WhereScape® RED
Release Notes
Version 8.6.1.0 | March 2021
WhereScape® RED Release Notes
Table of Contents
WhereScape RED 8.6.1.0 Release Update ....................................................................................................... 3
Upgrading to version 8.6.1.0 ........................................................................................................................ 3
Significant New Features and Improvements in this Release ...................................................................... 4
Extensible Source Connections.................................................................................................................... 4
Column-level user-defined metadata ........................................................................................................... 4
Other Improvements ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Important Messages when Upgrading from Earlier Versions ....................................................................... 5
Important Messages when upgrading from 8.2.1.1 or earlier ....................................................................... 5
Important Messages when upgrading from 8.1.1.0 or earlier ....................................................................... 5
Important Messages when upgrading from 8.0.1.0 or earlier ....................................................................... 6
Important Messages when upgrading from 6.9.1.0 or earlier ....................................................................... 6
Important Messages when upgrading from 6.8.7.0 or earlier ....................................................................... 6
Detailed Changes in RED 8.6.1.0 ...................................................................................................................... 7
© Copyright, WhereScape, Inc. All rights reserved. -2-
WhereScape® RED Release Notes
WhereScape RED 8.6.1.0 Release Update
WhereScape is pleased to announce that WhereScape RED 8.6.1.0 is now available.
Upgrading to version 8.6.1.0
Login to https://www.wherescape.com and download RED 8.6.1.0 from the downloads page in the Support
section.
Kind Regards,
WhereScape RED Team
© Copyright, WhereScape, Inc. All rights reserved. -3-
WhereScape® RED Release Notes
Significant New Features and Improvements in this Release
Extensible Source Connections
RED 8.6.1.0 introduces expanded data source browsing capabilities. It enables any data source type to be
browsed and ingested into your data warehouse, as long as your sources have Windows scriptable APIs or
command-line tools available or both. Examples of source types made available by this feature are REST/SOAP
Services, JDBC, Cloud Based Storage, JSON/XML/ARVO, and many more.
WhereScape, Inc. will develop configurations for commonly requested sources and release them as WhereScape
Enablement Packs following the initial 8.6.1.0 release. However, the new workflow can be self scripted and
configured to your own needs.
This feature includes the following additions to RED:
• User-defined UI components configuration including List boxes, Text boxes, and Numeric fields for the
following properties:
▪ Connection Properties
▪ Load Table Properties
• A new Scripted Browse Workflow for Configured Connections
Column-level user-defined metadata
In addition to Extensible Source Connections, RED 8.6.1.0 introduces configurable UI components for Column
Properties. It opens up the storage and retrieval of column-level user-defined metadata such as column collation,
GDPR flags, and index inclusion flags.
Other Improvements
In addition, the following improvements are included in this release:
• RED now includes the option to build Fastload SSIS packages for loads into compliant custom database
targets.
• Added support for Unix and Linux based Update Routines for Custom Database Targets.
• Improved Extended Properties usability, each Extended Property can now be tokenized for automatic
replacement during Script execution.
• Scripts can now reference other scripts in the metadata at runtime, allowing common code modules to
reside in the metadata repository.
• Table Validate in RED can now be set to run the Table/Column Information SQL Block against a specific
connection. This is particularly useful when targeting Hive with an External Metastore.
• Improved Data Store and Dimension History objects code generation when using NOT EXISTS logic for
SQL Server.
• Improved Load table Properties initialization when using Templates for user-defined Host Script
Languages.
• Improved the initialization of the 'sourceColumn' metadata in templates.
• Improvements in file locking protection to Windows Scheduler for RED for all Script based tasks.
• Increased response timeout for the WhereScape Template engine.
© Copyright, WhereScape, Inc. All rights reserved. -4-
WhereScape® RED Release Notes
Important Messages when Upgrading from Earlier Versions
When Upgrading from previous versions of RED, it is necessary to update each RED metadata repository to
complete the upgrade. This is done by completing a validate and recompile of all metadata procedures in
WhereScape Administrator.
