Run Vantage Express on Azure

An Azure account. You can create one here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/

az command line utility installed on your machine. You can find installation instructions here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/install-azure-cli.

Setup the default region to the closest region to you (to list locations run az account list-locations -o table):

az config set defaults.location=<location>

Create a new resource group called tdve-resource-group and add it to defaults:

az group create -n tdve-resource-group
az config set defaults.group=tdve-resource-group

To create a VM you will need an ssh key pair. If you don’t have it already, create one:

az sshkey create --name vantage-ssh-key

Restrict access to the private key. Replace <path_to_private_key_file> with the private key path returned by the previous command:

chmod 600 <path_to_private_key_file>

Create a Ubuntu VM with 4 CPU’s and 8GB of RAM, a 30GB os disk and a 60GB data disk.

az disk create -n teradata-vantage-express --size-gb 60
az vm create `
  --name teradata-vantage-express `
  --image UbuntuLTS `
  --admin-username azureuser `
  --ssh-key-name vantage-ssh-key `
  --size Standard_F4s_v2 `
  --public-ip-sku Standard

$diskId = (az disk show -n teradata-vantage-express --query 'id' -o tsv) | Out-String
az vm disk attach --vm-name teradata-vantage-express --name $diskId

az disk create -n teradata-vantage-express --size-gb 60
az vm create \
  --name teradata-vantage-express \
  --image UbuntuLTS \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --ssh-key-name vantage-ssh-key \
  --size Standard_F4s_v2 \
  --public-ip-sku Standard

DISK_ID=$(az disk show -n teradata-vantage-express --query 'id' -o tsv)
az vm disk attach --vm-name teradata-vantage-express --name $DISK_ID

az disk create -n teradata-vantage-express --size-gb 60
az vm create \
  --name teradata-vantage-express \
  --image UbuntuLTS \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --ssh-key-name vantage-ssh-key \
  --size Standard_F4s_v2 \
  --public-ip-sku Standard

DISK_ID=$(az disk show -n teradata-vantage-express --query 'id' -o tsv)
az vm disk attach --vm-name teradata-vantage-express --name $DISK_ID

ssh to your VM. Replace <path_to_private_key_file> and <vm_ip> with values that match your environment:

ssh -i <path_to_private_key_file> azureuser@<vm_ip>

Once in the VM, switch to root user:

sudo -i

Prepare the download directory for Vantage Express:

mkdir /opt/downloads
cd /opt/downloads

Mount the data disk:

parted /dev/sdc --script mklabel gpt mkpart xfspart xfs 0% 100%
mkfs.xfs /dev/sdc1
partprobe /dev/sdc1
export DISK_UUID=$(blkid | grep sdc1 | cut -d"\"" -f2)
echo "UUID=$DISK_UUID  /opt/downloads   xfs   defaults,nofail   1   2" >> /etc/fstab

Install VirtualBox and 7zip:

apt update && apt-get install p7zip-full p7zip-rar virtualbox -y

Retrieve the curl command to download Vantage Express.

Head back to the ssh session and download Vantage Express by pasting the curl command. Add -o ve.7z to the command to save the download to file named ve.7z. You can remove all the HTTP headers, e.g.:

curl -o ve.7z 'http://d289lrf5tw1zls.cloudfront.net/database/teradata-express/VantageExpress17.20_Sles12_202108300444.7z?Expires=1638719978&Signature=GKBkNvery_long_signature__&Key-Pair-Id=********************'

Unzip the downloaded file. It will take several minutes:

7z x ve.7z

Start the VM in VirtualBox. The command will return immediately but the VM init process will take several minutes:

export VM_IMAGE_DIR="/opt/downloads/VantageExpress17.20_Sles12"
DEFAULT_VM_NAME="vantage-express"
VM_NAME="${VM_NAME:-$DEFAULT_VM_NAME}"
vboxmanage createvm --name "$VM_NAME" --register --ostype openSUSE_64
vboxmanage modifyvm "$VM_NAME" --ioapic on --memory 6000 --vram 128 --nic1 nat --cpus 4
vboxmanage storagectl "$VM_NAME" --name "SATA Controller" --add sata --controller IntelAhci
vboxmanage storageattach "$VM_NAME" --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium  "$(find $VM_IMAGE_DIR -name '*disk1*')"
vboxmanage storageattach "$VM_NAME" --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type hdd --medium  "$(find $VM_IMAGE_DIR -name '*disk2*')"
vboxmanage storageattach "$VM_NAME" --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 2 --device 0 --type hdd --medium  "$(find $VM_IMAGE_DIR -name '*disk3*')"
vboxmanage modifyvm "$VM_NAME" --natpf1 "tdssh,tcp,,4422,,22"
vboxmanage modifyvm "$VM_NAME" --natpf1 "tddb,tcp,,1025,,1025"
vboxmanage startvm "$VM_NAME" --type headless
vboxmanage controlvm "$VM_NAME" keyboardputscancode 1c 1c

ssh to Vantage Express VM. Use root as password:

ssh -p 4422 root@localhost

Validate that the DB is up:

pdestate -a

Once Vantage Express is up and running, start bteq client command line client. BTEQ (pronounced “bee-teek”) is a general-purpose, command-based client tool used to submit SQL queries to a Teradata Database.

bteq

Once in bteq, connect to your Vantage Express instance. When asked for the password, enter dbc:

.logon localhost/dbc

Using dbc user, we will create a new database called HR. Copy/paste this query and run press Enter:

CREATE DATABASE HR
AS PERMANENT = 60e6, -- 60MB
    SPOOL = 120e6; -- 120MB

Let’s create a sample table and insert some data and query it. We will first create a table to hold employee information:

CREATE SET TABLE HR.Employees (
   GlobalID INTEGER,
   FirstName VARCHAR(30),
   LastName VARCHAR(30),
   DateOfBirth DATE FORMAT 'YYYY-MM-DD',
   JoinedDate DATE FORMAT 'YYYY-MM-DD',
   DepartmentCode BYTEINT
)
UNIQUE PRIMARY INDEX ( GlobalID );

Now, let’s insert a record:

INSERT INTO HR.Employees (
   GlobalID,
   FirstName,
   LastName,
   DateOfBirth,
   JoinedDate,
   DepartmentCode
)
VALUES (
   101,
   'Adam',
   'Tworkowski',
   '1980-01-05',
   '2004-08-01',
   01
);

Finally, let’s see if we can retrieve the data:

SELECT * FROM HR.Employees;

GlobalID  FirstName  LastName   DateOfBirth  JoinedDate  DepartmentCode
--------  ---------  ---------- -----------  ----------  --------------
     101  Adam       Tworkowski  1980-01-05  2004-08-01               1