Exalytics - Patch Set 5 ( Exalytics PS5)

Oracle released the PatchSet 5 for Exalytics last week.

Here are some highlights:

Base Image upgrade

Majority of the patch is confined to the Base Image.

New base image - 1.0.0.7 to include kernel upgrade to 2.6.39-400. additional drivers and firmware upgrade for X4-4 machines.

It comes with an Upgrade utility which will allow for patching a PS4 machine to PS5.

Virtual Deployments Upgrade

 VM server upgrade to 3.2.8, and guest kernel to 2.6.39-400

Additional software certification

Oracle Database In-Memory: 

Oracle database 12c EE (rel 12.1.0.2) with in-memory edition is now certified with Exalytics when run in Data Warehouse mode. (No OLTP support)

Does this mark the end of TT on Exalytics?

I will update this as we upgrade a client's machine to PS5!

Sachin
Architect - Oracle Engineered Systems
Exalytics/Exalogic/Exadata
BuzzClan LLC

BuzzClan is a business consulting company collaborating to provide Oracle software advisory services & implementation services. BuzzClan LLC is committed to providing substantive business value on each and every client engagement. We do this through a combination of industry-specific business expertise, technical skills, proven project management methods and our “onsite - off site - offshore” delivery model. We strive to work in partnership with our customers to build high-performance teams and create business solutions that will last.

OBIEE - Multitenancy - Presentation Catalog

As discussed in the previous post, OBIEE: Multitenancy Implementations generally involve a varied user base with different needs from the underlying data warehouse. Furthermore, the users are also able to expand the presentation catalog on their own during the lifetime of this implementation.

So, ideally, the provider will present the users with a basic set of reports and dashboards which will be deemed universal for the subject areas being covered. These will be designed after consulting with various user groups from different target audience (tenant groups). The provider should also generate basic templates which can be extended for ad hoc analysis to ensure that the users are utilizing the power of the underlying BI platform.

As this blog is focused primarily around OBIEE and supporting Oracle echo system, I will say that this should be given to the users so they can benefit from the ad hoc capabilities provided by OBIEE. With proper training, the users can form a 'power user' group within their rank-and-file. These power users can create custom reports for specific tenants or groups within them. In addition, the provider can offer custom consulting for a fee and come up with reports and dashboards for specific tenants.

To summarize:

• Global reports and dashboards for all
• Global templates for everyone to use as the starting point for ad hoc analysis
• Personal space for each users where they can save
• frequently used ad-hoc analysis
• work-in-progress before the artifacts are released for use with others within the tenancy
• Directories for each tenant to share
• Custom reports among themselves
• Proof-of-concept reports for validation (access may be restricted to certain auditors only)
• Custom development done by the provider - often for a fee - available only to users of the particular tenant. Artifacts from this section may eventually find its way into the global area, depending on popularity, maturity of the offering, etc.

Of course, all of these need to be properly secured. There will be sub-directories/sections which will have appropriate authorization considerations based on the user’s role within the tenancy.

Sachin
Architect - Oracle Engineered Systems
Exalytics/Exalogic/Exadata
BuzzClan LLC

BuzzClan is a business consulting company collaborating to provide Oracle software advisory services & implementation services. BuzzClan LLC is committed to providing substantive business value on each and every client engagement. We do this through a combination of industry-specific business expertise, technical skills, proven project management methods and our “onsite - off site - offshore” delivery model. We strive to work in partnership with our customers to build high-performance teams and create business solutions that will last.

What Constitutes an Exalytics Implementation

This is part 2 of a series of articles discussing Exalytics components:

Part I - Exalytics In Memory - Software Features

After defining Exalytics In-Memory Software in a previous post, let's continue the discussion by identifying the Exalytics machine's hardware and software components.

Side-by-Side Comparison of the Various Exalytics Systems (i.e. X2-4, X3-4 and T5-8)?

