Patching in Oracle BI 11g 11.1.1.6

Last week the announcement came that there has been a Patch (13742915) released for Oracle BI EE 11.1.1.6.1. This Patch can be dowloaded via Oracle Support (Login required).

If you want to apply the Patch, you have to perform a few steps. These steps can differ, depending on which steps you may or may not already have executed.

Start by downloading the Patch first.

Download Patch 13742915
——————————–

1. Navigate to ‘Patches & Updates’
2. Search for Patch 13742915
3. Select the required OS (I installed on Windows 64-bit)
4. Dowload the Patch

When the Patch has been dowloaded, go to your Oracle BI environment for the installation of the Patch. The following steps have to be performed.

Patch Installation for server
——————————–
1. Stop all BI Services, including BI Server, BI Administration Tool, BI Javahost, BI Scheduler (Start->Programs->Oracle BI->Stop BI Services)
2. Backup ORACLE_HOME\bifoundation\server
3. Backup ORACLE_INSTANCE\bifoundation\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1\repository
4. Apply Patch using Opatch (See below)
5. Start all BI Services
6. Test the Patch
7. If needed, rollback the Patch (See below)

Apply Patch using Opatch
——————————–

Note: Make sure all BI Services have stopped

Check Oracle Support; ‘OBIEE 11g: How to Apply Patches Using Opatch’ (Id – 1220799.1)

1. Verify whether you have (the latest) version of Opatch installed

a) If needed install a new version of the Opatch utility (See below)
Make sure ….

… the ORACLE_HOME variable exists –> set ORACLE_HOME=MIDDLEWARE_HOME\Oracle_BI1

—-
– Side-note from Oracle: “You are setting ORACLE_HOME for this command-prompt session only.
– This is set to only facilitate patch application/rollback/inventory, etc.
– Do not make this a permanent environment variable as it will affect other Oracle Products running
– on your system which may need a permanent ORACLE_HOME environment variable.”
—-

… the OPATCH-directory is in your PATH –> set PATH=%PATH%;ORACLE_HOME\OPatch

2. Read through the README.txt
3. Download the Patch to the PATCH_TOP directory (in my case; Z:\Oracle\FMW\OracleBIAdmin\PATCH_TOP)
4. CD to Patch directory (in my case; Z:\Oracle\FMW\OracleBIAdmin\PATCH_TOP\13742915)
5. Apply Patch
a) run “opatch apply” (without quotes)
– If you are running a 64-bit OS: Windows64bit / Linux 64bit / AIX 64bit
b) run “patch apply -jre %ORACLE_HOME%/jdk/jre” (without quotes)
6. OPatch succeeded
7. Verify the succesful installation
a) run “opatch lsinventory” (without quotes)
– If you are running a 64-bit OS: Windows64bit / Linux 64bit / AIX 64bit
b) run “opatch lsinventory -jre %ORACLE_HOME%/jdk/jre” (without quotes)
8. OPatch succeeded

Note: All BI Services can be started

Rollback the Patch using Opatch
——————————–
1. CD to Patch directory (in my case; Z:\Oracle\FMW\OracleBIAdmin\PATCH_TOP\13742915)
2 Rollback Patch
a) run “opatch rollback -id 13742915″ (without quotes)
– If you are running a 64-bit OS: Windows64bit / Linux 64bit / AIX 64bit
b) run “opatch rollback -id 13742915 -jre %ORACLE_HOME%/jdk/jre” (without quotes)

How to install the Opatch utility
—————————————

1. Navigate to ‘Patches & Updates’
2. Search for Patch 6880880
3. Select the required OS (I installed on Windows 64-bit)
4. Dowload the Patch
5. Extract the zip file directly under the ORACLE_HOME (MIDDLEWARE_HOME\Oracle_BI1).
6. Backup ORACLE_HOME\OPatch
7. Make sure no directory ORACLE_HOME\OPatch exist
8. Unzip the OPatch downloaded zip into the ORACLE_HOME directory
9. check the version of the OPatch utility
a) ORACLE_HOME\OPatch
b) run “opatch version” (without quotes)

Good Luck!

