technology underlying TM1 Web
Jordan Ellis
It would appear that TM1 Web runs a session of Excel on the Server for
each Web user. Web queries are refreshed through the "server-side"
Excel spreadsheet, quickly saved as html and sent to the browser.
This appears to be what Microsoft refers to as "server-side automation
of Excel" – see:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;257757
To summarise "Microsoft does not currently recommend, and does not
support, Automation of Microsoft Office Applications [including Excel
97 to 2003] from any unattended, non-interactive client application or
component because Office may exhibit unstable behavior and/or deadlock
when run in this environment."
The paper lists several major categories of problems, including:
• Office apps expect to be able to interact with the user if problems
arise.
• Re-entrancy and Scalability -- server apps need to be re-entrant,
multi-threaded and non-resource-intensive. Office apps are the exact
opposite.
• Stability -- MS says "Using Office as a service component on a
network server may reduce the stability of that machine, and as a
consequence your network as a whole."
• Security -- Office apps were never intended for use server-side so
they have no provisions for the kind of security a server-based
application needs.
• "Besides the technical problems, you must also consider the
feasibility of such a design with respect to licensing. Current
licensing guidelines prevent Office Applications from being used on
server to service client requests, unless those clients themselves
have licensed copies of Office. Using server-side Automation to
provide Office functionality to unlicensed workstations is not covered
by the End User License Agreement (EULA)."
Jordan
Joerg Narr
news:982582bd.03112...@posting.google.com...
> Can anyone shed some light on the technology underlying TM1 Web?
>
> It would appear that TM1 Web runs a session of Excel on the Server for
> each Web user. Web queries are refreshed through the "server-side"
> Excel spreadsheet, quickly saved as html and sent to the browser.
>
> This appears to be what Microsoft refers to as "server-side automation
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;257757
>
Jordan, Applix indeed uses server-side Excel automation, but not solely.
Applix Integra is a part of the foundation of TM1 Web without offering its
full functionality. In contrary to Applix Integra though Applix targets with
TM1 Web small to medium sized (maybe 30-50 max) installations. For this size
TM1 Web is an elegant way to easily publish Excel-Spreadsheets into a Web
environment (by end users with a few mouse clicks). I do see and understand
the problems though that can arise if this technique is used in a productive
environment. I have tested its functionality in a small environment and
almost everything worked smothly. If somebody is interested in Applix's Web
technology for a bigger environment I would recommend to have a look at
Applix Integra.
Kind regards,
Joerg
Charles Green
> Jordan, Applix indeed uses server-side Excel automation, but not solely.
> Applix Integra is a part of the foundation of TM1 Web without offering its
> full functionality. In contrary to Applix Integra though Applix targets with
> TM1 Web small to medium sized (maybe 30-50 max) installations. For this size
> TM1 Web is an elegant way to easily publish Excel-Spreadsheets into a Web
> environment (by end users with a few mouse clicks). I do see and understand
> the problems though that can arise if this technique is used in a productive
> environment. I have tested its functionality in a small environment and
> almost everything worked smothly. If somebody is interested in Applix's Web
> technology for a bigger environment I would recommend to have a look at
> Applix Integra.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Joerg
Hi Joerg
I read your response with interest. Can you please clarify a few
things for me?
We also looked at TM1 Web and did some testing with 10 concurrent
users (less than 35 users in total). Overall the performance was too
slow and we had recurring problems on the server.
Can you let me know how many users you tested on?
Assuming a named user to concurrent user ratio of 4:1, are you
suggesting 30-50 concurrent users are feasible or 8-12 concurrent
users?
Another problem we had when setting up was that IT made it clear they
would not support or approve this approach. Even for a small
departmental deployment, do you have any suggestions on how to get
this architecture approved by IT guys?