Notes:
If upgrading from a previous version:
1. Please ensure you also upgrade the WhereScape scheduler at the same time. Details for this process are
outlined in the WhereScape RED Installation Guide—Upgrading WhereScape RED and Scheduler
Installation and Configuration sections.
2. Please review and action all the previous version-specific Important Messages below, that are relevant for
your RED Upgrade.
Important Messages when upgrading from 8.2.1.1 or earlier
• A new metadata service attribute for the DSN architecture has been added in the RED 8.3.1.0 release. Any
existing templates that include authentication to the RED repository must be updated to include this
attribute, if the RED repository is migrated to a 64 bit ODBC DSN (if the attribute is not defined, then a 32-
bit architecture is assumed).
For example: [WslMetadataServiceClient.Architecture]::_64bit
• The Unix and Linux Scheduler scripts for Oracle, Teradata have been altered and need to be applied
manually.
Important Messages when upgrading from 8.1.1.0 or earlier
• Teradata customers upgrading from RED versions prior to RED 8.0.1.0 please be aware that later versions
of Setup Administrator have functionality to test the RED metadata tables’ primary indexes. When sub-
optimal primary indexes are detected Setup Administrator creates a copy of the affected table with the
recommended primary index, copies the data to the new table and finally removes the old table. Please
note that sufficient free space in the metadata database is required to temporarily duplicate the largest
metadata table that requires migration. Also any custom statistics on these tables will need to be reapplied.
• WhereScape from the RED 8.2.1.1 version have added certification for the following metadata and target
databases:
▪ Oracle 12C Release 2
▪ Teradata 16.20
▪ Microsoft SQL Server 2017
• Cube and Cube Virtual objects are to be deprecated in a subsequent release. Cube objects must be
migrated to OLAP Cube objects.
• Microsoft is deprecating support for their Microsoft OLE Driver for Oracle. WhereScape recommends that
customers currently using this software migrate to the Oracle OLE Driver.
• WhereScape recommends that you use an Oracle or SQL Server metadata repository and the Windows
Scheduler, if you wish to use Custom database targets.
• WhereScape wish to advise customers that work is underway to migrate RED to a 64-bit application over
the next 12 months. While the transition is planned to minimize the impact to customers, there may be a
requirement to transition to 64-bit ODBC data sources, as part for the upgrade path for this future release of
WhereScape RED. No changes are required in the interim. More details will be made available closer to the
time the work is completed.
© Copyright, WhereScape, Inc. All rights reserved. -5-
WhereScape® RED Release Notes
Important Messages when upgrading from 8.0.1.0 or earlier
• SQL Server customers taking advantage of the multiple database support feature are recommended to
apply three part naming in their references to SQL Server tables. For example, in a custom procedure
please refer to a data warehouse table using the format <database name>.<schema name>.<table
name>. This will offset the impact of different users or machines having different default databases set.
• Customers using custom database targets to support RedShift or Snowflake are advised to contact their
WhereScape representative for information on taking advantage of RED’s enhanced custom database
support features.
• The Data Vault hash key functions for Teradata and Oracle repositories have been changed in the
templates (wsl_teradata_utility_dv and wsl_oracle_utility_dv). Data Vault customers running on Teradata or
Oracle who were using these templates from the RED 6.9.1.0 release are advised to retain that version of
the template, unless they migrate any key generated using the previous hash key function.
• The Windows and the UNIX/Linux generated Load and Export scripts for Teradata have been updated to
use the new environment variables for identifying the TDPID, the user name and the password to connect
to the metadata repository, the target database and the source database for Loads and Exports.
Please refer to the section Script Environment Variables of the WhereScape RED User Guide for more
information.
Important Messages when upgrading from 6.9.1.0 or earlier
• The Linux Scheduler scripts for Oracle, Teradata and DB2 have been altered and will need to be
applied manually.
Important Messages when upgrading from 6.8.7.0 or earlier
• In RED, File and Script-based loads from Windows connections creates a format file for the BULK INSERT
operation in the Work Directory of the Windows Connection. This only applies when loading into an SQL
Server target. This directory must be accessible to both the machine running SQL Server and the machine
running the WhereScape RED Scheduler. Unless these are always the same machine, a UNC path or
mapped network path will be required.
