Just Another Analytical Opinion? A Consultant's Notes on Hyperion...

Lost for words...

2010-01-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks back I recieved a call from an Oracle EPM consultant, regarding a position that Oracle was looking to fill. We discussed typical topics, ranging from Planning, migrations, administration, etc. All of which is pretty much a standard discussion. However, there was one topic that made me cringe. During our 45 min discussion, I mentioned about my blog and my latest obsession with cloud computing. And since we were disussing EPM V11, I thought perhaps it would be helpful for him to view my blog as opposed to reinventing the wheel over the phone.

And since my blog is ranked #2 in google search for 'oracle hyperion epm' (atleast for now), I suggested him to search, not withstanding the fact that I was very surprised (pleasantly) to see my work show up at #2 right after oracle.com. Pretty awesome for not being commercially advertised, compared to the several hundreds of companies that actually do EPM work. So, yes I was showing off...

The first comment the Oracle consultant made was, "Oh! Someone else sent me this same exact blog". Obviously I thought someone had forwarded my blog to him. That wasnt the case. Someone actually sent a link for a blog that looks exactly like my blog (template) and most depressingly the "same exact content"!!

I was fuming, I still am....And I am lost for words..

What with all the identity theft, this essentially tops it. All I want to ask is, 'Where is the pride?'.

HUGMN was fun!

2009-11-13T09:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I attended the Hyperion User Group Of Minnesota (HUGMN) in Edina, MN, which happens to be my first one. So I thought I should perhaps write a little about my experience...

First, the location was very accessible and plenty of parking, no trouble there. Registration was easy too. The morning session was a presentation on AR chargebacks by Fijitsu, which I followed for most part, except for my phone demanding constant attention. I thought the presenter did a great job of it. The meeting is actually a combined meeting of Twin Cities Financial Oracle Application User Group (TCFOAUG) and HUGMN, hence the two separate sessions.

It was lunch time, and perhaps the brighter side of the day with some delicious sausage and pasta. It was truly good, the sausage had some serious kick to it :) I had to be careful not to go for seconds and doze off gazing at the endless rows of excel records coming up for the afternoon session.

There were a few EPM/BI related presentations, perhaps the most dominant topic was SmartView. I could see almost all presentations on SmartView were recieved very well by the users and believe some tip or trick would have added value to their SV interface. Of, these SmartView presentations I thought perhaps Honeywell's presentation by their IT guys was great. To see tuning of Windows settings to improve performance of Smartview was kinda of very encouraging. Needless to say I tend to believe designing an efficient/optimized db architecture, optimizing interal kernal settings and reports/queries comes first and goes farther than bringing just the system settings into the picture. But I was happy to see IT folks come forward with solutions, and am sure they have a great Hyperion environment (which was pretty big by the way).

Another presentation that kinda got my attention was Strategic Planning. Being an Essbase guy at heart, I thought HSP had some very interesting aspects compared to Essbase. After discussion with the presenter, here's a question I couldnt stop but ask, why doesnt Essbase come with a typical Inc Statement, Bal Sht, etc. set-up outline choice to select from? But then you might say, we do have the sample apps with outlines. I guess what I am saying is having more realistic Acct 'templates' for Essbase. But HSP is more of a high level long term planning without detail, hence such a ready-to-go Acct template would probably work unlike for Essbase. Anyway after the presentation I definitely thought HSP adds a lot of value to corporation's looking to be prepared and have strategies in place even before a challenge comes up.

Another recurring feeling I got from the meeting was people were still finding it challenging to work with SmartView and somehow it has not yet meet the expectations of users as opposed to Classic Essbase Add-In.

Overall it was fun. Got to meet people local here to Mpls and network a little. I also heard Dodeca mentioned by several people.. and heard Tim might be coming up here for a Tech Day sometime in Feb. I look forward to it and plan on doing some presentations myself hopefully...

Oracle Hyperion on the Cloud: Discussion

2009-11-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

In the previous few posts I presented Hyperion EPM & BI V11.1.1.3 being installed, configured and running on Amazon EC2 server instance. Now, how could this server instance translate to your team's success?

