Building an OBIEE Test Lab - Part II

So it's taking a little longer than I anticipated. That's a good thing (for me anyway). In Part I, I tried to diagram out what my plans were. My drawing was crude, and remains so. Mike Durran left me a link to the drawing below which is found here in the docs.



Now I'm an ambitious lad, but not that ambitious. This is for fun and amusement, perhaps I'll learn a thing or two along the way.

So how does this qualify as Part II? Well, I finally created the database. (No, I'm not going RAC like the diagram and docs say. Like I said, I'm not completely nutters.) This is an accomplishment for me as it's been quite some time since I've built anything, close to a year. So I'm celebrating by writing.

Oracle Enterprise Linux 64 bit, 5.8
2.6.32-300.32.1.el5uek
Database: 11.2.0.1
Database host: oracle-db
Database SID: TESTING

I used OEL 5.8 because that's the latest version I could find that was certified for 11.2.0.1 (straight from OTN). I was unable to find a single document that listed out the supported OSes, but I'm not that adept at searching through MOS yet (LOWER( DBA )). If you know where it is, please link it up.

This database will serve as the repository home for OBIEE and perhaps something like Identity Manager (OVM, OAM). I'll probably end up using it as a source and target for various projects as well.

OBIEE: Where'd my SQL go?

With the introduction of 11g, you can now deploy your opaque views to the database as, well, database views. It will simply wrap up your SQL statement inside a CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW... and run that statement using the connection pool you specified. Of course this means your connection pool has to have privileges to create objects, which may not be the case if you are using "read only" connections.

Anyway, if your development environment is refreshed from production on a regular basis, objects and all, you'll need to redeploy those views. Naturally, you saved that ad-hoc like SQL in subversion or some other source control tool...oops, you didn't?

All is not lost.

First, it's relatively easy, if you have a magnifying glass, to pick out the deployed views, they look like this:



Now, just go into the table properties, General tab and go to the dropdown box:



Select the Select selection (hah!). If you're a bit uptight about putting it in the correct location (like I am), you may have to navigate to the appropriate database version. For me, Oracle 10g R2:



Voilà!

Another option that you could use would be to Copy (Ctrl+C) the object in question and then paste (Ctrl+V) into notepad or some similar tool. Should be fairly easy to spot the SQL.

OBIEE 11g: Where's the Compare Repositories Dialog?

Recently I decided to try out the new patching capabilities for the metadata in OBIEE 11g. The big reason for me was to avoid having to reset my connection pools. Each time I did a 3 way merge, the connection pools would get over-written with their development credentials. When I was doing the merge, I could never find a way to isolate (leave out) those objects, so it was off to try the patching.

What this patching does is creates an xml file of the differences between 2 RPDs. You can then edit that XML file if you so desire. Most of my duties over the last couple of years have centered around the RPD and front-end stuff, not nearly as much on the administrative side (i.e. migrations). So I need to catch up with the rest of the world.

Reading through the docs, I'm told that I need to use the "Compare repositories" dialog. OK, easy enough.



Where is my entry for it?

OK, let's try the Compare entry.



Since I'm using the prod_20120122 RPD, I select the dev_20120122 RPD.

I'm prompted for the Repository Password and then it spins for a few seconds, then gives me this



I select Yes.



OK...where's the Compare Repositories Dialog like the docs say?

I see the icons have changed signifying differences, but no dialog as mentioned in the docs.

What if I select No?



Ah, there it is.

Interestingly, if I maximize that Compare Repositories Dialog, the next time I run the Compare, I can see it plain as day.



Hopefully you'll find this next time you endeavor to learn how to patch your RPD and can't seem to find the Compare Repositories Dialog.

OBIEE: Start/Stop Individual Components (Manually)

Previously I wrote about how to start and stop individual components via Enterprise Manager.

This time, I'm going to run through the manual steps to do the same, start and stop individual components using the Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN) Tool.

First, navigate to the ORACLE_INSTANCE/bin directory. For me on Linux, that is /obiee/Middleware/instances/instance. List out the directory contents and you should see the opmnctl

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ls -lah
total 56K
drwx------  3 oracle dba 4.0K Aug 16 00:53 .
drwx------ 14 oracle dba 4.0K Sep  8 17:09 ..
drwxr-x---  2 oracle dba 4.0K Aug 16 00:53 essbase_ha
-rwx------  1 oracle dba  44K Aug 16 00:53 opmnctl

Let's see what is running:

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl status

Processes in Instance: instance1
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
ias-component                    | process-type       |     pid | status  
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
coreapplication_obiccs1          | OracleBIClusterCo~ |    1525 | Alive   
coreapplication_obisch1          | OracleBIScheduler~ |    1443 | Alive   
coreapplication_obijh1           | OracleBIJavaHostC~ |    1487 | Alive   
coreapplication_obips1           | OracleBIPresentat~ |    1469 | Alive   
coreapplication_obis1            | OracleBIServerCom~ |   30698 | Alive

All of the components are running. Good. Let's shut down everything.

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl shutdown
[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl status
opmnctl status: opmn is not running.

And bring everything back up.

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl startall
opmnctl startall: starting opmn and all managed processes...
[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl status

Processes in Instance: instance1
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
ias-component                    | process-type       |     pid | status  
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
coreapplication_obiccs1          | OracleBIClusterCo~ |    3124 | Alive   
coreapplication_obisch1          | OracleBIScheduler~ |    3123 | Alive   
coreapplication_obijh1           | OracleBIJavaHostC~ |    3121 | Alive   
coreapplication_obips1           | OracleBIPresentat~ |    3120 | Alive   
coreapplication_obis1            | OracleBIServerCom~ |    3122 | Alive

Now, let's stop the BI Server, coreapplication_obis1 or OrcleBIServerCom~. There are 2 ways to bring this down. Well, one command, stopproc, but 2 different ways. Notice the column headers up above, you have ias-component and process-type. Using ias-component:

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl stopproc ias-component=coreapplication_obis1
opmnctl stopproc: stopping opmn managed processes...
[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl status

Processes in Instance: instance1
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
ias-component                    | process-type       |     pid | status  
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
coreapplication_obiccs1          | OracleBIClusterCo~ |    3124 | Alive   
coreapplication_obisch1          | OracleBIScheduler~ |    3123 | Alive   
coreapplication_obijh1           | OracleBIJavaHostC~ |    3121 | Alive   
coreapplication_obips1           | OracleBIPresentat~ |    3120 | Alive   
coreapplication_obis1            | OracleBIServerCom~ |     N/A | Down

Start it back up.

