Title Content Last update Average Rating
How do you pronounce "Pion?"

Pion is pronounced "pahy-on." 
 
Pion is named after the subatomic particle also known to physics geeks as a "pi meson." They are the lightest mesons, and play an important role in explaining low-energy properties of the strong nuclear force.
 
For more information see:
 
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pion

03/05/2010 - 08:03
5
Unable to open plug-in library: C:\Program Files (x86)\Atomic Labs\Pion\plugins\SnifferReactor.dll

The problem may be due to WinPcap not being installed, since the SnifferReactor depends on it.  The Pion installer attempts to install WinPcap if it doesn't find it already installed, and if it fails, you can't use SnifferReactor.
One thing you can try to see if WinPcap is the problem is to run Pion from the command line instead of as a service, as follows: open a command shell, cd to C:\Program Files (x86)\Atomic Labs\Pion\ and run start_pion.bat.  Now, open http://localhost:8888 and run the wizard again (there is a wizard link near the top if it doesn't start automatically).  This time, if WinPcap is the problem, when you get to the 'Select Capture Devices' page, you should get a dialog box saying something like "This application has failed to start because wpcap.dll was not found."

03/11/2010 - 18:06
0
How much disk storage does Pion Replay require?

Storage requirements for Pion Replay vary greatly depending on your individual configuration, the average size of your pages, traffic volume, etc.  An extremely rough equation is 1 TB for 1 month at a volume of 1 million pages/day.

03/07/2010 - 20:39
0
Tracking form abandonment

Unfortunately, some things can only be measured using page tags, and form abandonment is one of them.  The attached HTML file provides example code for tracking abandoned forms with Pion.  When a form is abandoned, the browser will send a 1-pixel image request (PION_selfTag) with query parameters (including last field) to your server.  Pion can easily be configured to detect these events and deliver them to your analytics provider for analysis.

03/07/2010 - 09:55
0
Do clicks need to go through Pion servers before coming to a site?

No, however we do recommend installing a dedicated Pion server at your data center (where your website is hosted) if you use multiple web servers. The server can be either our Reactor Core appliance offering or any x86-based hardware (Dell, IBM, HP, etc.). The traffic does not pass through our server but rather it passively monitors the traffic going to and from the website using a technique known as packet sniffing.  As such, Pion is physically incapable of slowing down or impacting your traffic in any way.
 
You can also install Pion as software on your (physical or virtual) web server.  Pion currently supports Windows, Redhat Linux, Ubuntu Linux, and Mac OS X.

03/05/2010 - 08:33
0
What (mobile) analytics does Pion provide?

Pion doesn't provide any analytics or reporting, just data capture, processing, integration and storage. For example, you can use Pion to capture data for Google Analytics (as an alternative to their page tags or server-side scripting). Or, you can use Pion to create custom data warehouses for real-time dashboards and business intelligence.
Although Pion captures all the traffic for your mobile device users, it does not have any mobile-specific reporting capabiltities.  Analytics vendors provide varying support on for mobile traffic reporting, and we recommend that you contact your vendor directly to understand which fields and reports they support.

03/05/2010 - 08:22
0
Using Pion with Urchin

Pion Lite cannot be used with Urchin because it supports only cloud-based web analytics service providers, such as Google Analytics.  However, it is very easy to integrate Pion Enterprise or Pion Replay with Urchin by using our LogOutputReactor to store traffic into log files:

  1. Use Pion's setup wizard to create your initial Reactor pipeline.  When prompted, leave "analytics provider" set to "none."
  2. Drag and drop a new LogOutputReactor from the "Processing" reactor types into your workspace.
  3. Give the reactor a descriptive name such as "Urchin logs"
  4. Choose a filename to use for the log files such as "urchin.log"
  5. Choose a codec to use (several should work but we recommend using the "IIS" codec)
  6. Connect your ClickstreamReactor's output to the new LogOutputReactor

Pion will now populate a log file with all of your clickstream traffic.  This log file can be used in place of your web server log files.

03/05/2010 - 08:15
0
What is a Pion "Reactor?"

A Pion Reactor performs a defined task, and there are many specialized Reactors. Each reactor performs a specific task, and each reactor is specialized for a particular task. A Reactor can be thought of as atomic in the sense in that it is the smallest unit of work. Reactors are the basic building blocks which are chained together to accomplish tasks.

 

03/05/2010 - 08:02
0