First, in terms of time this strategy not only shrinks considerable time during SDLC (server and software installation and configuration phases) from a few weeks to mere "days" or mere "hours", it also provides considerable savings in terms of resource costs, facilitates difficult target deadlines, adds buffer to project timeline, etc.

Secondly, atleast within a development environment apart from providing time-based cost savings, this strategy meets the environment expectations at a 'fraction of the cost' compared to traditional servers. I will write a separate post on "server-based cost benefits" along with "time-based cost benefits".

Finally and most importantly, "SCALABILITY". Due to the advantage Amazon EC2 instance provides in terms of scalability of memory, space, etc. this presentation is just a sample of the services I could render to your team's success. Your corporation could immediately harness the benefits at a fraction of a cost, from my collection of server instances for supported Oracle Hyperion versions (9.x and 11.x). All within a period of few hours to a couple of days! Also any custom environments (supporting application servers and relational dbs) can be created and delivered within just a few days of time.

In simpler terms, why install and configure your EPM & BI server and software all over again, when it could be delivered up and running for development with a few hours?

For more information on available EPM server instances and custom server instances, please contact me via this blog. I will be writing another post detailing all instances I provide and related information.

Oracle Hyperion EPM & BI V11.1.1.3 on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2): Installation & Configuration

2009-11-09T13:06:00.000-08:00

(Please review the 'Discussion' section at the bottom of the post to see how your team could benefit from this presentation.)

We will now review the final step of EPM on the cloud, i.e., installing and configuring EPM & BI V11.1.1.3 on the cloud server instance. Before starting the installation here are a few preliminary tasks to be done on the new cloud instance,

1. Install MS Office 2007 (for Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in and Smartview)
2. Install and configure MS SQL 2005 (for relational db)
3. Install Internet Information Services 6 (for Performance Management Architect)

After the above tasks, create a temporary working directory to unzip all the installation files.

This is how the folder looks after unzipping all the installation files.

Run the Hyperion EPM Installer.

Click OK.

Click Next.

Select the Home directory for the installation and click Next.

Select either of the options based on what level of control you want on products to be installed.

Click Next.

After successful installation, select Configure to configure all the installed products.

Click Next.

Provide MS SQL relational db details for Shared Services.

Select required Planning modules and click Next.

Select to create Windows Services for all configured products.

Provide MS SQL relational db details for all other products mentioned on the above screen.

Click Next

Select the Embedded Java Container Option which is provided by default by Oracle.

Select the default ports for the application server.

Select default options.

Select default ports for Essbase server and click Next.

Ensure all preliminary tasks are complete and all required products are selected for configuration before starting the configuration process. The EPM Configurator Tool will allow configuration of products even at a later time if not selected during the initial configuration.

Review and check if all configuration tasks are complete and click Finish.

As post-configuration primary tasks, review to check if all configured products are working properly as shown below for few of the modules, Hyperion Shared Services, Hyperion Admin Services, Hyperion Essbase, Hyperion Essbase Studio, Hyperion Workspace and Hyperion Financial Reporting. If any of the modules aren't starting, check and start their respective Windows Service.

DISCUSSION:

Oracle Hyperion EPM & BI V11.1.1.3 is now installed, configured and running on Amazon EC2 server instance. Now, how could this server instance translate to your team's success?

First, in terms of time this strategy not only shrinks considerable time during SDLC (server and software installation and configuration phases) from a few weeks to mere "days" or mere "hours", it also provides considerable savings in terms of resource costs, facilitates difficult target deadlines, adds buffer to project timeline, etc.

Secondly, atleast within a development environment apart from providing time-based cost savings, this strategy meets the environment expectations at a 'fraction of the cost' compared to traditional servers. I will write a separate post on "server-based cost benefits" along with "time-based cost benefits".

Finally and most importantly, "SCALABILITY". Due to the advantage Amazon EC2 instance provides in terms of scalability of memory, space, etc. this presentation is just a sample of the services I could render to your team's success. Your corporation could immediately harness the benefits at a fraction of a cost, from my collection of server instances for supported Oracle Hyperion versions (9.x and 11.x). All within a period of few hours to a couple of days! Also any custom environments (supporting application servers and relational dbs) can be created and delivered within just a few days of time.

