To set up your system for repository development under source control management, you must set up an SCM configuration file with commands specific to your SCM system, and generate an MDS XML repository and check it into your SCM system.
This section contains the following topics:
To integrate the Oracle BI Administration Tool with your source control management system (SCM), you must create an XML configuration file based on your specific SCM system.
The configuration file contains the SCM system commands for adding, deleting, checking out, and renaming files. The Administration Tool issues these commands to the SCM system when repository objects are created or updated, resulting in corresponding new or changed MDS XML files.
Note:
The Oracle BI Administration Tool does not commit the changes to the SCM system. The repository developer must always check the files into the SCM system directly. The separate check-in in the SCM system facilitates viewing any conflicts or implementing merge decisions in the SCM environment rather than the Administration Tool environment.
If you create or edit an SCM configuration file while an MDS XML repository is open, you must ensure that Use Source Control is selected to enable the New or Edit buttons.
The default location for SCM configuration files is ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obisn
. Although templates are also available in this location, do not select a template file during this step. Instead, you can load a template in the next step.
The SCM configuration template files are called scm-conf-ade.template.xml
and scm-conf-svn.template.xml
. In addition to being available in the ORACLE_INSTANCE
location indicated, they are also available on the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) at:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/downloads/obieescmconfigfiles-1568980.zip
Unless it is your intention to modify the configuration file template itself, ensure that Edit in Configuration Editor is not selected. If you select this option, the file name displayed in the Configuration File field in the SCM Configuration Editor changes from the file name you provided in the proceeding step to the template file name, and changes are saved by default to the template file.
You should not store security-sensitive environment variables in the configuration file. If security-sensitive variables are required by your SCM system, to avoid the security risk, you can launch the Administration Tool from Windows Command Prompt with any security-sensitive variables already set.
To integrate with an SCM system, you must convert your Oracle BI repository to MDS XML format.
Use one of the following options to create an MDS XML repository and check it into your source control system:
If you have an existing repository file, use these steps for initial import to convert it to MDS XML.
Note:
You can also use the biserverxmlgen
utility with the -M
and -D
options to generate MDS XML from an existing RPD. See “Generating MDS XML from an Existing RPD Using a Command-Line Utility” in the XML Schema Reference for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
Use these steps to create a new repository in MDS XML format.
Note:
Do not create a new MDS XML-format repository, add objects, and then select Link to Source Control. This method does not work, and SCM commands are not generated.
For very small repositories, you can use the Link to Source Control files method to convert a binary RPD file to MDS XML format.
Note:
Using the Link to Source Control Files method to initially import your repository is only recommended for very small repositories. This method is too slow for large repositories, tens of thousands of files, because the Administration Tool imports the files one at a time using the standard add file
command, rather than using specialized commands for bulk file import.
The repeated invocation of the add file
command might increase the chances of transient errors. If these occur, you might need to restart the process a few times before all files are successfully imported to source control.