Feature	Exalytics X2-4	Exalytics X3-4	Exalytics T5-8
Processors	4 Intel XEON E7-4870 40 Cores	4 Intel XEON E7-4800 40 Cores	8 SPARC T5 128 Cores
Dynamic Random-Access Memory	1 TB	2 TB *	4 TB
Hard Disk Drive	3.6 TB	5.4 TB *	7.2 TB
PCI Flash Storage	None	2.4 TB *	3.2 TB
Networking	40 Gbps InfinBand - 2 Ports 10 Gbps Ethernet - 2 Ports 8 GbpsFibre channel - 2 Ports 1 Gbps Ethernet - 4 Ports	40 Gbps InfinBand - 2 Ports 10 Gbps Ethernet - 2 Ports 8 GbpsFibre channel - 2 Ports 1 Gbps Ethernet - 4 Ports	40 Gbps InfinBand - 4 Ports 10 Gbps Ethernet - 4 Ports 8 GbpsFibre channel - 4 Ports

 *upgrade kits available for additional memory and flash storage

Pasted from <Oracle Exalytics BI In-Memory Machine Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) (Doc ID 1435778.1)> 

Software Certification Matrix: (Certification Matrix)

	Exalytics X2-4 Exalytics X3-4 -OR- Exalytics X3-4 with Upgrade Kits		Exalytics T5-8
Server Operating System	Exalytics Base Image on Linux x86-64 1.0.0.6		Exalytics  -Oracle Solaris 11.1 SRU11.4 (64 bit)
OS Kernel Version	Exalytics  -Oracle Linux 5.8 (UL5)  with UEK Linux Kernel Version Number: 2.6.32-400.11.1.el5uek		N/A
Exalytics Base Image for Oracle VM	2.0.1.3		N/A
Exalytics Base Image Kernel for OVM	Oracle Linux UL5  with UEK - Oracle Linux Server release 5.6 Kernel 2.6.39-300.32.6.el5uek on an x86_64		N/A
Exalytics Oracle VM Template (Guest)	2.0.1.3		N/A
Exalytics Oracle VM Template (Guest) Kernel	Oracle Linux UL5  with UEK - Oracle Linux Server release 5.6 Kernel 2.6.32-200.21.2.el5uek on an x86_64		N/A
BI Foundation	OBIEE 11.1.1.7.x,   TimesTen 11.2.2.5.x, 11.2.2.6.x Essbase 11.1.2.2.200+/11.1.2.3.001+
TimesTen	TimesTen 11.2.2.5.x, 11.2.2.6.x
BI Application	11.1.1.7.1 7.9.6.3 7.9.6.4
EPM	11.1.2.2 or 11.1.2.3 (depends on module/component)
OVM Manager	3.2.4 (X2-4),  3.2..7(X3-4)
EM	Agent - 12.0.1.3+
Endeca	3.0/3.1

Taken from <Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine Certification Matrix (current as of 2/18/14)> 

We can use Exalytics to perform the following:

1.       BI Apps Implementation: The Enterprise Data Warehouse connected to the ERP system in use (PeopleSoft, EBS, JDE, SAP, etc.). Oracle has pre-built analytics comprised of a DW Schema, ETL/ELT for bringing the data from the ERP Database to the Data warehouse, OBIEE Model (RPD), and the Reports and Dashboards.

2.       Custom BI Applications: Many organizations have custom BI implementations over their applications. This is comprised of a Data Warehouse/Data Mart, the ETL/ELT process, the OBIEE Model, and the Reports and Dashboards.

3.       EPM Implementation: Oracle's Financial Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting tool for the enterprise. This includes Essbase, OBIEE, and Hyperian Financials.

4.       Endeca

I will discuss the OBIEE/BI Apps (#1/#2) implementations in the next blog.

