Deploying OBIEE in the Cloud - Oracle Openworld 2014

Deploying OBIEE in the Cloud:
Getting Started, Deployment Scenarios
and Best Practices
Mark Rittman, CTO, Rittman Mead
Oracle Openworld 2014, San Francisco
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E : info@rittmanmead.com
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About the Speaker
•Mark Rittman, Co-Founder of Rittman Mead
•Oracle ACE Director, specialising in Oracle BI&DW
•14 Years Experience with Oracle Technology
•Regular columnist for Oracle Magazine
•Author of two Oracle Press Oracle BI books
•Oracle Business Intelligence Developers Guide
•Oracle Exalytics Revealed
•Writer for Rittman Mead Blog :
http://www.rittmanmead.com/blog
•Email : mark.rittman@rittmanmead.com
•Twitter : @markrittman

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About Rittman Mead
•Oracle BI and DW Gold partner
•Winner of five UKOUG Partner of the Year awards in 2013 - including BI
•World leading specialist partner for technical excellence,
solutions delivery and innovation in Oracle BI
•Approximately 80 consultants worldwide
•All expert in Oracle BI and DW
•Offices in US (Atlanta), Europe, Australia and India
•Skills in broad range of supporting Oracle tools:
‣OBIEE, OBIA
‣ODIEE
‣Essbase, Oracle OLAP
‣GoldenGate
‣Endeca

Deploying OBIEE in the Cloud
•Many OBIEE customers are considering deploying their BI
infrastructure in the “cloud”
•“Push” and “Pull” factors in-play
‣Perceived benefits in reducing amount of on-premise servers,
software installs, upfront-license costs
‣May also be prompted by migration of rest of IT infrastructure
to the cloud
‣To enable business agility - deploy the system now
-And potentially reduce dependency on IT department
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Enabling Business Agility - Rapid Development in the Cloud
•Example cloud use of OBIEE - accelerating the BI development process
‣Combines agile development (“ExtremeBI”) with OBIEE deployed into Amazon AWS
‣Cloud element allows development to start now
‣Options for repatriating on-premise afterwards
•Based on Amazon AWS (EC2, S3) and Oracle BI
•More details at
http://www.rittmanmead.com/cloudbi/
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Options for Deploying OBIEE in the Cloud
•Deploy it yourself into a public cloud (Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace etc)
•Buy it as a service (Oracle On-Demand, multi-tenant SaaS app)
•Or … - Oracle BI Cloud Service
‣OBIEE 11g built for the cloud
‣Part of Oracle Public Cloud, comes with
Oracle Cloud DB
‣Thin-client data modeller
‣Tools for managing users, roles etc
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Oracle Cloud Business Intelligence
•Generally Available (GA) September 2014
•Part of the wider PaaS (platform-as-a-service)
offering including database, Java, documents etc
•Aimed at a very specific set of use-cases initially
‣Adding BI and analytics to cloud-based apps
‣Departmental sandbox-type analysis
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Self-Service, Consumer-Style Experience
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Oracle BI Cloud Service v1 Functionality
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Oracle Cloud Business Intelligence - How it Works
•Runs in Oracle’s public cloud environment (http://cloud.oracle.com)
•No upfront license cost
‣Pay monthly as OpEx
•Uses new thin-client RPD modelling tool
•Only reports against a single Oracle database
schema (Oracle Cloud Schema-as-a-Service)
•“Standard” OBIEE - but will possibly preview new
functionality before on-premise versions
•Patched automatically by Oracle
‣Customer able to be max one version behind?
•Comes with two instances - pre-prod and prod
‣Code promotion through BI Archive export/import
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Oracle Schema-as-a-service
Cloud
Oracle BI-as-a-Service Database (single source)
Admin access On-Premise
over HTTP

Oracle BI Cloud Services v.1
Logging into BICS, Accessing Services
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Logging In and Providing Identity Domain
•Login separate to oracle.com login; provided during Cloud service provisioning process
•Identity Domain is the tenant ID; all users of same service use same domain ID
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Oracle Cloud : My Services Dashboard
•Oracle BICS bundle includes Oracle Database Cloud Service (Schema-as-a-Service)
•Provides data store for OBIEE data, with ApEX front-end and data upload
•View status of services
•Click on link to launch required service
‣Database
‣Business Intelligence
Click to launch
BICS Service Dashboard
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Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service : Dashboard
•View basic metrics on system usage
(users, author count over period)
•Subscription details; Company name etc
‣Click on Service Instance URL
to launch OBIEE Presentation Services
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Click to launch
OBIEE Home Page

