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ation of De ellTM Bestt Pracctice Conffigura Servvers to t Op ptimizze Oracle® Busiiness Inte elligence Suite S

Database Solutio ons Engine eering oduct Gro oup Dell Pro Wendy Chen and d Roger Lo opez

Octobe er 2010

Deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Dell Systems

THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. © 2010 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell. Dell, the DELL logo, and the DELL badge, PowerEdge, and EqualLogic are trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel and Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Microsoft and Windows Server registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell Inc. disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and trade names other than its own. October 2010

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Contents Abstract................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3 Dell Solutions for Oracle Database ................................................................................... 4 Overview of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 11g ........................................ 4 Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 11g Components ..................................... 5 Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 11g Logical Architecture............................ 6 Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 11g Administration Tools ........................... 8 Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control 11g ......................................................... 8 Weblogic Server Administration Console ....................................................................... 9 Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server Tool ....................................................... 9 Weblogic Scripting Tool.......................................................................................... 10 Overview of Oracle VM ................................................................................................ 10 Overview of Dell Oracle BI EE 11g Reference Configuration Architecture .................................... 12 Deploying Oracle BI EE 11g Horizontal Scale-Out Infrastructure ............................................... 12 Installing Oracle VM Server 2.2 and Creating Guest VMs ...................................................... 12 Installing and Configuring Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5 x86 ......................................... 13 Creating Fusion Middleware Database Schemas Using the Repository Creation Utility .................. 14 Configuring Shared Files and Directories for the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Cluster ................................................................................................................ 16 Running the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Installer on the First Virtual Machine ......................................................................................................................... 18 Setting up Shared Files and Directories for the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Cluster ................................................................................................................ 19 Setting up Shared Oracle BI Repository ....................................................................... 19 Setting up Shared Oracle BI Presentation Catalog .......................................................... 20 Setting up Shared Oracle BI Global Cache .................................................................... 20 Setting up Shared Oracle BI Scheduler Scripts ............................................................... 21 Running the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Installer on the Second Virtual Machine ............................................................................................................... 21 Scaling Out BI System Components in Fusion Middleware Control .......................................... 22 Summary ................................................................................................................. 24 References .............................................................................................................. 24

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Tables Table 1.

OVS Directory Contents ................................................................................ 11

Table 2.

Screens for RCU 11.1.1.3.3 Creation of Database Schemas ...................................... 15

Table 3.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Oracle VM Running Oracle Enterprise

Linux 5 Update 5 x86 ............................................................................................ 18

Figures Figure 1.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Sample Dashboard......................... 5

Figure 2.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g components (Source: Oracle) ........... 5

Figure 3.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Logical Architecture on a Single Host

(Source: Oracle) ................................................................................................... 7 Figure 4.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Logical Architecture on a Two Node

Cluster (Source: Oracle) ......................................................................................... 8 Figure 5.

Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control 11g ................................................ 9

Figure 6.

Weblogic Server Administration Console ............................................................. 9

Figure 7.

Oracle VM architecture (Source: Oracle) ............................................................ 11

Figure 8.

Architecture Overview of Oracle BI EE 11.1.1.3.0 Reference Configuration .................. 12

Figure 9.

Setting up Shared Oracle BI Repository in Fusion Middleware Control ......................... 20

Figure 10.

Setting up Shared Oracle BI Presentation Catalog in Fusion Middleware Control ......... 20

Figure 11.

Setting up Shared Oracle BI Global Cache in Fusion Middleware Control ................... 21

Figure 12.

Run Business Intelligence Installer to Scale Out BI System on the Second Virtual Machine 22

Figure 13.

Scale BI System Components in Fusion Middleware Control ................................... 23

Figure 14.

Configure Primary and Secondary Instances of the Cluster Controller and BI Scheduler . 23

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Abstract In order to optimize corporate profits and performance, businesses today use Business Intelligence (BI) tools and applications to collect information from a variety of sources, analyze the information, and present it to users to improve decision making. Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (BI EE) offers a comprehensive suite of open standards-based BI products and provides the best foundation for building enterprise-wide BI solutions. This white paper describes Dell’s recommended approach for enterprise deployment architecture for Oracle BI EE 11g on Dell storage systems and Dell servers running Oracle VM and Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL). By taking advantages of the virtualization technologies, the hardware infrastructure platform presented in this paper helps reduce cost through the utilization of Oracle VM’s capability to hard partition a physical server. The paper also provides an Oracle VM template with pre-installed and pre-configured software images to speed up the deployment process of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite EE 11g.