Sachin
Architect - Oracle Engineered Systems
Exalytics/Exalogic/Exadata
BuzzClan LLC

BuzzClan is a business consulting company collaborating to provide Oracle software advisory services & implementation services. BuzzClan LLC is committed to providing substantive business value on each and every client engagement. We do this through a combination of industry-specific business expertise, technical skills, proven project management methods and our “onsite - off site - offshore” delivery model. We strive to work in partnership with our customers to build high-performance teams and create business solutions that will last.

Exalytics - The Promise of BI on Private Cloud

Oracle came out with a neat infomercial touting the features and benefits of Exalytics - Extreme Analytics with No Limits.

The ability to have more than 50,000 users and cut analysis time from monthly to daily are impressive.  This type of an appliance should be a great tool for exposing Enterprise Analytics in a private cloud setting, enabling users to keep up with the demands of  implementing the OBIEE and EPM suite of products.

Originally, Exalytics didn't support virtualization. Patchset 1 introduced the base image concept that enabled virtualized Exalytics implementation, but it had one deal-breaking limitation: InfiniBand connectivity was not supported if the boxes were virtualized.

“Exalytics virtualization does not support Exadata access via InfiniBand connection. This feature is planned for Exalytics Release 1 Patchset 4 (v1.0.0.4). However, Exadata can be accessed via the 1G or 10G interfaces.”

I have yet to see a customer who bought the Exalytics machines without Exadata as the database server, so taking away the InfiniBand connection meant that nobody had the incentive to virtualize.

 Oracle came out with Patchset 4 in early 2014. Exalytics boxes can now be virtualized while keeping the InfiniBand connectivity into Exadata and/or Exalogic (as traffic cop). There is a lot of excitement about being able to run the BI system as a private cloud offering. 

In a state department where I am currently consulting in, one of their goals is to 

“gain efficiencies through creation of a Private Cloud and encourage adoption of public cloud platforms, when appropriate.”

So when the PSU4 came out, the stakeholders were very excited to present the recent Exalytics acquisition and rewire them as private cloud offering for various agencies looking to use it to serve their BI content.

Oracle's recommendation has been to limit the VMs on an Exalytics box to a maximum of 4 on X2/X3 machines and 12 on X5 (@10 core/VM). The configurations are as follows:

• 1 VM for BI
• 1 VM for Essbase (planning)
• 1 VM for Endeca
• Each VM instance to run a minimum of 10 cores

It is still unclear if this is a licensing limitation or a result of an internal benchmark. If an organization is using an Exalytics box to run OBIEE, BI apps, and the EPM suite, there go the 4 VMs. They would need to allot one for each of these: BI apps (one central implementation), EPM (one central implementation), OVM, and custom OBIEE machines.

In the succeeding weeks, I will share our experience with this state department client and how we meet one of their goals by eliminating duplication and lowering costs. Stay tuned for these upcoming posts:

Part II - Classify the Application Requirements and Cloud Offerings - Exalytics
Part III - Elastic Cloud vs. Not-So-Elastic Cloud - CPU Over Subscription

Tech Term of the Day

Exalytics base image: an image that consists of the operating system, virtualization software, and device drivers pre-configured for the respective appliance.


Sachin
BuzzClan LLC
Architect - Oracle Engineered Systems
Exalytics/Exalogic/Exadata

BuzzClan is a business consulting company collaborating to provide Oracle software advisory services & implementation services. BuzzClan LLC is committed to providing substantive business value on each and every client engagement. We do this through a combination of industry-specific business expertise, technical skills, proven project management methods and our “onsite - off site - offshore” delivery model. We strive to work in partnership with our customers to build high-performance teams and create business solutions that will last.

Custom links on header

My current client wants to implement custom help for their users. We implemented this by removing the default help link on the header and replacing it with one of our own.

The steps to remove the default help link is as follows:

Log in as admin (weblogic) and go to the Administration section

Search for the text 'Help Menu'

and change the permission to 'Denied'

Log out and log back in - the header should not have the 'Help' Menu link anymore.

