2 Overview of Oracle Business Intelligence Applications

This chapter provides an overview of the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse. It includes the following topics:

• Section 2.1, "What is Oracle Business Intelligence Applications?"

• Section 2.2, "Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse Overview"

• Section 2.3, "Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse Architecture"

• Section 2.4, "Roadmap To Installing, Configuring, and Customizing Oracle BI Applications"

2.1 What is Oracle Business Intelligence Applications?

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications is a prebuilt business intelligence solution.

Note: Before you can install Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, you must install an Oracle Business Intelligence infrastructure. For more information about Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Infrastructure Requirements, see System Requirements and Supported Platforms for Oracle Business Intelligence Applications.

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications support Oracle sources such as Oracle E-Business Suite Applications, Oracle's Siebel Applications, Oracle's PeopleSoft Applications, and non-Oracle sources such as SAP Applications. If you already own one of the above applications, you can purchase Oracle Business Intelligence Infrastructure and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications to work with the application.

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications also provides complete support for enterprise data, including financial, supply chain, and workforce sources. These enterprise applications typically source from both Oracle data sources (such as E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft) and non-Oracle data sources (such as SAP).

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications consist of the components shown in the table below.

Table 2-1 Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Components

Component	Description
DAC metadata repository files	This content includes repository objects such as tables, subject areas, execution plans, and tasks, and is contained in XML files.
Embedded Informatica ETL Tool	This is a third-party application that performs the extract, transform, and load operations for the Data Warehouse.
Prebuilt Informatica content	This content includes Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) repository objects, such as mappings, sessions, and workflows, and is contained in the Informatica repository file (Oracle_BI_DW_Base.rep).
Prebuilt metadata content	This metadata content is contained in the Oracle Business Intelligence Applications repository file (OracleBIAnalyticsApps.rpd).
Prebuilt reports and dashboard content	This content is contained in the Oracle BI Presentation Services Catalog.
Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse	The prebuilt data warehouse that holds data extracted, transformed, and loaded from the transactional database.

2.2 Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse Overview

The Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse is a unified data repository for all customer-centric data. The purpose of the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse is to support the analytical requirements of Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle's Siebel CRM, and PeopleSoft Applications.

The Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse includes the following:

• A complete relational enterprise data warehouse data model with numerous pre-built star schemas encompassing many conformed dimensions and several hundred fact tables.

  For more information about the data warehouse data model, please see the Oracle Business Analytics Data Model Reference.

• An open architecture to allow organizations to use third-party analytical tools in conjunction with the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse using the Oracle Business Intelligence Server.

• Prebuilt data extractors to incorporate data from external applications into the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse.

• A set of ETL (extract-transform-load) processes that takes data from Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel CRM, PeopleSoft Enterprise and other transactional systems (OLTP), and creates the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse tables.

• The Oracle Business Intelligence Data Warehouse Administration Console (DAC), a centralized console for the set up, configuration, administration, loading, and monitoring of the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse. The figure below provides an overview of the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse.

An overview of the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse is shown in the figure below.

Figure 2-1 Overview of the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse

2.3 Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse Architecture

High-level analytical queries, like those commonly used in Oracle Business Intelligence, scan and analyze large volumes of data using complex formulas. This process can take a long time when querying a transactional database, which impacts overall system performance.

For this reason, the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse was constructed using dimensional modeling techniques to allow for fast access to information required for decision making. The Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse derives its data from operational applications, and uses Informatica's data integration technology to extract, transform, and load data from various supported transactional database systems (OLTP) into the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse.

2.3.1 Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse Architecture Components

The figure below illustrates the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse architecture.

Figure 2-2 An example Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse architecture

The figure above shows the following Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse components:

• DAC client. A command and control interface for the data warehouse to allow for set up, configuration, administration, and monitoring of data warehouse processes.

• DAC server. Executes the instructions from the DAC client. The DAC server manages data warehouse processes, including scheduling, loading of the ETL, and configuring the subject areas to be loaded. It dynamically adjusts its actions based on information in the DAC repository. Depending on your business needs, you might incrementally refresh the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse once a day, once a week, once a month, or on another similar schedule.

