Oracle BI Enterprise Edition Architecture Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Objectives After completing this lesson, you should be able to: • Identify the major components that make up the Oracle BI Enterprise Edition architecture • Describe the role of key components in the architecture • Describe the relationships among the components Why you need to know: • Enables you to understand the relationships among Oracle BI components, preparing you to install and configure them successfully 2-2 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Architecture • • • • • • • 2-3 Oracle Business Intelligence Clients Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation Services Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation Catalog Oracle Business Intelligence Server Oracle Business Intelligence Repository Oracle Business Intelligence Scheduler Data Sources Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Clients • Provide access to analytical information through the Web browser – – – – Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards Oracle BI Answers Oracle BI Delivers Oracle BI Presentation Catalog Administration Oracle BI Server BI Clients Access analytics information through Web browser 2-4 Presentation Services Oracle BI Scheduler Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Data sources Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards Provide prebuilt, fully interactive access to business intelligence information Can be organized by role 2-5 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Answers • Provides a self-service analysis platform • Is rendered from information in Oracle BI Presentation Services and the Oracle BI Server Highly interactive UI Driven based on security 2-6 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Delivers • Client application that: – Is used to create iBots – Delivers alerts to subscribed users – Is integrated with Dashboards and Answers • iBot definition identifies what information to filter, when it should run, and whom to send alerts to. User interface used to create iBots 2-7 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Presentation Services Administration Is used to access administrative functions of the Presentation Catalog and view information about the currently installed system Information about currently installed system Links to administrative functions 2-8 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Presentation Services • Provides the processing to visualize the information for client consumption. Oracle BI Presentation Services: – Is implemented as an extension to a Web server – Uses the Presentation Catalog to store aspects of the application • Receives data from the Oracle BI Server and provides it to the client that requested it Oracle BI Server BI Clients Presentation Services Presentation Catalog 2-9 Oracle BI Scheduler Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Data sources Presentation Catalog • Stores the application Dashboards, request definitions, pages, and filters • Contains information regarding permissions and accessibility of the Dashboards by groups and users • Is created when the Web server starts • Is administered using Oracle BI Presentation Catalog Manager Oracle BI Server BI Clients Presentation Services Presentation Catalog 2 - 10 Oracle BI Scheduler Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Data sources Oracle BI Server • Provides efficient processing to access the physical data sources and structure the information intelligently – – – – Uses metadata to direct processing Generates dynamic SQL to query data in the data sources Connects natively or through ODBC to the RDBMS Structures results to satisfy requests • Provides the data to the Oracle BI Presentation Services Oracle BI Server BI Clients Presentation Services Presentation Catalog 2 - 11 Oracle BI Scheduler Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Data sources Oracle BI Server Details Several important components are used by the Oracle BI Server: • Oracle BI Repository (.rpd) • Cache • NQSConfig.ini • DBFeatures.ini • Log files Oracle BI Server Cache NQServer.log NQSConfig.ini .rpd DBFeatures.ini NQSQuery.log Oracle BI Administration Tool 2 - 12 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Repository (.rpd) • Contains metadata that represents the analytical model • Is created using the Oracle BI Administration Tool • Is divided into three layers: – Physical: Represents the data sources – Business: Models the data sources into facts and dimensions – Presentation: Specifies the user’s view of the model; rendered in Oracle BI Answers Oracle BI Server Cache NQServer.log NQSConfig.ini .rpd DBFeatures.ini NQSQuery.log Oracle BI Administration Tool 2 - 13 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Cache • Contains results of queries • Is used to eliminate redundant queries to database – Speeds up results processing Oracle BI Server Cache NQServer.log NQSConfig.ini .rpd DBFeatures.ini NQSQuery.log Oracle BI Administration Tool 2 - 14 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. NQSConfig.ini • Is a configuration file used by the Oracle BI Server at startup • Specifies values that control processing, such as: – Defining