Now setting up the custom help. I am assuming that you have a link setup for that. Let's say Yahoo has decided to host our help on their home page. What we need to do next is to setup a menu which points to yahoo's home page.

Custom menu needs to be configured using the file -

<BIInstance>\bifoundation\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obips1\customlinks.xml

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E25178_01/bi.1111/e10541/answersconfigset.htm#BABHAEIF

The documentation related to this feature mentions that this location is the default location for the file, and if we make changes to this the file at this location, the menus will start working. But we found out that this is not the case, and we have to make changes to the configuration file to ensure that the system knows to bring this file in play.

A bug was opened with Oracle Support to figure this out - (14669527 - CUSTOM LINKS NOT WORKING AND CRASHING THE SERVER)

Support came back with this correction:

There appears to be 2 issues with the doc:
.
1) The "default location" is not picked up unless the tags are added to
instanceconfig.xml:
<ServerInstance>
<CustomLinks>
<filePath>c:/mydir/mysubdir/customlinks.xml</filePath>
</CustomLinks>
</ServerInstance>
This is the reason the changes make no effect.

2) The example XML in the doc is actually invalid. There are 3 lines which
need correcting
(i)
<link id="l1" name="OTN" description="OTN open in new window"
src="http://www.oracle.com" target="blank" >
<locations>
<location name="header"> /
</locations>
</link>
.
should be
.
<link id="l1" name="OTN" description="OTN open in new window"
src="http://www.oracle.com" target="blank" >
<locations>
<location name="header"/>
</locations>
</link>
.
.
(ii)
<link id="l3" name="Yahoo" description="Yahoo" src="http://www.yahoo.com"
target="yahoo" iconLarge="common/helptopics_lg_qualifier.png">
<locations>
<location name="getstarted"> /
</locations>
</link>
.
should be
.
<link id="l3" name="Yahoo" description="Yahoo" src="http://www.yahoo.com"
target="yahoo" iconLarge="common/helptopics_lg_qualifier.png">
<locations>
<location name="getstarted"/>
</locations>
</link>
.
.
(iii)
<link id="l5" name="Gmail" description="gmail" src="http://www.gmail.com"
target="blank" iconLarge="common/gmail.png" >
<locations>
<location name="getstarted"> /
<location name="header" insertBefore="catalog" />
</locations>
</link>
.
should be
.
<link id="l5" name="Gmail" description="gmail" src="http://www.gmail.com"
target="blank" iconLarge="common/gmail.png" >
<locations>
<location name="getstarted"/>
<location name="header" insertBefore="catalog" />
</locations>
</link>
.
.
(essentially the terminating slash of the "location" tag has been placed
outside the tag when it should be the last character before the ">".)
.
when I made these changes it worked fine for me.
.
ACTION PLAN FOR SUPPORT
-----------------------
Please ask your customer to correct this on their system and retest.


Once we fixed this the menus started working - see the screen shot above, we added the OTN link

Epilogue: If we change the menu link for Help, we loose the 'context sensitiveness' of the help. In a later article I will describe how we restored that feature in our custom help solution.

Sachin
JainSys

Patching OBIEE 11g

Working with a company like Verizon gives us the opportunity to interact with Oracle Development and support team very closely. Recently as I was doing a proof of concept implementation using the  "Scorecard" functionality, I came across a couple of bugs.

Oracle Support provided me with a couple of patches for the bugs and I will take this opportunity to describe the process of getting the patch built and then installing them on the target machines.

Once the SR(Service Request) is acknowledged as a bug, the support representative will get the current status of your machine on which the patches needs to be installed. In my case this was my development machine a Windows 7 64bit machine. They want to ensure that the current version/built installed on the machine and if any other patches are installed on it or not. This enables them to build and ship a specific patch for the installation.

The installation comes with a utility called - OPatch which takes care of the various functions around patching. A detailed documentation of this is available at Oracle:Patching Oracle Software with OPatch.
I will describe the usage and my experience for OBIEE 11g.