Introduction Oracle BI EE 11g offers a comprehensive suite of BI infrastructure and tools. Oracle BI EE 11g enables businesses to extract and analyze data from multiple systems while delivering visibility into business intelligence for many audiences in an intuitive format enabling users to make more informed business decisions. The Dell PowerEdge™ 11th generation servers feature energy-tuned technologies designed to reduce power consumption while increasing performance and capacity. The Lifecycle Controller (LC) components simplify administrator tasks by performing a complete set of provisioning functions such as system deployment, system updates, hardware configuration and diagnostics from a single intuitive interface called the Unified Server Configurator (USC) in a pre-OS environment. The Dell Management Console (DMC) delivers a single view and a common data source into the entire infrastructure. DMC helps to reduce or eliminate manual processes so that less time and money are spent on maintenance and more can be spent on strategic uses of technology. The PowerEdge R710 2U rack server features Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 and 5600 series processors that provide quad-core or six-core processing to maximize performance, and performance/watt, for data center infrastructures. Two other notable features that benefit multi-threaded demanding enterprise application workloads are:  

Support for CPU turbo mode (on certain configurations) that increases CPU frequency if operating below thermal, power, and current limits Simultaneous multi-threading (hyper-threading) capability that increases application performance by delivering greater throughput and responsiveness

The PowerEdge R710 utilizes DDR3 memory to provide a high performance, high-speed memory interface capable of low-latency response and high throughput. The Dell EqualLogic™ PS Series iSCSI storage arrays provide primary and secondary storage capacity to a wide variety of applications with enterprise-class performance and low-cost of ownership. By delivering the benefits of consolidated networked storage in a self-managing iSCSI Storage Area Network (SAN), the PS Series storage is easy to use and affordable. Built on a patented peer storage architecture where all arrays in a storage pool are designed to work together to provide disk capacity and evenly distribute the load, the PS Series SAN offers high performance, reliability, scalability, Page 3

Deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Dell Systems intelligent automation, simplified deployment, and comprehensive data protection. The PS Series storage arrays include add-on software to provide snapshot, replication, and other features with no additional cost. These features allow Oracle data to be easily and readily replicated for data protection and business continuity. Oracle VM is server virtualization software. Oracle VM enables customers to deploy applications with the ability to share server and storage resources to maximize utilization of system resources. Oracle BI EE 11g is certified to run on Oracle VM with Linux x86 or Linux x86-64 operating systems. The reference configuration documented in this paper consists of Oracle BI EE version 11.1.1.3.0 running on Oracle VM 2.2 and Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5 x86. The key benefits of this infrastructure platform include:   

Lower the license cost of Oracle BI EE by utilizing Oracle VM’s capability to partition a physical server into virtual machines with assigned number of CPU processor cores for the appropriate level of performance Speed up the deployment process of Oracle BI EE by providing Oracle VM templates with preinstalled and pre-configured software images Oracle VM and Oracle Enterprise Linux are free products backed by Oracle thus providing a single point of support of the entire virtualized environment

This reference configuration white paper is intended to help IT professionals design and configure Oracle BI EE 11g using Dell systems that apply best practices derived from laboratory and real-world experiences. This white paper documents the Dell recommended approach for implementing a tested and validated solution for Oracle BI EE on EqualLogic PS6000XV Series iSCSI storage array and the PowerEdge R710 server running Oracle VM 2.2 and Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5 x86.

Dell Solutions for Oracle Database Dell Solutions for Oracle products are designed to simplify operations, improve usability and costeffectively scale as your needs grow over time. In addition to providing server and storage hardware, Dell solutions for Oracle include:    

Dell Configurations for Oracle – in-depth testing of Oracle configurations for high-demand solutions; documentation and tools that help simplify deployment Integrated Solution Management – standards-based management of Dell Solutions for Oracle that can lower operational costs through integrated hardware and software deployment, monitoring, and updating Oracle Licensing – multiple licensing options that can simplify customer purchase Dell Enterprise Support and Infrastructure Services for Oracle – including offerings for the planning, deployment and maintenance of Dell Solutions for Oracle Database

For more information concerning Dell Solutions for Oracle Database, please visit www.dell.com/oracle.

Overview of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 11g Oracle BI EE 11g provides a full range of BI capabilities that allow organizations to collect up-to-date data from data sources, present the data in easy-to-understand formats, and deliver data to users. These capabilities enable organizations to make better decisions and become more efficient. Page 4

Deploying g Oracle Busin ness Intelligen nce Enterprisse Edition 11gg on Dell Systtems 1g dashboard which presen nts data in ea asy-to-undersstand formatss Figure 1 is a sample Orracle BI EE 11 ables, graphs,, and charts. This dashboard comes fro om the Samp pleApp Lite sa ample applica ation such as ta which is part p of the de efault Oracle BI EE 11g insstallation.

Figure 1.

