Category Archives: Server admin

Meltdown & Spectre impact on Qlik products

Meltdown and Spectre are two vulnerabilities disclosed in early 2018 that affect nearly every processor manufactured in the last 20 years. The initial assessment was that patching these vulnerabilities could in some cases lead to a 30% performance decrease on server workloads. Those are very serious numbers!

This may read like old news, but new patches have become available and some recommendations have changed. It is a good idea to regularly check up on these issues and avoid further problems.

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What I learned about Qlik Sense security

It's like a big wall, but for Qlik Sense, and it actually makes sense.When comparing Qlik Sense to QlikView, the most obvious differences are on the front-end, with its completely overhauled and fully responsive design. Other major differences are the server-based development, the use of Master Items and the shift towards APIs, mashups, extensions and widgets.

Somewhat less prominent, though very deserving of your attention, is the security model in Qlik Sense. This has a completely new approach compared to QlikView, and you can pretty much create endless variations. Rather than hacking stuff together and hoping it works, my colleague Rik and I recently decided to take a more structured approach and do some R&D on Sense security rules. Our goal was to gain more understanding of security in Sense, develop methods for gathering and modeling security requirements and to design reference patterns for common implementation scenarios.

We will be sharing some of the methods and patterns that we came up with in an upcoming white paper. In the mean time, I’d like to share with you some of the little interesting, strange and otherwise noteworthy things that we found. These range from basic to slightly obscure, but all should hopefully help you get more understanding of Qlik Sense security rules. Let’s start with noting that the approach in Sense is totally different than it was in QlikView…

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Moving QlikView Server log files

Beam me up!This is a sneak-peek at one of the topics covered in the Server Admin best practices session at the Masters Summit for QlikView:

When doing QlikView Server deployments for clients, I often come across policies stating that the C: drive, the default installation drive for QlikView, may only be used for the operating system. Program files, data and logs all need to be placed on other, designated drives. The rationale for this policy is that data, and especially log files that aren’t purged, can fill up the boot drive and disrupt the system.

Specifying alternative locations for program files is simply a matter of specifying another installation path during setup, and the location of data and QVWs can be easily configured in the QMC. Moving log files is a little more complex however, so today I have for you a tutorial explaining two options for moving your log files and other configuration artifacts. read more »

Masters Summit for QlikView: European Edition

Masters Summit for QlikViewAfter the success of the Las Vegas edition last April, I’m excited to be once again presenting alongside Rob Wunderlich, Bill Lay and Oleg Troyansky at the European edition of the Masters Summit for QlikView.

Masters Summit for QlikView; London and BarcelonaComing to London from October 9  to 11 and to Barcelona from 14 to 16 October, the Masters Summit brings you 3 days of hands on sessions where we will discuss advanced techniques in building complex solutions with QlikView. The goal of this event is to take your QlikView skills to the next level and help you become a QlikView  master.

For the early birds, there is an attractive discount of US$ 300 (around 225 Euro’s) until August 16th, which, for example, should be enough to cover air fare from most locations within Europe. Make sure you do not miss out on this great offer and:

Register for the Masters Summit for QlikView

I hope to see you all there!

How QlikView helped me fix QlikView

Fixing QlikView using QlikViewToday, instead of a tip, I have a little anecdote about how QlikView helped me fix QlikView.

One project had me setting up a customized QlikView Server environment for an enterprise client. Part of the customization was ensuring that the service accounts, the ‘users’ that are used to run the QlikView services, do not require local administrator privileges.

Anyone who’s had to deal with this requirement knows that it isn’t exactly a straightforward job. Out of the box, the QlikView services will not work without local admin privileges. There is some help, but on a typical ‘hardened‘ version of Windows Server you still need to do additional troubleshooting to make things work.

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