In simpler terms, why install and configure your EPM & BI server and software all over again, when it could be delivered up and running for development with a few hours?

For more information on available EPM server instances and custom server instances, please contact me via this blog. I will be writing another post detailing all instances I provide and related information.

Oracle Hyperion EPM & BI V11.1.1.3 on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2): Prerequisites & Groundwork

2009-11-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

In this blog we would be reviewing the following pre-installation steps for installing Oracle Hyperion EPM & BI V11.1.1.3 (32-bit) on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2),

1. EPM and BI stack choice (32-bit)
2. Server/environment prerequisites for installing EPM/BI V 11.1.1.3
3. Prerequisites for a cloud server instance
4. File transfer process set-up
5. Cloud server instance set-up and start

Step 1: EPM and BI stack choice (32-bit)

The EPM and BI stack installation we would be reviewing on the cloud instance is a typical installation involving widely used financial analysis and reporting products, primarily Hyperion Planning, Hyperion Essbase and Hyperion Financial Reporting.

The following are the modules/components we would have to install for the above stack. The required files are available at http://edelivery.oracle.com/

1.Oracle Hyperion EPM System Release 11.1.1.3.0 - Start Here: Installation Documents and Readmes English
2. Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Installer, Fusion Edition Release 11.1.1.3.0
3. Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Foundation Services Release 11.1.1.3.0 Part 1 of 4
4. Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Foundation Services Release 11.1.1.3.0 Part 2 of 4
5. Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Foundation Services Release 11.1.1.3.0 Part 3 of 4
6. Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Foundation Services Release 11.1.1.3.0 Part 4 of 4 for Microsoft Windows (32-bit)
7. Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Architect, Fusion Edition Release 11.1.1.3.0 for Microsoft Windows (32-bit)
8. Oracle Essbase Client Release 11.1.1.3.0
9. Oracle Essbase Server Release 11.1.1.3.0
10. Oracle Hyperion Provider Services Release 11.1.1.3.0
11. Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting, Fusion Edition Release 11.1.1.3.0
12. Oracle Hyperion Planning, Fusion Edition Release 11.1.1.3.0
13. Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office, Fusion Edition Release 11.1.1.3.0 for Microsoft Windows

Note: Download the above files onto your laptop/desktop before proceeding to the next steps, as it takes considerable time to download all the required files.

Step 2: Server configuration and prerequisites for installing a EPM/BI V 11.1.1.3

For the EPM & BI stack we would be installing, the following are the details of server configuration and related features,

OS: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter edition, 32-bit architecture,
Memory & Space: Atleast 1.7 GB of memory, 160 GB of instance storage on a 32-bit platform,
Relational DB: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express,
For Add-In: Microsoft Office 2007,
For Performance Management Architect: Internet Information Services 6

Note:

The above configuration and features are my choice of requirements directed at provided this presentation. Server configuration and features (choice of relational db, MS Office version, etc) choice will be your firm's choice based on several variables, existing product licenses, IT practices, etc. And the most encouraging aspect of a cloud instance is that it is highly scalable (I will write more as we move forward). For a detailed list of supported matrix and related features for V11.1.1.3, you can either contact me or visit, http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/bi/hyperion-supported-platforms.html

Step 3: Prerequisites for a cloud server instance

Before you could obtain a cloud server instance you will need to do the following,

Sign-up for Amazon Web Services Sign-up for Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
Obtain a well supported GUI based S3 browser
Sign-up for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Step 4: File transfer process set-up

Now, we will look at the process of transferring required Oracle Hyperion EPM & BI V11.1.1.3 software files. There would two separate files transfer processes, first from your local machine to S3 and then from S3 to your cloud server instance. The reason behind these separate processes is due to the time it takes to download the software files, it is "way faster' to transfer files from S3 to your cloud than downloading files directly to your cloud from http://edelivery.oracle.com/ . And this separation of processes wouldn't require to have the cloud instance running during the actual file download duration onto your local machine.

Start with download and install of Cloudberry Explorer for S3 onto your local machine. There are several free S3 browsers in the market, S3Drive, S3Browser, S3Fox, Cloudberry, Jungledisk, etc.