Oracle Business Intelligence e Enterprise e Edition 11 1g Sample D Dashboard

Oracle Business Intelligenc ce Suite Enterprise E e Edition 11g Compo onents Figure 2 illustrates the e Oracle Busin ness Intelligence Suite Entterprise Edition 11g compo onents in a sttack view.

Figure 2. Oracle e Business Intelligence I e Enterprise e Edition 11g components (Source: Oracle) O

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Deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Dell Systems Oracle BI is based on industry standards and is open to work with the IT infrastructure you have today or what you might select in the future. This includes your choice of operating systems, security infrastructure, browsers and servers. Oracle BI is open to a variety of data sources of all types, including relational, multidimensional, semistructured and unstructured data sources. Oracle BI EE 11g supports disparate heterogeneous data sources including Oracle, Teradata, DB2, SQL Server, multidimensional data sources (SAP BW, Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, Oracle OLAP, etc), unstructured data (flat files, XML files, etc) and prepackaged business application suites (E-business suite, SAP, BW, PeopleSoft, EPM, Siebel CRM, etc). Oracle BI Server is the core component of Oracle BI EE. BI server is deployed on a Common Enterprise Information Model which is architected to use common metadata, common security model, common data access, common infrastructure and common systems management. This enables businesses to leverage additional BI capabilities with minimum complexity and cost. For instance, the common metadata is accessed by all end user tools, spanning all enterprise data. It allows businesses to define key metrics and calculation in one place to assure enterprise alignment and a consistent view of information across departments. In addition, Oracle BI 11g offers strong integration with Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Enterprise Performance Management applications, and Oracle business applications, providing Oracle customers with additional power and cost advantages. Oracle BI EE 11g consists of several user facing components:         

Oracle BI Analysis & Reporting: Ad-hoc query and reporting Oracle BI Interactive Dashboard: Highly interactive Web dashboards for accessing business intelligence and applications content Oracle BI Publisher: Enterprise reporting and distribution of “pixel-perfect” reports Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management: Tool to define and communicate an organization’s corporate strategy Oracle BI Briefing Books: Snapshots of dashboard pages to view and share in offline mode Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics: Full analytical functionality for the mobile professionals Oracle BI Office Plug-In: Synchronizes information with Microsoft Office products Oracle BI Delivers: Proactive business activity monitoring and alerting Oracle BI Search: Search existing BI contents.

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 11g Logical Architecture Figure 3 illustrates the logical architecture on a single host.

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Deploying g Oracle Busin ness Intelligen nce Enterprisse Edition 11gg on Dell Systtems

Figure 3. Oracle e Business Intelligence I e Enterprise e Edition 11g Logical Arrchitecture on a Single S Host (Source: Orracle) The Oraclle BI EE 11g lo ogical archite ecture includes a single se et of compone ents called O Oracle BI domain. Oracle BI domain can be b installed and a configure ed on a single e host or can be clustered across multip ple hosts for better perforrmance and high h availabiliity. Figure 3 shows the BI domain on a single host. A BI doma ain has three parts of com mponents – the e first part is the Java com mponents dep ployed within na single We eblogic domain. Unlike the e Oracle BI EE E 10g which ccan be integrrated with OC C4J or Oracle Applicatio on Server, Oracle BI EE 11g g is highly inttegrated with h Weblogic se erver. The Ja ava componen nts of Oracle BI EE 11g is a Weblogic W domain. Inside a Weblogic do omain, there is an Adminisstration Serve er and a Man naged Server.. The Adminiistration Servver enables th he administra ation of the B BI domain on a single nod de or on multtiple nodes. For F example, the Adminis trator Serverr contains the e Fusion Middleware Control an nd the Weblog gic Server Administration Console. The e managed se erver contain ns the java-base ed services an nd application ns. For exam mple, the Oraccle BI plugin a and BI publisher are part o of the managed server. The secon nd part of the e BI domain iss system com mponents. Th e system com mponents are server proce esses and they provide the core c services for Oracle BI. For instancce, the BI Serrver, Presenta ation Server, JavaHost,, Scheduler, and a Cluster Controller C are all part of th he System Co omponents. The third part of the BI B domain includes the con nfiguration filles and metadata reposito ory. The metadata a RPD file, pre esentation ca atalog along with w configuraation files an nd log files are part of it.

