Introduction

This document is aimed at Denodo users that require to be ready to work with Denodo 7.0. In this document users can find the changes included in Denodo 7.0 and the links to the documentation regarding those news. In addition, this document provides the keys to install Denodo 7.0.

For a quick start guide on how to install and set up the Solution Manager see: Denodo Solution Manager: First Steps.

Denodo 7.0 New Tools

Solution Manager

The Solution Manager is a new component to help administrators manage Denodo deployments. The three main goals are:

• Manage the licenses of all the Denodo servers of your organization.
• Manage deployments and promotions between environments.
• Monitor an environment, a cluster or a server.

The Solution Manager provides a desktop tool: Denodo Platform Control Center, from where it is possible to launch the Solution Manager Components:

• The Solution Manager Server. It is the main component of the Solution Manager.
• The License Manager Server. It administrates licenses within the Solution Manager. When a Denodo component starts (for example, a Virtual DataPort server), it requests permission to run to the License Manager.
• The Solution Manager Administration Tool. It is the graphical administration tool of the Solution Manager and License Manager servers. The Solution Manager allows to perform all the tasks that you should perform to promote: migrate changes in the servers metadata from one environment to another. Also, with the Solution Manager you can launch the Denodo Monitor to collect the execution logs to monitor an environment, a cluster or a server.

Web Panel

The Web Panel is a web application that provides a single point of entry to all the Denodo web tools. This will facilitate users to access all the available tools (Data Catalog, Scheduler Administration tool, Diagnostic and Monitoring tool and Solution Manager). It can be installed along with the Solution Manager.

The Web Panel is designed to be used with Kerberos SSO. By configuring Kerberos authentication in the tools the Web Panel will allow SSO facilitating the authentication process to the users.

Data Catalog

The Data Catalog is the  “Information Self-Service Tool” (already included in Denodo 6.0) improved. The Data Catalog has been revamped to make it more powerful. It integrates data catalog with data delivery.

The Data Catalog synchronizes its metadata about databases, views and web services with one or several Virtual DataPort servers and stores them locally (it can be synchronized at any moment). This way, the searches in the catalog are faster. It shows information about web services as well as views, and it allows to execute the REST web services.

In the new Data Catalog  users can classify the data according to business categories or assign them tags for easy access.

Denodo 7.0 New Features

New Features Common to All Modules

There are several new features common to all the modules of the Denodo Platform 7.0.

The Denodo Platform Control Center, has been redesigned. This redesign, makes it more user friendly and faster.

Denodo ships now with the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 8 (the Denodo servers and its tools cannot run with earlier Java versions).

In addition, it has been added support for Windows Server 2016 and the Denodo OData 4.0 Service has been included in the Denodo distribution.

New Features of the Installer

The Denodo installation has changed slightly in Denodo 7.0. Among the new features of the installer Denodo 7.0 includes a new installer: Denodo Solution Manager installer (denodo-install-solutionmanager-7.0) which includes the Web Panel, Solution Manager and License Manager.

New Features of Virtual DataPort

The new features of Virtual DataPort in Denodo 7.0 include changes in data sources, execution engine, Denodo stored procedures, Web Services, Administration Tool, drivers and changes regarding the administration of privileges and monitoring.

As highlighted feature Denodo now has a native data source to Salesforce. It can perform queries and insert, update and delete records in a Salesforce account.

It is also important to mention the changes in the Execution Engine:

• Data Types. There are new Data types for date and timestamp values: “localdate”, “time”, “timestamp” and “timestamptz”.
• Massive Parallel Processing. Denodo provides native integration with several Massive Parallel Processing (MPP) systems to speed up the execution of queries that involve processing billions of rows and cannot be done in “streaming mode”.
• Query Optimizer. The automatic simplifications of queries process and the cost-based optimizer have been improved in Denodo 7.0.

New Features of Scheduler

Besides the other new features of scheduler, as the Aracne module has been deprecated, Scheduler has a new component for indexing (functionality of the ARN-Index/Search Engine Server) renamed to Scheduler Index.

This way, the Scheduler Administration Tool does not allow creating new instances of the following deprecated elements (but it still allows editing and using the existing ones):

• Filter Sequences.
• ARN Data sources.
• ARN jobs.
• ARN-Index jobs.
• File-Repository exporters.

New Features of the Embedded Web Container

The embedded web container has been upgraded to Apache Tomcat 8.5. This version provides more stability, better performance and better memory management than the version included in earlier versions of Denodo.

Besides the version upgrade there are other minor changes regarding new features of the Embedded Web Container that can be found in the documentation of Denodo 7.0.

Denodo 7.0 Deprecated Features

Starting with Denodo 7.0, the Aracne module has been deprecated. Besides the Aracne module the following features are currently deprecated in Denodo Virtual DataPort 7.0.