Kind regards
Charles Green
Wilton CT
Jörg Narr
First of all I need to give you some information about my background and the
test: I am working for the Business Application Research Center (BARC) in
Germany, an independent industry analyst company. We are active in the
German speaking market and are researching the market for Business
Intelligence (BI) tools. We test BI products (data bases, application
servers, front ends for reporting, analysis, planning, consolidation and so
on) and write reports about this tests which we publish in German language
for Central Europe. Besides this we offer consulting to clients looking for
appropriate BI solutions meeting their specific requirements. These two
options give use the possibility to test the software in our BARC
laboratories and additionally often in real life scenarios at our clients'
sides. In our laboratories we mainly look at the functionality provided by
the software and draw conclusions whereas we often organize and accompany
proof-of-concept (POC) workshops with the software vendors for our clients
where we thoroughly test the solution and its behaviour under stress load.
So far we only tested TM1 Web at our laboratories since we didn't have a
client with requirements for functionality as provided by TM1 Web. This
limited our tests to only a very small scenario. Although we did recognize
some problems with the installation and its stability, the creation of
(moderately sized) Excel-reports worked fine. We cannot test any minor patch
and release which would be required in order to give accurate information on
the stability of the software product. Since bugs are most often fixed in
minor releases and patches we only heavily criticise major errors. In the
case of TM1 Web we pointed to the fact that it is a version 1 product, hence
showing less stability and lacking functionality in certain aspects. We were
also looking at the technical architecture and stated some conclusions which
I inaccurately cited in my last posting: We regard TM1 Web to be an
alternative for small environments - as you wrote for approximately 8 to 12
concurrent users at a maximum - but this mainly depends on the complexity of
the report and many other factors i.e. Server size, network and so on.
Whenever we accompany POCs and are experiencing problems we thoroughly
research the full environment to find the reason. If the server (and maybe
an unsupported use of Excel) is the reason and you cannot fix the problem
yourself you should confront the vendor with this problem. Did you check
what the time was spent for in your case? If you contacted Applix and they
weren't capable to fix the problem a review of your requirements or a test
of an alternative product could help.
> Another problem we had when setting up was that IT made it clear they
> would not support or approve this approach. Even for a small
> departmental deployment, do you have any suggestions on how to get
> this architecture approved by IT guys?
Although IT very often forget that they are a service provider their
objection is correct for the given situation. The decision for TM1 Web
should only be made after a successful POC. As you stated this wasn't the
case at your company. So I would suggest to either contact Applix to fix the
problems, to think about testing TM1 Integra or to look at an alternative. I
do not know your requirements but there are also front ends available that
can be used to report data from TM1. If the IT department are blocking based
on "strategy" or alleged "integration" with a product I would recommend to
fix the problem on a higher level or with assistance of an external and
independent advisor.
Kind regards,
Joerg
Jörg Narr
already using TM1 Web in a productive environment.
Joerg
Brian Barnes
me explain why and let me explain how we have addressed the issues
raised in the Microsoft document to insure this architecture is
scalable and reliable.
First, why use Excel on the server: TM1 Web has a unique architecture
that utilizes Excel to retrieve data from TM1 and then render the HTML
for the webpage insuring 100% of Excel's functionality and formatting.
Many of our customers use Excel as their primary interface to TM1.
Some of our partners have written spreadsheet "interpreters" to
produce corresponding web pages. There are advantages and
disadvantages of every approach, but one of the disadvantages
customers have complained about are differences between the
interpreted versions of the spreadsheets and the original
spreadsheets. The most common example is that the "interpreters" do
not support 100% of Excel's functions.
Second, how we address the issues in the Microsoft document:
- Office apps expect to be able to interact with the user if
problems arise.
This could be a problem if TM1 Web was using Excel to provide Excel
functionality within a web page, for example in manner similar to the
way Citrix works. TM1 Web uses Excel simply to retrieve an Excel
file, and the associated data from TM1, and then save the Worksheet or
Workbook as an HTML file. Excel would interact with the user if, for
example, the user was typing a formula into a spreadsheet and made a
mistake. That situation can't occur. If there is an error
retrieving a spreadsheet, we trap the error and respond accordingly.
