1 Introduction to Oracle Business Intelligence System Administration

This chapter introduces system administration in Oracle Business Intelligence, explains what a system administrator does; describes where to get started with typical system administration tasks; describes the Oracle Business Intelligence architecture; lists the tools that can help you complete system administration tasks, and provides links to system requirements and certification information.

This chapter includes the following sections:

• What Are the Oracle Business Intelligence System Administration Tasks?

• Getting Started with Managing Oracle Business Intelligence

• What Is the Oracle Business Intelligence System Logical Architecture?

• Key Directories in Oracle Business Intelligence

• What System Administration Tools Manage Oracle Business Intelligence?

• Working with the Sample Application

• Oracle BI Publisher Integration

• Topics of Interest in Other Guides

• System Requirements and Certification

What Are the Oracle Business Intelligence System Administration Tasks?

System administrators need to take several steps to configure Oracle Business Intelligence properly.

Administering an Oracle Business Intelligence system involves the following tasks:

• Configuring a system for deployment after installation

  Configuring metadata and content, general preferences, and default system settings.

• Starting and stopping the system when required

  Bringing the system up and down during system maintenance tasks.

• Configuring security

  Securing access to the Oracle Business Intelligence system, metadata, and data, configuring Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Single Sign-On (SSO), and integration with identity management systems.

• Scaling out and configuring for high availability

  Configuring the Oracle Business Intelligence system for linear scale-out (increasing capacity with more components on a machine) and identifying and removing single points of failure (adding more machines).

• Managing performance and availability

  Monitoring service levels and tuning performance.

• Managing and resolving issues

  Diagnosing errors and establishing resolutions.

• Moving a system from test to production

  Managing the steps for moving from a test to a production environment.

• Backing up and recovering data

  Preparing for and recovering from unexpected events.

See Getting Started with Managing Oracle Business Intelligence.

Getting Started with Managing Oracle Business Intelligence

Use this section to identify a task to complete, then click the corresponding link to display the appropriate content.

The table below describes the typical system administration tasks that you perform in Oracle Business Intelligence and indicates where to find related information.

System Administration Task	More Information
Learning about Oracle Business Intelligence system administration	See the topics in this section. Contains information about the system architecture, components, tools, links to other related topics, and certification information.
Viewing Oracle Business Intelligence status	Displaying Oracle Business Intelligence Pages in Fusion Middleware Control Also contains information about using Fusion Middleware Control and using WebLogic Server Administration Console.
Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence	Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence System Settings Contains information about the available methods for updating configuration settings and where configuration files are located.
Starting and stopping Oracle Business Intelligence	Managing Oracle Business Intelligence Processes Contains various topics on starting and stopping components, in addition to troubleshooting information.
Managing availability and capacity	Scaling and Deploying for High Availability and Performance Contains chapters about scaling the environment, deploying for high availability, performance tuning, and query caching.
Diagnosing problems and resolving issues	Resolving Issues Contains chapters about diagnosing and resolving issues and about usage tracking.
Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence	Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence Contains chapters about required configuration such as configuring repositories and connections to external systems.
Modifying advanced configuration settings	Advanced Configuration Settings Contains chapters about advanced and optional configuration settings for features such as analyses, dashboards, and maps.
Configuring Oracle BI Scheduler	Scheduling Jobs Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Managing the life cycle.	Managing the Life Cycle Contains chapters about life cycle management tasks such as patching, moving between environments, and backup and recovery.
Using Essbase with Oracle Business Intelligence	Using Oracle Essbase With Oracle Business Intelligence Contains a chapter about using Essbase when it is installed with Oracle Business Intelligence.
Securing the system	Defines administrative role membership Secures middle-tier communications Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Single Sign-On (SSO) are not described in this guide. See Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

What Is the Oracle Business Intelligence System Logical Architecture?

The Oracle Business Intelligence system logical architecture comprises a single integrated set of manageable components called the Oracle BI domain which can be installed and configured to work together on a single host or can be clustered across multiple hosts for performance and availability.

