Oracle Business Intelligence Beans Sample

Connecting to Oracle9i OLAP and the BI Beans Catalog

Overview

BIServlet is a simple servlet that demonstrates how a BI application can set up a connection to Oracle9i OLAP (the source of the business data for the application) and to the BI Beans Catalog (where object definitions, such as crosstabs and graphs, are saved).

The first page displayed by the servlet prompts a user for security credentials. It then makes the two connections described above. The second page reports the status of the connections. The user can disconnect the connections described above on the second page of the servlet.

This sample is used by the other samples that require the connections.

Setup Requirements

If you have not already done so, you must perform several installation and configuration tasks, then open the workspace servlet\Servlet.jws under the samples directory within JDeveloper. All the necessary files for this sample can be found in the bootstrap.jpr project under the Servlet.jws workspace.

Code Highlights

The connect method in the sample shows how connections to the Oracle OLAP Services and the BI Beans Catalog are created.  The following section provides a walkthrough and explanations of the code fragments:

Before it sets up the connections, an application must first create a new user session.  This is accomplished by creating a new BISession object.  A BISession can take the name of a BI Configuration file as an argument.  A BI Configuration file is an XML file that contains the definition of the connections.

 m_session = new BISession(m_configFile);

In addition, an application must specify the name of the application user. 

 m_session.setBIUser(new BIUser(userName));

Note that this information could also be specified within the BI Configuration file.

After a session has been created, an application can retrieve the MetadataManager that is already associated with the specified connections through the ManagerFactory (since the connection definitions are already defined in the BI Configuration file).

 m_metadataManager = (MetadataManager)m_biSession.getManagerFactory().lookupManager(ManagerFactory.METADATA_MANAGER, null, true);

The application can retrieve the QueryManager using the ManagerFactory.

 m_queryManager = (QueryManager)m_biSession.getManagerFactory().lookupManager(ManagerFactory.QUERY_MANAGER, null, true);

The disconnect method in the sample shows how to disconnect from Oracle9i OLAP and from the BI Beans Catalog. 

All that the application has to do is to disconnect the current user session by calling the disconnect method on the BISession object.

 m_session.disconnect();

For applications using thin beans, the MetadataManager needs to create the ThinCrosstab, ThinGraph and ThinTable when loading the Crosstab, Graph and Table objects from the BI Beans Catalog. The ObjectFactory instance of the MetadataManager is initialized to use the thin classes when loading the objects from the BI Beans Catalog.

 ObjectFactory objectFactory = m_metadataManager.getObjectFactory(false);
 if(objectFactory != null) {
  objectFactory.setObjectInstanceClassName(PersistableConstants.CROSSTAB,
  "oracle.dss.thin.beans.crosstab.ThinCrosstab" );
  objectFactory.setObjectInstanceClassName(PersistableConstants.GRAPH,
  "oracle.dss.thin.beans.graph.ThinGraph" );
  objectFactory.setObjectInstanceClassName(PersistableConstants.TABLE,
  "oracle.dss.thin.beans.table.ThinTable" );
 }

How To Run

To run the BIServlet example within JDeveloper, simply right-click on BIServlet.java under bootstrap.jpr, and choose Run BIServlet.java. When the application appears in a browser, enter the username and password of the user that owns the BI Beans Catalog (e.g. BIBCAT).

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