How many engines does my O4W consume?

I recently ran into a problem where I was demonstrating O4W to a prospect and I ran out of available user counts. I have a 5-user system and I had been running up O4W, closing it, running up the desktop OpenInsight and then running up O4W again. I’d assumed that when I closed down O4W the user counts would be freed up, but as I was leaving the EngineSever running this was not the case.

This issue then provoked the usual question about how many O4W Web User licenses people should purchase for their web based systems. This is a terribly difficult question to answer, mainly because it depends on the time required to process each web request and this is dependant on the application and the type of request itself. If the request is a simple record read with only a few data items being returned, then it is going to be very quick and the engine could handle multiple requests of this type per second. However, if it is being asked to process a large report, then the engine will be tied up for considerably longer.

However, with the release of OECGI3, this becomes less of an issue as OECGI3 will utilise multiple licenses (OEngines) to process multiple requests. Furthermore, it will then queue any inbound requests if an OEngine is not free to process the request at that time. When an engine becomes free, it will then process the request as normal. That said, it is always advisable for developers to build in some form of monitoring where user counts are likely to be tight, so that peak usage times can be handled efficiently or additional user licenses purchased to cater for the peaks.

Now, if OECGI3 is able to consume multiple engines, and we are unable to control the number of web users accessing our system, AND we have both the web system AND the desktop system using the same OpenInsight user license (Oengine.dll file), then we could run into trouble.

Take the scenario where I have a 60-user licensed OI system. This is used to serve 50 desktop (office based) users and an O4W system that has been built to extend my application to customers over the web. I could easily get into a situation where I have 20-user licenses being used by O4W and this would leave only 40 user licenses for my office staff – i.e. 10 office users could be blocked from using the system – not a favourable situation.

Fortunately, the O4W developers have thought about this issue and it is easily addressed through the eserver.cfg file within OpenInsight. This file includes two lines towards the beginning of the file for managing both the maximum number of engines that the engine server (OECGI3 / O4W) can consume and also the time that the engine will remain active and able to process web requests.

MaxEngines is used to define the maximum number of engines that are kept alive and ready to process stateless connections. This means that the engine does not need to be spawned and closed down for each web request and it therefore handles more requests more efficiently. The default setting for MaxEngines is 10 (MaxEngines=10).

IdleTimeout is the length of time (in minutes) that an engine remains active and ready to process web requests before it is closed down. The default setting for IdleTimeout is 15 minutes (IdleTimeout=15).

So, in our example scenario above, we can easily use the eserver.cfg file to limit the number of engines available to O4W to just 10 and we can also control the amount of time that the engines remain active. By setting MaxEngines=10 and IdleTimeout=15, we can ensure that we will always have at least 50 engines (from the 60-user license) available to our desktop users.

I should also point out that O4W requires a minimum of 10-user licenses and you will receive a warning message stating that a 10-user license is the minimum requirement for O4W use if you try to use an engine with fewer than those required 10 users. In addition, the MaxEngines can be set to any number from 1 to 10 for that minimum number of user engines, or more if there are more engines available. If you set a figure greater than the number of user licenses in the engine (say MaxEngines=100 on a system with only 10 users) then O4W will use all of the engines available up to the maximum user count in the license (so 100 in the above example).

So, why was I running out of engines during my demo? Quite simply, I had the defaults set for MaxEngines and Idletimeout in the eserver.cfg file, and as I was not closing down my OengineServer all five of my engines (licenses) were being used and left open for the full 15 minutes. I then changed my MaxEngines to 3 and IdleTimeout to 5, mostly because I don’t need them open for 15 minutes) and all was fine. I now know that I always have two engines free for my desktop OpenInsight system and the remainder available for my O4W system.

OpenInsight and NoSQL

As many of you will no doubt know, the NoSQL technology has been steadily gaining ground as organisations move to super fast and highly flexible technologies for their web solutions. These organisations include some huge names such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, eBay and many more.

So why do I mention this on a blog about Revelation Software?