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Figure 4. Oracle e Business Intelligence I e Enterprise e Edition 11g Logical Arrchitecture on a Two T Node Cluster C (Source: Oracle) Figure 4 illustrates the e architecture e of a two no ode clustered configuration. A cluster configuration n still has a sing gle BI domain. The Java components and the system m componentts are installe ed on each ho ost and they are clustered d into the sing gle BI domain n. The Admin nistration Serrver exists on both hosts, b but it is only active on one host. h

Oracle Business Intelligenc ce Suite Enterprise E e Edition 11g Admin nistration Tools The system administra ation tools available to ma anage Oracle Business Inte elligence inclu ude:    

En nterprise Man nager Fusion Middleware Control C 11g Weblogic W Serve er Administra ation Console e Oracle Processs Manager and d Notification n Server (OPM MN) Weblogic W Scrip pting Tool (WLST)

Enterprisse Manager Fusion F Middle eware Contrrol 11g Fusion Mid ddleware Con ntrol 11g (Fig gure 5) is an Enterprise E Maanager Web browser user iinterface whiich is primarily used to moniitor, manage, and configu ure Oracle Bussiness Intelliggence system m componentss or the core BI B processes. For example, Fusion Midd dleware Contrrol can mana age the BI servver, presenta ation server, sc cheduler, clusster controlle er, and javaho ost. From th e Fusion Midd dleware Conttrol, you can start or stop th hese compone ents. You can n also use Fussion Middlewaare Control tto configure tthe componen nts, scale out the compone ents, manage performance e, and monito or system staatus.

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Figure 5.

Enterrprise Manag ger Fusion Middleware M e Control 11g

Weblogic c Server Adm ministration Console C Oracle BI EE 11g is highly integrated with Weblo ogic server. T The Weblogicc Server Admiinistration Co onsole (Figure 6)) is also a Web browser-ba ased user inte erface which allows you to o monitor and d manage a Weblogic server domaiin.

Figure 6.

Weblo ogic Server Administration Consol e

Oracle Prrocess Manag ger and Notiffication Serv ver Tool Oracle Pro ocess Manage er and Notific cation Server (OPMN) tool provides a co ommand line interface forr managing Oracle Busin ness Intelligen nce system co omponents.

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Deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Dell Systems Weblogic Scripting Tool The Weblogic Scripting Tool (WLST) provides the command line scripting environment for Weblogic which is used to administer Oracle Business Intelligence.

Overview of Oracle VM Oracle VM is Xen architecture-based server virtualization software offered by Oracle. Server virtualization technology plays a key role in many IT organizations today. One of the key benefits of server virtualization is server consolidation. Oracle VM provides the ability to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual machines. The virtual machines exist on the same physical server and they share the system resources of that physical server, but the virtual machines behave like independent physical servers. Each virtual machine has its own virtual CPUs, network interfaces, storage and operating system. As a result of increased server consolidation, Oracle VM helps improve server utilization, maximize server efficiency, lower the cost of infrastructure and operations, and consequently, Oracle VM helps reduce the power and space requirements in data centers. Oracle VM can be deployed on industry standard x86 servers. Oracle VM supports Windows, Linux, and Oracle Solaris as the guest operating systems running inside the virtual machine. Oracle VM also supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications running on the guest operating systems. In recent years, the industry standard x86 servers are becoming more powerful. The x86 servers can support more powerful CPUs with higher processor core counts. The memory capacity has also become much larger. As a result, servers are becoming under-utilized. In these scenarios, Oracle VM can help increase server utilization and improve efficiency. For certain types of software, the price of the software license is determined by the number of CPU cores of the machine on which the software is deployed on. Therefore, the software license cost can be very expensive if software is deployed on a physical server due to the higher numbers of processor core counts available. In this scenario, Oracle VM can be used to hard partition a physical server to optimize the software license cost. Oracle VM enables rapid deployment of operating systems and applications by providing the template feature. Oracle VM templates are pre-configured virtual machines containing pre-installed full product stack. Use of Oracle VM templates helps organizations reduce the installation and configuration time, and achieve faster deployment of enterprise software. This paper provides a template developed by Dell, to speed up the deployment process of Oracle BI EE 11g. If you are interested in implementing the Oracle Business Intelligence templates referred to in this paper, please contact the Dell Services Business Intelligence division (http://marketing.dell.com/bi-services). As illustrated in Figure 7, Oracle VM has three major components: 

Oracle VM manager is a Web user interface for managing VM servers. It is also used to manage virtual machine lifecycle, such as the creation, deletion, powering off, or live migration of virtual machines. Oracle VM manager can manage the resources such as virtual machine templates, ISO files, or the shared virtual disks. As part of the VM manager installation, an Oracle 10g Express Edition database is installed as the repository database. This database is used by the VM manager for internal management. Page 10

Deploying g Oracle Busin ness Intelligen nce Enterprisse Edition 11gg on Dell Systtems 



Oracle VM serv ver is based on o the Xen hyypervisor tech hnology. Ora acle VM server includes a llight weight w Linux kernel k as dom m0 which man nages one or m more domU vvirtual machin nes. A guest op perating syste em runs insid de each of the e domU virtuaal machines, such as Linuxx or Microsoft Windows. W Oracle VM agent is installed d with the Orracle VM serve er. It commu unicates with h the VM manager fo or manageme ent of virtual machines.