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl startproc ias-component=coreapplication_obis1
opmnctl startproc: starting opmn managed processes...
[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl status

Processes in Instance: instance1
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
ias-component                    | process-type       |     pid | status  
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
coreapplication_obiccs1          | OracleBIClusterCo~ |    3124 | Alive   
coreapplication_obisch1          | OracleBIScheduler~ |    3123 | Alive   
coreapplication_obijh1           | OracleBIJavaHostC~ |    3121 | Alive   
coreapplication_obips1           | OracleBIPresentat~ |    3120 | Alive   
coreapplication_obis1            | OracleBIServerCom~ |    3525 | Alive 

process-type shutdown:

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl stopproc process-type=OracleBIServerComponent
opmnctl stopproc: stopping opmn managed processes...
[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl status

Processes in Instance: instance1
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
ias-component                    | process-type       |     pid | status  
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
coreapplication_obiccs1          | OracleBIClusterCo~ |    3124 | Alive   
coreapplication_obisch1          | OracleBIScheduler~ |    3123 | Alive   
coreapplication_obijh1           | OracleBIJavaHostC~ |    3121 | Alive   
coreapplication_obips1           | OracleBIPresentat~ |    3120 | Alive   
coreapplication_obis1            | OracleBIServerCom~ |     N/A | Down

Note that I didn't use OracleBIServerCom~. It expects the full name of the component, in this case, OracleBIServerComponent. If you use the shortened name, you'll get this:

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl stopproc process-type=OracleBIServerCom~
opmnctl stopproc: stopping opmn managed processes...
================================================================================
opmn id=oracle-web-tier:9501
    No processes or applications match the specified configuration.

Finally, bring the BI Server back up.

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl startproc process-type=OracleBIServerComponent
opmnctl startproc: starting opmn managed processes...
[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl status

Processes in Instance: instance1
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
ias-component                    | process-type       |     pid | status  
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
coreapplication_obiccs1          | OracleBIClusterCo~ |    3124 | Alive   
coreapplication_obisch1          | OracleBIScheduler~ |    3123 | Alive   
coreapplication_obijh1           | OracleBIJavaHostC~ |    3121 | Alive   
coreapplication_obips1           | OracleBIPresentat~ |    3120 | Alive   
coreapplication_obis1            | OracleBIServerCom~ |    3803 | Alive

Fairly simple.

For a full list of opmnctl commands, simply run ./opmnctl help and you'll get the following output:

[oracle@oracle-web-tier bin]$ ./opmnctl help

usage: opmnctl [verbose] [<scope>] <command> [<options>]

verbose: print detailed execution message if available

Permitted <scope>/<command>/<options> combinations are:

 scope    command     options
-------  ---------   ---------
          start                         - Start opmn
          startall                      - Start opmn & all managed processes
          stopall                       - Stop opmn & all managed processes
          shutdown                      - Shutdown opmn & all managed processes
[<scope>] startproc   [<attr>=<val> ..] - Start opmn managed processes
[<scope>] restartproc [<attr>=<val> ..] - Restart opmn managed processes
[<scope>] stopproc    [<attr>=<val> ..] - Stop opmn managed processes
[<scope>] reload                        - Trigger opmn to reread opmn.xml
[<scope>] status      [<options>]       - Get managed process status
[<scope>] metric      [<attr>=<val> ..] - Get DMS metrics for managed processes
[<scope>] dmsdump     [<dmsargs>]       - Get DMS metrics for opmn
[<scope>] debug       [<attr>=<val> ..] - Display opmn server debug information
[<scope>] set         [<attr>=<val> ..] - Set opmn log parameters
[<scope>] query       [<attr>=<val>]    - Query opmn log parameters
          launch      [<attr>=<val> ..] - Launch a configured target process
          phantom     [<attr>=<val> ..] - Register phantom processes
          ping        [<max-retry>]     - Ping local opmn
          validate    [<filename>]      - Validate the given opmn xml file
          help                          - Print brief usage description
          usage       [<command>]       - Print detailed usage description
          createinstance                - Create an Oracle Instance
          createcomponent               - Create a specified component
          deleteinstance                - Delete an instance and components
          deletecomponent               - Delete a specified component
          registerinstance              - Register with admin server
          redeploy                      - Redeploy the admin server application
          unregisterinstance            - Unregister with admin server
          updateinstanceregistration    - Update instance registration
          updatecomponentregistration   - Update component registration

OBIEE: Start/Stop Individual Components (Enterprise Manager)

The very first thing I thought, after firing up my first OBIEE 11g instance, was how freaking intimidating it was.

You have Enterprise Manager, the WLS Console and regular old /analytics. Nah...not too much.

Whatever.

Of course I'm still learning it daily, but most of the basics I have down now.

A basic concept which was super-easy in 10g, like stopping and starting individual services like the BI Server and Presentation Server, didn't seem so easy any more.

Now this isn't rocket science, but I'm sure it will help someone new (and intimidated!) by OBIEE 11g.

First, using Enterprise Manager.

After logging in, you'll see the Farm_bifoundation_domain (essentially your home) page:



From there, navigate to the Business Intelligence folder and click on coreapplication:



This will take you to your coreapplication (BI) page:



From there, you can stop all components of the BI Server; BI Server, Presentation, Java Host, etc.



Easy.

Sometimes though, you just need to restart one of the services, usually the BI Server or the Presentation Server.

Easy enough, see that tab Capacity Management, click on it:



That'll take you here, where you can start, stop and restart individual services:



Simply select the service you want to stop, start or restart like so:



Then select Stop Selected and you'll be prompted to confirm your selection:



Now you've stopped the BI Server service.