Accessing BI Dashboards & Analyses
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BI Cloud Service Home Page and Dashboards
•Answers and Dashboards (with new Oracle Cloud look-and-feel)
•But with tools to upload data, build the RPD, administer users, manage system
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Creating Analyses and Dashboards
•Standard UI for creating analyses, dashboards etc (but limited to subset of features now)
•Each tenant has a single RPD, all users report against that (but can add security etc)
•Helpers when user first connects to guide through key features
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Standard Dashboard and Analysis Editor Experience
•Regular Presentation Services interface - Dashboard, Analysis Editor, Catalog view etc
•Uses new “Skyros” theme from Fusion Apps
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Dashboard and Analysis Limitations in v1
•Can create analyses, dashboards, use filters, selection steps, calculations etc
•Can create dashboard prompts, filters, use repository and session variables etc
•No access to Agents, Scorecards, BI Publisher (anything that uses NQ_ tables)
•No Essbase, SOA / EBS integration etc
•No export of
catalog objects
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Uploading data to Database Cloud Service
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Oracle Database Cloud Service
•Each instance of BICS comes with Oracle Database Cloud Service (Schema-as-a-Service)
•ApEx environment with 10GB storage attached
•Able to run PL/SQL packages (with 5m timeout)
•Either create tables, views etc from ApEX,
or use data uploader in BICS
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Click to launch
ApEX Home Page

ApEx Development Environment
•Full ApEx environment for application building, table creation, SQL queries
•Can be used to build supporting applications, administration screens for OBIEE application
•Make use of PL/SQL functionality
‣Data cleansing
‣Call Web Service REST APIs
‣More complex processing
and calculations
•DB Cloud Service dashboard has tools
for data and application exports
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Options for Uploading Data to BI Cloud Service (DB Cloud)
•Use ApEx front-end and tools within it (data upload, data modeller etc)
•Use SQL*Developer and SFTP data upload facility
•Use BI Cloud Service Data Uploader
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SQL*Developer for Database Cloud Access / Upload
•SQL*Developer 4+ can view, query and upload data to Database Cloud
•Uses DB Cloud REST API to access database
•Create “carts” of data to upload
•Uses SFTP to bulk-upload
data imports to cloud
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Data Uploader in ApEx
•Upload spreadsheet, XML data, text (delimited or fixed width)
•Store as a table in Database Cloud Service
•Create keys, joins, views etc

BI Cloud Services Data Uploader
•Custom ApEx application shipped with DB Cloud Service for BICS
•Upload CSV, text, xls and xlsx files to Database Cloud
•Paste data from clipboard and upload
•Limited data re-formatting features
•Preferred method for uploading data
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Click to launch
Data Uploader

BICS Data Uploader Step 1 : Select File to Upload
•Press Upload to upload txt, csv, xlsx or xls file to application
•Contents of file then appear in
Preview window
•Or just paste data from clipboard
into same preview window
•Option to ignore headers line
•Option to select delimiter char
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BICS Data Uploader Step 2 : Select Target or New Table
•Either select existing table to upload to, or enter details for new table
•Incoming columns in file mapped to table columns
•Ability to change column case, strip spaces, format as number
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BICS Data Uploader Step 3 : Preview Content, and Upload
•Preview file contents with transformations and final column names
•Upload file to Database Cloud Service - is the used to load a regular DB table
•Review table and check for loading errors
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Creating the repository

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Thin-Client Data Modeller
•New thin-client data modeller, works with RPD online
•Single repository per tenant
•Regular RPD, but modeller only supports
subset of BI Administration features
•Single LTS per logical table
•No Alias, have to create DB views
•Single business model
•Only logical calculations
Click to launch
Data Modeller
•But otherwise - an RPD

