Call for Beta Testers

Presicient is pleased to announce the availability of the second beta test release of TeraForge, the Visual IDE for Teradata® scripts, macros, and stored procedures.

In brief, TeraForge provides the following capabilities from an easy-to-use GUI:

• build projects from a combination of BTEQ scripts, macros, and stored procedures (collectively referred to as components)
• interactively execute components
• single-step into/over components
• examine and modify intermediate results, parameters, and varables
• set breakpoints
• interactively monitor SQL execution
• execute ad-hoc queries
• browse schema with GUI based browser

Please be aware that TeraForge is not intended as a replacement for SQL Assistant aka QUERYMAN, although TeraForge does provide some similar functionality to service the needs of Teradata developers.

Presicient is asking for your participation in the beta test program to

• introduce you to the TeraForge product
• better understand the needs of potential TeraForge users
• expose (and hopefully correct) any usability and functionality issues that may exist in TeraForge before general release

In appreciation for your participation, organizations participating in the beta test program will receive a 50% discount off the initial purchase price of TeraForge, subject to certain restrictions.

If you're interested in trying out the TeraForge beta release, click here to review the license agreement, and provide your name, email address, and organization's name. Once you've accepted the agreement, you'll be taken to the download page.

Restrictions/Limitations

(NOTE: Items marked with * will not be included in the first general availability release; all other items are expected to be rolled into TeraForge over the course of the beta test period.)

Functional Limitations (including General Availability)

• * no UNICODE support *
• * no quoted identifiers *
• * no reconnect support *
• * No support for DIF file import/export in scripts *
• * No support for AXSMOD's in scripts *
• * no NOTIFY exits supported *
• * no support for fastload/mload/fastexport/TWB scripts *
• * no Single sign-on *
• * no UDF debugging (V2R5.1) *
• * no support for USING clauses inside MACRO body definitions *
• * no V2R5.1 LOB datatypes support *

Functional Limitations (to be resolved by GA)

• RunStartup execution not supported
• nested BT/ET's not properly supported
• multisession script operations (ie, .SESSIONS N) not supported; however, IMPORT/EXPORT operations w/ single sessions are supported
• (possibly) incomplete SP runtime exception handling/reporting
• incomplete ANSI mode support (object naming and error handling issues)
• incomplete BTEQ output formatting conformance
• Statement numbers always reported as 1 in macros and multistatement requests
• Excel file import/export support

GUI Enhancements expected by GA

• more hotkeys fully implemented
• script/macro/procedure text syntax color highlighting
• better Help menus
• Plot support
• TeraCeptor support

Operational Limitations

• only 12 concurrently open cursors/requests per session
• no trigger debug capability (ie, can't step into a trigger)
• cannot debug execution of source-available stored procedures when called from a "no source available" stored procedure.
• During project build/compilation, resolution of macro and procedure components is subject to the following rules:

  Component Reference Format	Source Database Resolution
  database.component	The specified database
  component (i.e., no explicit database name)	The default project database (either the database specified in the project connection definition dialog, or, if none is defined, the default database of the connection userid).

  Using non-fully qualified component names (i.e., names without the source database prefix) may cause runtime discrepancies between the TeraForge and final production environments if the default database is explicitly changed by a component (via the 'DATABASE xxxx;' command). Using only fully qualified component references is highly recommended to avoid such discrepancies.

• The following BTEQ commands are parsed, but not processed:

  Command(s)	Reason
  LOGON LOGOFF SET SESSION TRANSACTION	connections are defined/controlled at the project level
  ERROROUT MESSAGEOUT	all output is directed to the results window, subject to EXPORT and/or QUIET settings
  FOOTING FORMAT FORMCHAR FULLYEAR HEADING PAGEBREAK PAGELENGTH RTITLE	report formatting is low/no priority; TeraForge's primary support for BTEQ is as a batch query/ECTL tool, not a report writer
  NOTIFY	currently no ability to debug external interfaces
  SECURITY	encryption not supported in Teradata V2 prior to V2R5.1
  SESSIONS	multisession operations may be supported in future
  SET SESSION CHARSET	only ASCII charset currently supported
  SET SESSION RESPBUFLEN SET SESSION TWORESPBUFS	connection properties are always set to max buffersize, and double buffering
  SET SESSION SQLFLAG ECHOREQ HELP LOGONPROMPT	low/no priority

As a beta release, it is likely there are other commands/capabilities that have been overlooked in the development process, that will (hopefully) be exposed - and implemented - during the beta test period.

Testers should also be aware that TeraForge performs numerous interactions with the target DBMS while stepping through script, procedure, and macro statements. Therefore, component performance may be significantly slower than the final production execution of the same component. In addition, TeraForge should only be used against development or test DBMS systems. A future release will perform more expression evaluation outside of the database in order to improve performance.

Minimum Platform Requirements

Support for other platforms may be considered if sufficient requests are received (notably, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, MPRAS), though not until after the Windows release is generally available.

Documentation: User Guide, Tutorial, FAQs, etc.

In addition, a bulletin-board website and/or maillist will be established to report any tester issues, and their resolution.

Beta Tester Discount Program Limitations