WhereScape Insights is designed to provide information about how a WhereScape Scheduler environment is performing, as well as give insights into how existing Scheduler configurations can be optimized.

WhereScape Insights consists of two components

  • WhereScape RED component to perform ELT processes on your existing Scheduler metadata.
  • Yellowfin component used to display insights into your scheduler configurations and performance.

A high-level architecture diagram for WhereScape insights is displayed below.

Prerequisites

  • WhereScape RED license key with PostgreSQL target enabled (Your WhereScape account manager can provide this).
  • Yellowfin License file (Your WhereScape account manager can provide this).
  • WhereScape Insights Enablement Pack WhereScape_Insights_20250110-1200
  • Ensure you have a Microsoft Windows Server version 2019 or later installed with at least 200GB of space available on the C: drive where Yellowfin and WhereScape RED will be installed.
  • The minimum spec of the system should be a 4 Core system with at least 16GB of memory available.
  • Yellowfin requires a Java Runtime instance available. It has been configured for Microsoft Open JDK, included with this pack. Install MS OpenJDK to its default location and ensure you select to include the JAVA Home variable. 

All other required applications are listed below. They are included in the WhereScape_Insights_20250110-1200.zip folder and will be installed automatically during the installation process.
WhereScape RED 10.0.1.0 with valid license key entered and EULA accepted

  • PostgreSQL 16.2 64-bit
  • PostgreSQL ODBC Driver(Unicode) 13.02.00.00
  • Python 3.10.11
  • Powershell 64-bit version 5.1 or above
    • Run the following command using PowerShell (The security protocol TLS 1.0 and 1.1 used by PowerShell to communicate with PowerShell gallery has been deprecated and TLS 1.2 has been made mandatory).
      [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = 
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
Register-PSRepository -Default -Verbose Set-PSRepository -Name "PSGallery"
-InstallationPolicy Trusted 

Prerequisites for connecting to existing WhereScape RED metadata

Create system level ODBC DSN’s to connect to each existing WhereScape RED repository that will be included in the WhereScape Insights dashboards:

  • RED 10 metadata repositories: ODBC Driver – PostgreSQL ODBC Driver(Unicode) 13.02.00.00
  • RED 9 metadata repositories: ODBC Driver – SQL Server ODBC Driver(Unicode) 13.02.00.00 

WhereScape RED 10 Installation

  • Unzip the WhereScape_Insights_20250110-1200 file directly to the C drive.
  • Add your WhereScape RED license information to the wsredlic.xml file in ‘C:\WhereScape_Insights_20250110-1200\Software_Components’.
  • Double clic the ‘Install All WS Insights RED Components’ shortcut in ‘C:\WhereScape_Insights_20250110-1200’.
  • Enter ‘Y’ to install all Insights ws components.
  • After 10-20 minutes the installation of the WhereScape RED components will be complete. 

Connect to Existing Scheduler Environments

Four connections will be present in the new RED 10 metadata repository, for connecting to existing WhereScape RED environments. These connections need to be configured to allow WhereScape Insights to connect to any existing WhereScape RED environments. Please refer to the WhereScape RED user guide for further details on how to configure connections.

Connection NameUsage
Scheduler Data RED10_1This connection should be used for connecting to existing RED 10 metadata repositories.
Scheduler Data RED10_2This connection should be used for connecting to existing RED 10 metadata repositories.
Scheduler DataThis connection should be used for connecting to existing RED 9 metadata repositories.
Scheduler Data_2This connection should be used for connecting to existing RED 9 metadata repositories.

Yellowfin installation

Deployment Process

Included with the WhereScape Insights pack are three files: 

  • ws_yf_config.dump
  • YFInstances.zip
  • microsoft-jdk-21.0.3-windows-x64 

The ws_yf_config.dump is a PostgreSQL pg_dump of the Yellowfin configuration database YFInstances.zip is a compressed copy of the Yellowfin system, including all support and configuration files. 

If the system is prepared correctly, it should now be possible to install the WS Red reporting solution. 

Step – by – step installation

Step one is to install the YF Configuration database. 
This is critical as Yellowfin won’t launch if it cannot see a configuration database. 