Figure 7.

Oracle e VM archittecture (Sou urce: Oracle e)

Oracle VM M supports tw wo types of virrtual machine es – hardware e virtualized and paravirtu ualized. For the hardware virtualized option, o the gu uest operating system doe es not need to o be modified d. For the paravirtua alized option, the guest operating systems is recom mpiled to the virtual enviro onment for be etter performan nce. Oracle VM M uses a stora age repositoryy, also called the OVS repo ository, to store Oracle VM M resources including guest virtual machine ima ages, virtual machine tem mplates, ISO im mages, and vvirtual disks. Oracle VM M creates the /OVS directo ory which is a symbolic lin nk to the actu ual OVS repossitory mount point. Th he sub-directo ories under /OVS are listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Directory Name iso_pool publish_p pool seed_pool sharedDissk running_p pool

/OVS Directory Contents C Descriptio on ISO files im mported VM deployyed as public Virtual ma achine templa ates Shared virrtual disks VM imagess and configu uration files

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Overv view off Dell Oracle O BI B EE 11g Referrence Confiiguratio on Arch hitecturre The reference configuration for Ora acle BI EE 11g g deployed on n Dell system ms is intended d to validate tthe following solution com mponents:     

Tw wo PowerEdg ge R710 serve ers running Orracle VM 2.2 w with guest VM Ms installed Dell EqualLogic PS6000XV iSSCSI storage systems s for O Oracle VM serrver repositorry files as well as cle BI EE shared files and directories d cllustered Orac Oracle Enterprrise Linux 5 Update U 5 x86 on two guestt VMs, runningg on two sepa arate physica al se ervers, intend ded for hostin ng the 32 bit Oracle BI EE 11.1.1.3.0 se erver compon nents Microsoft® M Win ndows Serverr® 2003 Enterrprise Edition n 32 bit on the e third guest VM intended d for ho osting Oracle e BI EE 11.1.1.3.0 client to ools An external da ata source of an Oracle 11.2.0.1.0 RAC database

ectural overv view of Dell re eference configuration forr Oracle Busin ness Intellige ence is shown in An archite Figure 8. The sample architecture represents a clustering off two Oracle BI EE instancces.

Figure 8.

Archittecture Ove erview of Oracle BI EE 11.1.1.3.0 Reference Configuratiion

Deplo oying Oracle O BI B EE 11g Horiz zontal SScale-O Out Infrasstructure This section describes the deployment of Oracle e BI EE 11g ho orizontal scalle-out infrastructure in Orracle VM virtualized environ nment and outlines the insstallation and d configuratio on proceduress.

Installin ng Oracle VM Serve er 2.2 and Creating Guest VM Ms Detailed steps s for the installation of o Oracle VM server 2.2 an nd the creatio on of guest VM Ms are provid ded in the follow wing white pa aper:

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Deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Dell Systems Best Practices and Performance Characteristics of Running Oracle RAC 11g with Dell EqualLogic on Oracle VM One of the great benefits of Oracle VM is the ability to distribute resources on the guest VMs to reflect the environment’s requirements. Each guest VM is created with assigned system resources, such as number of CPU cores, memory size and shared virtual disks, which can also be altered post VM creation. This feature enables partitioning of a physical server to virtual machines to meet the performance requirement and to lower the software licensing cost at the same time. The sample guest VM configuration for hosting the Oracle BI server components has the following system resources allocated:    

4 CPU cores 12 GB physical memory 20 GB virtual disk for storing OEL 5.5 Operting Systems image 30 GB virtual disk named oracle for storing Oracle BI EE software images

Installing and Configuring Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5 x86 The guest VMs hosting the Oracle BI EE server software run on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5 x86, which can be installed from the installation media. The Oracle Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) provides easy access to all updates, patches, fixes to OVM and OEL. It is a best practice to update the system with the latest updates and patches through ULN. The Oracle BI EE software will be installed under the OS user oracle. Perform the following steps to create the “oracle” OS user account, as well as the Oracle software install file system mount point and subdirectories. 1. As root user, create Oracle user and group. $ groupadd oinstall $ groupadd dba $ useradd -g oinstall -G dba -s /bin/bash oracle $ passwd oracle 2. As root user, create directory in which Oracle software will be installed. $ mkdir -p /opt/oracle 3. As root user, change the ownership of /opt/oracle to oracle user. $ chown -R oracle.oinstall /opt/oracle 4. Assuming the 30 GB virtual disk named oracle is presented to the OS as /dev/xvdb, create a partition on /dev/xvdb and make it an ext3 file system as root user. $ fdisk /dev/xvdb $ mkfs.ext3 /dev/xvdb1 5. As root user, add the following line in the /etc/fstab, execute mount –a. This will mount /dev/xvdb1 as /opt/oracle, and will preserve the mount upon server reboots. /dev/xvdb1 /opt/oracle ext3 defaults 1 2 $ mount -a 6. As oracle user, create the subdirectories in which the Oracle software will be installed. $ mkdir -p /opt/oracle/middleware Page 13