Here are a few things to know before we start the discussion (Specific to OBIEE 11g): I am using the Windows directory convention. Please see my earlier blog ERP Things: OBIEE 11g - Demystifying the directory structure.
OBIEE home directory : This is the directory where the OBIEE Instances are installed. In my case this happens to be c:\Oracle\BI1g\Oracle_BI1 This should be set as the ORACLE_HOME

• OPatch Directory : The opatch directory under the ORACLE_HOME
• Java Directory relative to ORACLE_HOME %ORACLE_HOME%\jdk\jre\bin

For patching, make sure that these system variables are set properly:

• ORACLE_HOME
• PATH - this should include the ORACLE_HOME and the OPatch directory

Command to set these are (Windows version):

c:>Set ORACLE_HOME=C:\Oracle\BI11g\Oracle_BI1
c:>Set path=%PATH%;ORACLE_HOME;%ORACLE_HOME%\OPATCH

During your conversation with the support staff, they will ask you to send the current status of your installation. the SR will have an entry like this:
Have any patches been applied?
Set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable to point to the BI Home.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a). Please logon to the middle tier where BI installed and make sure
your ORACLE_HOME and PATH variables are set.
PATH Variable should include the directory path for perl and opatch.
ORACLE_HOME environment variable should point to the BI Home
b). Then cd to $ORACLE_HOME/Opatch and run the command:
$opatch lsinventory
c). Upload the output file.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the standard blurb they use irrespective of the OS you are on. So for Windows the translation is as follows:

a. Set the Path and Oracle path variables to point to the Oracle Home (see commands above)
b. cd to %ORACLE_HOME%\opatch and run the command "opatch lsinventory"
c. upload the output file

This will create a file in the ORACLE_HOME\cfgtoollogs\opatch\ directory (opatch_history.txt) copy the content of this file and update your SR, also make sure you upload this file to the SR. This will also backup any previous log files in the directory.

After some time, the support will provide you with a patch. Download the patch and expand it to a local directory. Repeat the steps to ensure that the path and oracle_home variables are set properly

The readme file with the patch will have the following instructions:
Pre Install Instructions:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable,
  for example "[MW_HOME]/Oracle_BI1" directory.

Install Instructions:
---------------------
1. Unzip the patch zip file into the PATCH_TOP.
   unzip -d PATCH_TOP pxxxxxxx_xxxxxx_MSWIN-x86-64.zip
2. Set your current directory to the directory where the patch is located.
   cd PATCH_TOP/xxxxxxxx
3. Run OPatch to apply the patch.
   Run following command:
   - opatch apply -jre $ORACLE_HOME/jdk/jre
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my set of instructions:
1. Shut down the BI Server - Use the
C:\Oracle\BI11g\instances\instance1bifoundation\OracleBIApplication\coreapplication\StartStopServices.cmd stop_all
2. Set your current directory to the directory where the patch is located.
   cd PATCH_TOP/xxxxxxxx
2. Replace the command in the 3rd step to this and run this:
opatch apply -jre %ORACLE_HOME%\jdk\jre
3. Restart the services

If everything goes well, you system will be patched! Run the
opatch lsinventory
command once more to capture the latest patch information!

 Though I have not tried this, in case something goes wrong use this rollback the patch.
 opatch rollback -id xxxx  -jre $ORACLE_HOME\jdk\jre


Sachin
JainSys

Oracle BI 11gR1 Client Tools Installation

One of the major pain points with OBIEE 11g was the installation. As a developer, one has to install the whole suite to be able to work with the systems. Even if a company has development environment setup in a data center, all the developers had to install  the whole suite on their local machine to be able to do any modeling.
As we know the install is not trivial, and takes up a lot of disk and process space.
OBIEE 11g Client Tools

Recently Oracle released the "Client Tools" Only installation package which will allow developers to install the following components:

The install is pretty simple and only asks a couple of things - the install directory and the place you want your shortcut icons to reside.