Data Modeller Repository Creation Workflow
1. Add tables to Database Cloud Service via data uploader
2. Lock Model (RPD)
3. Add joins if not automatically introspected
4. Select either a dimension or fact to create
5. Select table to base fact or dimension on
6. Format logical column names, values
7. Add calculations, aggregations
8. Add hierarchies
9. Publish model and unlock
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Logical Fact Table Features
•Joins to dimensions automatically introspected when tables selected for model
•Add default aggregation for logical columns
•Define logical calculations
(post-aggregation calcs only)
•Add data filters against
application roles
•Set access permissions for
application roles
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Logical Dimension Table Features
•Alter and rename default logical column names
•Add new logical columns using logical SQL expressions
•Add one or more level-based hierarchies
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Variables
•Can create static and dynamic repository variables
•Also create session variables, including access to system session variables
‣Access to :USER etc system session variables

Administration and Maintenance
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Manage Users and Application Roles
•Click on Manage link on Homepage, launches BICS Service Console
•View users, assign to roles
•Map roles to application roles defined by tenant administrator
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Click to launch
BICS Service Console

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Snapshots (BI Archives)
•Entire system (RPD, catalog) can be snapshotted with versions stored online
•Download and upload snapshots
‣Test to production migration
‣Restore snapshots for versioning
•Note - overwrites entire RPD, catalog
‣Does not include DB Cloud elements,
need to be archived separately

Example Application : Cloud CRM Reporting
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Example Application #1 : Cloud CRM Reporting - Scenario
•Many customers use SaaS applications for CRM, sales automation, talent management etc
•Often silos of information, and hard to report against
‣Access via REST APIs rather than SQL / ETL
•BI Tools needed, but prefer if SaaS deployed too
•Solution : Oracle BI Cloud Services,
but how to access SaaS data sources?
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SaaS Data Access Solution : DB Cloud PL/SQL REST Access
•Database Cloud Service supports PL/SQL packages, procedures
•ApEx has APEX_WEB_SERVICE API, supports RESTful and SOAP web service calls
•Salesforce.com provides REST API for retrieving objects, data
‣PL/SQL package retrieves
Salesforce instance data
‣Stages into Database Cloud
Schema for OBIEE access
•Need to work around
5 min timeout for PL/SQL prods
‣DB Cloud limitation
‣Break retrieval into
small steps, <1 min
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BEGIN
apex_web_service.g_request_headers(1).name := 'Accept';
apex_web_service.g_request_headers(1).value := 'application/xml';
l_clob :=
apex_web_service.make_rest_request( p_url =>
'https://login.salesforce.com/services/oauth2/token?grant_type=password&client_id='
||clientId||'&client_secret='||clientSecret||'&username='||username||
'&password='||password, p_http_method => 'POST' , p_body => '');
XMLData := XMLType(l_clob);
FOR r IN
(
SELECT
ExtractValue(Value(p),'/OAuth/instance_url/text()') AS r_instance ,
ExtractValue(Value(p),'/OAuth/access_token/text()') AS r_token
FROM
TABLE(XMLSequence(Extract(XMLData,'/OAuth'))) p
)
LOOP

Build Repository Against Database Tables
•PL/SQL Package calling Salesforce.com REST API populates Oracle tables
•Oracle Tables then mapped into BI repository
•Facts and dimensions created
•Variables defined
•Users added into roles
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Supporting SaaS Security Models
•Full import of SaaS dataset presents the problem - how do we then respect app security?
‣Users will connect into OBIEE as themselves, no online access to SaaS security
•Solution : download user > account security objects,
join those to facts to perform row-level filtering
‣Needs knowledge of underlying
SaaS row-level security setup
‣Join security access table to model
to apply data restrictions
‣But then allows BICS app to work
disconnected from SaaS application,
but still apply correct security rules
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Example Dashboard using Salesforce.com Dataset
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New graph type:
Example of visualisation
appearing first on BICS

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Thank You for Attending!
•Thank you for attending this presentation, and more information can be found at http://
www.rittmanmead.com
•Contact us at info@rittmanmead.com or mark.rittman@rittmanmead.com
•Look out for our book, “Oracle Business Intelligence Developers Guide” out now!
•Follow-us on Twitter (@rittmanmead) or Facebook (facebook.com/rittmanmead)

Deploying OBIEE in the Cloud:
Options and Deployment Scenarios
Mark Rittman, CTO, Rittman Mead
BIWA Summit 2014, San Francisco, Jan 2014
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Deploying OBIEE in the Cloud - Oracle Openworld 2014

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