Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition

Architectures and Sizing

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Agenda
BI EE Architecture Supported Platforms BI EE Standalone BI EE and High-Availability 32-bit vs 64-bit Licensing Implications Sizing Guidelines Sample Architectures Performance Benchmarks

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BI EE Architecture

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BI EE Architecture
Web Server (IIS, Tomcat, Websphere, iPlanet)

Plug -In (J2EE/ISAPI)

TCP/IP (SSL) Web Catalog Service XML Framework
HTML, SOAP over HTTP/HTTPS XML, HTML, XLS, PDF, TXT over HTTP/HTTPS

Web Browser
Javascript for Usability & Interactivity

Oracle BI Publisher
Delivery Server Layout Interfaces XSL Data Logic

Oracle BI Presentation Services

SOAP Web Services, XML and URL Interface Oracle Interactive Dashboards Oracle Answers

User Profiling, Security and Session Mngmt Cache Services (Web) & Connection Mngmt

External Applications and Portals

ODBC over TCP/IP (SSL)

Oracle Delivers Server

Scheduling/Event Services Agent Execution Logic Device Adaptive Content TCP/IP (SSL)

Oracle BI Server
Logical SQL ODBC/JDBC (Logical Business Model)

Load Balancer Session Management Intelligent Request Generation

Logical Request Generation Cache Services Navigator Multi-Pass / Sub-Request Logic

Metadata Interchange

Security Services Security Services

Query Govern.

Oracle BI Administration

Oracle BI Cluster Controller

Metadata Management Services MultiMulti-User Development Services Metadata Documentation Services Server Management Services

Externalized Authentication LDAP DB Authentication Custom Authenticator

Fragmentation Optimization Aggregate Navigator

Optimized Query Rewrites Execution Engine

Data Source Adapters

ODBC, CLI, OCI, XML, MDX Analytical and Operational Data Sources

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System / Perf Monitoring

BI EE Architecture
The following components are deployable on separate hardware:
BI Server BI Presentation Services BI Presentation Services Plug-In BI Publisher BI Delivers

Secure Socket Later (SSL / HTTPS) encryption is supported The Administration Tool is only currently supported on Windows

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Supported Platforms

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Supported Platforms
Always refer to the latest System Requirements and Supported Platforms guide as support does change over time: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E10415_01/doc/bi.1013/e10417.pdf

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BI EE Standalone

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BI EE Standalone
Typically the BI Server machine will always have the following components running:
BI Server BI Delivers BI Cluster Controller (not running in a Standalone configuration)

The choice is then about whether to host the following components on a separate machine:
BI Presentation Services BI Presentation Services Plug-In

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BI EE Standalone 3 Typical Deployments

Proxy Web-Server OC4J / other BI Plug-In OC4J / other BI Plug-In

OC4J / other

BI Plug-In

BI Presentation Services

BI Presentation Services BI Presentation Services

Delivers

BI Server

Delivers

BI Server

Delivers

BI Server

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BI EE Standalone 3 Typical Deployments

Common for Development environments Suitable for any environment where:
The server machine can support the anticipated user-base The customers security rules do not require the HTTP components to reside on a separate machine (potentially in a different LAN and/or with a Firewall in between it and the BI Server)
OC4J / other BI Plug-In

BI Presentation Services

Delivers

BI Server

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BI EE Standalone 3 Typical Deployments

Common in environments where the customer requires that HTTP / Web components are on a separate machine The Web Server can be in a different LAN and/or have a Firewall in between it and the BI Server for additional security Suitable when the Web Server has the same or similar specification as the BI Server

OC4J / other

BI Plug-In

BI Presentation Services

Delivers

BI Server

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BI EE Standalone 3 Typical Deployments

Common in environments where the customer requires that HTTP component is on a separate machine The Proxy Web Server can be in a different LAN and/or have a Firewall in between it and the BI Server for additional security Single-Sign-On (SSO) can be enabled on the Proxy Web-Server (this is useful as the default OC4J instance installed with BI EE cannot be enabled for SSO) It is not worth putting just the BI Plug-In on the Web Server, the potential additional license cost would not make it cost-effective
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Proxy Web-Server

OC4J / other

BI Plug-In

BI Presentation Services

Delivers

BI Server

BI EE and High-Availability

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BI EE and High-Availability
Oracle BI EE is highly scalable on all tiers A High-Availability architecture will typically consist of multiple instances of one of the 3 Standalone deployments (but with the Cluster Controller enabled) A High-Availability architecture should be able to continue to provide a service when any of the following components fail:
Web Server / BI Presentation Services Plug-In BI Presentation Services BI Server BI Delivers BI Cluster Controller NOTE: If there are any single points of failure then the architecture is not configured for High-Availability!