After you open the browser two panes are visible, one for your local machine and the other for S3.

Register your S3 account on Cloudberry.

Create a bucket name to store your files on S3.

Access the security properties of your bucket and review/edit user provisioning.

Copy the required files from your local machine into S3.

Note: Repeat the process on the cloud server instance to transfer files from S3 to the cloud.

Step 5: Cloud server instance set-up and start

We now arrive at the final step of groundwork before installing V11.1.13 on the cloud instance. Login to your Amazon web services account and access the EC2 dashboard to launch the instance.

Select an instance of choice, for this presentation I selected a small instance which would suffice for the purpose of this presentation.

Create a private key pair and configure a firewall for the EC2 instance. Amazon provides a lot of flexibility and features to handle your several instances in EC2. I would write more on this as we move forward. You should be able to see the following message after completing the above steps.

Connect to the instance and download the shortcut file for the Remote Desktop Connection.

Obtain the decrypted windows administrator password by providing the key pair.

Connect to the cloud server instance using your RDC shortcut and review the instance's information.

Install Cloudberry S3 Explorer and copy required files from S3 into the cloud server instance. This process is very fast and shouldnt take more than a few minutes. After completing these prerequisite steps and groundwork for setting-up a cloud based instance, we will now install Oracle Hyperion EPM & BI V 11.1.1.3 stack.

However, before we proceed to the next step, I want to review the significance of a cloud server instance presented here and where it stands in the context of a EPM & BI SDLC. Asking the following questions about a traditional server (atleast in the development space) brings the impact to the surface,

a. How long does it take to establish the server requirements before a full SDLC or an upgrade?
b. How long does it take a vendor to process and deliver the server?
c. How long does it take to configure the new server?
d. What dependencies/compatibility/restrictions does the new server have on other applications and supporting features?
e. What is the cost associated with all of the above?
f. What is the cost of resources?

Saying, 'A cloud server instance can get up and running within a fraction of time and cost of a traditional server' is very practical and true.

Oracle Hyperion EPM & BI V11.1.1.3 on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2): Introduction

2009-11-08T16:45:00.000-08:00

The Problem:

Two weeks back I was trying to install Oracle Hyperion EPM and BI Version 11.1.1.3 on my laptop and play around with the new features. However, my installation bombed on me with configuration failures with Java home and JRE executables. I solved the environmental variables issues manually, but the EPM Configuration script couldnt find required JRE exes. My laptop is on a non-supported platform, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit OS, however Oracle EPM/BI V11.1.1.3 is supported on Vista 'only' on series above 'Home Edition'.

The Big Picture:

It is indeed very typical for IT teams to face such a challenge (called as rack and stack) wherein servers with supported OSs aren't immediately available and as such the traditional approach towards client/server environments tends to add a lot of overhead (excluding the constant actual development and implementation processes) in terms of time, resources and hardware based expenses just for installation and configuration.

For some time now we have been hearing a lot of positive things about cloud computing (Amazon and GoGrid) and the potential it carries to revolutionize how an individual and/or corporation looks and interacts with data, information, storage, "servers", etc. Within the context of EPM and BI, what I am about to present in the next few blogs will showcase how a cloud based EPM and BI is deployed and how such a strategic combination adds tremendous value to your corporation's financial analysis and reporting processes. The instance we would be looking at would involve installing and configuring the latest version of Oracle Hyperion EPM & BI, V11.1.1.3, followed by discussions on what this approach has to offer your team/corporation on an immediate basis.

Behold the cheap janitor!

2009-10-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

A Hyperion Consultant's role is unique in a sense, apart from high product technical knowledge, excellent communication skills and a sound understanding of financial processes and jargon compared to most IT professionals it calls for a more intricate and challenging role of a liaison.

All of the above skills are relatively easy to acquire over time and sufficient amount of effort. However, the skill that is probably a tad-bit more challenging is the role of a liaison, aka 'The Janitor! Keeping the argument outside the realm of a brand new sparkling implementation makes the concept even more pronounced. Yes, I am talking about walking into a client with some six-digit figures already invested and a supposed gold-mine turned to be a land-mine, case studies.