• Legacy hub, link and satellite objects, created in RED 6.8.7.0 or earlier are still supported in subsequent
releases. However, they do not utilize the Data Vault enhancements introduced in release 6.9.1.0.
© Copyright, WhereScape, Inc. All rights reserved. -6-
WhereScape® RED Release Notes
Detailed Changes in RED 8.6.1.0
The following changes have been implemented since Version 8.5.1.0.
Database Jira Ticket Description
Improvements
Custom RED-9870 Added the option to build Fastload SSIS packages for loads into
compliant custom database targets.
Common RED-10642 Improved Extended Properties usability, each Extended Property can
now be tokenized for automatic replacement during Script execution.
Common RED-10668 Scripts can now reference other scripts in the metadata at runtime.
This change allows common code modules to reside in the metadata
repository.
Custom RED-10806 Table Validate in RED can now be set to run the Table/Column
Information SQL Block against a specific connection. This is
particularly useful when targeting Hive with an External Metastore.
Teradata RED-10814 Improved performance for opening Object Properties in RED.
Common RED-10843 Added support for API Source Connectivity and Configurable UI for
Load Tables, Columns and Source Connections.
Common RED-10869 Added support for Unix and Linux based Update Routines for Custom
Database Targets.
Common RED-10944 Increased response timeout for the WhereScape Template engine.
Issues
SQL Server RED-4558 Improved Data Store and Dimension History objects code generation
when using NOT EXISTS logic for SQL Server.
Common RED-8250 Comments are no longer stripped from SQL Statements during DDL
execution for Template driven DDL and Override DDL.
Common RED-8932 Resolved issue with template based update routine generation
including dimension joins, the template field 'fk.fromTable.name' now
returns the table name only.
Common RED-10602 Improved Load table Properties initialization when using Templates for
user-defined Host Script Languages.
Common RED-10611 Fixed missing template variable 'settings.template.name' for Template
based DDL operations.
Common RED-10613 Joins Diagrams now correctly track back through Source Mapping
objects.
Custom RED-10741 Resolve issue with option to write DDL SQL to a file during application
deployments for objects in a custom database connection.
Custom RED-10766 For Custom Targets, expansion at runtime of the token $OBJECT$ for
DDL operations on Views has been made consistent with Table
objects.
Azure SQL RED-10786 Improved the initialization of the sourceColumn metadata in templates.
Teradata RED-10813 Fixed issues with RED Deployments on Teradata using RedCli
affecting update routines on Data Vault Objects.
Common RED-10833 Fixed issue where the column action 'Change Source Table' on Source
Mapping objects would update all source mapping columns in the
repository for the transition from "(Empty)" to "<new source table>" in
some scenarios.
© Copyright, WhereScape, Inc. All rights reserved. -7-
WhereScape® RED Release Notes
Database Jira Ticket Description
SQL Server RED-10842 Improvements in file locking protection to Windows Scheduler for RED
for all Script based Tasks.
Common RED-10870 Setup Administrator fix for 3D Exports to RED which include Load
tables sourced from files.
Custom RED-10871 Resolved issue with Joins to Views of Ranged and Changing
Dimensions affecting Custom Targets.
Common RED-10881 Fixed issues with RedCli Connection commands for the setting of
default-load-template, default-load-script-template and default-load-
script-connection.
Common RED-10957 Fixed issue where deleting a column from any table could remove
unrelated source mappings in some instances.
© Copyright, WhereScape, Inc. All rights reserved. -8-
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 WhereScape, Inc. All rights reserved.
This document may be redistributed in its entirety and in this electronic or printed form only without permission; all
other uses of this document and the information it contains require the explicit written permission of WhereScape,
Inc.
Due to continued product development this information may change without notice. WhereScape, Inc. does not
warrant that this document is error-free.
Trademark
WhereScape and WhereScape RED are trademarks or registered trademarks of WhereScape, Inc. Other brands
or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
WhereScape, Inc.
10801 N Mopac Expressway
Building 1, Suite 100
Austin, Texas 78759
www.wherescape.com
