3 Pre-installation and Predeployment Requirements for Oracle Business Intelligence Applications

This chapter provides information about preparing to install and deploy Oracle Business Intelligence Applications with Oracle Data Integrator, and contains the following topics:

• Section 3.1, "Oracle-Specific Database Guidelines for Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse"

• Section 3.2, "Database Client Connectivity Software Requirements"

You should review this information before you begin the installation and deployment process. For example, as a minimum you should read the appropriate database-specific guidelines for the source OLTP databases that you are using.

3.1 Oracle-Specific Database Guidelines for Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse

To configure your Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse on Oracle databases more easily, use the init10gR2.ora parameter template file that is installed with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications. The init10gR2.orafile is used to specify initialization parameters.

The init10gR2.ora is contained in the biapps_odi.zip file on the Oracle Business Intelligence Applications installation machine. When you unzip the biapps_odi.zip file onto your ODI machine, the init10gR2.ora file is located in the <ODI Home>\oracledi\biapps_odi\odifiles\dbfiles\ directory. For detailed instructions on unzipping and copying the init10gR2.ora file, see Section 4.4.2.2, "How to set up the Oracle BI Applications files for ODI").

The init10gR2.ora parameter template file provides guidelines based on the cost-based optimizer for Oracle 10g. Use these guidelines as a starting point. You will need to make changes based on your specific database sizes, data shape, server size (CPU and memory), and type of storage. The database administrator should make changes to the settings based on performance monitoring and tuning.

Rename the init10gR2.ora file, as follows:

• On Windows, rename the file as:

  %ORACLE_HOME%\database\init<SID>.ora

• On UNIX or Linux, rename the file as:

  $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/init<SID>.ora

Note: SID is the Oracle System Identifier for the database machine.

Copy the renamed init10gR2.ora file into your $ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory, review the recommendations in the template file, and make the changes based on your specific database sizes, data shape, server size (CPU and memory), and type of storage. The database administrator should make changes to the settings based on performance monitoring and tuning considerations.

The table below describes some of the main initialization parameters for optimization that you can set in the init10gR2.ora file. For a complete list of initialization parameters, refer to Oracle Database Reference 10g Release 2 (10.2).

Table 3-1 Parameters in database configuration file init<version>.ora

Parameter Name	Parameter Description
background_dump_dest	Specifies the path name (directory or disc) where debugging trace files for the background processes (for example, LGWR, DBWn) are written during Oracle operations.
control_files	Every database has a control file, which contains entries that describe the structure of the database (for example, its name, the timestamp of its creation, and the names and locations of its data files and redo files). CONTROL_FILES specifies one or more names of control files, separated by commas.
core_dump_dest	Specifies the directory where Oracle dumps core files. CORE_DUMP_DEST is primarily a UNIX parameter and might not be supported on your platform.
db_name	Specifies a database identifier of up to eight characters.
plsql_native_library_dir	Specifies the name of the directory where the shared objects produced by the native compiler are stored. This parameter used by the PL/SQL compiler.
user_dump_dest	Specifies the path name for a directory where the server writes debugging trace files on behalf of a user process.
utl_file_dir	Specify one or more directories that Oracle should use for PL/SQL file input and output (I/O). If you are specifying multiple directories, you must repeat the UTL_FILE_DIR parameter for each directory on separate lines of the initialization parameter

3.2 Database Client Connectivity Software Requirements

Make sure that you have suitable database client and connectivity software installed on the machine that will host the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse (that is, the data warehouse).