Sunday, June 29, 2008

Need to change fretting attitude

I look back my "situation/thing is not perfect" attitude and look back. or why is He angry with me. Being a classic quitter (by classic I really mean it), I've changed employers like anything and it has give me pain in the end. Politics exists in very organization and I'm happy that in my current organization has next to nil. Yeah, not like IvyComptech, where it was none. Something from my friend Stanlay (working in Indian Army) from his Orkut profile.

-------
After i joined the army I received a letter from my
Girlfriend back home, It read as follows:

Dear Stan,
I can no longer continue our relationship. The distance between us is
just too great. I'm sorry. Please return the picture of me that I sent
to
you.
Love, %@#$**


With hurt feelings,I asked my fellow soldiers for any
snapshots they could spare of their girlfriends, sisters or ex-girlfriends.

In addition to the picture of my girl, I included all the other
pictures of the pretty gals I could manage from my buddies.
With 57 photos in that envelope I wrote back to her:

Dearest !@#$@@!,
I'm so sorry, but I can't quite remember who the hell you are. Please
take your picture from the pile, and send the rest back to me.

Take Care,
Stan

Moral of the story:
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
If u cant do that either then pls dont crib abt being Single!!
--------

I've changed my attitude towards things in office, something that I've learnt hard way.

Friday, June 27, 2008

R.I.P. Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw

Got up early by 9 AM and switched on TV. While browsing TV I came to know about death of First Field Marshall Sam Bahadur (Hero of Indo-Pak war of 1971). From IBN-Live

----
India’s first Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, who is credited with crafting the campaign that led to the creation of Bangladesh after the 1971 war with Pakistan, died early on Friday morning in Wellington in Tamil Nadu.

Manekshaw, 94, had been battling a series of old age-related ailments. He breathed his last at the Military Hospital in Wellington, where he settled down after retiring as the Army chief in 1973.

The Padma Vibhushan and Military Cross awardee, who was admitted in the hospital for "progressive lung disease," had slipped into coma and the end came just after midnight at 0030 hours IST, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

Manekshaw had developed "acute bronchopneumonia with associated complications" and was placed under intensive care four days ago after his condition became serious.

President Pratibha Patil condoled the death of the Field Marshal along with Defence Minister A K Antony who said, "In his demise, the nation has lost a great soldier, a true patriot and a noble son."

----

May All mighty give him highest place in heaven.

His response “There will be no withdrawal without written orders and these orders shall never be issued” energized the Armed forces and the nation to stand tall against a deceitful enemy. The stuff that legends are made of.

Friday, June 06, 2008

AXIS Bank phishing attack

Action: Your access to Online Services has been disabled.
Date: June 2008


Your access to Online Services has been disabled due to a mismatch of access code between your
personal and security details. To enable you continue accessing your online account, it will take you a
few minutes to re-activate your account.
Click on the reference link below, and you will be guided to your quick re-activation page
.

https://www.axisbank.co.in/BankAway/web/L001/RetailSignOn.aspx?RequestId=re-activation

Important Notice : You are strictly advised to match your details correctly to avoid service denial.

Thank you,
Axis Bank Security Department Team.

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

If you click on that link in mail, you would be taken to phishing site. Have a look at the snapshot. Servers of this site is located at Spain (Look at bottom right)

Monday, May 26, 2008

MicroStrategy Business Objects Cognos comparision

Single Metadata – Object definition is stored in a database (called metadata), How easy is changes to be integrated made from one interface to another.

64 Bit support – 32 bit system can’t address more than 4 GB of system space. All non-Windows OS are available in 64 bit for ages. Windows also got it in June 2005, but BI vendor should be able to support 64 bit OS.

Scalability – Any calculation performed in database is the best and fast and let very small load on the BI architecture. But not all BI vendors let it happen.

Reusable Objects – Make once use zillion times.

Objects Version Control – Ability to have different version of same (schema) objects.

WYSIWYG – Look and feel of what you created and finally how it looks.

Security – Object, User security.

Personalization – Single report but show different output to different users.

Manual fine-tuning SQL – Easily making changes to generated SQL.

Ease of SQL Generation – Make Schema object and system and forget about the right SQL generation.

MS Office integration – Run report directly from Word, Excel or Powerpoint.

(There is some bug with HTML parser on Blogger.com. Please scroll down for the comparison table. Do write into your comments. I'd update/add more information accordingly)
































































































































MicroStrategyBusiness ObjectsCognos
Single MetadataYesNoNo
64 Bit supportVery GoodGoodGood
ScalabilityExcellentGoodVery Good
Reusable bjectsExcellentGoodGood
Objects Version ControlVery BadExcellentVery Good
WYSIWYGVery GoodVery GoodVery Good
SecurityVery GoodGoodVery Good
PersonalizationVery GoodGoodBad
Manual fine-tuning SQLGoodExcellentExcellent
Ease of SQL generationExcellentVery GoodVery Good
MS Office integrationVery GoodBadGood
Learning CurveBadVery GoodVery Good
Number of Clients100004200023000
Number of Employees2000NA3500
Cost of License$$$$$$$$$$
Support Cost$$$$$$$$$$$
Average Pay (USD)##830007800079000
Job SecurityGoodExcellentVery Good
Cost of License$$$$$$$$$$
Support Cost$$$$$$$$$$$

## - indeed.com

Heros of this blog

There are two heroes of this blog, whom I've mentioned a couple of time. They finally arrived on this blog and left some comments. Actually in Jan 2008.