When complete, you can run the "RPD Administrator tool" and a "Job Manager" on your local machine without having the whole OBIEE deployed.

There is no 64bit support for this package.

Sachin
JainSys

OBIEE - 11g Inbuilt Mapping and Spatial capability - Setup BI Presentation Part III

I was finally able to fix the issue by creating a container managed datasource in weblogic and then use it in mapviewer

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12840_01/wls/docs103/ConsoleHelp/taskhelp/jdbc/jdbc_datasources/CreateDataSources.html

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/web.1111/e10145/vis_admin.htm#sthref973


Sachin
JainSys

OBIEE - 11g Inbuilt Mapping and Spatial capability - Setup BI Presentation server

Continued from -> OBIEE - 11g Inbuilt Mapping and Spatial capability - Setup MapView

After you have configured and tested the MapViewer, log into the BI Server and go to the Administration.

Click on the "Manage Map Data"

Click on the New Icon on the Layers Tab, and select all the Layers in the list box. Repeat for "Background Maps" and "Images" tables.



Continued...

Sachin
Architect - Oracle Engineered Systems
Exalytics/Exalogic/Exadata
BuzzClan LLC

BuzzClan is a business consulting company collaborating to provide Oracle software advisory services & implementation services. BuzzClan LLC is committed to providing substantive business value on each and every client engagement. We do this through a combination of industry-specific business expertise, technical skills, proven project management methods and our “onsite - off site - offshore” delivery model. We strive to work in partnership with our customers to build high-performance teams and create business solutions that will last.

OBIEE - 11g Inbuilt Mapping and Spatial capability - Setup MapView

Continuation from last post:
OBIEE - 11g Inbuilt Mapping and Spatial capability - Setup OBIEE

The next step is to setup the MapView component.

Download the sample mapping data from this link MVDemo, and follow the instruction in the included pdf file. This will create a sample spatial data which can be used to jump start the map implementation in reports.

Once the data dump is imported fire up the MapViewer configuration. Go to the EM and navigate to
Application Deployments > mapviewer(11.1.1)(bi_cluster) and click on the link under Web Modules.

It will take a few and the MapViewer configuration screen will come up.

Click on the Management tab on the right, and login if prompted (the userid/password will be the same as that of the weblogic admin).

Copy the configuration file, and paste on any text editor. Search for " <map_data_source name="
you will see a block like this:
<map_data_source name="mvdemo"
jdbc_host="your db host name"
jdbc_sid="your db sid"
jdbc_port="your db port"
jdbc_user="mvdemo"
jdbc_password="!mvdemo"
jdbc_mode="thin"
number_of_mappers="3"
allow_jdbc_theme_based_foi="false"
plsql_package=”web_user_info”
/>

replace the jdbc values as per your db setup. Leave the plsql_pacage value intact. for details, refer to the step II in the pdf that came along the demo files.

paste this back into the configuration file, and remove the comments, if any around this block. Click "Save & Restart". Once the server comes back, test the mapviewer by going to this link, and clicking "Submit" You should see a map.

http:/<your Server>:9704/mapviewer/demo/secure-mapping.html

Further reading: Oracle documentation - Introduction to MapViewer

Next - Step III Setup BI Presentation server



Sachin
Architect - Oracle Engineered Systems
Exalytics/Exalogic/Exadata
BuzzClan LLC

BuzzClan is a business consulting company collaborating to provide Oracle software advisory services & implementation services. BuzzClan LLC is committed to providing substantive business value on each and every client engagement. We do this through a combination of industry-specific business expertise, technical skills, proven project management methods and our “onsite - off site - offshore” delivery model. We strive to work in partnership with our customers to build high-performance teams and create business solutions that will last.

OBIEE - 11g Inbuilt Mapping and Spatial capability - Setup BI Server

Sachin
JainSys Inc.