You can confirm this by looking at the Overview page as well:



There is also a manual way of doing this. Since it's Friday evening, I will wait until later to write that one up. Must go watch Megamind or some other fun kids movie with one of the monsters.

OBIEE 11g: Unresolved table: "**NONE**". (HY000)

Yesterday I was having problems simply converting the Usage Tracking catalog. It may or may not be related to having Web Tier (or any other non-OBIEE component) installed, I can't say with certainty though.

The reason that you have to convert/upgrade the Usage Tracking RPD/Web Catalog is because a pre 11g version was inadvertently shipped. Good news though, if you have upgrade issues like I've had, you can get an 11g copy of the RPD (both 11.1.1.3 and 11.1.1.5) on MOS. No upgraded web catalog though.

I managed to merge the Usage Tracking metadata into my RPD, then I was off to make the web catalog work. I copied the Usage Tracking web catalog over to the SampleAppLIte web catalog and tried to run it.



If you can't read that, it says:

[nQSError: 27004] Unresolved table: "**NONE**". (HY000)

I went in and played with the permissions, restarted the server, nothing worked. I kept getting the same message.

Twitter machine to the rescue.



I started to go through the criteria for one specific report.

The only thing that jumped out at me was that none of the folder qualifiers had quotes around them, like Measures."Some Measure". That's OK, because there is no space.

I replaced each and every criteria in the report, ran it, same error.

Wait, there's a filter.

Remove it.

The report runs.

w00t.

So I went into Catalog Manager > Properties > Edit XML and sure enough:



I replaced **NONE** with Usage Tracking, reloaded the metadata (and bounced the server for good measure), and voila!

OBIEE 11g: UPGCMP-02712

Amusingly, the Usage Tracking components (RPD, Web Catalog) must be upgraded from 10g to 11g (11.1.1.5 for me). Not sure how this was missed, but it was.

I've run through the Upgrade Assistant multiple times, each one failing.



Here's the log:

[2011-09-08T03:07:12.156-04:00] [Framework] [NOTIFICATION] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0] Start 11g Components: false
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.185-04:00] [Framework] [NOTIFICATION] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0] Starting to upgrade BIEE.
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.239-04:00] [Framework] [ERROR] 
[UPGAST-00138] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] [ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0] 
upgrade exception occurred
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.239-04:00] [Framework] [ERROR] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0] 
Cause: An unexpected upgrade exception has occurred. Action: See the secondary error message 
for additional details.
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.239-04:00] [Framework] [ERROR] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0] 
UPGCMP-02712: Expected oracle.biee.admin:oracleInstance=*,type=BIDomain.OracleInstance,
group=Service Oracle instance, found 2
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.240-04:00] [Framework] [ERROR] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0] 
UPGCMP-02712: Expected oracle.biee.admin:oracleInstance=*,type=BIDomain.OracleInstance,
group=Service Oracle instance, found 2
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.240-04:00] [Framework] [NOTIFICATION] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0] 
Finished upgrading BIEE with status: Failure.
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.241-04:00] [Framework] [NOTIFICATION] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0] 
Finished upgrading components.
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.241-04:00] [Framework] [NOTIFICATION] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0]   
0 components upgraded with success.
[2011-09-08T03:07:12.241-04:00] [Framework] [NOTIFICATION] [] [upgrade.Framework] [tid: 13] 
[ecid: 0000J97r9aPFw000jzwkno1EQ6_m000004,0]   
1 components upgraded with failure.

My Oracle Support (MOS) didn't turn up any hits on that error number. The Google Machine did though. This OTN Forum post has the same exact problem. It appears that Merlin128 is talking to him or herself. I'm ok with that.

yes it was the web-tier.. or actually any component that creates a second instance...the upgrade utility only works with 1 instance installed.. to temporarily have only one instance.. I was able to change this file. run the upgrade. then change it back...middleware\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\opmn\topology.xml

I tried that, commented out the second ias-instance section and restarted all the services (Linux 64).

Run the Upgrade Assistant, no joy.

With a little more research on MOS, I found note ID 1336567.1 which provides an 11.1.1.3 and 11.1.1.5 RPD. Yay.

To my above comment about how a pre-11g component got in there, the MOS note says:

The UsageTracking.rpd shipped is actually a pre 11.1.1.3 version and cannot be opened in the current versions of OBIEE 11g Administrator. It was shipped inadvertently.

All was not lost, I did find the master note for Usage Tracking Issues, ID 1293415.1.

So, I can't open the Usage Tracking web catalog in Catalog Manager (runcat.sh). I tried to deploy just the Usage Tracking catalog...and the BI Presentation server wouldn't come back up. Upgrade Assistant still doesn't work.

Help?

Update 09/08/2011 13:33 EST

So I thought I could use the Oracle created SampleApp (v105, not v107) and received a similar failure:

[2011-09-08T10:29:57.471-07:00] [Framework] [ERROR] [UPGAST-00138] 
[upgrade.Framework] upgrade exception occurred
[2011-09-08T10:29:57.471-07:00] [Framework] [ERROR] 
[upgrade.Framework] 
Cause: An unexpected upgrade exception has occurred. 
Action: See the secondary error message for additional details.
[2011-09-08T10:29:57.471-07:00] [Framework] [ERROR] [upgrade.Framework] 
UPGCMP-02712: Expected oracle.biee.local:* Oracle instance, found 0
[2011-09-08T10:29:57.471-07:00] [Framework] [ERROR] [upgrade.Framework] 
UPGCMP-02712: Expected oracle.biee.local:* Oracle instance, found 0

That VM has Essbase, amongst other components. I speculate there is some sort of (yet unknown) weirdness going on when you don't have a straight (just OBIEE) install.

OBIEE 11g Performance with Google Page Speed

A few weeks ago I tried out YSlow on OBIEE 11g.

I finally managed to find some time to mess around with Oracle Web Tier (HTTP and WebCache).

The results:



I went from a D to a C. Not terrible.

This time, I also used Google Page Speed.



41 out of 100 using just the application server (WLS).

Now adding in the Oracle Web Tier components, Oracle HTTP Server and Oracle Web Cache.



76 out of 100. Much better.