Gurvinder Singh Chhatwal (Project Manager of MicroStrategy-QA project in Cybage, Pune)
"At least a MILLION times people around you, who have worked and lived with you have told you what an IDIOT you are. But seems you still fail to understand.
Pity on you."

Paramjeet Singh Sidhu (Project Lead of MicroStrategy-QA project in Cybage, Pune)
"No wonder you write all bullshit about the people you work with because they all know how sick your thoughts and you were (seems like you still are). Anywayz, you and your fantasies go on and on.
May god help you."
---------
People like you give me good learning. I'll not forget Cybage because of people like you. I owe you this. I pity having worked under you guys. I don't think I'll ever get any manager like you and pray to god that no one in this world gets it. and who was/is sick is known to persons concerned. May god help both of you. Last but not least, thanks for stopping by on the blog.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server query flow

The main components of MicroStrategy Intelligence Server are:
  1. Intelligence server bus
  2. Intelligent Cubes server
  3. Communication layers for the metadata and data warehouse
  4. SQL Generation Engine
  5. Query Engine
  6. Analytical Engine

The query flow below describes the primary functions of each component.

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server query flow

  1. The MicroStrategy Intelligence Server receives a report request from any interface.
  2. The request is passed to the Intelligence Server bus, which coordinates all the tasks necessary to execute the report.
  3. Intelligence Server first checks the cache to see whether the report results are already there. The report results will already be in cache if another user or a schedule previously ran the report. If a cache exists, Intelligence Server skips directly to step 9.
  4. If no valid cache exists for the report, the Intelligence Server bus obtains the report definition and application objects from the metadata.
  5. The bus sends this information to the SQL Generation Engine. The SQL Generation Engine creates the optimized SQL, specific to the database being used. The SQL passes are then returned to the bus.
  6. The bus sends the SQL to the Query Engine. The Query Engine runs the SQL against the data warehouse and the report results are returned to the bus.
  7. The Intelligence Server bus invokes the Analytical Engine. Additional calculations are performed as necessary (when the calculation is unavailable in the database being used), and the Analytical Engine formats the results. The results are returned to the Intelligence Server bus.
  8. Depending on the analytical complexity of the report, the results might be passed back to the SQL Generation Engine for further processing by the database. Only MicroStrategy can provide this collaborative analysis with the database, resulting in forms of queries that can only be solved by MicroStrategy. In this case, steps 4–6 are repeated until the final report results are obtained. Finally, the formatted results are returned to the client communication layer.
  9. The Intelligence Server passes the formatted results back to the client.
----------------------------------------------
I had this article for around 2+ years in my archives. Most probably this is an internal MicroStrategy document. If you are © owner and want me to pull this down, please post a comment. There is a link to post comment. I come to know about any comment on blog as soon as it happens. If you can help me with the origin/source of this document, please help me. This is the first post on this blog which is not straight from heart, but hope I don't deviate from it.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Tiers in MicroStrategy

I have heard people saying web is three tier connection in several interview and desktop (with I-server) is a two tier connection. Such answers about tiers really gives me tears. [:)]. You are hear reading this page just mean that you are too lazy to read the MicroStrategy PDFs. Anyways here is the information about various tiers.

Anything that doesn't requires I-server is 2 tier. One can have two tier connection not only with Access but also SQL Server, Oracle, Netizza, Teradata, etc, In fact with any damn database. In such case, Desktop and Metadata/Database are two tires. DSN is important in this case. In fact that become heart in 2 tier. You never need to use Configuration Manager in case of a 2 tier connection.

Any time you use configuration manager to connect I-Server to Metadata (obviously with DSN) is a three tier. In this case the tiers are, Desktop - I-Server - Metadata/Database.

Any time you use Web is a 4 tier architecture. And tiers are as follows.
Web Browser - Web Server - I-Server - Metadata/Database.

A 5 tier architecture is also possible. There are various vendors who sell installable reporting tool based on MicroStrategy architecture. In this case the 5th tier sits between Web Browser and Server.

Version control in MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy doesn't support Versioning. BTW, There are two types of versioning in MicroStrategy. Source control (what I'm taking about over here) and Slowly changing dimension (SCD). Lots of clients have put requests to MicroStrategy to have this feature of version control for schema object or at least attributes. In short the answer for this question is NO and I would never want MicroStrategy to have this features. Such a feature request is only idea that can come from bad MicroStrategy practice. Why in this world, do you want to have two definition. If a change in attribute breaks a report or sql goes haywire, one should rather fix this (that why it is job of MicroStrategy Architect). Such a feature would lead to lots of useless trial-n-error stuff in MicroStrategy. If you know any company who is behind this feature request, please post the name over here.

FYI, as per document ID (TN4100-800-0349), A current enhancement request exists for this functionality. Contact MicroStrategy Technical Support for the latest update of this request.

This would be a good feature for nuts in MicroStrategy and will give sane people hard time.

Update 13 Feb 2009

Cognos supports this feature. But one can't use different object(s) from different set of version. :-(