You are not alone – Teradata Magazine

As a Teradata user you are part of the Teradata PARTNERS User Group community made up of thousands of professionals active in data warehousing and its associated technologies and products. An advantage of being one of these partners is the wide variety of opportunities available to share your experiences, successes and challenges.

Four members of the Teradata Service Focus Team each share a technical issue that they helped to resolve. Teradata customers around the globe benefit from this network of data warehouse experts. From left to right, they are David Belcher (British Airways), Kyle Prescott (Unum Group), Erin Redshaw (Royal Bank of Canada) and Mark Andrews (Macy's Inc.).

When your ideas or issues are related to support services and other areas that fall beyond the scope of product enhancements, the Teradata PARTNERS Service Focus Team (SFT) stands ready to assist.

The Steering Committee of the PARTNERS User Group established the SFT, which is composed of 15 data warehousing experts. These individuals, selected by their peers, are charged with helping to identify and resolve support and service issues that affect Teradata customers.

The SFT concentrates on topics drawn from Service Focus Statements (SFS) that are submitted by users. These documents outline service-related issues and concerns, which the SFT analyzes at a high level. If the problem appears to be universal and not specific to a company or region, it is presented to the appropriate departments within Teradata. The SFT then acts as a liaison between the customer and Teradata to ensure resolution.

Additionally, the SFT focuses on influencing Teradata's direction on future services and support development. This kind of networking helps maintain open communication between Teradata and its user community and turns active feedback into viable solutions.

To give you a better understanding of how a problem recognized by a single company can benefit companies globally, Teradata Magazine asked four SFT members to each present a unique situation that has been addressed by the group.

Kyle Prescott has 18 years of IT experience, eight years specifically with Teradata warehouse systems since he joined Unum in 1999. A Teradata Certified Master, Kyle has been a member of the SFT since 2000, was vice chairperson from 2005 to 2006 and has been the chairperson since 2006.

Issue:
Parallel Upgrade Tool (PUT) software does not display any logging or progression messages to allow the end user to have confidence that the migration is progressing.

Specific example:

> Incident RECC4QHMW: during recent upgrade migration to V2R6.0.2 TPA, restart loop occurred and VPROCS/PEs were set offline/fatal. PUT utility continued to show an "elapsed" time of the upgrade script with [completion] estimations of 112 minutes. After 115 minutes, the SSR began investigating why the script was not finished. The OSM log showed TPARESETs and fatal VPROCS (after two minutes during the upgrade script).

> With CCL/TVI disabled for the migration, there is no alerting mechanism that the process has gone awry.

> VPROCS were set online, root cause was determined and corrected, and scripts were restarted, but not before three hours were wasted.

Consequences:
Three hours of downtime were incurred due to the tool not having adequate progression messages.

A A customer experienced a significant delay during a relational database management system (RDBMS) software upgrade because the process went astray and multiple VPROCS were set offline. The PUT software that pilots the upgrade displayed continued progress even beyond the time period allocated in the upgrade change control. PUT did not detect a problem with the upgrade, nor did it display any log that would alert the users that something had gone awry.

A With more and more systems used in an active or operational manner, it is crucial that planned upgrades and maintenance are performed within already squeezed maintenance windows. Any problems or delays need to be ferreted out as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary and costly delays.

A PUT was changed to improve communication with the upgrade scripts. This includes adding specific messages to the script output and updating PUT to interpret them. These messages indicate the step a script is currently running, how long a step is expected to run, or that a failure has been encountered. The result is the user now sees concise messages on-screen that indicate what the script is doing as it executes.

Enhancing PUT to use estimated completion times resolves the original issue of a script running for hours with no indication of a problem. In this case, the user would have been notified on-screen that the current step was running longer than expected as soon as the expected completion time was exceeded. This same functionality addresses the similar problem of a script hang.

A No matter how carefully a user plans an upgrade or maintenance outage window, inevitably the unexpected occurs. As operations and project manager for Teradata maintenance, this resolution will allow me to stay on top of the upgrade progress and not be later surprised when the upgrade scripts do not perform as planned. This resolution also allows Teradata technicians to more quickly resolve any issue that arises during the maintenance window.

