Installation Guide

Content

System requirements
The standard installation process on MS-Windows
Installation problems and troubleshooting on MS-Windows
The standard installation process on Mac OS, UNIX and Linux
Activating or updating a license key
Increasing the available amount of memory

System requirements

Synop Analyzer is a 100% pure Java software which should run on any 32 or 64 bit system architecture and operating system for which a Java run time environment (JRE) 1.6.0 or higher is available.

For computationally demanding analysis tasks, the software uses highly scalable parallel algorithms. More precisely, Synop Analyzer starts several parallel threads which operate on a common memory. Therefore, it profits from multi-CPU servers and from multi-core CPUs.

The software has been tested on

• Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2007 and Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit).
• Mac OS X
• Linux

As an in-memory data analytics software, Synop Analyzer requires a sufficient amount of RAM when working on large data. As a minimum requirement, the Java virtual machine (VM) should allow Java programs to use at least 256 MB of Heap memory, which can be obtained on any computer with at least 1 GB of RAM. For working more comfortably, the Java VM should make accessible at least 1GB of Heap memory, which is feasible on machines with at least 2GB of RAM.

As a general rule of thumb, Synop Analyzer should have access to Java VM heap memory of at least 30% of the size of the largest single table which is to opened with the software. Therefore, if you want to analyze large tables with sizes of 10 GB to 20 GB without sampling, you should work on a 64 bit operating system and with at least 8GB of RAM.

The standard installation process on MS-Windows

The Synop Analyzer installation package on MS Windows consists of an installer executable called SynopAnalyzer_setup_Windows.exe and optionally a separate license key file IA_license_key_***.txt.

For installing the software start the setup program. The installer displays a couple of dialogs in which you choose the desired installation directory, for example the directory C:\IA, and the program and documentation modules to be installed. Then you finish the installation by clicking the buttons continue and finish.

After this step, the operating system should display a new program group named Synop Analyzer when you click Start → Programs. The Synop Analyzer root directory, for example c:\IA, should now contain (among others) the following files and subdirectories:

• the readme file README.txt containing release information and last minute bug reports and workarounds,
• the XML resource and preference files IA_texts.xml and IA_preferences.xml,
• two icon files ending with ..._icon32x32.gif and ..._icon64x64.gif,
• two license files for the open source third party libraries JFreeChart, Jackcess, jTDS and Apache POI which are packaged into Synop Analyzer: license-LGPL.txt and license-Apache_2.0.txt,
• the license file license_test.txt containing a warranty disclaimer for the 'free trial version operating mode' of Synop Analyzer without a valid license key
• the license key file IA_license_key_....txt,
• the subdirectory doc containing the documentation and sample data. The directory should contain at least one language-specific subdirectory such as doc/de_DE and a directory doc/sample_data,
• the subdirectory JDBCTest containing a test package for testing database connections via JDBC,
• if your install package comprises the graphical workbench, the executable file SynopAnalyzer.bat, the debug version SynopAnalyzer_debug.bat and the Java library IA.jar,
• if your install package comprises the command line processor, the executable file sacl.bat and the Java library iacl.jar.

You can access and read the documentation in directory doc without starting the Synop Analyzer software. Just click on the file index.html in your preferred language, for example c:\IA\doc\en_US\index.html in order to open it in your web browser.

The subdirectory doc/sample_data contains several sample data sets which can be used for the first steps when exploring the software features. These data sets are also used in many application examples discussed in the program documentation, in particular in the tutorials.

Once you have created and filled your new Synop Analyzer root directory, the software should be ready to work with.

• SynopAnalyzer.bat starts the Synop Analyzer workbench (GUI).
• sacl.bat starts the Synop Analyzer command line processor.

If you are running the software on a computer with more than 2 GB of RAM and if you want to explore large data files or tables with sizes of several GB or more, you should increase the maximum amount of heap memory which is accessible for SynopAnalyzer.bat. To that purpose, edit the batch file and replace the parameter -Xmx1024m - which limits the available heap memory to 1 GB = 1024 MB - to a larger value, for example 50% to 75% of the server's total installed RAM. If you want to raise the limit to 8 GB, the content of SynopAnalyzer.bat should look like this:

  java -Xms256m -Xmx8192m -jar IA.jar %1 %2

After increasing the Xmx value, you should once try to start the debug version of Synop Analyzer, SynopAnalyzer_debug.bat in order to find out whether the system accepts the increased heap limit. If you get an error message, you might have to reduce the upper heap limit. If you get an error message even though the limit is far less than the computer's installed RAM, contact your system administrator: possibly, some restrictive settings of the Java virtual machine prohibit the allocation of more RAM.

If you want to enable Synop Analyzer to read data directly from your relational database management system (DBMS) - for example Oracle, IBM DB2, Teradata, MySQL, etc. - you might have to copy a suitable JDBC driver library for your DBMS - for example ojdbc6.jar for Oracle - into your Synop Analyzer installation directory. See Accessing Relational Databases for more details.

