B - QA OBIEE Proposal 1

OBIEE 11g Scaleout & Clustering
Borkur Steingrimsson, Rittman Mead Consulting

Collaborate, Orlando, April 2011
T : +44 (0) 8446 697 995 or (888) 631 1410 (USA) E : enquiries@rittmanmead.com W: www.rittmanmead.com
Tuesday 12 April 2011

Agenda
• Review OBIEE Architecture

• Installation Scenarios : Desktop, Departmental, Enterprise
• Departmental Topology and Vertical/Horizontal Scaleout
• HA Considerations
• Enterprise Topology

OBIEE 11g Single-Node Architecture
• Overall stack is an
Oracle BI Domain
• Made up of three areas
‣ WLS Admin Server +
FMW Control (EM)
‣ System Components
‣ WLS Managed Server with
Java Components
• Initial (11.1.1.3) version only
supports WLS 11g (10.3)
• Same fundamental components
as 10g, but now integrated
with FMW WLS stack

OBIEE 11g System Components, Java Components and OPMN
• OBIEE components divided into System and Java components

• System components are still C/C++ executables, are controlled by OPMN,
and are managed by Fusion Middleware Control
• Java Components are JEE applications, are installed in the managed server,
and are controlled by
FMW Control

Administration and Management
• WLS Admin Server used for controlling WLS platform

‣ Startup, shutdown, security, non-OBIEE specific tasks
• Fusion Middleware Control (EM) used for managing OBIEE
• OPMN used for starting, stopping system components
• Node Manager used for
starting, stopping
managed servers

11g Architecture Compared to 10g Architecture
• Main difference is wrapping components in WLS platform and EM management

• Individual servers, components are still the same (BI Server, Presentation Server,
BI Publisher J2EE application etc)
• Some reworking has taken place in 11gR1 (unified logging, management of
config files using EM etc)
• Basic concepts, plus clustering (OBIEE), scheduling etc are the same as in 10g
Web Server SAW Bridge (J2EE/ISAPI) Web Browser
(IIS, Tomcat, Websphere, iPlanet) XML, HTML,
Javascript
XLS, PDF, TXT
for Usability & Interactivity
Oracle BI Publisher Oracle BI Presentation Services TCP/IP (SSL) over
HTTP/HTTPS
Delivery Server SOAP Web Services, XML and URL Interface Web
Catalog
Layout Interfaces Service
Oracle Interactive Oracle Answers
Dashboards
Data Logic HTML, SOAP
XSL XML
User Profiling, Security and Session Mngmt over
Framework
HTTP/HTTPS
Cache Services (Web) & Connection Mngmt External Applications and Portals
ODBC over TCP/IP (SSL)
Oracle Delivers Server Oracle BI Server

TCP/IP
Scheduling/Event Services (SSL) Logical SQL ODBC/JDBC (Logical Business Model)
vs
Agent Execution Logic Load Balancer
Metadata Interchange
Device Adaptive Content Session Management

Intelligent Request Generation
Oracle BI Administration
.
Logical Request Generation
Oracle BI Cache
Cluster Controller Navigator
Security Services
Services
Query Govern.
Metadata Management Services

Multi-Pass /
Sub-Request Logic Multi-User Development Services
System / Perf Monitoring
Fragmentation
Externalized Optimization Metadata Documentation Services
Authentication
Aggregate Server Management Services
LDAP
Navigator
DB Authentication
Optimized Query Rewrites
Custom Authenticator
Execution Engine
Data Source Adapters
ODBC, CLI, OCI, XML, MDX
Analytical and Operational Data Sources

Default Use of Clustering
• During installation, Cluster Controller is automatically installed and configured

to create a default 1-node cluster
• Makes it easier to add cluster nodes after install
‣ Vertical clustering and horizontal clustering

Three Sample Deployments
1. Desktop / Laptop Install

• Quick installation, smallest footprint
• No contingency for HA, Failover, Resilience etc
2. Departmental Install with Horizontal Scaleout
• Production installation, needs element of resilience / scalability
• Not overcomplicated installation, simple maintenance
• Ability to create DEV, TEST etc environments
3. Enterprise Install (optional Vertical/Horizontal Scaleout)
• As with Departmental install, plus...
• Highly secure - use of firewalls, DMZ etc
• Highly resilient, failover for all components
• Failover extends to RDBMS level
• Suitable for enterprise-wide deployment of OBIEE 11g

Deployment Topology 1 : Desktop / Laptop

Desktop / Laptop Deployment Considerations
• Can be installed using either the Simple or Enterprise install options

• Requires a machine with (minimum) 3-4Gb or (recommended) 8GB RAM
• 20Gb disk space for OBIEE 11g files, 500MB for supporting schemas
• Currently Windows or Linux, 32/64 bit (Linux also requires Windows for BI
Administration tool)
• Browser must be Firefox 3+ or IE7+ (Safari not yet certified)

