A Historical Odyssey: QlikView 8, Ajax and Set Analysis

[hic]

QlikView 7 was a great version – the Desktop, the Server and the Publisher all worked fine, but… they were not quite enterprise ready. It was not always simple to integrate all components in an already complex enterprise environment.

So, for QlikView 8, one focus was to drastically improve the enterprise readiness. Hence, QlikView 8 brought us a a number of server components and functions:

• An html based control panel
• A built-in web server: Previously it was necessary to have the Microsoft IIS installed.
• A Directory Services Controller: Previously it was possible to connect to the Microsoft AD only.
• QlikView Server authorization (DMS mode): Previously you could use the NTFS file system security only.
• Server clustering

Another focus was on a light-weight, install-free client – the Ajax client. We had already started to experiment with this in the 7.5 version, but with QlikView 8 we launched it as one of our three basic clients: The C client (Desktop and Plug-In), the Java client and the Ajax client. The three clients had different capabilities – if you wanted full functionality, you chose the C client. On the other hand, there was some effort involved to install this, and if you wanted an install-free environment, you chose the Ajax client. The Java client was somewhere in between.

The Ajax client was however not as dynamic as it is today. The web pages had to be created in a manual step and posted on the web server.

We didn’t just add functionality; we also removed some: The Itanium processor had been launched some years earlier, and by now we had realized that its market share would not grow. So, for QlikView 8, we decided to discontinue the Itanium edition of QlikView.

QlikView 8 also brought the Advanced search, the Hierarchy resolution, the Input fields, the License lease and Set Analysis.

And, yes, we got the logo that we use still today.

Finally, QlikView 8 also brought us the first steps towards collaboration. It started with a simple function: the possibility to mail a link with a selection to someone else. We already had local bookmarks and now realized that it would not be practical to store an entire selection in a URL. Instead, we should of course store the bookmark on the server, and mail a link to this bookmark. From there, it was only a small step to expand this idea and allow the user to create and share other types of objects also.

QlikView 8 was, with the server components, the Set analysis and the collaboration a version that architecturally very much resembled today's QlikView.

HIC

Further reading on the Qlik history:

A Historical Odyssey: QlikView 7, QVD files and the Aggr() function

A Historical Odyssey: The Early Days of QlikView Publisher

[AbhijitBansode]

Feeling happy to know these things about Qlikview, Thanks Henric.

Would also like to know some more details about Itanium edition of Qlikview.

How it was different from the normal edition?

And I'm very much eager to know, what were the ideas/thoughts behind designing the Qlikview logo?

Thanks for your time.

Regards,

Abhijit

[hic]

The Itanium edition of QlikView looked exactly like the other editions. The difference between the editions was different binary files and in the assemly code used in the calculation engine.

About the logo: Given the name of the product, it was natural to use the Q as logo. But it is also inspired by a magnifying glass that symbolizes that you can find things. Compare with the initial logo: http://community.qlik.com/blogs/theqlikviewblog/2012/11/06/what-is-qlikview where we used an aperture to symbolize that you could "focus in" on details.

HIC

[AbhijitBansode]

indeed fascinating. Thanks again.

[stevedark]

And this is where the historical oddyssy merges with my first introduction to QlikView.  Looking forwards to reminiscing more with future posts.

Many thanks for sharing Henric!

[paulyeo11]

As a lucky to be user of ver 9 user , becos SET analysis already out. also one thing i notice that after ver 9 , the new feature are not as attractive in the past.

This also tell us those people involve in develop ver 1 till 9 must have put in a lot effort and energy in develop such an nice software.

Next question is how QV should do so that it can still maintenance his strong position in next 20 year ahead ?

[Oleg_Troyansky]

HIC, your posts about the history of QlikView bring so many memories! I joined the QlikView ecosystem on ver. 5, which was very much different from ver. 8. I remember teaching the first classes about Set Analysis and INPUT FIELDS as new features.

Today, those features are hardly new, but I still start my explanation of Set Analysis with a little bit of history of conditional aggregation - how we used to do it using IF functions, and why is it bad, and how we graduated into using Flag fields, and what are the limitations of that, and how Set Analysis is different...

Good times...

[Anonymous]

Muy interesante la historia, seria bueno también saber siempre que no sea confidencial como llegan a qlikview 12 y la historia de sense. Muchas Gracias por el post.

- - -

Very interesting story, it would be nice to also always know that it is not confidential as they arrive at qlikview 12 and sense story. Thank you very much for the post.

Note: Edited by Community Moderator to include English translation as a courtesy

[santiago_respane]

I love the evolution of QV, and the evolution of the colors used in the logo and the splash screen!

You have been doing an outstanding job!

Qv is the best BI tool!

Thanks a lot!