WHO AM I AND RELATED ISSUES

Krish Lakshminarayan

To me, there are two safe places/persons where I can ask the question “Who am I”. One is the Unix box which will
give a curt reply – klakshmi. Other, is my parent who will say “You are my son”. I dare not ask my elder brother
who will reply “Why make you mad by answering that question?” Not surprising. Not surprising at all. His last
trip to US was when his company launched a product in San Diego. As is natural, his love towards me drove him
to visit me at L.A. We visited a museum in USC. There my brother wanted me to ride an exhibit bi-cycle from
across one terrace to the other on a rope!!! Ofcourse, some 100 feet down there was a safety net. Define brother:
A lovable character who would like to push you 100 feet down and of course catch you before you reach
eternity ‘cos he loves you.

Not to mention the one who lives with me who will just spit out a “Hmmmm” in reply to my question (well, any
question for that matter).

But, there is a third person. Me. I can say some very good things about myself. And it happened that way one
fine morning and several weeks back, when I entered AFC after a long break (I was managing a major client who
happens to be our company’s first EDW client). When I entered AFC, I asked myself “Who am I” and pat came to
reply – “A DSS trained A class professional. A guy who successfully created and managed a complete DW
instance. Yada Yada…”

As I understood, I have to convert the entire project from two-tier to three-tier mode. I had in my previous
projects, performed similar server related tasks and data warehouse configuration. In fact, it had been quite a
few months since I stopped customer facing tasks and instead perform the role of consultant to consultants.
Platinum consultant was the title/role!

Alter scene… enter Connecticut. The first team to Connecticut consisted of Srini, Brian, Annie, Keshav and Lee,
beside me. I was assisting Srini in his conversion project. Then I moved on to support the DW team in addition
to occasional support to Srini. As is natural, I went on to handle server related issues. There was a Server with BI
software already installed. I installed relevant DSNs, changed configuration settings and pointed the server to
the relevant metadata. The metadata was created in advance with my inputs by a team of developers. All Set.

I walked up to Srini and declared “It’s done. I have completed the DW/BI server promotion”. Srini was visibly
happy – he had estimated a week and I completed it in half a day. Kudos from the boss! It is now pretty
common to get complimented by the CIO of our company – no big deal! I have to now change the .dss file and
include the server name in the server section of the .dss file. Hey, relax dude! You are almost done…I will do it
tomorrow. Relax!

The next day. Woke up at 6 in the morning and went on a slumber at 6.01 am. Chirping of birds brought me up
from my slumber. Lazy bum! I cursed myself. It was past 7.30am. Two minutes to take a shower. Well… I will be
honest – one minute to take shower. Fine, I skipped my shower! On reaching office, I remembered to change
the .dss file settings to enable three-tier functionality. Launched windows explorer, opened windows folder,
opened .dss file and made the required changes.

Next step is to launch the DSS Agent and run reports to test that all is well. I did launch the Agent. The Agent
smiled beamingly at me. I smiled back. Chose a filter, template combination and ran the test report. “Error
running report: DSS Server unable to connect. UID = klakshmi PWD = lkdhkhafnohadfc” What the….? It should
have been straightforward. No problem. Lets troubleshoot. I launched the testodbc tool to test the DSNs. They
connected without any error. Hmmm…. The problem should be on the software side. I ask the developer to
reinstall the server software. Now run the reports. Still the same error. Bug in the product? Wrong password?
ODBC version conflict? As I rule out all the probable causes one after the other, a chill ran through my spine.
What’s up, DW guru??!!!
With my head held low I walked towards the refreshments area. Let me gulp some water. My throat is dry. Srini
was preparing coffee. “Hey, Krish. What’s up with the production move? Is it complete?” I explained to Srini the
nature and content of the error in a quivering voice. Before I could finished, Srini intercepted – Hey, did you try
the patch thingy that you applied last time with the other client?. Gosh! I did not reply to Srini. I was running
away from him and towards the server room. I applied the patch and the entire task completed!

Before I explain all about this, let me tell you two things that disturbed me. One, I had known and implemented
this before but did not think of it now. Two, the I-know-everything attitude. Power and money corrupt minds.
That is common though not bearable. But knowledge shouldn’t corrupt anyone. And the power of knowledge
will be felt only when it is disseminated.

What was the problem?

First of all, the problem is unique to keeping AS400 as your DW platform. When you configure DSS Server, you
have an option to run DSS server as a service. This is the default and problem as well.

It is a client access specific problem. Client access programs rely on the CURRENT_USER registry key of Windows
to hold configuration data. A service program running under the system account is not associated with a user’s
profile so all requests to read CURRENT_USER profile information end up reading the .default user profile.

The CWBCFG.EXE program sets up a client access configuration in the default profile that can be used by the
client access ODBC driver when running under a service program.

Solution

The patch/fix is attached herewith. It is called client access PTFSF40828. Launch C prompt and drag the patch
onto the command prompt window. It tells you further steps to perform. Type cwbcfg /host hostname /s. In
Warnaco’s case, it would be

Cwbcfg /host INTIDATA /s

Quiz

Now, it is time to let you guys do some thinking. I had mentioned about running DSS server as a service. Why is
it required to choose that option? What purpose will it serve? This quiz is open to everyone except members in
the London team to whom I explained this concept few days back when I was in the UK.

Winners will be announced in an email and will receive a bonus Tip and Techniques note!!

Good Luck folks!