Monthly Archives: March 2014

Install The Pentaho 5.0 Suite

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Pentaho 5

This post is about installing the tools that were published on november 19th, 2013 on Sourceforge, that is version 5.0 and above. Installing a Database that can hold your data permanently and the Pentaho desktop tools and BI web server.

Future posts will be about creating a replica of the demo data on a permanent database that can hold your data, customize the apperance of web server, add notes on the new repository and articles about each Pentaho tool. They will be added through 2014 and the index of the series will be updated as work is done.

Open Source Software

You will download and install:

  • Java Development Kit
  • MySql Database and MySql Dashboard
  • Pentaho Tools:
    1. The ETL or Data Integration. A stand alone app that can be used to access data on diferent formats and systems, process and distribute it to the apropiate people. You can schedule its excecution with the web server or use it as a datasource it with the report designer.
    2. Report Designer, a desktop banded report builder that let you ask for parameters and present your reports on web, excel or pdf.
    3. Metadata Editor A desktop modeler tool that lets you build a meta-model of your data to make easier to your users to navigate it and you to control their access to it.
    4. BI Server, a Tomcat Web Server preconfigured with users, demo data and the pentaho integrated projects.

Java SDK Installation

Use the 32 or 64 bit java version that corresponds to your operating system. To find out which OS version is on your computer:

  • On linux: Open a terminal (launcher->Type Terminal, click on it), type on the command prompt:
    uname -m
    If the answer is i686 you have 32 bits.
  • On windows: Click on Start -> Right Click on Equipment. Select properties. Look up the OS information in the window.

ON Linux

If you know how about user administration, create and use a pentaho user and a pentaho group to install the software, if not, your current user will do.

  1. On Ubuntu:
    Open the ‘Ubuntu Software Center’ (type it on unity search). On the search box type:
    Executable java OpenJDK 7
    click on its install button.
  2. On any linux box:
    In a Terminal, type three commands:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer

In version 5.0 the scripts (bat & sh) looks for a PENTAHO_JAVA_HOME variable, so add it yo your profile. Please be carefull this is a configuration file.

  • You need to know the location of the java files.
    If you used the ubuntu center, it must be on
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386
    Confirm this before continuing
  • In a command prompt edit your user .profile or the general profile:
    sudo gedit /etc/environment
    Add at the bottom the variable and the java (the one above the ‘bin’) folder:
    export PENTAHO_JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386
    save and exit

You can check your java installation by typing on a terminal:

java -version

Windows

Open a web browser and go to:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html

Download either the 32 bit version: jdk-7u51-windows-i586.exe or the 64 bit file: jdk-7u51-windows-x64.exe and excecute it using administrator privileges (right click on it).

To configure the windows environment variable:

  1. Click Start Button, right-click equipment, select Properties.
  2. On your left, there should be an option: advanced system settings, click on it.
  3. Click on the environment variables button
  4. A dialog will open with two list, in the bottom one, type:
    PENTAHO_JAVA_HOME
    and then the java files path that should be something like:
    C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_51

You can check java by typing on a console: java -version

MySQL Database

LINUX

To install MySql :

  1. On Ubuntu:
    Open the ‘Ubuntu Software Center‘ and then type ‘MySql’ to search for it, click on ‘MySQL Server‘ and then the Install button.
    Do the same with ‘MySQL Workbench‘ so you can interact with the database with a graphical tool.
  2. Or you can select other recomended ways for installing your software
    http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/linux-installation.html

WINDOWS

This is the main oracle/MySql page. You can select different methods to install it on windows, I prefer to use a MSI installer as it installs and configures the database server to the appropriate access permissions. On your system it can be as simple as running the msi with administration access or exhaustive and detailed port, process and file ownership configuration.

General instructions to download and Install are in this page. The download page is http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/ so install the MySQL Community Server and MySQL Workbench. Remember to select your Windows 32-bit OR 64-bit and MSI not zip download button. You will have standard users, configuration and lots of literature to chatch up, but you are ready to go now.

You can start the server doube clicking on <Your path>\bin\mysql.exe. With the Workbench (or the command window) you can run SQL commands or table editing.

ETL aka Pentaho data Integration (PDI)

Now the easy part: to install Pentaho.

Access the Pentaho Project on source forge. Click on the Data Integration folder. The latest version is 5.0.1-stable (as this writing). Download the .zip file pdi-ce-5.0.1.A-stable.zip.