7. The following packages (or later versions) must be installed on the 32 bit OEL 5.5 to ensure a successful installation of Oracle BI EE 11g. gcc-4.1.0-28.4 gcc-c++-4.1.0-28.4 setarch-1.6-1 sysstat-5.0.5-1 libaio-0.3.106 libaio-devel-0.3.106 libstdc++-4.1.0-28.4 libstdc++-devel-4.1.0-28.4 compat-libstdc++-296-2.96-132.7.2 compat-db-4.1.25-9 control-center-2.8.0-12 glibc-common-2.3.4-2.9 binutils-2.16.91.0.5-23.4 make-3.80-202.2 openmotif22-2.2.3 openmotif-2.2.3 8. The minimum open file limit should be 4096 for a successful installation of Oracle BI EE 11g. As root user, ensure the values in the following lines are set in the /etc/security/limits.conf file. * soft nproc 2047 * hard nproc 16384 * soft nofile 4096 * hard nofile 65536 9. Add the following line to the /etc/pam.d/log file, if it does not already exist: session required pam_limits.so 10. As oracle user, add the following lines to the .bash_profile. if [ $USER = "oracle" ]; then if [ $SHELL = "/bin/ksh" ]; then ulimit -p 16384 ulimit -n 65536 else ulimit -u 16384 -n 65536 fi fi 11. Reboot server for settings to take effective.

Creating Fusion Middleware Database Schemas Using the Repository Creation Utility Installation of Oracle BI requires the availability of a database. The database must be up and running, and does not have to be on the same computer where you are installing the components. The database, which can be an 11gR1 or 11gR2 database, is used to create the schemas required by Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Intelligence. Download the Repository Creation Utility (RCU) 11.1.1.3.3 from Oracle web site. RCU can be run on the 32 bit Windows or 32 bit Linux Operating Systems. Complete the following instructions to run RCU: Page 14


1. Insert the RCU CD-ROM into your computer and access the bin directory. 2. Run one of the following commands, depending on your operating system: On Linux: ./rcu On Windows: rcu.bat Note: If your database does not use the AL32UTF8 character set, you will see the following warning when running RCU: The database you are connecting is with non-AL32UTF8 character set. Oracle strongly recommends using AL32UTF8 as the database character set. You can ignore this warning and continue using RCU. 3. The screens for the RCU schema creation under 32 bit Windows 2003 are listed in Table 2. Follow the directions in each screen listed.

Table 2.

Screens for RCU 11.1.1.3.3 Creation of Database Schemas

Screens

Actions

Welcome

Click Next.

Create Repository

Select Create. Click Next.

Database Connection Details

Provide the following information for Oracle databases: Host Name: Specify the name of the computer on which your database resides in the format host.domain.com. For Oracle RAC databases, specify the Virtual IP name or one of the node names as the host name. Port: Specify the database listener port number. The default port number for Oracle databases is 1521. Database Name: Specify the service name for the database. Username: Specify the name of a user with DBA or SYSDBA privileges. The default user name with SYSDBA privileges is SYS. Password: Specify the password for the user with DBA or SYSDBA privileges. Role: Select the database user's role from the drop-down list. The SYS user requires the SYSDBA role.

Select Components

Near the top of the screen, select Create a new Prefix. If you are the only user of the database instance, you may use the default prefix DEV.

Notes

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Deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Dell Systems Click the Business Intelligence check box. This automatically selects the Metadata Services (MDS) and Business Intelligence Platform schemas, which are required by Oracle Business Intelligence. Do not click the Oracle AS Repository Components check box, as this configures RCU to install many other schemas that are not required by Oracle Business Intelligence. Click Next. The Checking Prerequisites screen opens. If there are errors, details about the error appear on the Select Components screen. Fix the errors and click Next again. After the prerequisite checks conclude with no errors, click OK to dismiss the screen. Schema Passwords

Near the top of the screen, select Use same password for all schemas. In the Password field, enter a password for accessing the schemas. Enter the password again in the Confirm Password field. Click Next.

Map Tablespaces

Click Next. The Creating Tablespaces screen opens. If there are errors, details about the error appear on the Map Tablespaces screen. Fix the errors and click Next again. After the tablespaces are created with no errors, click OK to dismiss the screen.

Summary

Click Create. The Create screen opens. If there are errors, details about the errors appear on the Summary screen. Fix the errors and click Next again. After the schemas are created with no errors, click OK to dismiss the screen.

