Oracle BI Architecture Components

This lesson describes the following architecture components and their relationships: Clients Oracle BI Presentation Services Oracle BI Server Oracle BI repository Data sources

Clients

Oracle BI Presentation Services

Oracle BI Server

Data sources

1-1

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Clients
Provide access to business intelligence information Oracle BI Answers
Is a set of graphical tools used to build, view, and modify Oracle BI requests

Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards

Display the results of Answers requests and other items

Oracle BI Administration Tool

Is used to build an Oracle BI repository

Clients

Oracle BI Presentation Services

Oracle BI Server

Data sources

1-2

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Oracle BI Presentation Services

Provides the processing to visualize the information for client consumption Is implemented as an extension to a Web server Uses a catalog to store saved content Receives data from Oracle BI Server and provides it to the client that requested it

Clients

Oracle BI Presentation Services

Oracle BI Server

Data sources

1-3

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Oracle BI Server
Is the core server behind Oracle Business Intelligence Provides efficient processing to access physical data sources and structure information intelligently
Uses metadata to direct processing Generates dynamic SQL to query data in the physical data sources Connects natively or through ODBC to the RDBMS Structures results to satisfy requests Provides BI data to Oracle BI Presentation Services

Clients

Oracle BI Presentation Services

Oracle BI Server

Data sources

1-4

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Oracle BI Repository
Stores the metadata used by Oracle BI Server Is accessed and configured using the Oracle BI Administration Tool, which you use to:
Import metadata from databases and other data sources Simplify and reorganize the metadata into business models Structure the business model for presentation to users who request information

Repository

Clients

Oracle BI Presentation Services

Oracle BI Server

Data sources

1-5

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Data Sources
Contain the business data that users want to analyze Are accessed by Oracle BI Server Can be in any format, such as:
Relational databases Online analytical processing (OLAP) databases Flat files Spreadsheets XML for Analysis (XMLA)

Clients

Oracle BI Presentation Services

Oracle BI Server

Data sources

1-6

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Sample Request Processing

1. User views a dashboard or submits a request. 2. Oracle BI Presentation Services makes a request to Oracle BI Server to retrieve the requested data. 3. Using the repository file, Oracle BI Server optimizes functions to request the data from the data sources. 4. Oracle BI Server receives the data from the data sources and processes as necessary. 5. Oracle BI Server passes the data to Oracle BI Presentation Services. 6. Oracle BI Presentation Services formats the data and sends it to the client.
1

Clients
6

Oracle BI Pres Services

2 5

Oracle BI Server

3 4

Data sources

1-7

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Oracle BI Administration Tool

Exposes the Oracle BI repository as three separate panes, called layers: Physical Business Model and Mapping (BMM) Presentation

1-8

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Physical Layer
Contains objects representing the physical data sources to which Oracle BI Server submits queries May contain multiple data sources Is typically the first layer built in the repository

Data sources

1-9

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Physical Layer Objects

Are objects in the Physical layer, such as connection pools, folders, tables, columns, and keys Expand a database object to display the objects it contains.
Database Connection pool Schema folder Tables Columns Key

1 - 10

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Business Model and Mapping Layer

Is where physical schemas are simplified and reorganized to form the basis of the users view of the data.

1 - 11

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Business Model and Mapping Layer Objects

The Business Model and Mapping layer contains business model objects.
Business model Dimension hierarchies Logical dimension tables Logical fact table Logical table source Logical columns Measures

1 - 12

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Business Model Mappings

Business Model and Mapping layer objects map to source data objects in the Physical layer. Mappings are typically not one-to-one:
Business models may map to multiple data sources. Logical tables may map to multiple physical tables. Logical columns may map to multiple physical columns.

Mappings

1 - 13

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Measures
Are the facts that a business uses to evaluate its performance Can be calculations that define measurable quantities Are created on logical columns in the fact table Have a defined aggregation rule

Icon denotes an aggregation rule.

1 - 14

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Presentation Layer
Contains presentation objects that provide a customized view of a business model to users Simplifies and organizes the business model to make it easy for users to understand and query Exposes only the data meaningful to the users

1 - 15

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Presentation Layer Mappings

Presentation layer objects map to objects in the Business Model and Mapping layer.

Presentation catalogs map to the business model. Presentation tables may map to logical tables.

Presentation columns map to logical columns.

1 - 16

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Presentation Layer Defines User Interface

Presentation layer objects define the interface that users see to query the data from the data sources.

Presentation catalog

Subject area Folder

Presentation folder

Presentation column

Column

1 - 17

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Repository Directory
Repository files reside in the \Oracle BI\server\Repository directory, where the Oracle BI software is installed.

Default location of repository files Oracle BI Repository file

1 - 18

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Repository Modes
Repository files can be opened for editing in offline or online mode. Offline
Repository is not loaded into Oracle BI Server memory.

Online:
Repository is loaded into Oracle BI Server memory. Administrators can perform tasks not available in offline mode:

Manage scheduled jobs Manage user sessions Manage the query cache Manage clustered servers Stop Oracle BI Server

1 - 19

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Adding an Entry in NQSConfig.ini

NQSConfig.ini is a configuration file read by Oracle BI Server to determine which repository to load into memory.
Default location of NQSConfig.ini file

Repository to load

Commented out

1 - 20

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Reloading Server Metadata

Click the Reload Server Metadata link in Answers to refresh the view of Oracle BI metadata.

Reload Server Metadata link

1 - 21

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Summary
In this lesson, you should have learned how to: Identify and describe the major components of the Oracle BI architecture Identify and describe the three layers of an Oracle BI Repository and how they relate to each other Use the Oracle BI Administration Tool to explore repository objects

1 - 22

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

Practice 1-1 Overview: Exploring an Oracle BI Repository

This practice covers the following topics: Exploring the Physical layer of a repository Exploring the Business Model and Mapping layer of a repository Exploring the Presentation layer of a repository Loading a repository into memory Submitting a request using Oracle BI Answers

1 - 23

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com

1 - 24

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. www.focusthread.com