the repository (.rpd) to load – Enabling or disabling caching of results Oracle BI Server Cache NQServer.log NQSConfig.ini .rpd DBFeatures.ini NQSQuery.log Oracle BI Administration Tool 2 - 15 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. DBFeatures.ini • Is a configuration file used by the Oracle BI Server • Specifies values that control SQL generation – Defines the features supported by each database Oracle BI Server Cache NQServer.log NQSConfig.ini .rpd DBFeatures.ini NQSQuery.log Oracle BI Administration Tool 2 - 16 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Log Files • NQServer.log records Oracle BI Server messages. • NQQuery.log records information about query requests. Oracle BI Server Cache NQServer.log NQSConfig.ini .rpd DBFeatures.ini NQSQuery.log Oracle BI Administration Tool 2 - 17 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Scheduler • Manages and executes jobs requesting data • Schedules reports to be delivered to users at specified times Oracle BI Server BI Clients Presentation Services Presentation Catalog 2 - 18 Oracle BI Scheduler Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Data sources Data Sources • Contain the business data that users want to analyze • Are accessed by the Oracle BI Server • Can be in any format, such as: – – – – Relational databases Online analytical processing (OLAP) databases Flat files Oracle BI Spreadsheets Server BI Clients Presentation Services Presentation Catalog 2 - 19 Oracle BI Scheduler Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Data Sources Oracle Business Analysis Warehouse • Predefined data source to support analysis of Oracle application data – Relevant data structures support Oracle Business Applications • Star schema format • Included with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (not available with Oracle Business Intelligence Platform) Oracle BI Server BI Clients Presentation Services Presentation Catalog 2 - 20 Oracle BI Scheduler Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Data sources Oracle Business Analysis Warehouse (OBAW) DAC and Informatica Server • Data Warehouse Application Console (DAC) Client – Used to schedule, monitor, configure, and customize ETL execution plans – Accesses metadata about ETL mappings and dependencies in the DAC repository • DAC Server – Organizes ETL requests for processing • Third-party Informatica Server populates OBAW from Oracle Business Applications (Oracle OLTP) – Uses extract, transform, and load (ETL) routines Oracle OLTP 2 - 21 DAC and Informatica Server Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. OBAW Informatica Server ETL • Uses Source Dependent Extraction (SDE) routines to extract data • Loads data into staging tables within OBAW • Uses Source Independent Loading (SIL) routines to transform data into stars within OBAW Source Dependent Extract Oracle OLTP Oracle OLTP Source 2 Source 3 Full and Incremental Extraction Source Dependent Extract Source 2 OBAW Staging Tables Source Dependent Extract Source 3 Source Dependent Extraction 2 - 22 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Source Independent Loading OBAW Structures Sample Request Processing 1. User views a Dashboard or submits an Answers request. 2. The Presentation Services makes a request to the Oracle BI Server to retrieve the requested data. 3. The Oracle BI Server, using the .rpd file, optimizes functions to request the data from the data sources. 4. The Oracle BI Server receives the data from the data sources and processes as necessary. 5. The Oracle BI Server passes the data to the Presentation Services. 6. The Presentation Services formats the data and sends it to the BI client. 1 BI Clients 6 2 - 23 Presentation Services 2 5 Oracle BI Server Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. 3 Data Sources 4 Oracle BI Enterprise Edition Platform Architecture Does not require any Oracle Business Applications Browser Web Server Presentation Services Oracle BI Scheduler Scheduler Database 2 - 24 Oracle BI Server Data Source Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle BI Repository Data Source Implementation Oracle BI components are often implemented across several computers on the network. Oracle BI Server For example: Web-based client Web server Scheduler server 2 - 25 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Data server Clustering Oracle BI Servers • Cluster Server feature: – Allows up to 16 Oracle BI Servers in a network domain to act as a single server – Servers in a cluster share requests from multiple Oracle BI clients, including Oracle BI Answers and Oracle BI Delivers • Cluster Controller is the primary component of the Cluster Server feature. It: – Monitors the status of resources in a cluster and performs session assignment as resources change – Supports detection of server failures and failover for ODBC clients of failed servers 2 - 26 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Summary After completing this lesson, you should have learned how to: • Identify the major components that make up the Oracle BI architecture • Describe the role of each component in the architecture • Describe the relationships among the components 2 - 27 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.