Note:

You can improve the performance of your production system by using a web server with Oracle Business Intelligence, such as Oracle HTTP Server or Apache HTTP Server. A web server is not included by default in the Oracle Business Intelligence installer and is not part of the Oracle Business Intelligence system logical architecture. You must install and configure a web server separately.

This section contains the following topics:

• Oracle Business Intelligence System Architecture.

• Oracle Business Intelligence Components.

• About the Administration Server, Managed Servers, and System Components.

Oracle Business Intelligence System Architecture

You install Oracle Business Intelligence on a single host, but can subsequently scale out onto additional computers.

See Scaling Your Deployment.

The figure below illustrates the Oracle Business Intelligence system architecture on a single host. See Oracle Business Intelligence Components.

Description of the illustration GUID-F06CBE0D-3811-45F1-953D-C174704A3107-default.png

Oracle Business Intelligence is installed on a single host but can be scaled out onto multiple hosts. Java components (WebLogic server domain) and system components are clustered on each host as part of the single BI domain. The Administration Server exists on both hosts, but will be active on only one host.

Oracle Business Intelligence Components

When you install Oracle Business Intelligence, you can install several components in the Oracle BI Domain on the host.

The BI Domain consists of Java components that are deployed into one or more Java EE (JEE) containers within a single WebLogic server domain ; system (non-JEE) components and processes; and required configuration files, metadata repositories, and infrastructure.

• Admin Server — Deployed as a JEE container that runs in a dedicated Java virtual machine that contains Java components for administering the system. These components include Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console, Oracle Fusion Middleware Control, and JMX MBeans.

• Managed Server — Deployed as a JEE container that runs in a dedicated Java virtual machine that provides the runtime environment for the Java-based services and applications within the system. These services and applications include Oracle BI Publisher, Visual Analyzer, Presentation Services, and Composer.

  An Oracle BI domain contains one or more Managed Servers that are distributed across one or more host computers.

• Node Manager — Provides process management services for the Administration Server, Managed Server processes, and System Components.

  See Node Manager Overview in Administering Node Manager for Oracle WebLogic Server.

• System Components — Deployed as server processes and provide the core services that enable Oracle Business Intelligence.

  See About the Administration Server, Managed Servers, and System Components. For information about controlling system processes, see Process Control Commands.

• Other Domain Contents — Includes all the necessary software, configuration files, metadata, WLST commands, security, and connection and database configuration information that are required to run an Oracle Business Intelligence system.

  For more information about:

  • Security configuration - See Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

  • Metadata - See Managing Metadata and Working with Service Instances and Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

About the Administration Server, Managed Servers, and System Components

Oracle Business Intelligence contains an Administration server, Managed servers, and system components which are described in this section.

See Getting Started Managing Oracle Fusion Middleware in Administering Oracle Fusion Middleware.

For information about Essbase when installed with Oracle Business Intelligence, see What System Administration Tools Manage Oracle Business Intelligence?.

About the Administration Server and Managed Servers

The Administration server and Managed servers are Java components deployed as one or more Java EE applications and described in the following list:

• Administration Server — Manages configuration and runtime settings for Oracle Business Intelligence for a single or multi-node (distributed) BI domain, using:

  • Fusion Middleware Control — An administrative user interface that is used to manage the BI domain.

  • WebLogic Server Administration Console — An administrative user interface that provides advanced management for WebLogic, JEE components, and security.

  For more information, see What System Administration Tools Manage Oracle Business Intelligence?.

• Managed Server — Manages the following components:

  • Action Service — This component provides the dedicated web services that are required by the Action Framework and that enable an administrator to manually configure which web service directories can be browsed by users when they create actions.

  • Visual Analyzer — This component provides a simple-to-use visual analytical interface.

  • BI Publisher — This component provides an enterprise reporting solution for authoring, managing, and delivering all types of highly formatted documents to employees, customers, and suppliers.

  • Security — This component provides dedicated web services that enable the integration of the Oracle BI Server with the Oracle Fusion Middleware security platform.

  • SOA Web Service — This component provides dedicated web services for objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, to invoke analyses, agents, and conditions. These services make it easy to invoke Oracle Business Intelligence functionality from Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) processes.