A This improvement allows not just Unum but all user companies to more actively monitor their upgrades and keep informed during highly visible maintenance tasks. It will also help avoid unnecessary delays during planned maintenance windows.

A On behalf of the Teradata customer base, the SFT sponsored this project to assure positive customer experience and avoid lengthy delays during the planned maintenance windows. The SFT continues to seek further refinement and improvement to the utility and its monitoring capability.

David Belcher, a British Airways employee since 1989, has worked as a Teradata database administrator (DBA) since 1994. Now, as the main Teradata DBA and technical liaison, David works on upgrade projects, security design, change management and performance issues. He has been an SFT member since 2004.

Issue:
Roadmaps for Teradata software are sometimes incomplete and held in different formats.

Specific example:
The Teradata database management system (DBMS) software roadmap is stored in an Excel (.xls) file attached to a knowledge article. The customer relationship management (CRM) roadmap is available from the Documents link on Teradata @ Your Service and stored in a PowerPoint (.ppt) file but is not easily saved locally. I cannot find the matrix that links Teradata Customer Relationship Management versions with Teradata versions with Teradata Tools and Utilities (TTU) versions.

Consequences:
It is difficult to find information that changes infrequently and is fairly basic.

Expected or desired resolution:
A central location—easily accessible from a Teradata @ Your Service link—that stores all roadmaps along with matrices of inter-dependencies between Teradata software items.

A I was trying to find out which versions of the Teradata Database supported the Teradata CRM application. Our technical account manager had provided an earlier version, but a current matrix could not be obtained. I also noted that some other support/compatibility matrices were not all up to date (and one case was very out of date). It seemed to me that such information should be up to date and available through Teradata @ Your Service, since this is the site Teradata encourages users to visit for support issues.

A With my SFT hat on, I asked myself: Is this a problem experienced only at British Airways or could it affect other Teradata customers? My answer was the latter, so I raised a Feature Request (Services) through Teradata @ Your Service. The request was discussed at the next SFT monthly meeting and accepted as an SFS. Teradata was thereby asked to respond to the request.

A The resolution was to update the current matrices, add the missing matrix and engage a process to keep them up to date. Since the changes were implemented, there have been further changes to Teradata @ Your Service, which mean that these matrices and roadmaps are now accessible using the Search facility.

A I was able to obtain an up-to-date view of roadmaps, etc., and will, in the future, be able to obtain the information without involving my technical account manager.

A With this process in place, I can get the information easier and quicker. While this is not information for which I would have an immediate need, I will spend less time getting it in the future. This solution also benefits Teradata account managers whose time is saved for more important customer-related activities.

A The SFT accepted the submitted request as an SFS, which, therefore, required Teradata to respond. The response was favorable, and its progress was discussed and monitored between myself and the SFT member who had taken ownership of the SFS.

Erin Redshaw is the manager of Client Services in Enterprise Information Management, which is the first line of support for RBC's Teradata warehouse. Erin has worked on the Teradata enterprise data warehouse and several applications since 1999. She has been a member of the SFT since 2000, was vice chairperson of the team in 2002/2003 and was chairperson in 2004/2005. Erin is a Teradata Certified Master.

Issue:
It is difficult to know what Teradata Tools and Utilities (TTU) version is installed with each utility as each utility has a different version.

Specific example:
TTU 8.1 contains multiple Teradata utilities, which all have different release numbers. For example, Arcmain is version 08.01.00, FastLoad is version 07.07.00.001, MultiLoad is version 07.08.00.003 and ODBC is version 03.05. A spreadsheet of all the TTU releases with the appropriate version of the utility must be kept to keep track of versions.

Consequences:
It is very difficult for support groups to see, at a glance, if a user is running an unsupported version of a utility, or if they have upgraded their utility software. Because utilities can be installed individually, troubleshooting becomes a nightmare just to understand which version of a utility is being run.

Expected or desired resolution:
All associated utilities with a TTU version should have the same version listed. This would enable everyone to see, at a glance, what version of a utility is being run.

A Upgrading TTU and Teradata software has become a regular occurrence at our data center. Because of this, many preliminary checks are performed to verify the functionality of all new software. TTU can be installed on various platforms, and when new software is owned by another department, it is imperative that we confirm appropriate installation has been completed.