OBIEE 11g is built on Oracle WebLogic Server. It was not intuitive, to me anyway, that everything was being served via an application server. Therefore, there is no caching of static files or compression.

Putting a web server in front of your application server is a very easy way to increase page load times.

I would assume (stop laughing) that any web server would do the exact same thing as the Oracle Web Tier components...but, you know me.

OBIEE 11g: opmnctl start: failed. Can not resolve <hostname> for interface any

I've been working on a proof of concept for OBIEE 11g. Part of that, naturally, includes building out the system.

I'm a fan of rebuilding things over and over and over. Yeah, it's time consuming, but I end up learning a lot...like what can go wrong.

Which brings me to today.

OS: OEL 5 64 bit
Database: Oracle 11gR2
OBIEE 11.1.1.5

Installed the database, created the repository using the RCU and installed the OBIEE software; when it gets to the configuration steps, it fails. I think it was step 12 or 13, (re)starting AdminServer.

Retry.

Fail.

Continue.

Failed again a couple of steps down. opmn something or another.

Log files:

opmnctl start: failed.
Can not resolve obiee11g for interface any
oracle.as.provisioning.exception.ASProvisioningException
 at oracle.as.provisioning.engine.Config.executeConfigWorkflow_WLS(Config.java:872)
 at oracle.as.install.bi.biconfig.standard.StandardWorkFlowExecutor.executeHelper(StandardWorkFlowExecutor.java:31)
 at oracle.as.install.bi.biconfig.standard.InstanceProvisioningTask.doExecute(InstanceProvisioningTask.java:81)
...snip...
Caused by: oracle.as.provisioning.engine.CfgWorkflowException
 at oracle.as.provisioning.engine.Engine.processEventResponse(Engine.java:596)
 at oracle.as.provisioning.fmwadmin.ASInstanceProv.createInstance(ASInstanceProv.java:178)
...snip...
 ... 14 more
Caused by: oracle.as.provisioning.util.ConfigException: 
Error creating ASInstance instance1.
Cause: 
An internal operation has failed: Error in starting opmn server
Operation aborted because of a system call failure or internal error
Action: 
See logs for more details.
 at oracle.as.provisioning.util.ConfigException.createConfigException(ConfigException.java:123)
 at oracle.as.provisioning.fmwadmin.ASInstanceProv._createInstance(ASInstanceProv.java:317)
 at oracle.as.provisioning.fmwadmin.ASInstanceProv.createInstance(ASInstanceProv.java:166)
 ... 18 more
Caused by: oracle.as.management.opmn.optic.OpticException: Error in starting opmn server
Operation aborted because of a system call failure or internal error
 at oracle.as.management.opmn.optic.OpmnAdmin.executeCommand(OpmnAdmin.java:310)
 at oracle.as.management.opmn.optic.OpmnAdmin.startOpmnServer(OpmnAdmin.java:87)
 at oracle.as.provisioning.fmwadmin.ASInstanceProv._createInstance(ASInstanceProv.java:254)
 ... 19 more

Awesome.

Can not resolve obiee11g for interface any

I destroyed the OBIEE deployment, reinstalled the repository, tried again. Fail.

Finally gave up and started from scratch.

Opened up the documentation (finally) to see if I missed any pre-installation configuration steps. Nope.

Before you install Oracle Business Intelligence and related components, do the following:

- Review Chapter 1, "Installation Overview," to ensure you understand the options and features related to installing Oracle Business Intelligence.

- Review Chapter 3, "Oracle Business Intelligence Requirements," to ensure that your environment meets the minimum requirements.

- Install your database before running Oracle Business Intelligence 11g Installer, and have the database running during the installation.

- Run Repository Creation Utility (RCU) to install the schemas that Oracle Business Intelligence requires. See Section 3.3, "Create Database Schemas Using the Repository Creation Utility (RCU)."

- If you are installing on multiple computers, review Chapter 2, "Recommended Installation Scenarios for Oracle Business Intelligence," for common scenarios.

- Verify that you have sufficient administrator privileges to install the software.

- If you plan to install Oracle Business Intelligence on a computer that uses Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), you must perform additional configuration tasks before you install Oracle Business Intelligence. See "Installing on DHCP Hosts" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Planning Guide.

- If you plan to install Oracle Business Intelligence 11g on a computer that contains Oracle Business Intelligence 10g, shut down the Oracle Business Intelligence 10g installation before installing Oracle Business Intelligence 11g. To upgrade from Oracle Business Intelligence 10g to Oracle Business Intelligence 11g, refer to Oracle Fusion Middleware Upgrade Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for further details.

- Ensure that your database is not hardened for security purposes, as installing Oracle Business Intelligence against a hardened database is very likely to fail.

Did I do anything unusual in the initial setup?

No.

Wait.

I changed the hostname.

Using the Google Machine, I queried for Can not resolve obiee11g for interface any which took me to this OTN post.

I believe you could totally avoid this if your host file were setup in the manner of having each alias on an individual line. I found that the behavior of how the host file works on newer windows versions (Vista/7/2008) is affected by the DNS Client Service

In the Host file try to use the below format, utting everything on an individual line similar to:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 MYSERVER
::1 localhost
::1 MYSERVER

Hmmm...

I changed the hostname. I didn't like "new-host-4". Really?

I updated my hosts file to match what was suggested:

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.0.1       obiee11g
::1             localhost6
::1             obiee11g

Reran everything and the configuration completed without error.

Joy.

Maybe I should have followed the instructions for Installing on DHCP Hosts...

OBIEE 11g + YSlow

A recent discussion at the OBIEE Enterprise Methodology Group reminded me of something...

A few weeks back I tried out the YSlow extension from Yahoo against OBIEE 11g.

I couldn't figure out how to print or export the results until this morning when I clicked on the Tweet button. That gave me a URL.

For my test this morning, I used the SampleApp Build 10502 General Index (which rocks by the way, tons of great stuff and examples the team has created):



Overall Grade, D.

This page either got an A or a F. The F's were in the following categories:

- Make fewer HTTP requests
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) (no idea)
- Add expires headers
- Compress components with gzip
- Put JavaScript at bottom
- Reduce the number of DOM elements
- User cookie-free domains



You can find the page here.

Interesting stuff.

Google also has an extension called PageSpeed which you can find here.

OBIEE: The repository variable, %S has no value definition

Version: 11.1.1.5
OS: OEL 5

First of all, it's a Session variable, not a repository variable. Whatever.

So I had created a PIPELINED function to serve as the source of a table. From the analysis side, we wanted to use a presentation variable to set a session variable that was referenced in the table source.

Here's the SQL for the Stored Proc call:

SELECT *
FROM TABLE( get_key_value_pairs( 4 ) )

I hardcoded 4 in there just to see how it worked. BTW, Gerard Nico describes the process here.

I then created a session variable along with the init block.

SELECT 5 FROM dual

which would populate the P_LIMIT session variable. Nothing terribly fancy.

I then ran a simple report based off of the new table source (with the hardcoded value):



Cool, now let's swap out the hardcoded value with the reference to the session variable.

Since I don't do a lot of front-end stuff, this post at Siebel Essentials has been my bible.

I locate what I am trying to do in the matrix:

VALUEOF("NQ_SESSION.P_LIMIT")

Like a big jerk, I have to add spaces to it, you know, for readability. My SQL looks like this:

SELECT *
FROM TABLE( get_key_value_pairs( VALUEOF( "NQ_SESSION.P_LIMIT" ) ) )

OK, let's try without the quotes ("):

SELECT *
FROM TABLE( get_key_value_pairs( VALUEOF( NQ_SESSION.P_LIMIT ) ) )

Same thing.



Let's gid rid of the spaces (I've had issues with spaces before, but I can't seem to find the post).

SELECT *
FROM TABLE( get_key_value_pairs( VALUEOF(NQ_SESSION.P_LIMIT) ) )

Voilá!

Fun. I have noticed that certain areas of the RPD treat spaces slightly differently. If I ever find the other post, I'll link it up here.

Lesson? Be careful with your space.

Starting and Stopping OBIEE 11g on Linux

I mostly get to play around with OBIEE on Linux at home. Clients are only running it on Windows now.

I suppose that's due, partially, to the Admin tool running on Windows only and for some, it might just be the comfort level. I've been running on Ubuntu for the last couple of years and I'm definitely more comfortable in that environment. I guess I'm no long scared of it, that's the biggest thing.

Since I don't run it all that often, I tend to forget the scripts to run (and the order) to start up the services.

On the Windows side, there's one "script" to run which can be done from the Start --> Programs bar. Easy.

Here's how you do it on Linux (Oracle Enterprise Linux in my case).

cd into your FMW_HOME:

[oracle@demo ~]$ cd /bishiphome/Middleware

Then cd into user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/bin

[oracle@demo Middleware]$ cd user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/bin

There you'll find the following:

[oracle@demo bin]$ ls -la
total 68
drwxr-x---  5 oracle oracle  4096 May 11 10:30 .
drwxr-x--- 17 oracle oracle  4096 May 18 23:52 ..
drwxr-x---  2 oracle oracle  4096 May 11 10:29 nodemanager
-rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle  2003 May 11 10:30 secureWebLogic.sh
drwxr-x---  2 oracle oracle  4096 May 11 10:29 server_migration
drwxr-x---  2 oracle oracle  4096 May 11 10:29 service_migration
-rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle 19359 May 11 10:55 setDomainEnv.sh
-rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle  3165 May 11 10:55 setOBIDomainEnv.sh
-rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle  3219 May 11 10:55 startManagedWebLogic.sh
-rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle  5697 May 11 10:55 startWebLogic.sh
-rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle  2439 May 11 10:55 stopManagedWebLogic.sh
-rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle  2125 May 11 10:55 stopWebLogic.sh

First up, startWebLogic.sh

[oracle@demo bin]$ ./startWebLogic.sh 
SVR_GRP = 
using default 32-bit Oracle JVM memory args
.
.
JAVA Memory arguments: -Xms256m -Xmx512m
.
WLS Start Mode=Production
.
classpath and path being set
***************************************************
*  To start WebLogic Server, use a username and   *
*  password assigned to an admin-level user.  For *
*  server administration, use the WebLogic Server *
*  console at http://hostname:port/console        *
***************************************************
starting weblogic with Java version:
java version "1.6.0_24"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_24-b07)
Oracle JRockit(R) (build R28.1.3-11-141760-1.6.0_24-20110301-1430-linux-ia32, compiled mode)
Starting WLS with line:
...
more stuff here...
...
You'll be prompted for the username and password you entered upon installation
...
...
Lots more stuff here and finally you'll see these lines
<Jul 31, 2011 11:07:18 AM PDT> <Notice> <WebLogicServer> <BEA-000329> <Started WebLogic Admin Server 
"AdminServer" for domain "bifoundation_domain" running in Production Mode> 
<Jul 31, 2011 11:07:18 AM PDT> <Notice> <WebLogicServer> <BEA-000365> <Server state changed to RUNNING> 
<Jul 31, 2011 11:07:18 AM PDT> <Notice> <WebLogicServer> <BEA-000360> <Server started in RUNNING mode>

I'll usually set the title for this terminal so I can tell which window is doing what.



Now I open up a new terminal window and navigate to the same directory, this time, I'm running startManagedWebLogic.sh also known as the node manager.

[oracle@demo bin]$ ./startManagedWebLogic.sh 
Need to set SERVER_NAME and ADMIN_URL environment variables or specify
them in command line:
Usage: ./startManagedWebLogic.sh SERVER_NAME {ADMIN_URL}
for example:
./startManagedWebLogic.sh managedserver1 http://demo.us.oracle.com:7001

Oops, forgot those. Try again:

[oracle@demo bin]$ ./startManagedWebLogic.sh bi_server1 http://localhost:7001
SVR_GRP = 
using default 32-bit Oracle JVM memory args
.
.
JAVA Memory arguments: -Xms256m -Xmx512m
.
WLS Start Mode=Production
.
...blah blah blahweblog

Again prompted to enter the weblogic username and password.

Set the Title of the Window to "Node Manager" like I did for the WebLogic Server.

Open up a 3rd window and I need to navigate to a different directory.

[oracle@demo ~]$ cd /bishiphome/Middleware/instances/instance1/bin
[oracle@demo bin]$ ls -la
total 56
drwx------  3 oracle oracle  4096 May 11 10:33 .
drwx------ 13 oracle oracle  4096 May 11 10:34 ..
drwxr-x---  2 oracle oracle  4096 May 11 10:33 essbase_ha
-rwx------  1 oracle oracle 44593 May 11 10:33 opmnctl

Now I run the opmnctl

[oracle@demo bin]$ ./opmnctl startall
opmnctl startall: starting opmn and all managed processes...
[oracle@demo bin]$ ./opmnctl status

Processes in Instance: instance1
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
ias-component                    | process-type       |     pid | status  
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
coreapplication_obiccs1          | OracleBIClusterCo~ |    4627 | Alive   
coreapplication_obisch1          | OracleBIScheduler~ |    4625 | Alive   
coreapplication_obijh1           | OracleBIJavaHostC~ |    4626 | Alive   
coreapplication_obips1           | OracleBIPresentat~ |    4800 | Init    
coreapplication_obis1            | OracleBIServerCom~ |    4624 | Alive

Not everything has started yet, try again.

[oracle@demo bin]$ ./opmnctl status

Processes in Instance: instance1
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
ias-component                    | process-type       |     pid | status  
---------------------------------+--------------------+---------+---------
coreapplication_obiccs1          | OracleBIClusterCo~ |    6505 | Alive   
coreapplication_obisch1          | OracleBIScheduler~ |    6511 | Alive   
coreapplication_obijh1           | OracleBIJavaHostC~ |    6504 | Alive   
coreapplication_obips1           | OracleBIPresentat~ |    6503 | Alive   
coreapplication_obis1            | OracleBIServerCom~ |    6502 | Alive 

Yeah.

One thing to note here, you have to wait until the WebLogic Server is in the RUNNING mode before you start the opmnctl components.

Unlike Windows, the Linux version doesn't have a one-stop-shop startup script. I found one in the OTN Forums here. If you can write shell/bash (whatever) scripts, I don't think it would be terribly difficult to do on your own either.

Update
Mark Rittman left a comment (which seems to have disappeared) and hopefully it will show up eventually.

Anyway, his comment forced me to look more closely at what each of the above scripts actually do.

FYI, I stole the instructions for starting up OBIEE from the SampleApp Lite guide that was recently released. Here's a snapshot of the instructions:



Looking at startManagedWebLogic.sh, it actually calls startWebLogic.sh.

The NodeManager script is located in the <FMW_HOME>/wlserver_10.3/server/bin directory.

Even after messing around with this beast for close to a year now, I still have much to learn.

The Podcast

Last year at OOW I met one Mr. Christian Screen from The Art of Business Intelligence.

We've managed to keep in touch over that time and about a month ago he asked if I'd be interested in doing a podcast with him.

What? You want me to talk? Sure! I love to talk!

After some back and forth, we finally settled on a date and time...

Christian did a great job with the sound, I don't sound as scary as I normally do.

Here are some highlights:
- I managed to say "America's Wang" in reference to Florida within the first 5 minutes. I probably need a new joke, I seemed to have said that a lot last year at OOW.
- I talk about how John Piwowar (@jpiwowar) p0wned oraclenerd with 4 posts (out of 727).
- Data Scientists: This was a topic Christian brought up. I've read a little bit about the term, hopefully I'll pick up some more of it in the near future.
- I did not talk about Gwen Shapira's "Faxing" comment.
- OBIEE 10g vs 11g
- I'm sure I mentioned Jake (@jkuramot) in there too, possibly a kidney reference.
- I almost forgot, I got to mention Oracle's Person of the Year (OPY award?), again (not sure if that will get old to me).

Hopefully I didn't get myself into too much trouble.

You can listen to the podcast here.

OBIEE + WLS

Something I've been thinking about for quite some time, I think I'm ready to jot them down.

In 10g, anyone with a laptop, free space and time could spin it up. That's awesome for people that want to learn the tool. It's awesome to get things up and running quickly.

The problem though, as I see it, it allows people like me to become "server" admins.

Let's couch it in DBA terms.

I can perform many DBA activities; install the database (now on Linux!), create tablespaces, etc. The basics. What I can't do, or lack right now, is the ability to plan for the future size and growth. I'm sure if I sat down for a little while and thought about it, I could come up with a semi-decent plan, but...

You need production DBAs, no, you want production DBAs doing this work (or at least someone with a fair amount of experience in this arena). My reasoning? I lack that experience of "what could go wrong" because I've never been tasked with, "this is your database, keep it running 24x7x365."

I live in a dream world where I (think) know everything that could go wrong. I don't.

With 11g and the WebLogic Server integration, I see a split beginning.

Now, I know a little bit about a lot of different things (kind of like my DBA skills), but the deeper I get into WLS, the more I realize I don't know much.

A recent episode involving security and SSO configuration has taken a trip through Oracle Virtual Directory (OVD), Oracle Access Manager (OAM) and a bunch of other things I know little about. Am I expected to be an expert in all these things as well? Sure, I'm curious and want to learn as much as I can, but is that a reasonable thing to expect? To me, that sounds like an Identity Management person.

Performance. Where do I even start? Apache seems relatively easy to manage, it screams on my single user system. I've never seen high volumes of traffic consequently I haven't had to build out a server farm. WLS is beastly. There are so many moving pieces, it's tough to know where to start. Is it OPMN, the node managers or is it the BI Server?

I think this is where the split will occur.

You will see a greater delineation of duties in the future. The development side, RPD (mappings), BI Publisher and Analysis (formerly Answers) and the Administrative side, which will handle making sure the server is tuned to peak capacity, SSO works correctly and it's sized appropriately for a given environment.

This is especially true when more and more products get released on the Fusion Middleware (FMW) platform...admin duties will fall to a sysadmin type.

That's my though, not especially well written...in my brain, it sounds great, on the screen, not so much.

