up a “demo system” for use in presentations.

Oh, and blog posts. 😎