Release 9.0.1
Part Number A87537-01
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| Oracle9i Personalization Release Notes Release 9.0.1 Part Number A87537-01 |
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July 2001
Part No. A87537-01
These release notes describe Oracle9iAS Personalization, a new product with the Oracle9i Application Server (Oracle9iAS). This document is organized as follows:
See the README file on the CD for late-breaking information about the product, any new bugs, and platform-specific installation and administration information.
Oracle9iAS Personalization (OP) provides real-time personalization for Web sites using an integrated recommendation engine that is embedded in an Oracle database.
OP is based on data mining technology and modeling. It builds a predictive model of customer preferences using Web-based behavioral data collected by a Web site as well as demographic data.
The behavioral data it collects can include customers' historical and current navigation and preferences, both stated and implied. OP then builds a model from the data collected (and stored in Oracle database tables) and makes real-time personalized recommendations based on the model.
Oracle9iAS Personalization consists of the following components:
Use the Administrative UI to manage Oracle9iAS Personalization functions such as creating and managing recommendation engines and farms, creating and managing packages, scheduling builds and deployments of packages, and scheduling reports. Use the REAPI to collect web-based customer data and obtain recommendations.
The documentation set for Oracle9iAS Personalization at the current release consists of the following documents:
For more information about the database underlying OP, see:
OP documentation is distributed on the same CD that OP is distributed on. Documentation is provided in PDF and HTML formats.
After OP is installed, the OP documentation can be read by opening the following URL using either Netscape or Internet Explorer:
http://server/opDoc/op.901/index.htm
where server is the name of the system where OP database components are installed.
You can read or print the documentation directly from the CD or from your browser.
To view the PDF files, you will need
To view the HTML files, you will need
The Oracle9iAS Personalization Administrative UI includes online help, available by clicking the Help button in the upper right corner of each page of the Administrative UI.
Oracle's goal is to make our products, services, and supporting documentation accessible to the disabled community with good usability. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/.
JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in a document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.
For technical support services, contact Customer Support at
http://www.oracle.com/support/
For information on installing OP, see the administrator's guide and the README file distributed with the OP documentation.
The recommended installation for OP is to install Oracle9iAS and certain OP components on one server, and install the Oracle9i database and other OP components on a different server .
The single-system installation (less desirable from the performance perspective) is described in <$ORACLE_HOME>/dmt/conf/oprocmgr/README.txt.
Installing an Additional RE: You cannot install a second recommendation engine (RE) on the same database using Oracle Universal Installer. You need to run the following script from the installation area with the required arguments:
$ORACLE_HOME/dmt/install/RE/createRE.sh DBAusername/DBApassword@TNSname REusername REpassword tableSpaceName dataFileDiractory dataFileSize sys_password hostname:port:SID
Installing an Additional MOR: You cannot install a second Mining Object Repository (MOR) on the same database using Oracle Universal Installer. Unlike the MTR and RE schemas, there is no script to add a second MOR on a database. The OP permits only one MOR on a database.
Installing an Additional MTR: You cannot install a second Mining Table Repository (MTR) on the same database using Oracle Universal Installer. You can create a second MTR that is not populated with data, as shown below:
$ORACLE_HOME/dmt/install/dbscripts/createMTR.sh DBAusername/DBApassword@TNSname MTRusername MTRpassword dataFileDiractory dataFileSize TablespaceName
The table below shows the performance results on three datasets. The build time is linear in the number of customers and quadratic in the average profile size. We obtained the results shown here on a Sun Enterprise 450 (4 x UltraSPARC-II 400MHz) with 4096 megabytes of memory. Based on these numbers, it is possible to estimate the build time for any arbitrary dataset; see the subsection on Data Sizing, below. Definitions of the column headings follow the table.
The column headings have the following meanings:
When you install OP, you are asked to specify temp space for the MOR. Use the following formula to calculate a rough estimate for the number of bytes of MOR temp space required:
(54 * P2 * C)/2
where P is the average profile size and C is the number of customers. Each item pair generated during a build takes 54 bytes, which is the space needed to store a record with two item columns and a count column. For the model build to run, the available temp space should be more than the estimated temp space requirement for the P and C values of the dataset.
Because of password encryption and decryption, there are two restrictions on passwords for OP users:
This section describes known bugs and limitations in Oracle9iAS Personalization release 9.0.1.
Correct Name of Product: The correct name of the product is "Oracle9iAS Personalization." In some instances the product may be incorrectly referred to as "Oracle9i Personalization."
OUI Should Verify Enough Hard Disk Space: OUI does not verify that there is enough hard disk space for data files.
OUI Should Check for Invalid Input: Certain errors in input are not caught, which may result in invalid results.
Default Deployment Selection Can Generate Error: The default selection for the deployment schedule is "deploy at a future time," which is typically within a few minutes of the current time. This is fine if the package has already been built, but it generates an error if the package has not yet been built.Workaround: Use the default deployment selection only if you know that the package has been built; otherwise select "deploy after every build."
Sorting by ID and Sorting by Type Do Not Work: For both sessionful and sessionless REAPIs, for recommendation content, sorting by ID and sorting by Type do not work.
Filter by Drop-Down List Should Display Only Applicable Selections: On the event log page, the drop-down list for "Filter by" displays selections that are not applicable to the particular event log page.
Deployment Times on RE Farms Page and Event Log Do Not Match: The time displayed for deployment should be the same (and is not) on the Recommendation Engine Farms page and the Event Log page.
Recommend_Top_Items_Batch Failure: Error message "ORA-00913 -- Too Many Values" is displayed with REProxyBatch.recommendTopItems( ) if TuningSettings.profileUsage is set to "EXCLUDE". Workaround: None.
Resizing Window Results in Blank Screen and "Data Missing" Message: Running the Administrative UI with Netscape, if you resize the window, it disappears and you get a "Data Missing" message. Workaround: Instead of immediately returning the data when processing a POST, you can return a page that is a redirect to the real page you want to display. An alternative workaround: Use IE browser.
Corrupted Characters: The DateFieldBean javascript validation window displays broken Italian and Brazilian Portuguese characters when you enter an invalid date, for example, 11/12//01. Workaround: None.
Corrupted Messages in Message Log: Some messages appear in the message viewer without proper parameter substitution. For example, "The Schema {0} is incorrect" should read, for example, "The Schema Scott is incorrect."
Schedule and Log Grids Lose Sort Order upon Application of Filter: When "Filter-by" is applied, the sort order gets reset to the default column, requiring the user to re-apply the sort.
Result Tables for REAPI Batch: When a result table is created, its name is stored in the BATCH_RESULT_TABLE_NAME table (one such table per schema). This is done for ease of bookkeeping and cleanup.
Reports Need New Titles: The titles of reports are in some cases misleading.
Oracle is a registered trademark, and Oracle9i is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Copyright © 2001, Oracle Corporation.
All Rights Reserved.
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 Copyright © 2001 Oracle Corporation. All Rights Reserved. |
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