Deployment Topology 2 : Departmental w/Horizontal Scaleout

Definition: Domains and Instances
• Oracle BI Domain : The overall OBIEE system

• WebLogic Domain : Admin Server, plus Managed Server(s), across n hosts
‣ Java components, optionally scaled out across nodes (managed servers)
• BI Instance : BI Servers, Presentation Servers etc, across n hosts
‣ System components, optionally scaled up and out across nodes
• Each Oracle BI Domain (in 11.1.1.3) has a single WebLogic Domain and
BI Instance
‣ Logical containers, can span n physical hosts

Departmental Deployment Considerations
• Database separated out into its own host

• Scale-out option has been used, to add an additional managed server
‣ Mainly addresses capacity, but some availability benefits
• HTTP server runs from within BIHOST
• System components are clustered across BIHOST1 and BIHOST2
• Typical system for team of developers, and departmental deployment
‣ Reasonable capacity, some redundancy, simple to administer

Vertical Scaleout of System Components
• Spare capacity on an individual host can be used by adding additional

system components
• Can add additional BI Servers, Presentation Servers and Java Hosts
• Useful for resilience, and usage of spare capacity
‣ Doesn’t protect against the whole server failing though

Vertical Clustering Step 1 : View Scalout Recommendations
• View Potential Points of Failure report on Capacity Management > Availability

• Recommends scaling-out BI Server, BI Presentation Server and BI JavaHost

Vertical Clustering Step 2 : Add New System Components
• Use Capacity Management > Scalability to add additional BI Servers,

Presentation Servers and Java Hosts
• Set Port Range From/To (usually can leave at default)

Vertical Clustering Step 3 : Check Components Provisioned
• View System Components Availability from Capacity Management >

Availability
• Components should be provisioned, but not started up
• Press Restart All to
proceed

Vertical Clustering Step 4 : Start New System Components
• Check Capacity Management > Availability to check all components running

• Clustering will now ensure that if one fails, the other will take over
(active-active clustering)

Horizontal Scaleout of System Components
• Used for adding additional managed servers (Java components) and

system components to an existing cluster
• Used for scalability and failover
• Set up via the Universal Installer > Scale Out BI System option
• Automatic process, no need to edit configuration files
1. Create shared area for RPD, catalog, cache
2. Install OBIEE on to new node, select Enterprise Install > Scale Out
3. Provide details for WLS Admin Server
4. Node is configured to be new managed server within cluster
5. Use EM to add system components to the new server
6. Designate secondary controllers for scheduler, cluster controller
7. New server is now available, and part of the cluster

Horizontal Clustering Step 1 : Create Shared Areas
• Create folders on network share for RPD, Web Catalog and Global Cache
• Share needs to be accessible to all hosts
• Copy the web catalog across manually, the others will be populated automatically

Horizontal Clustering Step 2 : Prepare Installation
• Start the Oracle Universal Installer on the new host, select

Enterprise Install > Scale Out BI System option
• Enter connection details to the WLS Admin Server

Horizontal Clustering Step 3 : Install and Configure
• Allow installation to complete, and then post-install configuration steps

• This should then complete the scale-out of the managed server and
java components

Horizontal Clustering Step 4 : Add New System Components
• Add new BI Servers, Presentation Servers and JavaHosts on new host

• Once provisioned, Capacity Management > Scalability > Start Selected
to make them available for use

Horizontal Clustering Step 5 : Define Secondary Controllers
• Final step is to define secondary BI Cluster Controllers + BI Schedulers

• Capacity Management > Availability > Primary / Secondary Configuration
• Use in active/passive failover situation

Horizontal Clustering Step 6 : Check Failover Recommendations
• Fusion Middleware Control should now report that all system components
have active/active, and active/passive backups
• No remaining Single Points of Failure

Use of Hardware Load Balancer
• Load balancer required to route incoming requests to WEBHOST1 and

WEBHOST2 virtual host names
• Load balancer needs to be able to perform following functions
‣ Ability to route to virtual host names in a pool
‣ Perform port number translation
‣ Monitor ports on the servers in the pool to determine availability
‣ Ability to detect node failures, and reroute traffic away from failed node
‣ Sticky-routing capability
‣ SSL Acceleration (convert SSL requests to non-SSL)
• List of validated load balances available on OTN
‣ http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/hi_av/
Tested_LBR_FW_SSLAccel.html

Managing Failover and Failback
• In a clustered OBIEE 11g environment, failover is possible

• BI Server, BI Presentation Server and JavaHost are active/active
‣ For BI Server, if one fails and session is active, query will fail but browser
refresh will re-run the analysis
‣ For BI Presentation server, if one fails and session is active, user will
need to log in again (start new session)
‣ For JavaHost, if one fails, refresh of browser will use alternative
‣ Automatic failback once component is online again
• BI Cluster Controller and BI Scheduler are active/passive
‣ For both components, if one fails, clients will detect primary component
unavailability and connect to secondary component instead
‣ Automatic fallback to primary component once online again

Creating Additional TEST and PROD Environments
• OBIEE 11g supports multiple, separate, standalone installations (BI Domains) on

a single host
‣ Does not yet support multiple instances within a BI Domain
• RCU supports creating multiple BIPLATFORM schemas on
one database (DEV_BIPLATFORM, PROD_BIPLATFORM etc)
• It is therefore possible in OBIEE 11g to install multiple DEV, PROD, TEST etc
environments on one host, as long as each installation is standalone
• Or install onto separate hosts, if full isolation is required