Case I

Is the client ready for the project, are all teams involved on-aboard? This becomes such a critical point due to the fact that, the project is initiated for and by the finance team but handled by the IT team.

I remember a few years back walking into one such a client who got burnt by a previous sub-par consulting practice and the management making the situation known on day-one! The highest placed employee sitting at the meeting said something along these lines, "We have already taken a stab at this consulting practice once, there are going to be only two stabs". I figured this much, 'this wasn't a joke'.

Being a simple implementation in the sense it was just an Essbase with FR implementation, we cruised with their GL and budgeting processes in some 3 month time-frame, set-up ETL and reporting processes, optimized their existing internal reporting cube from 6hrs to 1hr refresh time. All along the way clearly knowing the requirements kept coming, primarily due to the fact that acquisitions was a constant part of the business process and thereby the necessity to consolidate different reporting structures. In this particular situation, more requirements wasn't a challenge, plainly because it was well understood amongst all teams involved.

But in the meantime there had also been three changes in people leading the project from the client side and adding to that we started moving the development pieces to production. More training was done, both to new project leads and the users. However the IT never seemed interested in the training or the implementation itself. And adding to the challenge as always was the production server ownership was with the IT DBA and knowledge transfer becomes a herculean task when there is a conflict of agenda. 'You can take a horse to the lake but cant make it drink water', :)

During the near end of the project I realized there had been a difference of opinion between IT and Finance on the product of choice, way before I started as the project lead. With the IT manager saying, 'this project would be so much more simpler with just a simple SQL db and reporting'. All that was visible to the IT was the ETL process and the FR repository filling up with new functioning reports and not how much work was being done in understanding the business process (GL, budgeting) and translating it to a solution (calc scripts, and meta-data). This was when I realized why all the resistance from the IT, having dealt with several IT teams in the past, I understood and appreciated the red-tape practices by IT. However, what I saw in this instance was a fear for the product from IT, a fear that originated from lack of training.

Prior to this initiative for a Hyperion financial system, the GL and budgeting reporting was done with SQL and Excel, where financial analysts manually calculated allocations and exceptions on excel as opposed to a 'calc script' per say, therefore IT had very little to do towards the process except for providing security to the SQL GL, which was within the comfort zone knowledge base of IT. And sometimes learning or supporting a new product could be challenging having supported the same tasks and processes for a very long time.

Communicating such a delicate issue to other project owners involved could be very difficult as it is the problem that the consultant alone sees and faces but something that could jeopardize the project. Training early and atleast to folks working on implementation team, would add a whole lot of value. I tend to believe a sense of ownership originates when training is provided.

Case II

Create an opportunity to talk and meet the client before signing up with the project.

It is hard as it is for a consultant to move for every single project, but that is a deliberate choice. However, it is a different situation all together with unfair recruiting and SI practices.

Less than 2yrs back I was sucked into one such a situation, where a 6 week project was sold as a 12 month project. I know, you must be laughing at this, the guy who thought he just bought the Brooklyn bridge:)

All of this started with me choosing this project based on the scope and duration of the project, unable to wait for P.O from other potential clients. Dealing with a SI, I didn't worry too much about having to talk to the client. So, there I was as usual confident with the scope of the project being within my expertise, settling down in the new city, leases and car rentals....

Here was the state of the project as I saw it on the first day, the db was idle in the dev environment, no reporting or retrievals were being done from the db, no ETL process was set-up, an excessive back-up process written in 3 different codes was in place and the Accounts dimension was some 50-60 times larger than the actual number of accounts. Take a guess on why the Acct dim was soo huge...

There was no DTS (Dynamic Time Series) set-up and the genius design of the outline had an account structure set-up for every possible QTD and YTD month! I was shocked at what I saw until I learned how all this come to existence-

Finance team needed a System
Finance team googled for a financial system
Finance team found out Essbase
Finance team found a book on Essbase
Finance team contacted the author
Author suggested x company
Company was hired

And 2 yrs and upper-six-digits later the client had this system, that too just a single Essbase instance implementation. After a week of researching and understanding what was going on with the system, I hit full speed, cleaned up the Outline, set-up security, developed calc scripts for their relatively simple budgeting process and automated the ETL, all in 5 weeks. During this period I hear from one of the client's employee that they were expecting me to be there for a total of 6 weeks. Meanwhile, being the project lead I bring the question of a project plan and timeline to the client and get a reply of 'why a plan for 6 weeks?'.