Configuring Shared Files and Directories for the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Cluster When deploying multiple instances of a given Oracle Business Intelligence components as in a horizontal scale-out infrastructure, it is recommended to host the Oracle BI repository (RPD file), Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, global cache, and shared Oracle BI Scheduler scripts on shared storage, before scaling out Oracle Business Intelligence components. Follow these steps to configure Network File System (NFS) to share files and directories for the Oracle Business Intelligence components: 1. Create the following four volumes in the shared EqualLogic storage systems: scheduler-scripts cluster-cache presentation-catalog repository-publishing Page 16


2. Configure access to the above iSCSI volumes from dom0 as well as configuring multipath. Create partitions and make them ext3 file systems. Present shared disk devices to the primary virtual machine by modifying the vm.cfg file such as adding the following lines in vm.cfg of both VMs: 'phy:/dev/mapper/cluster-cache,xvdc,w!', 'phy:/dev/mapper/scheduler-scripts,xvdd,w!', 'phy:/dev/mapper/presentation-catalog,xvde,w!', 'phy:/dev/mapper/repository-publishing,xvdf,w!', 3. Power off and power on virtual machines to present the four disks above. 4. On both virtual machines, run the followings as root user: mkdir -p /share/catalog mkdir -p /share/repository mkdir -p /share/cache mkdir -p /share/scripts chown -R oracle.oinstall /share 5. On the primary virtual machine that hosts the BI, add the following lines in the /etc/fstab, and execute mount –a. This is to preserve mount points upon server reboots. /dev/xvdc1 /share/cache ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/xvdd1 /share/scripts ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/xvde1 /share/catalog ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/xvdf1 /share/repository ext3 defaults 1 2 mount –a 6. Configure NFS to export the directories by adding the following lines in /etc/exportfs file. /share/cache [host name of the second VM](ro,sync) /share/scripts [host name of the second VM](ro,sync) /share/catalog [host name of the second VM](ro,sync) /share/repository [host name of the second VM](ro,sync) 7. Start the NFS service. service nfs start 8. Enable NFS service start-up at boot time. chkconfig nfs on 9. On the second virtual machine that hosts the BI, add the following lines in the /etc/fstab, and execute mount –a to mount the NFS shares exported from the primary virtual machine. [host name of the primary VM]:/share/cache /share/cache nfs rsize=8192,timeo=14,intr 0 0 [host name of the primary VM]:/share/catalog /share/catalog nfs rsize=8192,timeo=14,intr 0 0 [host name of the primary VM]:/share/scripts /share/scripts nfs rsize=8192,timeo=14,intr 0 0

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[host name of the primary VM]:/share/repository /share/repository nfs rsize=8192,timeo=14,intr 0 0

Running the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Installer on the First Virtual Machine As oracle user, download Oracle Business Intelligence 11.1.1.3.0 for Linux x86 (32 bit) and extract the files. Run the following command to start the Business Intelligence 11g installer: /Disk1/runInstaller The screens for the Oracle BI EE 11g installation under Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5 x86 are listed in Table 3. Follow the directions in each screen listed.

Table 3. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Oracle VM Running Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5 x86 Screens

Actions

Notes

Specify Inventory directory

Enter Inventory Directory. Enter Operating System Group name.

For the sample installation, inventory directory is set to /opt/oracle/oraInventor. OS group name is oinstall.

Inventory Location Confirmation Dialog

Execute the script specified in the window as root user. Click OK.

Welcome

Click Next.

Select Installation Type

Choose Enterprise Install. Click Next.

Prerequisite Checks

All prerequisite checks should be successful. Click Next.

Create or Scale Out BI System

Choose Create New BI System and specify the following: The user name and password of the system administrator The domain name for the new Oracle Business Intelligence system Click Next.

For the sample installation, user name and domain name are default settings.

Specify Installation Location

Specify the Oracle Middleware home location, domain home location, Oracle instance location and Oracle instance name. Click Next.

For the sample installation, Oracle Middleware home location is set to /opt/oracle/middlew are. This will automatically fill in the Page 18

Deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g on Dell Systems domain home location, Oracle Instance location and Oracle instance name. Accept the default settings. Configure Components

Click Next.

Database Details

Specify database type, database connection string, and user name and password for Business Intelligence Platform schema. Click Next.

Configure Ports

Choose Auto Port Configuration. Click Next.

Specify Security Updates

If you wish to receive security updates, enter email and password. Click Next.

Summary

Click Install

Installation Progress

Should complete without errors.

Configuration Assistants

Should complete without errors.