Deployment Topology 3 : Enterprise

Enterprise Deployment Considerations
• WebLogic clustering, with WLS + OBIEE software installed on two redundant

hosts (APPHOST1, APPHOST2)
• HTTP Servers moved to seperate WEBHOST1 and WEBHOST2 hosts
• WLS and OBIEE binaries installed onto two volumes on shared storage
‣ Protects against corruptions in one of the volumes
• Admin Server accessed through VIP and ADMINVHN
‣ Provides manual/automatic failover for Admin Server
• RAC + Dataguard used for repository database
‣ Resilience and HA for database
• Firewall zones used to separate out web + application tiers from database
• Still open to horizontal and vertical OBIEE clustering
• Documented in the Oracle® Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for
Oracle Business Intelligence 11g Release 1 (11.1.1)

Separation of HTTP Servers into DMZ
• Recommended for security, as moves public-facing servers into public DMZ

• Two hosts, WEBHOST1 and WEBHOST2, running Oracle HTTP Server,
Oracle WebGate and mod_wl_ohs
‣ Oracle WebGate used when implementing Oracle Access Manager
‣ mod_wl_ohs proxies Oracle HTTP Server requests to WLS
• External hardware load balancer is the public-facing component
‣ Sends requests on port 80 to WEBHOST VIPs using port 443

Duplication of Application Servers
• WLS Admin Server is a singleton application, so needs secondary location

for active/passive failover
• WLS and OBIEE 11gR1 software is installed twice, on two hosts, for
redundancy
‣ Manual or automatic failover in the event of first host failing
‣ Admin server reached through virtual host ADMINVHN

Use of Shared Storage for FMW Files
• WLS and OBIEE software (WL_HOME, ORACLE_HOME) are installed onto

shared disk using SAN or NAS
‣ Ideally install into separate volumes (VOL1, VOL2) and use same
install directory (ORACLE_BASE/product/fmw)
‣ If not, install into separate directories (ORACLE_BASE/product/fmw1|2)
• Protects binaries from corruption
• Installs use alternate volumes/directories on round-robin basis

Recommended Directory Structure for Enterprise Deployment
• In addition, separate domain directory

for the Admin Server and Managed
Server(s)
‣ Symmetric configuration
for managed servers
‣ Isolates the failover of the
Admin Server
‣ Admin Server domain
directory should be
on shared storage
‣ Managed servers can
be shared or local
storage

RAC / DataGuard for DB Resilience
• For full resilience, database holding BIPLATFORM schema should be protected

as well
• For Oracle RDBMS, RAC (Real Application Clusters) and DataGuard
recommended
‣ RAC supports multiple nodes, used for scaleout and (some) resilience
‣ DataGuard replicates data to standby (failover) database

Horizontal and Vertical Scaleout of Enterprise Deployment
• Deployment can be vertically or horizontally scaled out as normal

• ADMINVHN used as hostname for Admin Server

OBIEE 11g Scaleout & Clustering
Borkur Steingrimsson, Rittman Mead Consulting
Collaborate, Orlando, April 2011

B - QA OBIEE Proposal 1

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OBIEE 11g Scaleout & Clustering

Borkur Steingrimsson, Rittman Mead Consulting

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Review OBIEE Architecture

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• OBIEE components divided into System and Java components

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• WLS Admin Server used for controlling WLS platform

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Main difference is wrapping components in WLS platform and EM management

ODBC over TCP/IP (SSL)

Oracle Delivers Server Oracle BI Server

Device Adaptive Content Session Management

Metadata Management Services

Data Source Adapters

ODBC, CLI, OCI, XML, MDX

Analytical and Operational Data Sources

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• During installation, Cluster Controller is automatically installed and configured

Tuesday 12 April 2011

1. Desktop / Laptop Install

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Can be installed using either the Simple or Enterprise install options

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Oracle BI Domain : The overall OBIEE system

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Database separated out into its own host

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Spare capacity on an individual host can be used by adding additional

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• View Potential Points of Failure report on Capacity Management > Availability

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Use Capacity Management > Scalability to add additional BI Servers,

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• View System Components Availability from Capacity Management >

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Check Capacity Management > Availability to check all components running

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Used for adding additional managed servers (Java components) and

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Start the Oracle Universal Installer on the new host, select

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Allow installation to complete, and then post-install configuration steps

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Add new BI Servers, Presentation Servers and JavaHosts on new host

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Final step is to define secondary BI Cluster Controllers + BI Schedulers

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Load balancer required to route incoming requests to WEBHOST1 and

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• In a clustered OBIEE 11g environment, failover is possible

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• OBIEE 11g supports multiple, separate, standalone installations (BI Domains) on

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• WebLogic clustering, with WLS + OBIEE software installed on two redundant

Tuesday 12 April 2011

• Recommended for security, as moves public-facing servers into public DMZ

Tuesday 12 April 2011