Well, NoSQL presents OpenInsight developers (well any MultiValue developer) with a new edge to their sales pitch. NoSQL is now being referred to as ‘No’ SQL and also ‘Not Only’ SQL and most MultiValue systems, like OpenInsight, fit very nicely into the second camp. Not only do we have a flexible, scalable and fast multi-dimensional database (rather than a structured, slower relational database), but we can also play with SQL as well. In effect we bring the best of both worlds together and enable developers to do more, faster and therefore more economically.

MultiValue is not the be all and end all and neither are the Relational databases. Your MultiValue database is like your sports car hurtling along twisty country roads, whereas your relational database is like an articulated truck trundling efficiently along the highway with a large load – the truck can’t deviate easily but it is efficient at handling large loads.

In IT talk, this correlates to the sports car providing you with a system that can move and adapt with your ever changing business needs. This helps you to keep ahead of your competition and to maintain your competitive edge. Whereas the truck correlates to the data store that your business intelligence and data mining teams will work against.

Of course, both operate perfectly well in each others environments. Countless MultiValue systems have been written over the years and each efficiently and robustly handle thousands of users with millions of rows of data and likewise for the SQL based systems.

Putting an environmentally friendly slant on things, with your NoSQL based solution you can work more efficiently, benefit from the speed and sharding features and only work with the data that you 'need' to work with. Then, when you do need to work with the large datasets you can bring into play your SQL tools.

So back to our sports car and truck analogy. Your data will get to where it needs to get to, but the sports car will zip around and navigate the fastest route working with only the ‘NECESSARY data, whereas the truck will take the long route and lumber into the depot with everything - that depots delivery (your required data) and that of countless other deliveries (unnecessary but associates data). Smaller, refined and faster requests results in lower resource requirements, lower bandwidth use on both desktop and web systems and in most instances this correlates to a lower cost to your business.

So why compromise when you can have both? With MultiValue tools, like OpenInsight from Revelation Software, you can have the sports car with it’s small fuel tank and low running costs AND easy access to the truck when it’s needed.

For those of you who are not already benefitting from OpenInsight, please go to http://www.revsoft.co.uk/ or http://www.revelation.com/ to learn more about one of the leading MultiValue (NoSQL) databases. In addition, you can find out more about the NoSQL technology and what it has to offer in Prospectus’s new two part video.

What a novice can create with Openinsight!

Many of you have been chasing me on the completion of the OpenInsight QSG series of tutorials. As well as becoming very busy over the summer, one of the main reasons for the pause in the creation of the video series was my time away developing my own Contact Manager.

Some of you that are new to OpenInsight and also some non-Revelation MultiValue developers who have been looking at OpenInsight have asked to see what I have been able to achieve with VERY little technical knowledge, mostly using the OI WORKS technical resources. I did have a couple of hours with Aaron in the car back from London to Northampton for a couple of areas and Carl helped me with an email blast module using an existing routine. Otherwise it is all my own work, design, code, etc.

It is now in use daily, but still far from complete. I need some data validation in areas, some OIPI reports need to be created, a global search facility and the report library in general adding to. I also have a healthy wish list of more technical things for when my technical colleagues become a little less hectic on client work.

Anyway, I have created an overview video of the application and I hope that it will serve to demonstrate what can be achieved in a very short period of time and by a complete application development novice, using OpenInsight.

Printable OpenInsight manuals.

As many of you will know, Revelation maintain a large amount of useful information in the online OpenInsight helps system. This consists of several .chm files that are exposed and fully searchable from within the OpenInsight toolset – an invaluable resource for anyone building systems using OpenInsight. However, owing to the fact that OpenInsight is being continually enhanced and new features added, hard copy manuals (the .chm file content) have not been available for some years.

However, now that we have more and more new (non-Revelation based) developers looking at and using OpenInsight, I believe that the time has come to consider creating one or more .pdf files that consist of the contents of the help system.

One of my first thoughts is to tackle the Programmer Reference Pages in the help system. A mammoth undertaking, but probably one of the more useful and appealing from a developer’s point of view.

As this will be a significant investment of my own time, I will be very grateful if you could comment below on;

1. The usefulness of one or more .pdf files, in addition to the online help system.
2. Whether you would prefer one huge .pdf file with all of the various manuals in one volume, or several .pdf files cover each specific topic (Native Tables, Programmers Reference, Guide to Application Development, etc.)
3. Any other comments.

