Oracle BI EE

Complete Overview for Implementers

SROAUG
07/13/2007
Naren Thota
Professional Background

Started as an Oracle Developer in 1996

Worked several Oracle Implementations and Upgrades
 10.6 SC is the start, worked thru 11.5.10.2

Extensive experience with BI solutions for Oracle E-Business Clients

Experience with Packaged Vendors
 Informatica
 DecisionExperts from Teradata
 Noetix
 Cognos front-end suite etc.

Extensive experience with Oracle BI Tools
 Discoverer
 Daily Business Intelligence
 XML/BI Publisher
 OBIEE

Serving as a Practice Manager for the BI Practice at Solution Beacon

Active in Oracle Applications Users Group and regional User Groups. Currently
serving as a Chair for the Applications Forum of DOUG

Relationship with Oracle - Solution Beacon is a 5-Star Certified Advantage
Partner
2
Agenda

Product versions

Pre-delivered packages

Installation and related Technology Stack overview

Deployment Options

Components of OBIEE Reporting Suite

Overview of Answers and Dashboards

Demo of Answers and Dashboards

Overview of OBIEE Administrator

Demo of OBIEE Administrator

Summary

Q&A

3
Product Versions

OBIEE 10.1.3.2.0 released in early Jan-07 – 2 CDs

 Pre-Packaged Applications for Data Warehouses sourcing from Oracle E-
Business, PeopleSoft, Siebel etc.

OBIEE 10.1.3.2.1 released in April-07 – 1 CD
 Updates to Pre-Packaged Applications and Consolidation of Schemas
 Availability of Intelligence Products such as Purchasing Intelligence,
Finance Intelligence etc. for 11.5.10.2
 Minor bug fixes to Answers and Dashboards
 Removed support for XP-Home and previous versions – Big change

OBISE-1 General Availability announced in June-07
 Scaled-down version of OBIEE for Small and Medium Businesses – “Start
small but think Big”
 Includes everything except the Pre-Packaged Data Warehouse Adaptors

BI Publisher version 10g
 Integrated with OBIEE and therefore is a component of OBIEE
 Release for Oracle E-Business 11.5.10.2 is still XML Publisher 5.6.3

4
Pre-Packaged Applications

OBIEE 10.1.3.2.1 front-end for reporting and Dashboards

OBIEE can connect to any of the existing Data Sources across any of
the Platforms

Data Warehouse Adaptors for Oracle E-Business, PeopleSoft, Siebel,
SAP etc.
 Includes Informatica OEM 7.1.4 PowerCenter ETL Server
 Pre-built Star-Schemas and ETL packages to Extract data from the above
sources

Business Analytics for pre-built Dashboards and KPIs
 Finance Analytics
 Purchasing Analytics
 Sales Analytics etc.

Packaged together as Business Intelligence Applications

OBISE-1 comes with all above, except DW Adaptors
 Comes with Data Warehouse Builder as the ETL for custom DW
development
5
Installation

OBIEE 10.1.3.2.1 can be installed on Windows, Linux

(SUSE, RHAT), Solaris, HP, IBM
 OBIEE Administrator tool is a Windows based Client Tool
 Disconnected Analytics is also a Windows based Client Tool
 BI Publisher for Template Creation is also a Windows Client Tool

Pre-Requisites
 Java SDK1.5.2 or higher is a must for both installs (Client and
Server)
 IIS must be installed for Windows based Server installs
 OBIEE10.1.3.2.x Server components are components of Oracle
Application Server 10g Release3

* Above applies to OBISE-1 as well

6
Deployment Options

OBIEE and OBISE-1 allows for a A. One server

few different architectures
BIS

Simplest to most complex,
PS
offering increased scalability
HTTP

Option A is optimal for small
systems and developers Scheduler

Option B is most common in a B. Two servers
production environment
BIS PS

Complimentary install options
must be installed on both Scheduler HTTP
machines

7
Components of OBIEE Reporting Suite

Answers

Dashboards

Delivers or iBots

BI Publisher Engine

Disconnected Analytics

OBIEE Administrator

Microsoft Office Plug-ins

BI Publisher Desktop for Template Creation

8
Overview of Answers and Dashboards

Oracle Answers is the only report building interface

that OBIEE provides

It is used for the construction of both Queries (the
data) and Reports (the presentation)

Dashboards are simply containers for reports and
other content

Native connectivity for sources such as Oracle,
DB2, Teradata, SQL Server etc. Uses ODBC for
MS Access

9
Answers

Main components of Answers page

The Answers Web Catalog
 Store reports, dashboards, filters, prompts

The BIS Presentation Layer
 Read directly from the BIS server, these are the areas that you can
work in
 Subject Area – Consists of data elements/fields that answer certain
business questions.

Select a Subject Area to build a query or a report

Applications and Administration links
 Other portions of the Analytics environment

Exporting
 Results from Answers can be exported to PDF, HTML. Can also be
Printed or Downloaded to Excel, CSV, MHTML

10
Dashboards

Dashboards are the standard interface for the majority of

users

It allows multiple reports to be displayed in a tabbed
interface

The reports are interactive – they can be clicked on to
interact with the data

Ideally highly summarized and graphical

Analytics allows a dashboard or report to be exported to
 PDF
 HTML
 Downloaded to Excel or CSV

11
Demonstration

Answers and Dashboards

12
OBIEE Administrator Overview

Administrator tool is the interface to create and

manage Star-Schemas (Subject Areas)

Uses ODBC connectivity to data sources

OBIEE uses Star-Schema methodology

Three main layers of abstraction
 Physical – Physical data sources (tables, joins etc.)
 Business Model Layer – Logical abstraction, organized
in a Star Schema
 Presentation Layer – Abstract from Business Model

Defines exactly how users will see tables & fields, with business
labels and descriptions

13
Demonstration

OBIEE Administrator

14
Summary

Great product, offers great flexibility

Can connect to any data source, residing on
different platforms – Biggest differentiator

Challenges
 Implementation Challenges – Domain expertise,
Resources etc.
 Performance tuning

15
 Thank You!

Naren Thota
Email: NThota@SolutionBeacon.com

www.solutionbeacon.com
Real Solutions for the Real World®

16
Installing, Upgrading and
Maintaining Oracle E-
Business Suite
Applications 11.5.10.2+
Got
Oracle?
Get the
Books!

Need more info? The Release 12 Primer –

Visit our website Shining a Light on the
Release 12 World
www.solutionbeacon.com
Available
October 2007