Oracle BI Applications 11g Deployment Architecture

Oracle recently released binaries for the Oracle BI Application 11g, which has Oracle Data Integration Option with Data Integrator and Golden Gate.

This blog is attempt to describe the Oracle BI Apps 11.1.1.7.1 deployment architecture

Key Architecture Points

Extensive use of Fusion Middleware (FMW) technology stack

Application Server - Web Logic 10.3.6.0

Enterprise Manager (EM) used for system management

Reporting Backbone - Oracle Business Intelligence 11g

Introduction of Oracle Data Integration Platform (ODI & Golden Gate) for ETL/ELT

Web Based Configuration Management and Function Setup Manager ETL Dependency Management

Web Logic Based High Availability   for OBIEE 11g and ODI

Security – Oracle Platform Security Services

Everything Scriptable / Programmatic control

Architecture Terminology

Application Server Host is a standard hardware machine which holds server components binaries of the solution such as middleware, bi application and ODI Server etc

Database Server Host is a standard hardware with database servers – Oracle Database Server

Client Host is a standard client machine for implementer, designer and administrator for ODI and OBIEE 11g

A Web Logic Domain is a set of web logic instances servicing one or more J2EE applications

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

A Web Logic Admin Server is a JEE container that runs in a dedicated Java virtual machine with java components which provides a management of both the Web Logic and BI Domain. A Web Logic Domain contains one Admin Server.

A Web Logic Managed Server (Similar in concept to an OracleAS ‘OC4J’ instance) is a JEE container that runs in a dedicated Java virtual machine that provides the run-time environment for the Java-based services and applications within the system. An Oracle BI domain contains one or more Managed Servers that are distributed across one or more host computers. The BI_SERVER1 & ODI_SERVER1 are two managed servers which provide the run time environment for java based services for obiee11g and ODI 11g.

A Node Manager provides process management services for Administration Server and Managed Server Processes. In short it is a daemon process that provides remote server start, stop and restart capabilities in addition to monitoring.

OPMN (Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server) maintains the Oracle Business Intelligence system components processes.

Oracle BI System Components are deployed as a non-JEE components, such as server processes and services written in C++ and J2SE.These provide the core services that enable Oracle Business Intelligence. The system components include BI Server (provides query and data access), Presentation Server (provides the framework and interface for the presentation of business intelligence data to Web clients), Scheduler (provides scheduling for analyses delivery), Cluster Controller (distributes requests to BI Server, ensuring requests for load balancing) and BI Java host (provides component services for presentation server to support java tasks for scheduler, publisher and graph generation).

 Oracle BI Application J2EE Components are java components which are deployed as JEE applications to service SOAP, HTTP and other forms of requests. The major application include Analytics, Oracle BI Application Configuration Manager (define, generate, run and monitor load plans of ODI), Functional Setup Manager (task dependency management), Load Plan Generator (set of jar files) alongside J2EE component ATG Lite used by configuration manager and functional setup manager.

 ODI J2EE Components are java components such as ODI Console (control and monitor ETL) and ODI Agent which is a Java EE Agent handles schedules and orchestrates sessions.

 Fusion Middleware Technologies

The Oracle BI Application 11g Architecture leverage on FMW technologies, some of the highlights are as follows

Web Logic Server (WLS) – Application Server, Required on every OBIEE machine, supports scripting with WLST

OPMN (Oracle Process Management Network) – Used for distributed process start/stop/restart, Process recovery (optional) and Process ‘Ping’ , Managed via Enterprise Manager ( EM) , can be used for performance collection( DMS), required on every OBIEE machine

DMS (Dynamic Monitoring System) – Standard FMW performance data collection format, allows collection of current and historical data, additional to perfmon, can be persisted to database, implemented by component teams (no control of content)

ODL (Oracle Diagnostic Logging) – Defines standard FMW Logging content and format, defines mechanism for analyzing diagnostics across s/w components and systems, support for ECID ( transaction ID) and implemented by component teams ( no control of content)

JPS (Java Platform Security) – offers an integrated suite security services to components in the Oracle stack – Authentication Service, Authorization Service, Policy Management Service ( Policy Store), User and Role Management Service ( Identity Store) , Credential Storage Service (CSF) and Auditing Service

CSF (Credential Store Framework) – provides secure handling of credentials used in BI system – looking at SSL certificates

Oracle BI Application Deployment Architecture

Oracle BI Application 11g has three tier architecture i.e. client, application server tier and database server tier as shown below

Architecture has one JEE container for Web Logic Admin Server that runs in a dedicated Java virtual machine for management of Web Logic and BI domain and other JEE container that runs in dedicated Java virtual machine to provide the run-time environment for the java-based services and application within the system.

An Oracle BI Domain contains one or more Managed Servers distributed across one or more host computers. There are two managed servers one bi_server1 while other one is odi_server1.

Components Deployed on bi_server1

·         Configuration Manager – web application which performs system setups, does functional configuration and define, run and monitor the load plans

·         Functional Setup Manager (FSM) – web application used by configuration manager for sequencing of the tasks and task dependency management

·         Load Plan Generator – are set of jar files used to create load plans in the ODI repository

·         ATGLite – J2EE component for Configuration Manager and Functional Setup Manager

Components Deployed on odi_server1

·         ODI Console – component to control and monitor ETL

·         ODI Agent– Java EE Agent to handles schedules and orchestrates sessions

Oracle BI Applications Repositories

·         OBIEE 11g Schema

Metadata Services Schema – Metadata for BI Apps

Business Intelligence Platform Schema- Business Intelligence Schema

·         BI Apps Repositories

Data Warehouse Schema– BI/DW Schema

BIACOMP Schema– repository for Configuration Manager and Functional Setup Manager ( Only Oracle)

BIA I/O Schema – mirror schema and used by all other components to read the BIACOMP

ODI Repository – for ODI prebuilt ETL logic

Additional Tool

Golden Gate is an optional tool integrated with Oracle BI Applications. It enables you to optimize ETL loads and reduce impact on the source system, using a source-dependent data store.

Client Tier

Client host machine hosts the Configuration Manager and ODI Console, which uses access through Web Browsers. The tier also includes the Load Plan Generator Plug In- a client version of the Load Plan Generator which is deployed into ODI Studio. BI Administrator and Catalog Manager are other tools which are also installed on client tier.

I hope this assembled information from the recent release documents of Oracle Business Application 11g is useful.