Please visit my blog if you have received this as an email or an RSS feed notification. Please also forward this email to any of your colleagues that might not frequent my blog, but who might wish to voice their opinion on the usefulness of the manuals in .pdf format. It goes without saying that, owing to the time this will take to create and then maintain, I’ll drop this idea IF there is not sufficient interest and need.

A quiet blog = a busy Martyn.

Guys, just a quick apology for being so quiet on the Blog recently. However, the reason is purely available time as I’ve been heavily involved with a number of projects. These include:

1) Designing, developing and populating my own OI 9.2 based contact manager – yes, I finally ditched Maximizer (on cost) and then the Outlook plug-in on reliability.

2) Working with a number of people on cross-grade deals from ARev and early OI versions to 9.2 and also helping clients with O4W and the dashboards in O4W.

3) Continuing to evangelise the benefits and virtues of OpenInsight to the less well informed, especially now that we have the connectors.

4) Then talking of the connectors, we’ve begun to see Universe, Unidata, Univision and D3 developers here in Europe begin seriously looking at OpenInsight, building on the growing interest the Rev US have been seeing over the last year or so.

However, watch for more training videos and blog postings coming soon.

EMEA RUG Report

For those of you who were unable to make the EMEA RUG last week, Elkie Holland from Prospects IT (the leading recruiter in the MultiValue community) has written a very nice report about the RUG including links to some of the useful resources that Carl mentioned during his presentation.

Following the RUG Mike and I took to the road and made numerous site visits around the UK, including the first of many telephone interviews with mainstream IT media journalists. One of the striking things to come out of these discussions is the need for business to aggregate disparate data in one consistent interface. It seems that many people, especially MultiValue users, are still pumping data into corporate data stores for reporting, displaying over the web, etc.

O4W and the data connectors released as part of 9.2 are well placed to address this business need, enabling people to seamlessly use data within one single OpenInsight based application, from multiple database sources. At the moment the company supports its own native data, several flavours of SQL, Rocket Software’s Universe and Unidata, TigerLogic’s D3 and a Univision data connector is almost complete. Please visit www.revsoft.co.uk and the Products pages for more information about the new technologies – If you are an existing OpenInsight WORKS subscriber then you can start working with them today, as you already have them.

Anyway, it was a really nice surprise to find one of the RUG attendees writing about the event and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Elkie for the report.

Sarah Palin and Larry King discuss OpenInsight

Here is something light hearted to start the day, but what if, Oh just what if . . .

http://www.prospectus.co.uk/t/OpenInsight-toon.

The No SQL movement.

Computer World UK have published a rather interesting article for all of us operating in the none SQL world. The full article can be accessed from the link above and it might be useful when talking to management and prospects about your OpenInsight based systems.

Also, a few of you have recently contacted me with regards to the video tutorials. It is good to hear that some of you are finding them useful and I do have plans for more. The first set of lessons were pretty much planned before I started and I’m now planning the next few lessons around building myself a new OpenInsight application :).

Once this short month is over and the conference is behind me, I’ll get back into producing the next lessons.

In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

M.

Escrow releases on the rise.

Firstly, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2010. 2009 was a tough year for many of us, but all in all it proved to be very successful for Revelation and our VARs and I'm looking forward to some good things coming from Revelation through 2010 - not least O4W and the D3 (TigerLogic) connecter.

However, the difficult trading period continues into the New Year and, whilst most Revelation VARs are coping well with the global recession and looking forward to a profitable 2010, the concerns surrounding the loss of an application author (or support company) remain uppermost in many business leaders minds.

Just today, The Register have highlighted the issue following an announcement by Escrow provider NCC Group that they saw a 150% increase in source code releases during 2009. You can view the full article at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/06/recession_escrow_boost/.

Professional escrow services are often expensive to setup and maintain and they do not normally cater for all of the end-users needs. For instance, as an end-user it is great to get the source code for your application but what do you do with it and where do you go to find qualified help.

This is where Revelation’s Business Continuation Service comes into play. Not only does this service cater for the release of source code in the event of a trigger becoming active, but it also caters for providing emergency support services to end-users and brokering new relationships with other Revelation consultants for the future support of the system. In addition, it is also a cost effective solution and one that is much more affordable for smaller organisations and smaller systems.