The ws_yf_config.dump file was created with the pg_dump command. Yellowfin will access this PostgreSQL database using the YFAdmin user account. 

It is therefore necessary to ensure you have the YFAdmin user account created within the PostgreSQL 16 system. 
Yellowfin will also use this account to access the data within the RED reporting database. 

  1. Create the YFAdmin user account, with permissions to read and write to the database
    1. Username: YFAdmin
    2. Password: ZV8vo29,x5nXr5dG0NTk 

      Note

      If the password is changed, this can be re-configured in Yellowfin, but will require administrative access to perform the change. It is therefore best to keep the password as is. 
  2. Once the YFAdmin user account is configured and available, restore the ws_yf_config.dump file to a new database called YFConfig
    1. Create the YFConfig database: createdb -U YFAdmin YFConfig
    2. Restore the dump file backup with: pg_restore -U YFAdmin -d YFConfig -1 c:\WS_YF_Deployment\ws_yf_config.dump 
  3. Unzip the contents of the YFInstances.zip file to the C:\ drive. The root folder to be precise. This will create a YFInstances directory, with the following structure: ‘C:\YFInstance\WhereScape’. 
  4. Save your Yellowfin license file in the following location: ‘C:\YFInstances\WhereScape\appserver\webapps\ROOT’.
  5. After all files have been unzipped, you can launch Yellowfin as a test.
    1. Navigate to C:\YFInstances\WhereScape\appserver\bin
    2. Execute the startup.bat file. You should see a terminal window open and execute a series of commands, this will take a short while to complete, but should result in a window that looks something like below: 

      Note

      Do not terminate or close this terminal window. Closing this window will shut down the Yellowfin instance immediately. 

      At this point you should be able to access Yellowfin via a browser on the same system by using the URL: localhost 

      The following screen should appear: 

  6. Now that we’ve seen Yellowfin execute. Shut Yellowfin down, using the shutdown.bat from the same folder you launched Yellowfin from with startup.bat At this stage only the default Admin user account and the license activation users will be available. The Adding Users section below details how to add new users. As the current Yellowfin configuration is set to manually launch, it would make sense to activate Yellowfin as a service on system start. 
  7. Follow the instructions below on configuring the Yellowfin service.
    1. Stop the existing Yellowfin instance, if it isn’t already, by executing shutdown.bat in the C:\YFInstances\WhereScape\appserver\bin directory.
    2. Using a command prompt navigate to C:\YFInstances\WhereScape\appserver\bin directory and execute ‘Service install’ 
      The following screen will appear: 
    3. The Tomcat 9 service can now be found in the services app and can be configured as required. Conveniently Tomcat provide a useful EXE file that can be pinned to the taskbar or start menu.
    4. TOMCAT9W.exe, right click this file and pin to the task bar. Executing this file, allows you to configure the system service.
    5. Once the service is installed, activate it and ensure the Yellowfin system is running, as per the localhost instruction above.

Adding Users

Included in the Yellowfin instance is a JavaScript file that will add users to the system on your behalf. It can only be executed from the server system; users will not be able to successfully add accounts should they decide to attempt to use the tool. To execute, from the server system, launch a browser and issue the URL:  localhost/ws_admin_createuser.jsp 

You will be presented with a form to complete: 

Complete the form as required. The email address will form the users userID. There will be a default password created for the user. The user will be asked to change their password on first login. 

For example:

Salutation: Dr 
First Name: Bob 
Last Name: Pies 
Email Address: bob.pies@bobspies.com 

YF Credentials will be: 
UserID: bob.pies@bobspies.com 
Password: P4ssword123456789! 

The user can now log in, with the default Dashboards and reports. 

Adding a Yellowfin License

The system has been configured to check for a license on the local machine every 24 hours. To ensure the system is functional, it will be necessary to ensure a valid license.lic file exists in the C:\YFInstances\WhereScape\appserver\webapps\ROOT folder. 

The filename must be license.lic, anything else and the system will fail to authenticate the license. 

Forcing a license update can be achieved by placing the license.lic file in the correct location and stopping/starting the Yellowfin server.

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