During a past upgrade, an error was encountered when installing TTU, and I had to check every release of every utility that was running. Ensuring each utility was the appropriate version became a spreadsheet nightmare since all versions for all utilities were different and the versioning numbers showed no consistency. To confirm which new version of software was running for each utility was time-consuming and cumbersome.

Furthermore, when troubleshooting problems, not only was it difficult to determine, at a glance, what versions of the TTU a department might be running but it was also hard to identify whether the version the department was running was associated with the latest version of TTU.

A Because new software releases are implemented regularly and the old versions become unsupported, it becomes very difficult to ensure the users are on the newest version of TTU. Individually checking utilities for a version number is very time-consuming.

A The resolution was to sync up all of the release numbers for the RDBMS software, as well as the utilities, so that starting with Teradata 12.0 (released October 2007) users are able to determine, at a glance, the version with which they are working.

A With this resolution, it is simple to determine which platforms must be upgraded to support a new version of Teradata software. In addition, a consistent versioning system greatly streamlines and simplifies troubleshooting, and users can quickly and easily determine the version of the software being used. No longer are spreadsheets required to determine the supported versions of TTU and RDBMS.

A When dealing with software-related issues, having clearly identified release numbers shortens the time involved in troubleshooting and problem-solving. As a preliminary step, if we identify that the version of software that is running is unsupported, we can ensure the software is upgraded before any lengthy investigations begin. Many times, this will solve the issue.

A The SFT is a great sounding board for ideas and suggestions. The SFT provides feedback to the user and Teradata and confirms if an issue is global in nature or restricted to one site. In this way, if all customers are in agreement, Teradata can better understand the severity of an issue.

Mark Andrews is currently a database administrator for Macy's. Mark has worked on data warehouse systems for numerous companies since 1992. A Teradata Certified Master, Mark was one of the original SFT members in the early 1990s and served as the committee's vice chairperson in 2000 and chairperson in 2001 and 2002.

Issue:
Customers need detailed information about hardware and software bugs that exist on a given release.

Specific example:
Historically, customers have not been able to tell what Discrepancy Reports (DRs) were in effect from one release to another. There was no tool that gave the customer the ability to determine the DRs that have been fixed from their current release to the next release they are considering.

Consequences:
When planning for an upgrade, customers could not easily distinguish the best version of RDBMS and parallel database extension (PDE) software that would include all of the fixes, features and functions they need.

A As customers, we are always trying to find the next stable release to upgrade to that also addresses most of our outstanding issues. Previously, there was no tool that would enable a user to quickly identify the DRs that were fixed in which release. The catalyst for this submission was an upgrade we were planning that also included fixes for outstanding technical issues.

A This was simply another issue that we, as Teradata customers, faced on a regular basis. The nature of this problem is such that it obviously applies to all customers as well. As a member of the SFT, it is always on my mind to identify issues that, when resolved, can benefit every user.

A Teradata developed a query tool that enabled Teradata @ Your Service users to input their current release, then select a release they considered upgrading to. The tool returns a list of specific DR fixes in that particular release. Users could also input a potential starting release then add a later release to identify unfixed DRs.

A It made it easier for me to advise my company on future release upgrades we considered.

A It made it easier for us to see the future release that would provide us the most benefits.

A The SFT brings problems that affect most, if not all, customers directly to Teradata. Teradata has always worked very closely with the SFT and has done a wonderful job implementing the majority of the committee's suggestions.

Q You probably had an outcome in mind. Did the actual result deliver any benefits or added value over and above your expectations?

A This project actually dovetailed into a much larger project in which Teradata needed to incorporate a new underlying database and migrate onto it some of their legacy systems. This consolidation of data enabled several other key initiatives on which Teradata and the SFT collaborated.

The SFT is the channel through which you, as users, can communicate your concerns regarding service improvements. From each SFS detailed in this article, a service enhancement was developed because a Teradata user expressed a concern about a particular issue.

By sharing your situation or idea with the SFT, not only will your company's problem be resolved but other partners across the globe will benefit as well. T