- Re-entrancy and Scalability -- server apps need to be re-entrant,
multi-threaded and non-resource-intensive. Office apps are the exact
opposite.
Since TM1 Web uses a copy of Excel for each concurrent user it has in
essence multi-threaded Excel for large user populations and made Excel
re-entrant since if there is a problem, no other user is affected.
When the user tries to retrieve the report they just encountered a
problem with they have in essence "re-entered" Excel.
We are also not putting the entire burden on Excel. We use the server
to render the HTML version of the spreadsheet after retrieving the
data from TM1. No other interaction occurs between the user and the
spreadsheet. We are also aware of the issues in the tech note and
have designed the solution accordingly. We have tested the
scalability of our approach and have confirmed that using Windows 2003
we can support 100+ concurrent users on a single 2-CPU server. The
upper limits on scalability are in fact limited by those items noted
in the tech bulletin (primarily global resources used by Excel).
My research has indicated that 100 concurrent read/write OLAP users on
Intel hardware is at the top of the accepted norm, with most solutions
closer to 50 concurrent users or less.
Finally, our approach is less burdensome on the server than the Citrix
or Terminal Services use of Excel that is widely used. Dell published
a study in March 2002 showing 180 users using Excel plus other Office
tools via Citrix.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/power/en/ps1q02_gonce?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz
Microsoft also has a paper on it's support site showing that Terminal
Services can be used to support up to 135 concurrent Excel (+ other
tools) users via terminal services.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/administration/terminal/tscaling.asp
The net is that we studied our customer based and determined that the
majority will fall very nicely into the band of usage that is easily
supported by this configuration. For those that want multiple
hundreds of concurrent users, we recommend (and can help them
configure) multiple "TM1 Web Servers".
- Stability -- MS says "Using Office as a service component on a
network server may reduce the stability of that machine, and as a
consequence your network as a whole."
This sentence looks alarming, especially taken out of context. MS is
concerned that using an office component as a service could cause a
machine to crash and if that machine is doing something else, like
running a network service, it could impact the rest of your network.
Applix recommends that TM1 Web be provided with it's own machine and
if the user load is light (25 concurrent users or less) TM1 could also
be installed on the same machine, as TM1 Web, in order to best utilize
hardware resources.
Applix has thoroughly tested TM1 Web and Excel as a service component
using large numbers of concurrent users over extended periods of time.
- Security -- Office apps were never intended for use server-side so
they have no provisions for the kind of security a server-based
application needs.
TM1 Web utilizes TM1's standard security feature that allows security
granularity down to the individual cell within TM1. TM1's security
can also leverage Active Directory or LDAP to reduce the support
effort from IT.
- "Besides the technical problems, you must also consider the
feasibility of such a design with respect to licensing. Current
licensing guidelines prevent Office Applications from being used on
server to service client requests, unless those clients themselves
have licensed copies of Office. Using server-side Automation to
provide Office functionality to unlicensed workstations is not covered
by the End User License Agreement (EULA)."
TM1 Web's use of Excel, on the server, is to provide an easier Web
publishing environment for users and to provide the highest level of
Excel support in the industry, not to allow companies to pool their
Office licenses in order to save costs. Microsoft's End User License
Agreement can require a license of Excel for each TM1 Web user, but
doesn't in all situations. For example a user accessing TM1 Web for
read only purposes doesn't need an Excel license.
TM1 Web is exciting new technology that empowers TM1 users to become
their own Webmasters creating and managing web applications from
within Excel. Its unique architecture is worth discussing. It is not
for all situations, but for many we believe it is the best solution.
Please feel free to contact me with any other questions.
Brian Barnes
Applix Product Management
Dave Menninger
Could you please contact me. I'd like to followup on your posting to
make sure we have answered your question adequately, but the email
address you listed in your posting does not appear to be valid and I
can't find any other information about how to contact you.
Dave Menninger
VP Marketing
Applix Inc.
http://www.applix.com
David.M...@applix.com