Essentially, there was no 12 month project. Moral of the story, no matter how good and clean anything sounds talk to the end-client.

Case III

The IT team and IT teams. This situation is particularly visible in larger corporations and larger implementation, IT teams within the IT team.

The set-up: On a recent Hyperion Planning implementation where I was the Lead Analyst, I was called upon to janitor once again on the third phase of the development work. Client had already invested a complete six-digit figures, with first two development phases and production moves having bombed, it was just another high-pressure, high-speed project which is fun and not so fun in a lot of ways. Three implementation teams had already been hired and fired.

Hyperion Planning is an extremely useful and efficient budgeting tool, with the benefits visible to the users if-and-only-if it is faster than their excel sheets. Because each financial analyst or controller work on their particular department's budget on excel on stand-alone servers i.e, their respective laptops, with Hyperion Planning in place as a centralized process, it better provide real advantages over each department's existing budgeting tool. A very fair expectation.

Looking at a typical SDLC process, following the architecture and design itself, with development of complex business rules and calc scripts running well over 20-40 pages, optimization comes into place. Development and optimization are iterative processes. Optimization and fine tuning play such a crucial role that it could be the deciding factor between a popular corporate wide tool or another scratched project!

With a development team working between the finance requirements and IT manager, and another IT team handling and owning the production servers life gets difficult, not just for people involved but for the project itself. Within week 2 of the project I requested to bring the Essbase performance tuning as a factor into the project, simply because it is a good practice and the buffers and caches are very very important. Hearing one manager say, 'This is not our team's task, this belongs to the other team. I wouldn't bother about it and this discussion is outside the realm of our development scope', with a very acidic tone, had me let the client have their way after a few attempts.

Come UAT testing, the tone changed. With the user experience in editing and saving web forms and business rules running in the background, performance on some web forms going around 15 sec, the user response was anything but happy. What the janitor didn't know was a rift and name-calling sessions between the two IT teams some 5 months before the present UAT. Which has now resulted in a bad UAT experience.

Over time I realized how much of a liaison and janitor work a Hyperion Consultant job really is. With project initiative, funding and management spread over different departments getting a well-oiled high performance team could be tricky. It can be very difficult to express certain deadlocks openly because of the sensitivity of the issue and the fact of having been part of a team for less than year.

It becomes even more difficult when the client has had a bad experience on the project prior to your engagement. Now not signing-up for such projects is one approach, but being someone who takes ownership of a project I think at times all you can do is everything that you are capable of doing wrt technology, communicate and communicate and hope for the best! Or just look for a brand new sparkling implementation:)

But, this is just another opinion...

Escalation times

2009-10-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

As I sit here staring at my newly created empty blog-space, fully aware of an urge to share my thoughts with you, I found myself chuckling at what would make a worthy and fun first one. The idea of blogging seems like fun.

Though I definitely intend to flavor this blog with tech & functional topics, I wanted to talk about the current state of economy (who doesn't, right?:)) and how it had changed the job market, for now. The last year has essentially seen a drop in almost everything that represents a good life, jobs, retirement funds, consumer spending, real-estate...

For Hyperion what I had been seeing wasn't different either, a steep drop in client's wanting a brand new software solution based Financial System. In the past I used to assume a centralized soft Financial System was mandatory for a corporation to function efficiently, but today it truly seems a luxury.

However, contrary to the above understanding, I have also seem a few big consulting companies, make major headway in doing even better at Hyperion consulting practices. Given the importance and cost associated with such an useful system, it only makes sense for corporations to go with SIs.

This development though in itself is healthy, by no means represents the majority of the landscape. And the majority is recruiting shops and third-party contracting, be it Hyperion or any other technology. And to top it off, the situation has only escalated to an even more inglorious under-current battle! There is more to this than just the economy, it be fun to fully unearth how it has come about.

But, this is just another opinion...