Please drop me an email or give me a call if you would like to discuss this service in more detail or to review the Business Continuation Service agreement.

www.revsoft.co.uk – rebuild

As many of you know, I will be ‘officially’ finishing up on Friday for the seasonal holiday and I do not plan to be back at my desk until Monday 4th January. However, I will be monitoring email throughout this period and I can be reached as usual on my mobile during UK office hours.

However, it will not all be leisure, mince pies and the odd bottle of beer. During the holiday period I am planning on rebuilding the RevSoft UK web site. The look will remain similar, but the content will be greatly changed in order to be more W3C compliant, optimised for the search engines and to be much more standards based.

I have some analytical software running on the site and this shall be consulted when deciding what goes and what stays. There have been a number of areas that our VARs had requested, but which get few or no hits. In addition, much of the developers area content is now readily available in the OI help files (error codes), the WORKS CD and elsewhere. On the flip side, some areas gain a lot of hits and could benefit from being more concise or informative.

This posting is therefore to ask any of you that want specific areas of the site to stay, to make your requests know to me over the next few days. There will obviously be an opportunity to add back content at a later date, but I’d like to include anything that you need in the first draft if at all possible.

Thanks,
M.

RevSoftUK and Twitter

Well it is now official, I am a ‘Twit’terer!

I’ve had a Twitter account for a while, but never really got into the whole idea of using it in a business context – personally, I can think of nothing worse than spending a hour a day finding out what your contacts had for breakfast this morning, plan to do in their private time this evening or any of the other 'twatter' the service appears to generate.

In addition, finding time to maintain the blog, a couple of networking sites and Twitter was resulting in late evenings and an unwanted distraction.

However, I’ve had a slight change of thought recently and I’ve now begun adding Twitter’s ‘Tweet’ button to my blog postings and I have also begun to use Twitter for short information blasts with a Revelation topic. If you have a Twitter account, you can easily use the Tweet button to tweet the posting onwards to your followers. In addition, you can follow me (log into Twitter and search for mdp_revsoft) and receive small bite sized timely twitter postings about Revelation related topics – I won’t over burden you and I’ll be keeping my tweets on topic. In addition, my tweets will NOT be linked to or appearing on the blog, keeping the blog clean.

I’ll still be maintaining the blog as the main vehicle for technical information, news and other information coming from my desk. So please be sure to follow and/or subscribe to the blog.

A neat Bar Code solution.

The question of using bar code readers from within OpenInsight applications comes up from time to time and the solutions that people look at and choose vary widely. However, Ed Keeman from Van Der Laan in the Netherlands, recently told me about a really neat solution using a windows CE device with a scanner and WiFi connection.

The device shown above was sent with Ed’s email to me. It shows a Datalogic Memor handheld bar code scanning device running Windows CE. The device ships with a RDP client that enables the device to run OpenInsight in a terminal session.

Ed told me that they have run some tests and the system looks very good. All being well, they plan to use five or more of these devices to enhance processes within their warehouse.

Back and ready to post.

Thank you to those of you that have prompted me recently about the blog postings going a little quiet over recent weeks - it is nice to know that the reduced activity was noticed and that the blog is still useful to some of you :-).

I’m now back from a week by the Red Sea (some great snorkelling over the reefs) and once I’m caught up I’ll begin catching up on Revelation news and other postings – watch this space.

Sprezzatura's Basic+ Source Code Publisher

You will have noticed that the Dale’s code in today’s earlier posting is considerably better formatted than on my previous postings to this blog. This is all thanks to Carl at Sprezzatura who gave me a copy of a utility that he wrote to handle code postings for the forthcoming new Sprezzatura website and blog.

Please drop me a line if you would like a copy for your blog or code postings to the Revelation forum.

Vista running in compatibility mode.

I’d planned not to post this article as I thought it was just me being stupid again. However, a recent conversation with a non-Revelation developer proved that Vista running all sorts of programs in compatibility mode can have consequences where the software is behaving in a certain way for the installed operating system. This posting is therefore more of a heads up than anything.