Complete

Click Finish

Database connection string is in the format hostname:port:servicen ame for Oracle database. For Oracle RAC database, use the format host1:port1:instance1^h ost2:port2:instance2@se rvicename BIPLATFORM schema name and password were the ones entered during RCU execution

Setting up Shared Files and Directories for the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Cluster Setting up Shared Oracle BI Repository To set up shared Repository publishing directory, use the Repository tab of the Deployment page in Fusion Middleware Control to designate the shared location for the Oracle BI repository (Figure 9). Note that when you configure a shared repository, the repository files that are uploaded in Fusion Middleware Control are copied to both the shared location and to the local repository directory for each Oracle BI server. Do not delete the local repository copies or set read-only file permissions on them because they are needed by the system.

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Figure 9.

Settin ng up Shared Oracle BI Repository in Fusion M Middleware Control

Setting up p Shared Ora acle BI Prese entation Cata alog To set up shared Prese entation Cata alog, the Pressentation Cataalog is first ccopied to the shared storagge location using u operatin ng system cop py commandss. Then, use the Reposito ory tab of the e Deploymen nt page in Fu usion Middlew ware Control to change the location of the Oracle B BI Presentatio on Catalog to the shared loc cation (Figure e 10).

Figure 10 0. Settin ng up Shared Oracle BI Presentatio on Catalog iin Fusion Miiddleware Control C Setting up p Shared Ora acle BI Globa al Cache To set up shared globa al cache, use the Performance tab of tthe Capacity Management page in Fussion Middleware Control to set the Glob bal cache patth and Globall cache size (Figure 11).

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Figure 11 1.

Settin ng up Shared Oracle BI Global Cach he in Fusion n Middlewarre Control

Setting up p Shared Ora acle BI Sched duler Scripts If you use e the schedule er scripts, the e scheduler scripts s are firs rst copied to tthe shared sttorage locatio on using Ope erating System ms copy comm mands. Then modify the S SchedulerS ScriptPath and DefaultS ScriptPath h elements of o the instan nceconfig. xml file.

Running the Orac cle Busine ess Intellig gence Enterprise Ed dition 11gg Installer on the Sec cond Virtu ual Machin ne To horizontally scale out o the Oracle e Business Inttelligence sysstem, run the e Oracle Busin ness Intelligence installer on o the second d virtual machine and sele ecting the Entterprise Insta all option. T The installatio on steps are similar to the e directions listed l in Table e 3, except o on the Create e or Scale Ou ut BI System window (F Figure 12), yo ou will need to t select the Scale Out BI System option and speciffy the followiing:  

The host h name and d port numbe er for the Adm ministration SServer domain n The user u name and d password fo or logging in to t the WebLo ogic Administration Serverr

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Figure 12 2. Run Business B Inte elligence Installer to Sccale Out BI System on the Second Virtual V Mach hine

Scaling Out BI Sy ystem Com mponents in i Fusion Middlewa are Contro ol After the installer com mpletes the En nterprise Insttall on the se cond virtual machine, you u must scale o out he second virrtual machine for the Orracle Businesss Intelligence e system components on th e using Fusion n Middleware Control. You Y can use the t Scalability y tab of the C Capacity Man nagement pa age in Fusion Middleware Control to scale out the Host system e Oracle BI Se erver, Presen ntation Servicces, and javaH componen nts. Add systtem compone ents on the se econd virtual machine to ccomplete the horizontal sccaleout opera ation (Figure 13).

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Figure 13 3.

Scale BI System Components C s in Fusion Middleware e Control

You also must m configurre primary an nd secondary instances of the Cluster C Controller an nd Oracle BI Schedulerr so that the primary and secondary s insstances for eaach compone ent type are d distributed accross two differrent virtual machines. m Yo ou can use the e Availabilityy tab of the C Capacity Management pagge in Fusion Mid ddleware Con ntrol to configure the prim mary and seco ondary instan nces of the Clluster Controller and BI Sch heduler (Figure 14).

Figure 14 4. Config gure Primarry and Seco ondary Instaances of the e Cluster Controller and d BI Scheduler S

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Summary This white paper documents Dell’s recommended approach for enterprise deployment architecture of Oracle BI EE 11g running on Dell hardware with Oracle VM. The architecture includes Oracle BI components installed in a distributed environment with multiple virtual machines to provide high availability and fault tolerance. By taking advantages of virtualization technologies, this architecture maximizes server efficiency, lowers the cost of ownership, and speeds up the deployment process. To learn more about deploying Oracle BI on Dell servers and storage systems, visit www.dell.com/oracle or contact your Dell representative for the most current information on Dell servers, storage, and services for Oracle solutions.

References 1. Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence, 11g Release 1 (11.1.1), E10539-01. http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/bi.1111/e10539/toc.htm 2. Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator’s Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Release 1 (11.1.1), E10541-01. http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/bi.1111/e10541/toc.htm 3. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Technical Overview, an Oracle white paper, June 2010. http://www.oracle.com/us/obiee-11g-technical-overview-078853.pdf

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