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
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Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Oracle BI Architecture
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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
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–
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–
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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–
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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:
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Relational databases
Online analytical processing (OLAP) databases
Flat files
Oracle BI
Spreadsheets
Server
BI Clients
Presentation
Services
Presentation
Catalog
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.