I can get up and running with a “play” Teradata system in just a few minutes.

It turns out that was very optimistic. I finally did get the VM up and running, but it was far from a few minutes.

Getting To The Download

First I had to download the image. I provided a link to the download page on the prior post before I tried anything. Once I clicked on the link to download my desired image, it asked me to log on or create an account. No problem, I thought, I don’t mind registering on the site. After filling out my profile it asked me to accept the license terms (no production use) and proceed. I accepted the terms, and it returned me to the download page. I clicked the download link, and it asked me to log in. I did, and it asked me to accept the terms. Now I don’t mind doing this once, but twice?

I went back to the Teradata home page and searched for a better download link. I found another alternative, and decided to try that. It asked me to register. It didn’t recognize my prior registration. Perhaps that was the problem? So I registered. Again. I was asked to accept the terms of the agreement. Again. And it returned me to the download page. Again. By now I’m getting frustrated, and decided that maybe I had a cookie problem on my computer. I switched computers to try again.

This time when I got to the first page I was able to sign on and go to the download page, click the link, and accept the terms of the agreement one more time. This time the site confirmed my request and told me an email would be coming shortly with a link to download the software.

Two hours later, no email, no link.

I poked about the site for a while, and found someone else was having problems getting the download to work. They had posted a link to a different Teradata virtual machine, but by looking at their link and looking at what I was trying to download I was able to construct a link that got me the file I wanted. Success!

After The Download

The download took quite a while as it the file was quite large. Once I completed the download I tried to unzip it with my trusted utility WinZip. It failed, saying the file was empty or corrupt. I have encountered this before with large downloads so I went back to my link and downloaded the file again. Once again, WinZip reported the file was corrupted. Once is not unusual, but twice in a row? Time for more reading.

The VM image that I was downloading was a 64bit SUSE linux image. That meant that it would only work on a 64bit system. My version of WinZip is not a 64bit application, could that be the problem? I did a quick search and found an application called 7-Zip that offered a 64bit version. I downloaded and installed that and was able to proceed with the extraction. After running for quite some time, the program told me one of the files was corrupted and it was unable to continue. Argh!

By now it is many hours after I started the process, so my optimistic estimate of “a few minute” was obviously very wrong. I downloaded the file. Again. I unzipped using 7-Zip. Again. This time the files were all correct and the extraction ran to completion. (If you’re counting, that’s the 3rd time I downloaded a 3GB file. My ISP probably loves me at the moment.)

Invoking the Machine

I copied the extracted files to my laptop which is running Vista 64bit as the host operating system. I put the files into my VM host folder and started up the server. It failed to launch. It said it would only run on a 64bit system. I told it to look harder.

Ultimately it turns out that there is a BIOS setting that I had to change in my laptop in order to make everything work. Once I flipped the switch I was able to boot up the Teradata VM just fine.

What’s Next?

The system booted up. The username is “root” and the password is also “root” which makes things easy to remember. I had to tweak a few configuration items (I set up the system to use a static IP and updated the /etc/hosts file accordingly) but finally I was able to log in and verify that Teradata was up and running.

Next? I will create a new user account and load some data into the system so I have something to query. Why not just install XI 3.1 on my TD virtual machine? Because it’s running SUSE linux, which as far as I remember is not a supported platform for the XI software. Besides, it will be fun to see if I can make the two machines talk to each other.

The best part about this is I already have the VMware server up and running. Once I complete the download of the TD image (it’s about 4GB for the 1TB Teradata installation, or 2.3GB for a 40GB Teradata configuration) I can get up and running with a “play” Teradata system in just a few minutes. How cool is that?

Related Links

• Download Teradata Virtual Machine Images
• Download VMware Server or Player

I did encounter one slight issue. My VM host operating system is Windows Server 2003. The XI 3.1 install went fine. The SP2 install never did anything. During the install process it was complaining about a server issue and said something like, “… you may encounter isssues and if you do please read Microsoft KB article blah blah blah…” After I finally decided to pay attention and look up that KB article (and apply the fix available) everything went fine. It had to do with the .msi file (installation file) being too large for my server operating system to validate.

I took a BIAR file from my XI 3.0 virtual machine and restored it on the 3.1 system. My reports and universes all moved over just fine.

I have to say that virtual machines are AWESOME. I now have VM images for 6.5, XI R2, XI 3, and XI 3.1 SP2. I can launch any of these as I need them. Perhaps I need to confirm that a technique that I am using in XI 3.1 is backwards compatible… I can do that. Maybe I want to test the impact of an upgrade, I can start in 6.5 and roll it forward through various versions. All it takes is disk space, and disk space is cheap today. When I was a consultant it was a great way for me to create separate environments for each client. Now I just use it to maintain different environments without having to manage multiple installations on one hardware. It’s also a great way to set up a “demo system” for use in presentations.

Oh, and blog posts.