technology underlying TM1 Web

Can anyone shed some light on the technology underlying TM1 Web?

It would appear that TM1 Web runs a session of Excel on the Server for
each Web user. Web queries are refreshed through the "server-side"
Excel spreadsheet, quickly saved as html and sent to the browser.

This appears to be what Microsoft refers to as "server-side automation
of Excel" – see:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;257757

To summarise "Microsoft does not currently recommend, and does not
support, Automation of Microsoft Office Applications [including Excel
97 to 2003] from any unattended, non-interactive client application or
component because Office may exhibit unstable behavior and/or deadlock
when run in this environment."

The paper lists several major categories of problems, including:

•       Office apps expect to be able to interact with the user if problems
arise.
•       Re-entrancy and Scalability -- server apps need to be re-entrant,
multi-threaded and non-resource-intensive. Office apps are the exact
opposite.
•       Stability -- MS says "Using Office as a service component on a
network server may reduce the stability of that machine, and as a
consequence your network as a whole."
•       Security -- Office apps were never intended for use server-side so
they have no provisions for the kind of security a server-based
application needs.
•       "Besides the technical problems, you must also consider the
feasibility of such a design with respect to licensing. Current
licensing guidelines prevent Office Applications from being used on
server to service client requests, unless those clients themselves
have licensed copies of Office. Using server-side Automation to
provide Office functionality to unlicensed workstations is not covered
by the End User License Agreement (EULA)."


Jordan