Obviously if the BI stack is configured for High-Availability then it makes sense to make sure the Database is also Highly-Available
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High-Availability Architecture
Load Balancer

OC4J / other

OC4J / other

OC4J / other

BI Plug-In

BI Plug-In

BI Plug-In

BI Presentations Services

BI Presentations Services

BI Presentations Services

BI Delivers

Cluster Controller

BI Server

BI Server

BI Server

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High-Availability Architecture
Further Notes:
A single Presentation Services Catalogue can be shared across all BI Presentation Services components The BI Repository (RPD) is replicated across all BI Servers The Load Balancer is external to Oracle BI and can be a hardware/software load-balancer The BI Delivers and BI Cluster Controller components typically will reside on the same machines as the BI Server components The BI Presentation Services component can reside on either the Web Server or BI Server machines When a failure occurs, the user will need to do a manual browser refresh to re-establish service See the Deployment Guide for full implementation details

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32-bit vs 64-bit

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32-bit vs 64-bit
A 32-bit process cannot address more than 3GB memory
So if you have BI Server and BI Presentation Server running on the same machine then there is little value in having >6GB RAM on the machine A 32-bit machine should be capable of supporting 2000 users

64-bit processes are more scalable and can address >3GB memory
This does not automatically mean you should always look to install 64-bit versions of BI EE You should never need to install 64-bit BI EE if your server does not exceed 4GB RAM

When should the customer need 64-bit BI EE?

As an unofficial rule of thumb, if a single server needs so support >2000 total users then it would be better to have 64-bit software If you have 4000 total users on an implementation involving 2 BI Servers, then 32-bit software should suffice (as you dont have >2000 users on each server)

Only a sub-set of platforms are supported for 64-bit. Always check the documentation first!
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Licensing Implications

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Licensing Implications
When Oracle BI EE is licensed on a processor basis, it is important to note that all machines that have BI components installed are to have their CPUs counted For example, in this 2 server environment:
BI Server 4 x CPUs Web Server 2 x CPUs ....the total licensing could be based on 6 x CPUs, even if just the BI Presentation Services Plug-In is installed on the Web Server. Make sure you check-out and confirm the licensing situation before installing.

Note however, the licensing is based on physical CPU, not virtual CPU
You can have multiple VMs running BI EE on the same server without incurring additional license cost

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Sizing Guidelines

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Sizing Guidelines
Sizing typically is based on 250 total users per CPU core Implementations can certainly handle more than this, especially when users are in different time zones and their BI workload is not excessive Due to the several parallel processes taking place, it is recommended to have a minimum of 2 CPU cores (in non-development environments) Especially for smaller deployments, it is more cost-effective to have BI Server and BI Presentation server running on the same machine
Having a single machine with one dual-core CPU will provide better utilisation and value than having two machines each with a single CPU core

If you are ever in doubt about sizing, contact your Oracle Representative

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Concurrent/Active Users
Quite often people over-estimate of concurrent/active! Unless there is evidence to suggest otherwise, go with the simple 10% rule when estimating the number of concurrent users:
So if you have 2000 total users, then the number of concurrent users will be 200

You can then apply the 10% rule again to determine the number of active users
So if you have 2000 total users, then you will have 20 active users at any one time

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Sample Architectures

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Sample Architectures Small <500 users

One Server
OC4J / other BI Plug-In

Two Servers
OC4J / other BI Plug-In

2 x CPU cores 2GB RAM 20GB disk storage

BI Presentation Services

BI Presentation Services

Delivers

BI Server

Delivers

BI Server

2 x CPU cores 4GB RAM 20GB disk storage

2 x CPU cores 4GB RAM 20GB disk storage

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Sample Architectures Medium <1000 users

One Server
OC4J / other BI Plug-In

Two Servers
OC4J / other BI Plug-In

2 x CPU cores 3GB RAM 20GB disk storage

BI Presentation Services

BI Presentation Services

Delivers

BI Server

Delivers

BI Server

4 x CPU cores 4GB RAM 20GB disk storage

4 x CPU cores 4GB RAM 20GB disk storage

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Sample Architectures High Availability <2000 users

Load Balancer

OC4J / other

BI Plug-In

BI Plug-In

OC4J / Other

BI Presentation Services

BI Presentation Services

2 x CPU cores 4GB RAM 20GB disk storage

BI Server

Primary Cluster Controller

BI Server

Backup Cluster Controller

4 x CPU cores 4GB RAM 20GB disk storage

Primary Delivers

Backup Delivers

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Performance Benchmarks

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Performance Benchmarks
For further reading, check out these performance benchmark tests that are available on Oracle.com:
Oracle BI Suite EE 4,000 User Benchmark on an IBM System x3755
http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/docs/bi-suite-ee-4000-benchmark-x3755.pdf

Oracle BI Suite EE 5,800 User Benchmark on HP DL380 G4

http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/docs/oracle-biee-5k-user-benchmark-hpdl3802.pdf

Oracle BI Suite EE 10,000 User Benchmark on Sun T2000

http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/docs/oracle-bi-ee-10k-benchmark-sunt2000.pdf

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Helping Your Business Intelligence Journey

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