Oracle^® Business Intelligence Disconnected Analytics Administration and Configuration Guide > Synchronizing Applications in Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics >

About Synchronization

Synchronization is the mechanism that downloads data from the Oracle BI Server to the disconnected machine for each user. The first time synchronization occurs, all historical data is downloaded. After the first synchronization, the incremental synchronization feature allows incremental data downloads.

The first time users synchronize their applications, they might be asked to create a user name and password. You control this prompting with the SetDBUser element in the syncconfig.xml file, which is set to YES by default. After a user types a user name and password, the value changes to NO. As a result, subsequent synchronizations do not require a user name and password.

Currently, synchronization only downloads data to the disconnected machine. It cannot upload data from the disconnected machine to the Oracle BI Server.

A user can download data in the following modes:

• Online mode. The user submits the data set generation query in real time. The Oracle BI Server generates and returns the data to the user. In this mode, the user must wait until the entire data set has been downloaded to the local machine. Therefore, online synchronization should only be used occasionally and when a specific need requires it.
• Preprocessed mode. You as the Oracle BI Administrator schedule the data set generation on the Oracle BI Server. This requires that you have installed and set up Delivers. The data sets are generated for each user and maintained until a new data set is generated. When a user synchronizes an application, the preprocessed data sets for that user are identified and then downloaded by the Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics Application Manager. Therefore, the amount of time required for synchronization depends on the speed of this compressed data set download.