• DAC repository. Stores the metadata (semantics of the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse) that represents the data warehouse processes.

• Informatica Server Components:

  • Informatica Server. When the server is loading or refreshing the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse, it is recommended that the server be dedicated to that activity. However, when the ETL server is not loading or refreshing the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse, you can use it for other purposes.

  • Informatica Repository Server. Manages the Informatica repository.

• Informatica Repository. Stores the metadata related to Informatica workflows.

• Informatica client utilities. Tools that allow you to create and manage the Informatica repository.

For information about using the Oracle Business Intelligence Data Warehouse Administration Console (DAC), see Oracle Business Intelligence Data Warehouse Administration Console Guide.

2.4 Roadmap To Installing, Configuring, and Customizing Oracle BI Applications

To install, configure, and customize Oracle BI Applications, do the following:

• For the source systems that you are using, follow the appropriate pre-installation steps in Chapter 3, "Pre-installation and Predeployment Requirements for Oracle BI Applications".

• Install and configure the Oracle BI Applications components as described in Chapter 4, "Installing and Configuring Oracle BI Applications on Windows" and/or Chapter 5, "Installing Oracle BI Applications on Unix".

• (Mandatory) Perform the source-independent steps that are required before a full data load, described in Section 8.1.1, "Configuration Required Before A Full Load", followed by the source system-specific steps that are required before a full data load for the appropriate source system that you are using, as follows:

  • Section 8.2.1, "Configuration Required Before A Full Load for Oracle EBS"

  • Section 8.3.1, "Configuration Required Before A Full Load for PeopleSoft"

  • Section 8.4.1, "Configuration Required Before A Full Load for Siebel Source Systems"

• (Optional) Perform any required additional source-independent steps described in Section 8.1.2, "Configuration Steps for Controlling Your Data Set for All Source Systems", followed by any required additional steps for the appropriate source system that you are using, as follows:

  • Section 8.2.2, "Configuration Steps for Controlling Your Data Set for Oracle EBS"

  • Section 8.3.2, "Configuration Steps for Controlling Your Data Set for PeopleSoft"

  • Section 8.4.2, "Configuration Steps for Controlling Your Data Set for Siebel Source Systems"

• (Mandatory) Perform the steps that are required before a full data load for all applications that you deploying, from the appropriate chapters below:

  • Chapter 9, "Configuring Oracle's Supply Chain Family of Products"

  • Chapter 10, "Configuring Oracle Financial Analytics"

  • Chapter 11, "Configuring Oracle Order Management and Fulfillment Analytics"

  • Chapter 12, "Configuring Oracle HR Analytics"

  • Chapter 13, "Configuring Oracle Sales Analytics"

  • Chapter 14, "Configuring Oracle Contact Center Telephony Analytics"

• (Optional) Perform any required additional steps for all applications that you deploy, from the appropriate chapters below:

  • Chapter 9, "Configuring Oracle's Supply Chain Family of Products"

  • Chapter 10, "Configuring Oracle Financial Analytics"

  • Chapter 11, "Configuring Oracle Order Management and Fulfillment Analytics"

  • Chapter 12, "Configuring Oracle HR Analytics"

  • Chapter 13, "Configuring Oracle Sales Analytics"

  • Chapter 14, "Configuring Oracle Contact Center Telephony Analytics"

• (Optional) If you want to customize the out-of-the-box Oracle BI Applications functionality, follow the steps described in Chapter 6, "Customizing the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse".

• (Optional) If you want to modify the out-of-the-box Oracle BI Applications security, follow the steps described in Chapter 7, "Integrated Security for Oracle BI Applications".

Once you have installed and configured Oracle BI Applications components, configured the modules (optional), and customized Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (optional), you are ready to start running ETLs (for more information about running ETLs, see Oracle Business Intelligence Data Warehouse Administration Console Guide).