  • Presentation Services — This component is a JEE application that routes HTTP and SOAP requests to Oracle BI Presentation Services.

About System Components

System components are deployed as non-JEE components, such as processes and services written in C++ and J2SE, and are described in the following list:

• BI Server (OBIS) — This component provides the query and data access capabilities at the heart of Oracle Business Intelligence and provides services for accessing and managing the enterprise semantic model (stored in a file with an .RPD extension).

• BI Scheduler (OBISCH) — This component provides extensible scheduling for analyses to be delivered to users at specified times. (Oracle BI Publisher has its own scheduler.)

• BI JavaHost (OBIJH) — This component provides component services that enable Oracle BI Presentation Services to support various components such as Java tasks for Oracle BI Scheduler, Oracle BI Publisher, and graph generation. It also enables Oracle BI Server query access to Hyperion Financial Management and Hyperion Planning data sources.

• BI Presentation Server (OBIPS) — This component provides the framework and interface for the presentation of business intelligence data to web clients. It maintains an Oracle BI Presentation Catalog service on the file system for the customization of this presentation framework.

• Cluster Controller (OBICCS) — This component distributes requests to the BI Server, ensuring requests are evenly load-balanced across all BI Server process instances in the BI domain.

Key Directories in Oracle Business Intelligence

There are three key top-level directories in Oracle Business Intelligence 12c.

• ORACLE_HOME - for binaries.

  There is one ORACLE_HOME for each host, or mounted from shared storage.

• DOMAIN_HOME - for configuration, and logs.

  There is one DOMAIN_HOME for each host (also referred to as BI_DOMAIN, or bidomain).

• SDD (Singleton Data Directory) - for metadata and other cross-cluster files.

  There is one SDD for each domain.

  The SDD path (by default DOMAIN_HOME/bidata) is defined in the file bi-environment.xml, located in:

  DOMAIN_HOME/config/fmwconfig/bienv/core/bi-environment.xml

  Note:

  If you have just created a domain on one host, then SDD is set to DOMAIN_HOME/bidata.

  If you have scaled-out, the SDD changes to use mounted shared storage. In this case, the SDD will not be DOMAIN_HOME/bidata.

  See Changing the Singleton Data Directory (SDD).

What System Administration Tools Manage Oracle Business Intelligence?

There are several tools that you can use to manage Oracle Business Intelligence.

This section describes system administration tools that are available to help you to manage Oracle Business Intelligence. The table outlines the tools and their purpose.

Tool	Purpose	More Information
Fusion Middleware Control	Monitor, manage, and configure system components for Oracle Business Intelligence.	Fusion Middleware Control
Oracle WebLogic ServerAdministration Console	Monitor and manage JEE Java components for Oracle Business Intelligence.	Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console
Process control command line tool	Manage system components for Oracle Business Intelligence (for advanced users).	Process Control Commands
Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST)	Programmatically administer Oracle Business Intelligence.	Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST)
Oracle BI Administration Tool	Manage the metadata repository for Oracle Business Intelligence.	Oracle BI AdministrationTool
Catalog Manager	Manage the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog online and offline.	Catalog Manager
Job Manager	Manage the Oracle BI Scheduler	Job Manager

Fusion Middleware Control

Fusion Middleware Control is a browser-based tool and the recommended method for monitoring, managing, and configuring Oracle Business Intelligence components.

Fusion Middleware Control is used principally for managing the system components of a BI domain and provides support for the following:

• Starting, stopping, and restarting system components.

• Configuring preferences and defaults.

• Viewing status of scaled out components.

• Managing performance and monitoring system metrics.

• Performing diagnostics and logging.

Fusion Middleware Control also provides access to Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console, where you monitor and manage Oracle Business Intelligence Java components.

Fusion Middleware Control is available only if the Administration Server is running, as described in Conditions for Starting the Oracle Business Intelligence System.

See Using Tools for Managing and Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence.

Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console

Oracle WebLogic Server is a Java EE application server that supports the deployment of Oracle Business Intelligence Java components in a robust, secure, highly available, and scalable environment.