Upgrading from 10g to 11g (Update)

In preparation of an Oracle BI Applications (OBIA) upgrade to OBIA 7.9.6.3, I have been running the Oracle BI 11.1.1.6 Upgrade Assistant. Just to see whether we could expect (serious) issues. On the other hand I was curious how the Oracle BI 10g Security Groups would upgrade to the Oracle BI 11g Application Roles. Application Roles are managed via the the Enterprise Manager (Policy Store – system-jazn-data.xml). Actually Rittman Mead are running a 5-part series on Oracle BI 11g Security at the moment.

The Oracle BI Application Security is configured as follows in Oracle BI 10g. The responsibilities in Oracle eBS are created as groups in Oracle BI. After upgrading to 11g these groups are created as Applications Roles. If you check the in the Oracle BI 11g Weblogic Console, you would see that the responsibilities are also created as groups. These groups are created for Authentication (confirming the identity of a user) purposes. The Application roles are created for the Authorization (specifying access rights).

I have been blogging about the upgrade from 10g to 11g earlier. There doesn’t seem to be any major difference in the Upgrade Assistant in 11.1.1.6. You basically have to follow the same steps as in the previous versions.

After the upgrade I ran the Consistency Checker. A few ‘Warnings’ caught my eye. I haven’t seen those before so I guess they are introduced in Oracle BI 11g.

–> NQSError 39051 (Warnings) – Application Role “*****” is not defined in the Enterprise Manager.

There are 2 options to solve these errors:

Remove the Application Role from ….

• …. the Policy Store via the Enterprise Manager
• …. the Reporsitory (RPD) via the Identy Manager in the Oracle BI Administration Tool.

–> NQSError 39062 (Warnings) Initialization Block ‘*****’ uses Connection Pool ‘”*****”.”*****”‘ which is used for report queries. This may impact query performance.

It’s common practice to create an additional Initialization Block for Session variables. Check Nicolas’ blog for more details on the Oracle BI Connection Pools.

Cheers.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 11.1.1.6.0

Although Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 11.1.1.6.0 has already been released a few weeks ago, I thought I would be nice to write some sort of wrap-up post with some interesting links to documents and various websites.

The latest version of Oracle BI 11g is available on OTN as well as on eDelivery.

Of course you should start by reading the documentation. The 11.1.1.6.0 docs have been duplicated compared to 11.1.1.5.0. Maybe because there is an additional part reserved for Oracle Exalytics. As always there is a lot of buzz around the Oracle BI Blogosphere. Christian has a nice up-to-date Link Library with a list of interesting websites with regards to 11.1.1.6 documentation and functionality posts/docs/etc.

Some interesting documents

• Maintenance Release Guide (List of Bugs Fixed)
• Oracle BI 11g – Certification Matrix
• Upgrade Advisor: Oracle BI 11g from 11.1.1.5.0 to 11.1.1.6.0 (Id –  1434253.1)

Oracle BI 11.1.1.6.0 opens the door for Oracle Exalytics. When you want to get more information about Oracle Exalytics, check the following sites;

• Peak Indicators –  All You want to ask about Oracle Exalytics 
• Rittman Mead – A five part series about Oracle Exalytics

Happy Upgrading!

Related articles

• Oracle Exalytics: When Late Is Better Than Never (informationweek.com)
• Oracle releases Exalytics to take on SAP’s HANA (infoworld.com)

OBIEE 11.1.1.5 – Sample Application (V107)

The new Oracle BI EE 11.1.1.5 Sample Application (V107) is available for download on OTN. Previous releases only provided install files. This time Oracle added an additional option via a VirtualBox-image.

I hope it was worth the wait.

Oracle BI 11g 11.1.1.5 ready to explore

On the third of may this year, Oracle announced the new release of Oracle BI 11g (11.1.1.5). This new release includes;

• Oracle BI EE
• Oracle BI Applications 7.9.6.3
• Oracle Real Time Decisions Release 3.1

Highlights of this release:

• Support for iPod / iPad
• Extended support for Oracle Times Ten
• Oracle BI Applications 7.9.6.3 built on top of Oracle BI 11g 11.1.1.5
• Oracle Real Time Decisions built using ADF also integrated with Oracle Siebel CRM

Oracle BI 11g 11.1.1.5 is ready for download on OTN. Check the documentation for more details. At least the version number has been updated.

I would advice you to watch the Oracle BI blogosphere  the coming for more juicy details.