Scripted RPD deployments using UDML and WLST

Automating the RPD deployment in OBIEE 10g was as simple as doing an SCP of the RPD to the OBIEE server, and then bounce the processes. With OBIEE 11g, RPD deployments are now handled through Weblogic, so we need to take some additional steps. Luckily these can be easily scripted thanks to WLST.

After the jump is a script which can be used to do OBIEE 11g RPD deployments. This script assumes you have setup ssh keys on the various servers so you can login without typing a password (http://www.linuxproblem.org/art_9.html).

How to Enable Usage Tracking on OBIEE 11g (11.1.1.6.5)

A usual requirement is to enable usage tracking to gather statistics about usage of OBIEE, things like performance, which Dashboards/Reports are being utilized, who is logging in, etc. Out of the box, Oracle includes a robust usage tracking capability with OBIEE, and in fact includes a sample RPD with the Usage Tracking Subject area during install.

There are three main components:

• Changes/configuration in the RPD
• Configuration in Enterprise Manager
• SQL to run to setup Usage Tracking schema.

Continue on to read the steps to enable Usage Tracking.

Creating a UDML file for OBIEE 11g RPD

The ability to use UDML for scripted OBIEE RPD changes has been around since OBIEE 10g. UDML files are very useful in order to do migrations, as they can contain the connection pool information and any variables which are environment specific. I am currently using UDML within our enivonrments to allow for migration of an RPD from Development through to Produciton.

Take a jump to view the steps to create UDML files for your environments, along with a sample UDML file.

Configuring Agents with OBIA and EBS Cookie Integration

Where I am currently working, we are using EBS and OBIEE in a setup with EBS Cookie Authentication (blog post on this soon). This has some draw backs. One draw back is Agents can not be used. When trying to run an agent under this setup, as a user authenticated via EBS Cookie, you will get the following error:

[OBI-SEC-00015] Unable to find user in identity store

I opened an SR at the time, and the response back was a reference to an existing Bug (Bug 10632223: AGENTS NOT WORKING IN EBS SSO ENVIRONMENT WITH OBIEE 11G) and an enhancement (Bug 8326835: INTRODUCE SUPPORT FOR DELIVERS WITH EBS ICX_COOKIE).

According to the Oracle Support person, neither has been implemented. Apparently, Agents were never intended to be used with EBS cookie users, but only with users contained directly in usable authentication systems (ie OID/OAM/LDAP, etc).

Obviously, this is not acceptable, so I went to work to find a solution to get Agents up and running. We are pretty lucky here, in that every user whom can access OBIEE can access all subject areas in OBIEE. This might be different for you, so the end result might require you to do additional work.

Continue on to read for an explanation of what I did to get Agents up and running.

Fix "Configuration Error" on 64-bit OBIEE 11.1.1.6.5 Client Tools

Ever since upgrading to 11.1.1.6.5, I was unable to use the 64bit version of the newly installed client tools. The program would always error out on launch. Oddly enough, if I installed the 32bit version, things would work *mostly* fine, well at least no errors on start-up. But then I had to update the 32bit ODBC entries, and it overall was just a hassle to manage.

So I did a little digging, and found that because it installs into Program Files, it creates it's own bi_init.bat file, which sets up it's own ORACLE_HOME, ORACLE_INSTANCE, etc.

And guess what, this doesn't work!

Continue on to read what I did to change both the bi_init.bat and adjust some of my environment variables.