During the beta test program for OI 9.0 I let my license run towards its expiry date and I duly began receiving the notice that the period was about to expire. I clicked the OK button and continued to use the beta software without any problems. However, when I let the beta test run passed the expiry date I began to have problems on my Vista machine, although the same copy running under Windows 2003 Server behaved as expected.

Following a number of tests, my colleague in the US support team uncovered the problem. My machine, although running Vista, was reporting to OI that it was running XP. This lead him to research the issue further and he found that running in “Compatibility Mode” could cause the operating system to be reported as XP, not Vista.

Changing the shortcut properties to not run in compatibility mode resolved the issue and the license warning screen operated as designed – something else to watch out for when installing your OpenInsight system (and other applications) on Vista machines.

"Some of IT’s greatest mistakes result from the unquestioning adoption of the latest fad", Martin Butler.

As further reports from the mainstream IT sector continue to paint a gloomy picture, budget cuts and canned projects seem the order of the day – especially where those project’s budgets are in the millions.

It is therefore refreshing to read yet another article from Martin Butler (www.computing.co.uk) on the subject of IT decision makers following the herd and investing in technologies that ‘seem to be the best idea’ – just because other people are doing so. Martin’s full article. can be read at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/comment/2234814/leaders-resist-herd-mentality-4430810.

As more and more articles questioning the buying and decision making process find their way into the press, maybe business leaders will begin to think twice about jumping with the herd. As someone that offers a fully integrated application development toolset that enables flexible applications to be built that also supports existing business processes - I can only hope.

Those of you in the MultiValue community that are faced with a prospect that is intent on following the herd, might find the following useful as well. www.denverpost.com ran an article on the 14th January this year regarding the demise of Shane Co. Part of the article reads “The final blow to the company was a point-of-sale and inventory management system purchased from business-software giant SAP for $8 million to $10 million, which ended up costing $36 million and took three times as long to implement. In the meantime, because it did not work entirely, the system did not provide accurate inventory numbers. . . .”

A little bird tells me that the abbreviated back story is that the Shane Co. ran software in the early 1980's on Prime Information and this was later ported to Universe in 1988. The Shane Co. spent many years developing and extending the applications in BASIC to meet the changing business needs and as a result, the software ran their business successfully over many, many years. Management made the decision to go the SAP route from Universe and the result, as they say, was catastrophic – the full story can be read at http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_11446814/.

For those of you not in the know, Prime and Universe MultiValue technologies which are very similar to Revelation’s ARev and OpenInsight. Needless to say, Revelation also have anecdotes of clients following the herd and spending millions in so called mainstream technologies to replace ARev and OpenInsight systems, only to find those projects fail and OpenInsight continues to help the business trade profitably.

I wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Whilst today is my first official day in the office, I’ve actually been drifting back into work during the days between Christmas and the New Year – you just can’t get away from email when it is attached to your belt and following you around these days . During this period, the number one question remained “Did you have a good Christmas and New Year?” and I have no doubt that these nine little words will continue to be repeated hundreds of thousands times during the course of today as people return to their offices.

However, I’m noticing a different undertone in the question this year, giving the question more of a subtext along the lines of “Did the break give you time away from thoughts of the difficult year ahead?”. It seems that this is the real meaning of the question when exchanged between managers and business leaders, especially as they face the difficult task of reducing costs to meet tighter and tighter budgets.

As industry continues to slow, many of the people that I spoke with over the holiday period are expecting to go back to work on reduced hours and irregular shift patterns. Sales staff are expecting to be faced with harder than normal targets to hit and everyone with questions about how their management will steer them through the interesting times ahead. With the Christmas boost now firmly packed away with last year, event the high street is set for a slower than normal period as shoppers receive credit card statements that will inevitably bring home the full cost of the ‘seasonal feel-good break’.

So with slowing industry, motoring giants seeking emergency funding, a banking sector that continues to reel from self generated problems, quieter than normal building sites and an empty high street, management teams all of the world will be sitting down to look at where budgets can be cut. In anticipation, I’ve also heard whispers that people are now waiting for news to begin leaking out from the IT sector with regards to profit warnings as projects are cut back, suspended and even cancelled. Much of this speculation being driven by the expected meetings this week during which cost cutting will be high on agendas and especially where savings can be made within IT departments. At the same time, business leaders will still want to have their IT solutions drive growth, provide more automation and support the business better than last year.

