What are the Oracle client requirements?
- Because Datiris Profiler is a 32-bit application, you will need the 32-bit Oracle client. You can use the full client installation or the smaller Oracle InstantClient installation. If you have multiple Oracle client installations on your computer, be sure to set the appropriate Oracle client path in your PATH environment variable before starting Datiris Profiler.
- Why can’t I connect to SQL Server?
- Things to check:
1. Verify that the appropriate port is not being blocked by a firewall. Typically, SQL Server uses port 1433.
2. Be sure to enable TCP/IP protocol. In SQL Server Configuration Manager, under SQL Server Network Configuration, verify the TCP/IP protocol is enabled.
3. Enable remote server connections. In SQL Server Management Studio, you can view this setting under Server Properties, in the Connections page.
- Things to check:
- How should I specify an Oracle connection string?
- If you are using a tnsnames.ora file to specify connection information, use the appropriate TNS alias to connect to your Oracle database. Alternatively, you can use the EZ Connect naming method — //servername:port/servicename
- What are the supported repository types?
- You can create the Datiris repository in Oracle, SQL Server, or MS Access.
- What are the supported data source types?
- You can profile data in Oracle, SQL Server, MS Access, or any ODBC database supported by a DSN.
- How can I profile a flat file (or any generic ODBC data source)?
- We support profiling flat files via ODBC. i.e. you first create an ODBC connection to your flat file, then you create the data source in Datiris Profiler using the ODBC option.
Open the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. Click the System DSN tab. Click Add. Select the text driver and click Finish. After naming the DSN, unselect “Use Current Directory” and click on the “Select Directory…” button to specify the location of your file. Then, click on Options. You could specify an Extension list, but it’s probably not necessary. Then, click on “Define Format…”. You should see your file listed on the left. You should select it, and specify the format (i.e. fixed length or csv delimited, etc.). You might try clicking on the “Guess” button to have it create default column names and formats. Otherwise, you’ll have to specify the name and format of each column. This is essentially specifying the “structure” of the flat file. To get more details about the creation of DSN’s, you can also refer to Microsoft’s documentation.
In Datiris Profiler, navigate to the Create Data Source screen (click Tools, Data Sources, Create Data Source). When adding an ODBC data source, you’ll just need to specify the data source name, data source type, and DSN. The DSN specified in Datiris Profiler should match the Data Source Name in the ODBC Admin tool. Clicking on “Test Connection” should confirm that you can access the file via the DSN.
- We support profiling flat files via ODBC. i.e. you first create an ODBC connection to your flat file, then you create the data source in Datiris Profiler using the ODBC option.
- How can I improve the performance of a profiling session?
- There are many factors that will affect the runtime of a profile. The number of rows, number of columns, uniqueness of the columns, physical location of the data (network connection speed between Datiris client and data source, and Datiris client and repository), etc. are a few of the factors. The biggest and most significant performance factor is the number of distinct values in a column; i.e. if you profile the primary key of a very large table then performance will be slow, as Datiris evaluates each distinct value.
We generally don’t have problems with multi-million row tables. If the time that it takes to run a profile becomes an issue, we have ways to reduce the size of the profiled data. You can limit the number of rows to profile. You can specify only the columns that need to be profiled. You can also define a filter on the data being profiled, eg. where Customer_Type = ‘A’, or where Load_Date > to_date(’16-JUL-2008′). When defining these profiles, you can save the profile definition (or template), so that you can easily rerun the same profile. Also, indexed columns will profile much faster as the database will fetch the unique values for the column from the index as opposed to doing a table scan. The simplest and surest approach to good performance would be a b-tree index on the given column. However, that may not always be possible or prudent. Long story short, try to reduce the set of rows that you are profiling by using a filter, and/or reduce the number of columns that you are profiling, and/or add indexes where appropriate/feasible.
When you navigate to the Attribute Profile screen for a given entity, you can scroll to the far right of the grid to see the Elapsed Run Time of each column profiled. You might find that there are certain columns which are taking the most time to profile (such as a surrogate key or timestamp column, for example). You may want to consider removing those attributes from future profiles.
- There are many factors that will affect the runtime of a profile. The number of rows, number of columns, uniqueness of the columns, physical location of the data (network connection speed between Datiris client and data source, and Datiris client and repository), etc. are a few of the factors. The biggest and most significant performance factor is the number of distinct values in a column; i.e. if you profile the primary key of a very large table then performance will be slow, as Datiris evaluates each distinct value.
- How does licensing work?
- Each computer that has Datiris Profiler installed on it requires a license. A license key is generated based on the registration information from that computer. If Datiris Profiler is started and it does not yet have a license key, it will prompt you to register the software. The registration process will send us a Registration ID. When we receive the Registration ID, we’ll email the license key within one business day.
- How can I move my license to a new computer?
- To move your license key from one computer to another:
1. Install Datiris Profiler on the new computer if you haven’t already.
2. Copy the profiler.ini and profiler_preferences.ini files from the old computer to the new computer. These files are located in the %DATIRIS_HOME%\Config folder. profiler.ini, contains information needed to connect to the repository.
3. On the new computer, run the %DATIRIS_HOME%\Util\Transfer.exe program. It will generate a Registration ID. Click “Export >>” to save it to a file.
4. Copy the registration file from the new computer to the old computer.
5. On the old computer, run the %DATIRIS_HOME%\Util\Transfer.exe program. Click “<< Import” to import the Registration ID. Then, click “Transfer Out” to generate a new license key. You can export the license key by clicking on “Export >>”.
6. Copy the license key file from the old computer to the new computer.
7. On the new computer in the Transfer screen, click on “<< Import” to import the new license key file.
If you prefer, you can skip the exporting/importing/copying steps and manually type in the Registration ID and License Key on the appropriate computer.
- To move your license key from one computer to another:
- How can I turn on debugging?
- To turn on DEBUG mode:
1. Shutdown Datiris Profiler
2. Edit the Config/profiler_preferences.ini file and set Debug=ON (near the top)
3. Start the Datiris Profiler and run the process that you’re trying to debug. Then exit Datiris Profiler.
4. Email us the debug log file found in the Logs/Debug folder.
5. Edit the Config/profiler_preferences.ini file and set Debug=OFF
- To turn on DEBUG mode: