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Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 12c

Chapter 1. Oracle BI 12c Architecture

Fans of the Oracle BI suite of products will find Oracle Business Intelligence (Oracle BI) 12c a refreshing software version, both from its visual advancements and its technical foundation changes. This version of Oracle BI brings Oracle's flagship analytics system to the next level while maintaining its core enterprise-architecture concepts. The updated architecture allows for easier scalability of the solution across multiple servers, brings departmental BI and data visualization concepts into the mix, and strengthens its deployment processes with its new lifecycle-management tools. This chapter focuses on an overview of the Oracle BI 12c architecture, with occasional references to its predecessor to give some perspective as to how far the Oracle BI 12 release has come in terms of a more straightforward implementation process and increased functionality.

Let's look at the big picture

Going right for the guts of the platform, it is best to understand how the Oracle BI 12c system is laid out by looking at the logical interoperability of the architectural components. Oracle BI 12c is a combination of several core technologies, which reside as common software components within the Oracle Fusion Middleware (FMW) stack inside the Oracle software eco-system.

The following illustration shows some of Oracle BI 12c's logical architecture components. Users of Oracle BI 11g will find some of this topology familiar, yet clearly different in many ways:

Oracle BI Domain: This is the core architecture of Oracle BI 12c
WebLogic Server: This is the chosen application server for Oracle BI 12c
Service Instance: The structural housing for all critical Oracle BI artifacts (metadata) that would allow delineated movement from one environment to another (also multi-tenancy in future releases)
Javacomponents: These are the components which have been written in Java for Oracle BI 12c. They are deployed to the application server and WebLogic Server
BI System Components: These are the components which have been written mainly in C++ for Oracle BI 12c
Oracle BI relational repository: This is a set of database schemas (BIPLATFORM and MDS) that store metadata related to a specific Oracle BI 12c instance
Oracle BI filesystem: This is the instructional set of physical files and directories containing configuration, logs, and metadata concerning the Oracle BI 12c instance

Similar to the Oracle BI 11g environment, once the software has been installed, all of the components in the architecture topology shown will exist. These components are transparent to the end users (that is, users in the organization who will view dashboards, reports, receive alerts, and so on). However, for the Oracle BI 12c administrators, and those that need to work with the technical aspect of the system, each of these areas of the Oracle BI 12c architecture is very important.

Why is there a database repository for OBIEE?

Similar to the previous Oracle BI version, Oracle BI 12c requires a relational database repository schema to hold metadata concerning the installation, report scheduling, usage tracking, auditing, and other aspects of the environment. As an initial set of steps in the installation process, these very necessary repositories are created using the Repository Creation Utility (RCU) against the selected database server. Chapter 2, Installing the Pre-requisite Software, goes into greater detail about this crucial repository structure. In Oracle BI 11g, two database schemas were installed with the RCU-Metadata Services (MDS) and BIPLATFORM. However, in Oracle BI 12c there can be up to nine database repository schemas for Oracle BI 12c that can be installed via the Oracle BI 12c RCU. There are now even more repository schemas that must be installed for Oracle BI 12c to be correctly installed and configured. The additional required schemas will have the suffixes WLS, WLS_RUNTIME, STB, and OPSS. Other schemas available are for auditing purposes, if optionally chosen for the implementation.

Note

Another interesting fact is that the Oracle BI Metadata Repository (RPD) is still a file, typically prefixed as RPD (that is, .rpd extension) and even in the latest version of Oracle BI the metadata is not stored in any database repository.

The Oracle BI Metadata Repository is the metadata storage mechanism in which Oracle BI developers model and map physical data sources to logical business representations in order for the resulting analytics to be easily consumed by end users.

The term Oracle BI Domain, as noted previously and shown in the illustration, is used as a way to group all Oracle BI 12c components within the Fusion Middleware (that is, WebLogic Server) architecture. This should not be confused with the WebLogic Application Server Domain, which is given the default name bi when following the default Oracle BI 12c installation options. The latter is a WebLogic Java Application Server term. The former is a Fusion Middleware term. Since Fusion Middleware is so closely related to the WebLogic Application Server, this is good to keep in mind from a technical perspective.

Note

When learning about the overall component composition, a very important detail to keep in mind is the manner in which the components are managed. Since WebLogic Server is a Java application server, it manages all of the Oracle BI components developed in the Java programming language. The Oracle BI System Components are now managed by the WebLogic Management Framework (WMF) which is the same system that manages the WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) functionality.

Overall components

There are many components that comprise Oracle BI 12c. Oracle BI 12c can categorize these components by the class of programming languages in which they were developed. This is mainly either Java or C++. In comparison to previous versions of Oracle BI, where it seemed to be a somewhat compact environment, Oracle BI 12c is much more integrated into the larger platform of Fusion Middleware, which adds both value and complexity. Some of the same legacy component names persist; however, it should not be taken lightly that most legacy components have been renamed, removed, or placed under new management processes.

The following figure provides a high-level overview of the main components that comprise the Oracle BI 11g architecture. The components are clearly segmented by the processes in which they are managed, each of which ultimately comprise the Oracle BI Domain:

Java components

In relation to Oracle BI 12c, the Java components are those which have been developed in the Java programming language. These components are similar to Oracle BI 11g, with a few differences. The main Java for Oracle BI 12c components, in no particular order of importance, are described in the following sections.

Action Service

Primarily used by the Action Framework, it executes actions on behalf of Presentation Services and Oracle BI Scheduler. Actions may be invocations of third-party web services, or invocations of user-supplied Java code executed as EJBs.

Visual Analyzer

New to Oracle BI 12c, this JEE deployment provides the Visual Analyzer (VA) analytical graphics system, which allows for data visualizations.

Administrative Components

Java Management Extensions Managed Beans (JMX MBeans) allow dynamic API functionality for managing, configuring, and administering Oracle BI 12c.

SOA Web Service

SOA Web Service provides a web service interface to the contents of the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. The tree of objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog is exposed as a tree of web services, defined by a WSIL tree with WSDL leaves. An organization could use these services for Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) integration.

Oracle BI Office

Oracle BI Office provides integration between Microsoft Office and Oracle BI 12c.

Oracle Real-Time Decisions (RTD)

Oracle Real-Time Decisions (RTD) provides a decision-making rules engine that enables real-time business intelligence predictions and outcome analysis.

Oracle BI Presentation Service plugin

Presentation Services runs as a deployed JEE process, not as a web server, and does not communicate using any web server plug-in API. The Oracle BI Presentation Services Plug-in forwards HTTP requests to Oracle BI Presentation Services System Component to handle requests from HTTP traffic, such as browser-based user interfaces or SOAP requests.

Oracle BI Publisher

The enterprise reporting solution for authoring and delivering highly formatted documents.

Security Services

Security Services provides standards-based authentication and population services. It enables Oracle BI Server to integrate with the Fusion Middleware security platform, which includes the Credential Store Framework and the Identity Store.

System Components

There are many components that comprise Oracle BI 12c. These mainly need to be all in a running state in order for Oracle BI 12c to be considered in running condition - the only exception being the Essbase component. The Oracle BI System Components are those which are developed in a non-Java programming language. Most have been developed in the C++ programming language, as mentioned previously. The following sections cover a list of those components.

BI Server

This is a C++ process that does the data access and aggregates data from data sources. You can configure multiple BI Server processes, which share the load. No session replication takes place between the BI Server processes. This is the core of OBIEE, and provides the services for accessing and managing the RPD.

The BI Server does not maintain user session state. For high-availability deployments, query results are cached in the global cache.

BI Presentation Server

This is a C++ process that generates the user interface pages and renders result sets on behalf of the Oracle BI Scheduler. You can configure multiple Presentation Services processes, which share the load. No session replication takes place between the Presentation Services processes.

Presentation Services is almost stateless. The only significant state is the client authentication. If Oracle Business Intelligence is configured to use single sign on for authentication purposes, then users do not have to re-authenticate after a failover. For all other authentication schemes, when failover occurs, clients will have to re-authenticate. The client sees an interruption of service and is redirected to a login page.

BI Scheduler

This is a C++ process that runs jobs according to a configurable frequency. Jobs may be agents created in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, or jobs created by the job manager. This scheduler differs from the Quartz scheduler that BI Publisher leverages. When scaled, only a maximum of two instances (one active, one passive) can be configured.

BI JavaHost

This is a Java process that includes resource-intensive graph and PDF rendering. It also allows BI Presentation Services to support BI Publisher and Java tasks within BI Scheduler. You can configure multiple JavaHost processes, which share the load. No session replication takes place between the JavaHost processes. The JavaHost is a stateless process. In Oracle BI 12c, JavaHost enables query access between Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and Hyperion planning data sources integrated in the OBIEE RPD.

BI Server Cluster Controller

This is a C++ process that manages the population of BI Servers and Oracle BI Schedulers. It also distributes requests to the BI Server and ensures that requests are evenly load-balanced across scaled-out BI Servers in the domain. When scaled, only a maximum of two instances (one active, one passive) can be configured.

Essbase

This is the Essbase server, which provides Oracle/Hyperion Essbase capabilities for the Oracle BI implementation.

It is important to understand how all of the components interact within the Oracle BI environment. Understanding such general concepts as which port numbers are defined to communicate within the default Oracle BI architecture, or how the Oracle BI Administration Tool communicates with the Oracle BI repository, will be quite helpful in your journey to becoming an Oracle BI professional. The following figure shows each of the components comprising the core Oracle BI architecture, the communication ports, and the communication direction:

WebLogic Server

Let's talk a little more in detail about the enterprise application server that is at the core of Oracle Fusion Middleware, WebLogic. Oracle WebLogic Server is a scalable, enterprise-ready Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application server. Its infrastructure supports the deployment of many types of distributed applications. It is also an ideal foundation for building service-oriented architecture (SOA). You can already see why BEA was a perfect acquisition for Oracle years ago. Or, more to the point, a perfect core for Fusion Middleware.

The WebLogic Server is a robust application in itself. In Oracle BI 12c, the WebLogic Server is crucial to the overall implementation, not just from installation but throughout the Oracle BI 12c lifecycle, which now takes advantage of the WebLogic Management Framework. Learning the management components of WebLogic Server that ultimately control the Oracle BI components is critical to the success of an implementation. These management areas within the WebLogic Server are referred to as the WebLogic Administration Server, WebLogic Manager Server(s) , and the WebLogic Node Manager.

A few WebLogic Server nuances

Before we move on to a description for each of those areas within WebLogic, it is also important to understand that the WebLogic Server software that is used for the installation of the Oracle BI product suite carries a limited license. Although the software itself is the full enterprise version and carries full functionality, the license that ships with Oracle BI 12c is not a full enterprise license for WebLogic Server for your organization to spin off other siloed JEE deployments on other non-OBIEE servers. This book is hardly a guide to software licensing, but following are a few of those differences one should keep in mind when beginning or continuing an Oracle BI 12c implementation:

Clustered from the installation: The WebLogic Server license provided with out-of-the-box Oracle BI 12c does not allow for horizontal scale-out. An enterprise WebLogic Server license needs be obtained for this advanced functionality.
Contains an Embedded Web/HTTP Server, not Oracle HTTP Server (OHS): WebLogic Server does not contain a separate HTTP server with the installation. The Oracle BI Enterprise Deployment Guide (available on https://www.oracle.com/index.html) discusses separating the Application tier from the Web/HTTP tier, suggesting Oracle HTTP Server.

These items are simply a few nuances of the product suite in relation to Oracle BI 12c. Most software products contain a short list such as this one. However, once you understand the nuances, the easier it will be to ensure that you have a more successful implementation. It also allows your team to be as prepared in advance as possible. Be sure to consult your Oracle sales representative to assist with licensing concerns.

Despite these nuances, we highly recommend that in order to learn more about the installation features, configuration options, administration, and maintenance of WebLogic, you not only research it in relation to Oracle BI, but also in relation to its standalone form. That is to say that there is much more information (books, blogs, and so on) at large on the topic of WebLogic Server itself than WebLogic Server as it relates to Oracle BI. Understanding this approach to self-educating or web searching should provide you with more efficient results.

WebLogic Domain

The highest unit of management for controlling the WebLogic Server installation is called a domain. A domain is a logically related group of WebLogic Server resources that you manage as a unit. A domain always includes, and is centrally managed by, one Administration Server. Additional WebLogic Server instances, which are controlled by the Administration Server for the domain, are called Managed Servers. The configuration for all the servers in the domain is stored in the configuration repository, the config.xml file, which resides on the machine hosting the Administration Server.

Upon installing and configuring Oracle BI 12c, the domain bi is established within the WebLogic Server. This domain is the recommended name for each Oracle BI 12c implementation and should not be modified.

The domain path for the bi domain may appear as ORACLE_HOME/user_projects/domains/bi .

This directory for the bi domain is also referred to as the DOMAIN_HOME or BI_DOMAIN folder.

WebLogic Administration Server

The WebLogic Server is an enterprise software suite that manages a myriad of application server components, mainly focusing on Java technology. It is also comprised of many ancillary components, which enable the software to scale well, and also make it a good choice for distributed environments and high-availability. Clearly, it is good enough to be at the core of Oracle Fusion Middleware. One of the most crucial components of WebLogic Server is WebLogic Administration Server. When installing the WebLogic Server software, the Administration Server is automatically installed with it. It is the Administration Server that not only controls all subsequent WebLogic Server instances, called Managed Servers, but also controls such aspects as authentication-provider security (for example, LDAP) and other application-server-related configurations.

WebLogic Server installs on the operating system and ultimately runs as a service on that machine. The WebLogic Server can be managed in several ways. The two main methods are via the Graphical User Interface (GUI) web application called WebLogic Administration Console, or via a command line using the WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST). You access the Administration Console from any networked machine using a web-based client (that is, a web browser) that can communicate with the Administration Server through the network and/or firewall.

The WebLogic Administration Server and the WebLogic Server are basically synonymous. If the WebLogic Server is not running, the WebLogic Administration Console will be unavailable as well.

WebLogic Managed Server

Web applications, Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), and other resources are deployed onto one or more Managed Servers in a WebLogic Server Domain. A managed server is an instance of a WebLogic Server in a WebLogic Server Domain. Each WebLogic Server Domain has at least one instance, which acts as the Administration Server just discussed. One administration server per domain must exist, but one or more managed servers may exist in the WebLogic Server Domain.

In a production deployment, Oracle BI is deployed into its own managed server. The Oracle BI installer installs two WebLogic server instances, the Admin Server and a managed server, bi_server1. Oracle BI is deployed into the managed server bi_server1, and is configured by default to resolve to port 9502; the Admin Server resolves to port 9500. Historically, this has been port 9704 for the Oracle BI managed server, and port 7001 for the Admin Server.

When administering the WebLogic Server via the Administration Console, the WebLogic Administration Server instance appears in the same list of servers, which also includes any managed servers. As a best practice, the WebLogic Administration Server should be used for configuration and management of the WebLogic Server only, and not contain any additionally deployed applications, EJBs, and so on.

Note

One thing to note is that the Enterprise Manager Fusion Control is actually a JEE application deployed to the Administration Server instance, which is why its web client is accessible under the same port as the Admin Server. It is not necessarily a native application deployment to the core WebLogic Server, but gets deployed and configured during the Oracle BI installation and configuration process automatically. In the deployments page within the Administration Console, you will find a deployment namedem.

WebLogic Node Manager

The general idea behind Node Manager is that it takes on somewhat of a middle-man role. That is to say, the Node Manager provides a communication tunnel between the WebLogic Administration Server and any Managed Servers configured within the WebLogic Domain. When the WebLogic Server environment is contained on a single physical server, it may be difficult to recognize the need for a Node Manager. It is very necessary and, as part of any of your ultimate start-up and shutdown scripts for Oracle BI, the Node Manager lifecycle management will have to be a part of that process. Node Manager's real power comes into play when Oracle BI is scaled out horizontally on one or more physical servers. Each scaled-out deployment of WebLogic Server will contain a Node Manager.

If the Node Manager is not running on the server on which the Managed Server is deployed, then the core Administration Server will not be able to issue start or stop commands to that server. As such, if the Node Manager is down, communication with the overall cluster will be affected. The following figure shows how machines A, B, and C are physically separated, each containing a Node Manager. You can see that the Administration Server communicates to the Node Manager, and not the Managed Server, directly:

Key benefits

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Description

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 12c is packed full of features and has a fresh approach to information presentation, system management, and security. OBIEE can help any organization to understand its data, to make useful information from data, and to ensure decision-making is supported by facts. OBIEE can focus on information that needs action, alerting users when conditions are met. OBIEE can be used for data analysis, form production, dashoarding, and workflow processes. We will introduce you to OBIEE features and provide a step-by-step guide to build a complete system from scratch. With this guide, you will be equipped with a good basic understanding of what the product contains, how to install and configure it, and how to create effective Business Intelligence. This book contains the necessary information for a beginner to create a high-performance OBIEE 12c system. This book is also a guide that explains how to use an existing OBIEE 12c system, and shows end users how to create.

Who is this book for?

If your job includes working on data, improving the financial or operational performance of your organization or you are a consultant for the above, then this book is for you. If you have been placed on a business intelligence project, then this book is for you. If you are the Project Manager, Business Analyst or Data Scientist then this book is for you. If you are an end user of Oracle Business Intelligence, then this book is for you too. Having a basic understanding of databases and the use of Business Intelligence is expected, but no knowledge of Oracle BI is required.

What you will learn

Install OBIEE in Windows, including how to create the underlying Weblogic Application server and the required database

Build the BI system repository, the vital engine connecting your data to the front end of Oracle BI

Develop effective analysis, draw out meaning from the data, and present it to end users on interactive dashboards

Build pixel-perfect, printable reports using the embedded BI Publisher feature

Build agents for actionable insight and enable your users to act on Business Intelligence at their desktop or on the move

Understand the various aspects of securing the Oracle BI system, from data restrictions to whole dashboard access rights

Get acquainted with the system management tools and methods available for the continuous improvement of your system

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