See Using Tools for Managing and Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence.

Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console enables you to monitor and manage a WebLogic Server domain. Its capabilities include the following:

• Monitoring the health and performance of JEE servers.

• Configuring WebLogic server domains.

• Stopping and starting JEE servers.

• Viewing JEE server logs.

• Managing user populations in the LDAP Server of the Oracle WebLogic Server.

See the Oracle Technology Network: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/index.html

Process Control Commands

Process control commands enable you to manage Oracle Business Intelligence system components, support both local and distributed process management, and the communication of process state (up, down, starting, and stopping).

Note:

You also use Fusion Middleware Control user interface to start, stop, and view status of system components.

Process control commands provide the following functionality to manage the Oracle Business Intelligence system components:

• A command-line interface for advanced users to control Oracle Fusion Middleware components.

  For information, see Using Commands to Start, Stop, and View Status of Oracle BI EE Processes.

• An integrated way to manage Oracle Business Intelligence component processes.

Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST)

The Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) is a command-line scripting environment (for advanced administrator use), which enables you to programmatically administer Oracle Business Intelligence.

The WLST scripting environment is based on the Java scripting interpreter Jython. You can use this tool interactively on the command line, in batch scripts that are supplied in a file (Script Mode, where scripts invoke a sequence of WLST commands without requiring your input), or embedded in Java code. You can extend the WebLogic scripting language by following the Jython language syntax. See Using the WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) and WLST Command Reference for WebLogic Server.

Oracle BI AdministrationTool

The Oracle BI Administration Tool enables you to manage the metadata repository.

See Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

Catalog Manager

The Catalog Manager is a Windows tool that is the interface with the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog.

Through Catalog Manager, you can perform online and offline management of Oracle BI Presentation Catalogs. See Configuring and Managing the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog.

Job Manager

The Job Manager is a Windows tool that is the interface with the Oracle BI Scheduler.

Through Job Manager, you can connect to, start and stop the Oracle BI Scheduler, add and manage jobs, and manage job instances. For information, see Scheduling Jobs Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

Working with the Sample Application

The sample application allows you to test configurations and procedures before promoting them to a live scenario.

You can configure Oracle Business Intelligence with a simplified sample application. This application is often referred to as SampleApp Lite.

You can also download and configure a more robust sample application. Instructions for this configuration are available at the following location:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/obiee-samples-167534.html

See About the SampleApp Demonstration Repository in Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for information about the sample repository that is provided with Oracle Business Intelligence.

Oracle BI Publisher Integration

This guide assumes that Oracle BI EE and BI Publisher have been installed and configured to run as fully integrated components at your organization. If this is not the case, then some mentions of BI Publisher in this guide might not be applicable to you.

For information about running BI Publisher, see User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Topics of Interest in Other Guides

Some topics that might be of interest to system administrators are covered in other guides.

The following table lists these topics and indicates where to go for more information.

Topic	Where to Go for More Information
Third-party tools and relational data source adapters.	System Requirements and Certification
Configuration tasks for Oracle BI Scheduler.	Scheduling Jobs Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Configuring data sources.	Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Security, including configuring SSO and SSL.	Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Installing and upgrading.	Installing and Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence Upgrading Oracle Business Intelligence
Configuring comments and status overrides in Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management.	Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Converting Oracle Business Intelligence proprietary metadata to an XML file and importing the metadata into your Oracle database.	Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Propagating UI hints (labels and tooltips) from an ADF data source to display in Oracle BI Answers.	Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

System Requirements and Certification

System requirements and certification are described in their own documents.

Refer to the system requirements and certification documentation for information about hardware and software requirements, platforms, databases, and other information. Both of these documents are available on Oracle Technology Network (OTN).

The system requirements document covers information such as hardware and software requirements, minimum disk space and memory requirements, and required system libraries, packages, or patches:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/ias/downloads/fusion-requirements-100147.html

The certification document covers supported installation types, platforms, operating systems, databases, JDKs, and third-party products:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/ias/downloads/fusion-certification-100350.html