As you click the + button on the compound view while creating a report, you will now see a new item - Map.
OBIEE now has the capability to include map views on a report. This functionality is provided by the Spatial boundary data provided by NAVTEQ. This spatial data and any other spatial meta data, including themes and styles, must be stored in an Oracle Database to be accessed by Oracle MapViewer for display in map views.
If you try to add a map view to the report, you may see this error message:

A basemap is required to render a map. Please ensure that at least one basemap is defined in the spatial meta-data

 Error Details

Error Codes: EMGUNIA3

Location: saw.views.evc.activate, saw.httpserver.processrequest, saw.rpc.server.responder, saw.rpc.server, saw.rpc.server.handleConnection, saw.rpc.server.dispatch, saw.threadpool, saw.threadpool, saw.threads

The basic installation takes care of the installation, but does not complete the configuration part. There are two modes in which the spatial data can be configured:

• Remote MapViewer : The Map Viewer is a separate server, and mitigate the cross-browser AJAX communication issues, a proxy is established on the main server. Also known as proxy mode. If a separate remote instance of MapViewer is configured as the rendering engine, then the browser cannot communicate with the remote instance for resources. Browsers do not allow cross-domain AJAX calls for security reasons. To overcome this limitation, all requests are first forwarded to the co-located MapViewer, which in turn communicates with the actual remote instance.
• Co-located MapViewer : Also known as non-proxy mode. If the MapViewer is located in the same domain as Oracle BI EE and used as the rendering engine, then all map resources (such as JavaScript files and images) are downloaded from that instance of MapViewer.

To configure the map viewer in a Non-Proxy mode, add the following configuration to the instanceconfig.xml file.
<ServerInstance>
   <SpatialMaps>
 <ColocatedOracleMapViewerContextPath>/mapviewer</ColocatedOracleMapViewerContextPath>
      <RemoteOracleMapViewerAbsoluteURL></RemoteOracleMapViewerAbsoluteURL>
      <LayerDataLayout>
        <MaxRecords>600</MaxRecords>
      </LayerDataLayout>
   </SpatialMaps>
</ServerInstance>


Step II - Setup Mapview

Sachin
JainSys Inc.

[nQSError: 46033] Datatype: 25 is not supported

With OBIEE 11g, I was not able to import metadata from an Access db. More on that later.

I ended up hand coding the physiscal layer and when I was testing the table definiations for correctness, I ran into a couple of nQSError 46033/25 not supported.

Several forums on OTN suggested "wierd characters" within the definiation, but I could'nt see any thing out of place.

Digging into the NQQuery.log file showed me that the following entries:

[<time>] [OracleBIServerComponent] [TRACE:5] [USER-0] [] [ecid: 00hyAdAozFn4MupKcQV4Ep0001j00004Rl] [tid: 1a64] [requestid: 1ba20001] [sessionid: 1ba20000] [username: <>] ############################################## [[
-------------------- SQL Request:
EXECUTE PHYSICAL CONNECTION POOL "<>"."Connection Pool" select "SocCode", "SocDescr", "SocTitle" from "Soc"
]]
This gave me the SQL Query. This is a marked improvement over 10g, in 11g you can get the query generated in the logs, even when u are running test data pulls in RPD. I took the query -
select "SocCode", "SocDescr", "SocTitle" from "Soc"
and ran it in Access. There the error message was even more cryptic:

"Syntax Error in Query. Incomplete query clause"

On further analysis, one of the column name is not right - the SocDescr is defined as SocDesc

So if you are seeing [nQSError: 46033] Datatype: 25 is not supported., see if the column defination has changed since the metadata was imported.

Till next time, while I struggle with auto import of metadata from Access.