• Data Type “Date”.
• VQL Syntax

• CONTAINS Operator
• SQLFRAGMENT Clause
• Syntax ALTER TABLE <base view name> ADD SEARCHMETHOD
• VIEWPROPERTIES Parameter of CONTEXT Clause in SELECT Statements

• Aracne Data Sources.
• Denodo Stored Procedures API: getNumOfAffectedRows method.
• Denodo Custom Wrappers API: some methods.
• Denodo JDBC Driver:  parameter wanOptimizedCalls.
• Denodo Web Services: created with Virtual DataPort 4.7 or earlier versions.
• Script Export: includeEnvSpecificElements and includeNonEnvSpecificElements parameters.

Denodo 7.0 Installation Keys

Installation General Overview

Denodo 7.0 includes three installers:

• Denodo Platform installer (denodo-install-7.0).

• Includes Virtual DataPort, Scheduler and ITPilot.

• Denodo Administration Tool (denodo-install-vdp-client-7.0).

• Includes the Virtual DataPort administration tool and the JDBC and ODBC drivers.

• New Denodo Solution Manager installer (denodo-install-solutionmanager-7.0).

• Includes the Web Panel, Solution Manager and License Manager.

The above image shows a generic architecture using the new Solution Manager.

The Solution Manager should not be installed in the same host as other Denodo instances. The reason is that when you promote changes, you may switch off some of the Servers of the cluster. However, you want the License Manager to attend requests at all times, from all the other Denodo servers of all environments of the organization.

The Solution Manager contains a Virtual DataPort Server, however, it is not intended to be used as another regular Denodo instance. The Virtual DataPort server installed with the Solution Manager is used just for two things:

• Authenticating the users of the Diagnostic & Monitoring Tool and the administration tool of the Solution Manager.
• The Diagnostic & Monitoring Tool creates a set of views in this Virtual DataPort to analyze the diagnostic files.

The above image has three environments: development, testing and production. Each environment has a Virtual DataPort Server or a cluster of servers with a balancer. The solution Manager is installed in another host and it is used to define and manage the three environments, using the Solution Manager Administration Tool.

As the licenses of all the Denodo servers are managed from just one place (the Solution Manager), administrators will now get a single license file that contains all the licenses of the organization. Therefore, it is necessary to install the global license in the Solution Manager: the centralized place for license management.

When a Denodo component starts, it requests permission to run to the License Manager.

If approved, the server starts and periodically, it requests permission to keep running. Only server components request a license, not client applications. I.e. the Virtual DataPort Administration Tool does not connect to the License Manager because it does not need a license. More information about how licenses work can be found in the Denodo 7.0 documentation.

In order to request that permission to run, for each node we need to define the connection to the License Manager:

Installation Key Steps

As a summary of the installation process, it requires to follow the steps below:

Solution Manager

1. Install the Solution Manager (denodo-install-solutionmanager-7.0).
2. Install the latest update in the Solution Manager.
3. Install the License (it can be done also during the installation: step 1).
4. Start the Virtual DataPort Server included in the Solution Manager installation.
5. Start the License Manager Server.
6. Start the Solution Manager Server.
7. Define the architecture:

1. Launch the Solution Manager Administration Tool.
2. Define the Environments, Clusters and  Servers.

Denodo Platform

1. Install the Denodo Platform in all the nodes defined in the previous step (denodo-install-7.0).
2. Install the latest update in the Denodo Platform.
3. For each installation configure the connection to the License Manager.
4. As optional step you may need to install the Denodo Administration Tool separately (denodo-install-vdp-client-7.0).

Denodo 7.0 can also be installed as unique Server (like in previous versions) without the Solution Manager. In that case, each Server requires a license as before:

Denodo 7.0 Migration Keys

Due to some changes added in Denodo 7.0, before importing the VQL file it may be needed to modify the metadata.

The following properties must be removed:

SET 'com.denodo.vdb.interpreter.execution.processor.VDBActionProcessor.enableAutoSingleUserMode'

SET 'com.denodo.vdb.vdbinterface.server.vcs.VCSConfigurationManager.localRepositoriesHome'

SET 'com.denodo.vdb.interpreter.execution.processor.VDBActionProcessor.strictAutoSingleUserMode'

SET 'com.denodo.vdb.catalog.exportMigrationCompatibility'

SET 'com.denodo.vdb.catalog.exportMigrationCompatibility.migrateDateTypes'

SET 'com.denodo.vdb.security.allowLDAPAdministratorsToAssignPrivileges'

SET 'com.denodo.vdb.cache.i18nCode'

SET 'com.denodo.security.ssl.enabled'

The property “com.denodo.security.ssl.enabled” controls if SSL is enabled on the Virtual DataPort server. We remove this property to avoid enabling SSL until the migration process is completed.

There are also some considerations regarding the cache and some specific actions when migrating from 5.5 or 5.0. Therefore, please, read the Migration Guide before the migration.