This all seems rather gloomy coming from someone working in the IT industry, but given the nature of the MultiValue tools that I’m involved with, I am optimistic for 2009. Those of us in the MultiValue world know that our solutions are some of the best at supporting businesses during times of change and that they enable us to provide our clients with highly flexible business solutions that help business to reduce costs from enhanced functionality enabling more automation, lower administration costs and minimal (if any) down time. Furthermore, the tools that we use, enable us to create business solutions extremely quickly and enable us to deliver and maintain these systems within the reduced 2009 budgets.

So my advice for 2009:

• To those of you using MultiValue tools like OpenInsight – take a wider look at the use of IT within your existing clients business and help them to achieve their 2009/10 cost reductions by building MultiValue solutions to meet those business needs.
  
• To those of you who are not yet using a MultiValue toolset like OpenInsight – why not broaden your technology base by including a technology that will enable you to accept those smaller (and sometimes more profitable) projects. You will not only help maintain a healthy balance sheet, but you might even put a smile on the face of your sales team and help build some confidence for 2009.

Whatever route you take, I wish you a prosperous and trouble free 2009.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three white papers that might you might find useful whilst talking to people about MultiValue technologies:

• Achieving More Business Benefits Through MultiValue Technologies and Revelation's Openinsight.
  
• The Benefits of a MultiValue Database Management System.
  
• Why should I opt for a Revelation based application.

Statistics

Statistics
Well the poll certainly indicates that the blog is the way to go for announcements, news, technical and general burble. With the vote hovering around 90% in favour of the blog for the whole of December and finishing with 89% in favour, this will be my preferred communication medium for the time being.

Following the inclusion of the ‘Stat Counter’ plug-in, several of you have asked what browser is most popular and what are the preferred screen resolutions that people are running. I’ve now had over 1000 visits from as far west as Victoria, British Columbia in Canada , as far east as Auckland, New Zealand and with Cape Town in South Africa and Oslo in Norway the visitor map closed the year with pins right across the globe. The following are results from all of those visitors:

Locations
United Kingdom 54%
USA 21%
Europe (non UK) 14%
Australia 5%
Canada 1%
Other 5%

Browsers
IE7 59%
Firefox 3.0 19%
IE6 10%
Opera 3%
Chrome 2%
Other 7%

Resolution
1280 x 1024 45%
Unknown 32%
1024 x 768 11%
1600 x 1200 7%
1152 x 864 5%

Operating System
Windows XP 68%
Windows Vista 27%
Windows 2000 8%
Windows 98 1%
Unknown 6%

Seasons Greetings

My colleagues and I at Revelation UK would like to wish you all a very happy and safe festive holiday and a joyous and prosperous new year.

The office will be closed on the 25th and 26th December and then again on the 1st January. The days in between will be covered by a reduced number of staff (yes – I am taking a holiday) so please be sure to use support@revsoft.co.uk for any technical issues and sales@revsoft.co.uk for any sales an licensing related matters. These two email addresses will be monitored throughout the holiday period.

Version 9.0 and the blog

As I prepare for the imminent OpenInsight 9.0 release, my attention within the blog is moving towards version 9.0 topics and I plan to tackle them in bite sized chunks, punctuated by the usual news items. I have already begun work on:

• A paper to help reduce the size of your application’s footprint
• A paper that brings together all of the 7.x, 8.x and 9.0 readme files
• An updated paper on locking down the new Network User deployment license
• An examples application, written entirely in 9.0 under Vista
• An unofficial paper to help configure OECGI2 and use WebOI on a Vista machine running IIS7 (currently needing some testers)

I’m then also hoping to go on to take a look at the Bravo Dashboard, individual cell control in the Edit Table along with other Edit Table enhancements, the brand new System Editor and OIPI.net – including enabling users to enter data into a .pdf document before printing it.

What else would you like covered?

OpenInsight 9.0 is the most exciting release yet and, along with Revelation's White Papers, Quick Start Guides and Tutorials, I hope to help all OpenInsight developers take advantage of the new features provided in OpenInsight version 9.0.

Watch this space… and please don’t forget to use the labels in the blog to bring similar categorised topics together, for example OI9.0, Vista, etc.