Installation problems and trouble shooting

You might have performed the standard installation steps as described in section The standard installation process on MS-Windows, but the Synop Analyzer GUI does not come up when double-clicking on SynopAnalyzer.bat.

In this case, you should first check whether a suitable Java runtime environment (JRE) is available on your machine. Open a MS-Windows command line box ('Start'-->'Execute'--->'cmd') and issue the following command: java -version. The result should look like the following, showing a Java version of 1.6.0 or higher.

If you know that a more cecent Java version than the one shown in the command box exists on your machine, you can type which java in order to see the installation path from which the current default Java version is loaded. (see picture above).

If you can't replace the older default Java installation, you can write the fully qualified directory path to a newer Java version into the two batch files SynopAnalyzer.bat and sacl.bat, for example

  c:\Progra~1\java\jre6\bin\java -Xms256m -Xmx1024m -jar IA.jar %1 %2

If your Java version is ok but SynopAnalyzer.bat does still not start properly, you can invoke SynopAnalyzer_debug.bat instead. That version performs some additional checks, and shows its error messages in a black MS-Windows command line box which remains open after the termination of the program call. The error message might involve either the minimum or the maximum heap memory limit

In both cases, edit the batch file SynopAnalyzer_debug.bat and increase the parameter -Xms (in the first case) or reduce the parameter -Xmx (in the second case) until the error message disappears. Afterwards, repeat the same change in the batch files SynopAnalyzer.bat and sacl.bat.

The standard installation process on Mac OS, Unix and Linux

The Synop Analyzer installation package for Mac OS, UNIX and Linux consists of an archive file SynopAnalyzer_setup_MacLinux.zip and optionally a separate license key file IA_license_key_***.txt. You have to unzip the archive file to an installation directory of your choice. Then, copy the license file into that directory.

After unpacking the zip archive, the installation directory contains two executable shell scripts SynopAnalyzer.sh and sacl.sh with which you can start the graphical workbench respectively the command line processor of Synop Analyzer.

The other files and directories which have been created in the installation directory are identical to the MS Windows installation; they have been desribed here.

Activating or updating a license key

If you started working with Synop Analyzer by downloading the free trial version then you are working without a license key, and the software will become unusable at the end of the second month after the download.

You can check your current license status by clicking on the Help → About button in the main menu of the Synop Analyzer GUI.

30 days before your current license expires, Synop Analyzer starts showing the warning message 'your license will expire in xx days' in the title bar of the GUI window.

Once you have decided to acquire a new academic or commercial license, or a temporal extension of your current license, you will be sent a license key file which contains information on

• the license type (non-commercial or commercial; per-user or per-CPU or unlimited),
• the license holder (company or person name),
• the software product name and the vendor,
• the modules and software functions activated by the license,
• the maximum number of installations (CPUs or users) covered by the license,
• the license expire date.

The file name of the license file contains an abbreviation of the license holder name and the license expire date, for example SynopAnalyzer_license_key_SampleInc_Dec2010.txt if the license holder is Sample Inc. and the license expires on December 31, 2010. Do not modify the content of the license file in any kind, otherwise the license key will become unusable.

As long as the expire date of your current license has not been reached, you can activate a new license key file very easily via the main menu path Preferences → General Preferences → license file. After assigning the new license file, please restart Synop Analyzer and check the Help → About menu item in order to verify your new license features.

Once your current license has expired, you have to activate the new license key file by manually editing your Synop Analyzer preferences file. The preferences file resides in the root directory of your Synop Analyzer installation and is named (unless you have renamed it) IA_preferences.xml. Search the settings parameter

  <Setting name="licenseFile" ... />

and modify its value attribute so that it contains the new license file:

  <Setting name="licenseFile" ...
   value="IA_license_key_SampleInc_Dec2013.txt" ... />

If you store the license file in another directory than the Synop Analyzer root directory, value must contain the fully qualified path name to the new license file.

Increasing the available amount of memory

If you are running the software on a computer with more than 2 GB of RAM and if you want to explore large data files or tables with sizes of several GB or more, you should increase the maximum amount of heap memory which is accessible for SynopAnalyzer.bat. To that purpose, edit the batch file and replace the parameter -Xmx1024m - which limits the available heap memory to 1 GB = 1024 MB - to a larger value, for example 50% to 75% of the server's total installed RAM. If you want to raise the limit to 8 GB, the content of SynopAnalyzer.bat should look like this:

  java -Xms256m -Xmx8192m -jar IA.jar %1 %2

After increasing the Xmx value, you should once try to start the debug version of Synop Analyzer, SynopAnalyzer_debug.bat in order to find out whether the system accepts the increased heap limit. If you get an error message, you might have to reduce the upper heap limit. If you get an error message even though the limit is far less than the computer's installed RAM, contact your system administrator: possibly, some restrictive settings of the Java virtual machine prohibit the allocation of more RAM.