San Dimas High School football rules!

BI Forum: Day 2 (Atlanta)

Part I, Day 1 is here.

Agenda
Jean-Pierre Dijcks - Memory MADness: How to Apply Big Speed to Big Data Analysis
Shyam Varan Nath - Tips and Tricks from OBI Application Implementations
Panel Session 2 - Should all BI projects by Agile?
Jacques Vigeant - Overview of Oracle Scorecard & Sneak Peak at 11.1.1.4
Greg Vlahos - How-to Tips for Integrating Essbase in OBIEE

Jean-Pierre Dijcks
I met JP at the Exadata SIG, and I've been reading his blog ever since. Super smart, witty, and funny, all combined to make for an interesting presentation. First off, you'll note there is no link to his presentation, that's because the contents are top secret; we were all forced to sign multiple NDAs. OK, maybe I'm dreaming there.

His presentation got my vote for best speaker (yes, that's kind of mixing things up, sue me).

Shyam Varan Nath
Shyam is Mr. Everything. He's running (or was, not sure) the Exadata SIG and the BIWA SIG. Same as JP, I met him at the Exadata SIG last year in Las Vegas.

I haven't gotten into OBIA much just yet, kinda of sitting on the edges watching for now. From my understanding, OBIA is a set of pre-built reports on top of a pre-built datawarehouse that is loaded with pre-built ETL (Informatica). The value proposition is that it gets you up and running very quickly. Naturally, if you have a lot of customizations in your source systems (PeopleSoft, EBS, JD Edwards, etc), you'll have more work on your hands.

The latest release of OBIA, 7.9.6.3 was mainly to integrate with OBIEE 11g; 7.9.6.2 was supported but not certified.

Panel Session 2
This was essentially a continuation of Stewart Bryson's presentation the day before, Agile Data Warehousing with Exadata and OBIEE11g. Mr. Bryson was the "impartial" moderator.

A lively discussion with one panelist, no 2 (shaved head) panelists taking both sides, Waterfall and Agile. I think the final answer is "It Depends." Unfortunately I don't remember the actual winner.

Jacques Vigeant
Mr. Vigeant presented on Scorecard; this was my first exposure to the tool (Scorecard, not Jacques). I'm still a little hazy on what it does, my impression is that it essentially allows you to create Goals and then set alerts based on certain conditions. Pretty slick stuff, but I'm not even close to that yet.

Greg Vlahos
First off, poor Mr. Vlahos, he had the last slot of the conference...it was down to 75% capacity, if that.

Topic: Essbase

Quite a hot topic too, if demand is an indicator, and it is.

I'm still not sure of the difference between Essbase and Oracle OLAP cubes, but that's a different question.

Mr. Vlahos described the Essbase cube as "Aggregate tables on steroids" which sounds about right. If you're using Essbase, definitely a good read.

BI Forum: Day 1 (Atlanta)

Here's the schedule:

Jeff McQuigg - Advanced OBIEE Metadata Topics
Kevin McGinley - Mobility & OBIEE: There are Options
Suyog Rao - BIEE Security: Deep dive into understanding and troubleshooting security aspects
Phillipe Lions - What's coming in OBIEE 11.1.1.5, and Hidden Gems of OBIEE 11g
Panel Discussion 1 - OBIEE 11g - Was it worth the wait?
Stewart Bryson - Agile Data Warehousing with Exadata and OBIEE 11g

Jeff McQuigg
I've heard and read lots of good things about Jeff (none of them true by the way) so I was very much looking forward to his presentation. Bonus points to Jeff for running Brew Palace (I couldn't find Natural Light though...dangit). I seem to surround myself with beer people, good beer people (also known as beer snobs), so I do drink decent beer away from home.

The highlights based on his presentation agenda:
- Combo Tables - Basically tables that mix attributes and measures. In short, create 2 logical tables using the same physical source. Put your attributes in the Dimension and your measures in the Facts. I know this method which makes me appreciate one of my mentors even more.
- Make Dims & Facts Reach - Surprising result to me, putting the bridge table along with the Fact table is more performant. I thought it was the other way around. Something learned. Bonus.
- Non-Conformed Dimensions - Solution #2 involved setting the levels, though not necessarily at the table (Content) level, but at the metric level...for every single metric. That was counterintuitive, of course, but what can you do. I thank the mentor again though.
- Canonical Time - First, thanks mentor. Second, Jeff calls this the old-school way or the Siebel way. It's the method I have used. Though if left to my own I would probably go the other way, creating a different (aliased) date dimension for each slice. I think what Jeff said is true, it's more intuitive this way.

I'm pretty sure at this point my brain was full. So you'll have to go through the presentation yourself on the last 2.
- Selecting a Logical Table Source
- Controlling Join Paths

Kevin McGinley
So the first 2 guys had shaved heads, a sign of good things to come.

Kevin presented on the mobile aspects of OBIEE. I follow Jake at the AppsLab, so I'm fairly up to speed with the concepts in general. I did get to show Kevin Untappd, which is a Foursquare like web app for the phone, but for beer, not locations (see how this is all tying in?). I understand the native vs. web app, in most circumstances I would choose the web app first and then consider a native app. Unfortunately, it's difficult to change skins in the presentation layer. I need to attend a nice session on doing that one of these days.

BTW, check out Kevin's appendix, lots of really good information there.

Suyog Rao
If there ever was a villain, it was Suyog.

Security was a hot topic. I won't pretend I know a lot about security in 10g or 11g so I won't really opine. All I do know is that there was quite a lot of audience participation (i.e. WhyTF did you do that? That won't work! etc.). I wish I could have stayed the whole time, but I got a migraine and ducked out for the remainder of the day.

If I did get anything from that session, it's that Suyog gives a shit. That's a good thing.

So I missed Phillipe's and Stewart's presentations and also the panel discussion. I had planned on taking the side of "It was worth the wait" just because I didn't believe it was, but no go for me.

BI Forum: Masterclass

I spent last week in Atlanta, GA for the first ever BI Forum state-side.