Sachin
Architect - Oracle Engineered Systems
Exalytics/Exalogic/Exadata
BuzzClan LLC

BuzzClan is a business consulting company collaborating to provide Oracle software advisory services & implementation services. BuzzClan LLC is committed to providing substantive business value on each and every client engagement. We do this through a combination of industry-specific business expertise, technical skills, proven project management methods and our “onsite - off site - offshore” delivery model. We strive to work in partnership with our customers to build high-performance teams and create business solutions that will last.

OBIEE 11g - Manually Upgrade Catalog from 10g to 11g

This allows for catalog upgrade from 10g to 11g version without having to run the GUI tool - UA. 


1. Copy 10g catalog to a temp location
2. Stop 11g BIPS
3. Update instaceconfig.xml to the 10g catalog location i.e. <CatalogPath>10g_Location</CatalogPath>
4. Add these flags to instanceconfig.xml –
<Catalog>
<UpgradeAndExit>true</UpgradeAndExit>
</Catalog>

5. Start BIPS – This will upgrade the catalog and shutdown automatically
6. Remove the flag true from the instanceconfig.xml
7. Start BIPS again



Sachin
Architect - Oracle Engineered Systems
Exalytics/Exalogic/Exadata
BuzzClan LLC

BuzzClan is a business consulting company collaborating to provide Oracle software advisory services & implementation services. BuzzClan LLC is committed to providing substantive business value on each and every client engagement. We do this through a combination of industry-specific business expertise, technical skills, proven project management methods and our “onsite - off site - offshore” delivery model. We strive to work in partnership with our customers to build high-performance teams and create business solutions that will last.

OBIEE 11g - RPD Upgrade issues

Sachin
JainSys Inc. These are couple of issues I have encountered so far while upgrading from 10g to 11g on the RPD side.
These are simple issues, but the error message are not very forthcoming. Hope this helps you get through.

1. All the TNS entries required in the RPD should be available in the TNS file for the server to start successfully after the conversion. If you see these errors in the log files, update the TNS entries to match the 10g server's.

[OracleBIServerComponent] 
[nQSError: 17014] Could not connect to Oracle database. 
[[[nQSError: 17001] Oracle Error code: 12154, message: ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified at OCI call OCIServerAttach.



The TNS entries should be made in this location:

MW_HOME\network\admin\


More details about the directory structure at : OBIEE 11g - Demystifying the directory structure

2. If your 10g RPD has BI Event Tables for caching, remove them before the upgrade. The upgrade process does not convert them over properly, and it will result in errors related to "invalid cache" .


[nQSError:58004] A fatal error occurred while initializing the cache.

3. If you were trying to upgrade the catalog, and the Upgrade tool froze somewhere in the middle, then there is a good chance that you will not be able to start PS anymore.
There will be all sorts of error messages in your error logs, but none of them will point to this:
Look at the instanceconfig.xml and search for the following entry:

<Catalog>
<UpgradeAndExit>true</UpgradeAndExit>
</Catalog>
OR

<ps:Catalog xmlns:ps="oracle.bi.presentation.services/config/v1.1">
         <ps:UpgradeAndExit>true</ps:UpgradeAndExit>
      </ps:Catalog>

If you see this, remove this entry and restart the services.
Some errors that will show up in the saw.log files if this is the case:

[OBIPS] [NOTIFICATION:1] [] [saw.catalog.scrubacls.scrub] [ecid: ] [tid: ] Scrubbed 0 of 661 records[[
File:scrubacls.cpp

[OBIPS] [NOTIFICATION:1] [] [saw.subsystem.catalog.initialize.upgrade] [ecid: ] [tid: ] Upgrade catalog started[[
File:initializecatalog.cpp

Multiple entries similar to this

[OBIPS] [WARNING:1] [] [saw.subsystem.catalog.initialize.upgrade] [ecid: ] [tid: ] WARNING: missing SAW_CATALOG_REGISTER_IOOBJECT_FACTORY for scorecardperspectivelist1[[
File:upgradesearchhandler.cpp


I will be updating this log with other issues I encounter!


Sachin
JainSys Inc.