Redmond QlikView Server and Publisher

Written for server administrators, this book guides you step by step through installing, managing, and maintaining QlikView Server and Publisher for your enterprise. It's the foolproof route to turning information into knowledge.
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78217-986-3
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

This is a comprehensive guide with a step-by-step approach that enables you to host and manage servers using QlikView Server and QlikView Publisher. If you are a server administrator wanting to learn about how to deploy QlikView Server for server management,analysis and testing, and QlikView Publisher for publishing of business content then this is the perfect book for you. No prior experience with QlikView is expected.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Redmond, Stephen

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik EDV & Informatik Allgemein

Leseproben

Chapter 1. Getting Started with QlikView Server

At a simple level, QlikView Server is a product that serves QlikView documents to connected users.

Users connect to AccessPoint—the out of the box QlikView web portal—and see their documents. They click on a document and it opens, displaying their up-to-date data.

Of course, under the hood, it is a lot more complex than that. There are multiple services in action. The main one is the QlikView Server service that actually loads the documents into memory on the server and delivers the information to clients. The QlikView Web Server service hosts AccessPoint and renders the QlikView documents to web and mobile clients. The Directory Service connector allows QlikView to connect to different user repositories and the QlikView Management service links everything together.

Up-to-date data is important to users, so we have the QlikView Distribution Service. Without a QlikView Publisher license, this is a simple reload engine that reloads the documents on a schedule. After adding the Publisher license, the Distribution Service becomes a service that reloads documents and distributes them to multiple locations with multiple options and schedules.

Before you begin to think about installing QlikView Server, there are some important things that you should know. We will cover them all in this chapter.

When you install the product, you are going to need some hardware in place—either physical or virtual—so you will need to understand the implications of different configurations and sizes.

Because QlikView is built on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), we will also look at the architecture of the different services so that you might understand how many servers you might need to deploy.

We will also look at the different licenses that you can use with QlikView Server and the different client types that can be deployed.

These are the topics we'll be covering in this chapter:

• Supported Windows Servers
• Licensing and Server types
• Deployment options
• Service Oriented Architecture
• QlikView clients

Supported Windows Servers

QlikView is a Windows-based technology. Up to Version 11.2 SR4, there have been both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of QlikView Server (and Publisher).

These versions can be installed on the following Windows Server versions:

• Windows Server 2003, both 32-bit and 64-bit
• Windows Server 2003 R2, both 32-bit and 64-bit
• Windows Server 2008, both 32-bit and 64-bit
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit only)

For purposes of testing and development only, QlikView Server 32-bit or 64-bit can also be installed on the following professional (not home edition) desktop operating systems:

• Windows XP, both 32-bit (SP3) and 64-bit (SP2)
• Windows Vista, both 32-bit and 64-bit
• Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit

Essentially, this is the list of operating systems that support the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0, which is required by QlikView Server.

Since version 11.2 SR2, an additional installation is available specifically for Windows 2012. This version will also install on Windows 8, for test and development purposes only.

QlikView Server will install on a fairly barebones Windows Server. The only additional requirement is an installation of the Microsoft .NET Framework—v4 for QlikView v11 and v11.2. If the .NET Framework is not installed when you start the QlikView Server installation, the QlikView installer will attempt to start the download and installation process for it.

Of course, this means that if the server is not connected to the Internet, the download will fail.

The installation will automatically create the QVPR (this is a legacy from the QlikView Publisher Repository, but it is not just about publisher any longer), an XML file-based storage of server settings managed by the QlikView Management service. Because these XML files are potentially corruptible on the filesystem, some administrators would prefer to have them stored in a more robust database. There is an option in the QlikView Management Console, to migrate the QVPR to SQL Server. This SQL Server could be running on the same server as the QlikView services but it is not recommended, as it will consume resources that might be needed by QlikView. It is worth noting that if you keep using the XML repository, the XML files will be backed up to ZIP files on either a daily basis or on a schedule that you can configure.

Other Windows options that you need to consider

There are a number of other Windows options that you need to consider before deploying QlikView Server.

IIS

To run the QlikView AccessPoint, QlikView Server has its own web server service—QlikView Web Service/Settings Service (QVWS). However, it will also deploy on IIS v6, v7, or v8 (on Windows 8/2012). This may be the preferred option for many IT departments, especially if they have existing IIS management experience or need to easily manage security certificates.

Authentication

The default security model uses either NTLM or Kerberos to authorize either an Active Directory or local SAM user. This default is the only option available for the Small Business Edition of QlikView Server. Other authentication mechanisms are possible with Enterprise QlikView Server (refer to Chapter 7, ), so you will need to consider security.

Browser

The QlikView Management Console (QMC) is a web-based tool that you will need a "modern" web browser to work with—so IE6 won't work. This doesn't need to be on the server, but it is useful to have it there. The following browsers are suitable:

Browser	Minimum Version

Internet Explorer

7

Google Chrome

18

Mozilla Firefox

12

Apple Safari

5

I have used all of these browsers and although I have a personal preference for Google Chrome, all of them should work fine. You will have to watch out if using IE on your server because the enhanced security option is often enabled. In these circumstances, I have sometimes found myself having to download Firefox (because IE blocks the Chrome download!)

Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol is not something that you might consider normally because it is set by default in Windows Server, but some organizations may have IP turned off. QlikView services talk to each other using the HTTP protocol, so it is important that IP is available—either IPv4 or IPv6.

Print spooler service

The print spooler service is necessary for QlikView to generate reports for web-based users. In fact, if it is disabled, the PDF-XChange drivers that QlikView uses will not even install. Unfortunately, it is common for IT departments to disable this service as part of Group Policy. Check that this is enabled before installation.

Windows hardware considerations

Windows Servers have their own hardware requirements but going with a minimum option will not work for QlikView. QlikView Server is a CPU- and memory-intensive application. You will need to have enough of both to be able to handle your data and your user requirements (refer to the section).

Because QlikView Server is so hardware intensive, it is rarely appropriate to host the QlikView Server on a server that will also host other services such as Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, and so on. By default, QlikView Server will consume up to 90 percent of the available physical RAM on the server and that doesn't leave much for other services.

Memory

It is worth remembering that a 32-bit Windows process can only access a maximum of 2 GB of memory. So, if you are running a 32-bit QlikView Server, there would be little point in having more than 4 GB of memory. On the other hand, if you are running 64-bit Windows, 4 GB would be an absolute minimum! I wouldn't normally recommend a 32-bit server for QlikView. Since Windows 2008 R2, there is no longer a 32-bit version of Windows Server.

There is no hard and fast rule on the amount of memory that you will need for your implementation, as it is dependent on the amount of data that you will be loading, the number of applications that will be used, the number of users who will be accessing those applications, and how often they will be accessing them. It is also worth considering that the amount of data and the number of applications will likely increase over...

Über Autor(innen)

Redmond Stephen :

Stephen Redmond is the CTO and Qlik Luminary at CapricornVentis - a QlikView Elite Partner. He is the author of several books, including QlikView for Developers Cookbook and QlikView Server and Publisher, both published by Packt Publishing. He is also the author of the popular DevLogixseries for SalesLogix developers. In 2006, after many years of working with CRM systems, reporting and analysis solutions, and data integration, Stephen started working with QlikView. Since then, CapricornVentis has become QlikView's top partner in the UK and Ireland territories, and with Stephen as the head of the team, they have implemented QlikView in a wide variety of enterprise and large-business customers across a wide range of sectors, from public sector to financial services to large retailers. In 2014, Stephen was awarded the Luminary status by Qlik in recognition of his product advocacy. He regularly contributes to online forums, including the Qlik Community.