I tend to write a lot during these events, but since I decided to rebuild my laptop the day before I went, I hadn't worked out all the kinks (specifically my wireless adapter), I hardly used the thing. I spent the majority of time on "my" table, the Motorola Xoom. Since getting this device, my son has owned it...which appears to be the norm in most households with young children.

Day 1, technically Day Zero
This was a Masterclass by Mark Rittman (@markrittman) and Tony Heljula (Hallelujah!) (@aheljula).

Mark was up first and spoke about OBIEE 11g Architecture and Internals (pdf). It was nice to get a big picture view from the architecture side from someone who has been working with the latest release for quite some time. From my understanding, this is the very first Fusion-like app released...but I could be wrong. Mark ran long, everyone had lots of questions which Mark graciously answered.

Big Side Note
Please bring an extra liver to these types of events, especially if you have a number of people from the UK in attendance. I have a beer or 3 regularly, but this is just nuts. I declined invitations to go out too (which got me quite a bit of ribbing). My roommate, Jason Baer (former colleague and now RM employee) was ruthless. He'd roll in around 3 AM, wake me up, give me a hard time and then get up before me, shower and dressed before I even woke up. I'm getting old.

Next up was Tony Heljula. I had never even heard of Tony before that day...either I'm losing my touch or he's hidden himself somehow on the European Internet.

BTW, you don't pronounce his name Hallelujah, but I do now. It is easier to remember.

Tony spoke after Mark on the Spatial and Mapping Integration in 11g. I've used neither of these components; the Map Viewer in OBIEE nor the spatial stuff built into the database. Very, very cool things you can do there.

Lunch. No beer. Thankfully.

Mark was up again on OBIEE 11g BI Server New Features and RPD Modeling. To summarize some of the new features:
- ID Columns for Descriptive Columns ("Double-columns")
- Lookup Tables (Yeah!)
- Support for Ragged, Skip-Level and Parent-Child Hierarchies
- Hierarchical Subject Area Columns
- LTS Priorirty Ordering
- Repository Passwords
- Deployment of Repository Files using FMW Control

I've followed the Rittman Mead blog closely since the release of 11g, so not much of this was new to me, but it was fun to see Mark speak for the first time.

To end the day, Tony spoke on SOA integration. You might wonder WTF that has to do with OBIEE...I did, at first. As he worked through his example though, it made perfect sense. The question I didn't get to ask was whether SOA was the way forward and the OBIEE write-back functionality would be deprecated eventually...I'll get an answer to that shortly I hope. Read Tony's presentation here.

For all the presentations, both in Brighton and Atlanta, check out Mark's post today.

Great first day...it had been some time since I could just relax and take-in the presentation without worry of blogging right after, which was nice.

Brighton is on year 3, this was the first event in Atlanta. Here's to making this an annual event.

Update Connection Pools in OBIEE 11g

This is not rocket science, but I've had to document this a number of times so that the production/operations/DBA team(s) can go in an update the password. I'm tired of redoing it every time.

After logging into the production server that contains the client tools, go to Start ==> All Programs ==> Oracle Business Intelligence and select the BI Administration tool



That will open up a shell window and eventuall the BI Administration tool will pop up.

Select File ==> Open ==> Online



A challenge screen will then be opened:



Enter the Repository Password, User and Password

You'll then be greeted with the metadata for the online repository.



There are 3 layers to an OBIEE metadata repository:
- Presentation
- Business Model and Mapping (BMM)
- Physical

You only need to worry about the physical.

The arrows in the above picture point to the objects that you will need to modify, the Connection Pools.

Double click on the Connection Pool you need to update. You'll be asked if you would like to check it out.



Select Yes.

Now the important part. The Connection Pool properties box will open up. Make sure you are on the General tab and then locate the Password text field.



Enter the password for the specific user into the Password text field.

When you hit OK, you'll be prompted for the password again.



Enter it and hit OK.

Repeat this step for each of the Connection Pools in the environment. Each physical database has one or more Connection Pools, so you must update them all.

Now you must Check in your changes and then Save them.



After hitting the Check in button and the changes have been, checked in, that button will become grayed out. When that happens, click on the Save button.

These changes will be immediately applied to the repository.

OBIEE 11g: Fun With Folders!

I've had a bit of time to play with 11g lately. One thing that really jumps out is the directory structure.

In 10g, it was relatively easy. You had 2 folders created at the root, OracleBI and OracleBIData. Most of the server specific stuff (logs, binaries, etc.) are in OracleBI. Pretty easy to navigate. With the introduction of 11g and the integration with WebLogic, the directory structure has exploded. With that, the relative ease of finding files for the new guy or gal, is gone.

If you want a good overview of the current directory structure, read OBIEE 11g - Demystifying the directory structure by Jainnys (couldn't find any more information).

Now, the fun part.

The following group of folders is repeated no less than 7 times:

OracleBIClusterControllerComponent
OracleBIJavaHostComponent
OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent
OracleBISchedulerComponent
OracleBIServerComponent

Here are there locations:

\Oracle\middleware\instances\instance1

\Oracle\middleware\instances\instance1\bifoundation

Note that this one is only one level below the previous.

\Oracle\middleware\instances\instance1\tmp

\Oracle\middleware\instances\instance1\config

Ditto for those.

\Oracle\middleware\instances\instance1\diagnostics\logs

Two levels below that top one...

Let's switch it up a little; go back a couple of levels and start drilling again.

\Oracle\middleware\Oracle_BI1\bifoundation\admin\config

\Oracle\middleware\Oracle_BI1\bifoundation\admin\provisioning

Just a fun little observation. I would imagine there are legit reasons for this kind of directory structure...but I certainly don't understand it yet.

OBIEE 11g: Admin Tool Now Available...

...as a separate download. Timing couldn't be worse, personally. But I'm glad it's finally out.

Twitter = Discovery - Part 531



Found in Mr. Rittman's stream.

I've complained a lot about the 11g version of OBIEE, perhaps not here a lot, but trust me, I have complained. I don't mind the integration with WebLogic, I understand that move. It's just so darn...well, it's just painful.

This move rectifies part of it, the install process. Before this, you had to install the entire stack and then disable the services...just to get the Admin tool.

Find the download page here. README is here.