PowerOLAP Server Stability Troubleshooting and Diagnosis Guide
The following is a guide for how to best log and report issues experienced with the software; please see the “PARIS Software Maintenance Agreement” for the current and specific details about this process.
The goal in diagnosis of stability problems is to identify and correct the behavior which results in software problem. This can be very quick or it can be a time consuming and lengthy process. Once the behavior can be produced on demand and it is determined to be a software issue for error correction, the correction of the software is covered by the software maintenance agreement. For each suspected Error, the user must provide PARIS with sufficient information (materials and steps) to enable PARIS to reproduce the Error; PARIS will then attempt to diagnose the Error and provide a solution.
All support and activities performed by PARIS up to the point of “a reproducible behavior identified as an issues for error correction” are billable at the then-current PARIS consulting rates.
The following are recommend activities to assist in problem diagnosis when a problem is experienced in usage of the software (hang, crash, error)
1. Ensure that you are running the latest release of the product.
2. Collect and report as much info as possible about the following, at the time of and leading up to the incident
a. Server Administrative Activities (cube rebuilds, meta data changes, security revisions, save and backup, etc.)
b. End User Activities (reporting and template activity, user data input, imports and exports, etc.)
c. Other environmental variables (internet and networking, drive space, maintenance activities, etc.)
3. Enable Diagnosis Logging (Debug Logging) on the PowerOLAP Server
a. Recommended to enable “Advanced Logging” (DebugLock) - Setting up the PowerOLAP Server Debug Log
4. After each incident combine the debug log with information and materials collected from users and administrative activities and submit to PARIS for review.
5. Based on the collected information and review of the debug log, It is recommended that the customer attempt to reproduce the problem by simulating the suspected behavior. PARIS may also be engaged to perform this type of simulation testing to develop a reproducible behavior for error correction.
Once a reproducible behavior has been identified meaning, reproducible materials (PowerOLAP Database, SQL Database, Excel Files, etc.) and steps outlining how to replicate the problem behavior are provided to and reproduced by PARIS. The behavior will be reviewed be PARIS to determine if this is an error correction issue or if the behavior is caused by an application design error, lack of training, user error or environmental related problems.
If it is determined to be an error correction, as part of maintenance PARIS will then provide the user in one of the following:
1. Providing a ‘work around’ or an alternative solution.
2. Providing a modification to the SOFTWARE (updated release or build containing the correction).
3. Providing advice to the user as to when such modification may be incorporated into a future release of the SOFTWARE.