On your computer, It is easier to put al versions of the Pentaho Suite on a folder, so create a Pentaho5 directory under your home directory and unzip the downloaded file in it (right click and select ‘unzip here’). You should now have a /Pentaho5/data-integration directory with the ETL files.

To test the application:

  • On linux:
    Open a terminal window, change to the the app folder, something like
    cd Pentaho5/data-integration
     and then type
    ./spoon.sh
  • On Windows:
    Use the File Navigator to get to your ETL files, like C:\Pentaho5\ Double click on spoon.bat.

There are a lot of ETL samples in the directory Pentaho5/data-integration/samples/transformations/ from reading text files, sort group, write to database tables. For example ‘Fixed Input…‘ reads a file ‘Textfile input – fixed length sample data.txt‘. To see it working, select the first icon (Fixed..) and hit the F10 key. You will see its contest if you click on launch.

You can also browse and install plugins if you click on help in the toolbar and select marketplace.

Exit the app.

Pentaho Report Designer

The process is similar for the Report Designer. The sourceforge folder is here. The latest version is 5.0.1-stable. You can download prd-ce-5.0.1-stable.zip directly.

Download the file and unzip it on your Pentaho5 folder (right click an unzip it). You should now have a /Pentaho5/report-designer directory.

To test the application;

  • On linux:
    Open a terminal window, change to the the app folder, something like
    cd Pentaho5/report-designer
    and then type
    ./report-designer.sh
  • On Windows:
    Double click on report-designer.bat.

You will notice the desinger elemnets tools on your left, and all cramped on your right the Structure Tab of your report and its elements in the bottom and Data Tab to add your data sources and parameters.

There are a lot of samples in the directory Pentaho5/report-designer/samples from invoice status, sales sumaries, charts or advanced html. The inventory.prpt on the operational reports folder is a nice example. You can execute them by clicking on the green ‘play’ icon in the toolbar.

Exit the app.

Pentaho Metadata

The process of installation is the same as in the previous examples. The sourceforge folder is here. The latest version is 5.0.1-stable. You can download pme-ce-5.0.1-stable.zip directly.

Download the file and unzip it on your Pentaho5 folder (right click an unzip it). You should now have a /Pentaho5/metadata-editor directory.

To test the application;

  • On linux:
    Open a terminal window, change to the the app folder, something like
    cd Pentaho5/metadata-editor
    and then type
    ./metadata-editor.sh
  • On Windows:
    Double click on metadata-editor.bat.

You can browse the steel wheels fisical (database) model, and how it is used then in the business model for browsing from tools like the WAQR -now deprecated- or report designer.

Exit the app.

Pentaho BI Server

The sourceforge folder is here. The latest version is 5.0.1-stable. You can download biserver-ce-5.0.1-stable.zip directly.

Download the file and unzip it on your Pentaho5 folder (right click an unzip it). You should now have a /Pentaho5/biserver-ce. The ce stands for community edition that is the open source or ‘basic’ version or without the much hyped capabilities on the new marketing and videos. Dont worry its pretty capable software.

You must run the Tomcat server to allow it to ‘deploy’ its web applications. It will uncompress folders and directories and set the server to a ‘localhost’ configuration.

  • On linux:
    Open a terminal window, change to the the app folder, something like
    cd Pentaho5/biserver
    and then type
    ./start-pentaho.sh
  • On Windows:
    Double click on start-pentaho.bat.

The startup will take a few minutes. Remember that the server has versions of all the sofware installed, the web server and a database created and running in memory to allow the demo run, so be patient.

To access the login page open your browser (any moder browser is reorted to work ok) and type the URL:

 http://localhost/pentaho:8080

Browse the files, in the public section you’ll find the standar report, olap report and dashboardof the Pentaho Suite.a

You can also add very valuable plugins like saiku o the ctools dashboard web tools (cdf, cde, cda) or waqr using the marketplace option.

To ‘close’ the web server you will need to execute the stop-pentaho script.

Ending comments

Thats it, those are the tools updated by pentaho on 2013. Open source tools like Saiku Reporting are not being ported. Aggregation o Mondrian Schema Editor are being updated. Tools like the Studio Designer are deprecated.
Remember: “Change is good. You go first.” 🙂

Installing the database and the server as services/startup deamons is a nice option it will be addressed on future post (you can access old articles to do that on this blog). The next post will be on customization of the bi server and then on a database (MySql) redirection, notes on the new repository and then a post on program migration, so stay tunned.

You can visit the main Index.