Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure December 4, 2008 December 4,

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure December 4, 2008 December 4, 2008 1

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure - Agenda Choices You Have to Make Cal Poly Choices Key Facts Architecture Diagram Issues We Ran Into Recommendations Q&A December 4, 2008 2

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure – Choices VM vs Dedicated Server(s) Single vs Multiple Servers If Multiple Servers Load Balancing Choice – Dedicate to Application (Finance vs Student) – Use OBIEE Clustering – Use Network Controlled Operating System Choices – Windows vs Unix (Linux, Sun etc) December 4, 2008 3

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure – Cal Poly Choices 1 VM – Our goal at Cal Poly is to get everything possible to run under VM to make effective use of server resources and simplify disaster recovery. – We have much of our Devl/Test infrastructure under VM. OBIEE is one of our first Production servers under VM. Two servers under VM using Network load balancing (simple alternate server approach) – Needed Load Balancing but wanted to keep it simple and understandable – OBIEE Clustering was an unknown December 4, 2008 4

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure – Cal Poly Choices 2 Combination of Operating Systems – Linux for Devl/Test/Prod » Expected better performance and more secure environment with Linux » Strong Linux support group at Cal Poly – Windows for Metadata Repository Development Environments » OBIEE architecture best supports the iterative building and initial testing of the metadata repository using Windows December 4, 2008 5

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure – Key Facts 1. 2. 3. 4. OBIEE is a set of Windows Services or Unix Daemons that interact with a collection of proprietary file structures and “objects” as well as databases. The Metadata Repository is a file that CANNOT be shared across servers. Multiple Production Metadata Repositories must be kept in sync MANUALLY. The Web Catalog is a directory/file structure containing many different “objects” that CAN and SHOULD be shared across servers. Several key OBIEE utilities ONLY run under Windows. They are: a. b. Administration tool – Maintenance of Metadata Repository Web Catalog Migration tool – Migrating Web Catalog “objects” between environments December 4, 2008 6

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure – Diagram See Diagram http://polydata.calpoly.edu/dashboards/obiee conf/presentations/CalPoly OBIEE ArchitectureDiagram v2.pdf December 4, 2008 7

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure – Issues We Ran Into Inconsistent Documentation (particularly on Linux) Lack of Experience (Consultant or Oracle) Some examples – We were told that Web Catalog could not be shared via a file share by consultants. This led us to spend DAYS trying to getting Server Replication to work and HOURS recovering data that was lost when Server Replication didn’t work properly – Still haven’t got BI Publisher implemented because of inconsistent documentation that is contradictory! December 4, 2008 8

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure – Recommendations Evaluate what OS is best for you. – Windows might be a valid choice dependent on your support staff’s experience Windows is a good choice to immediately create a “sand box” environment for your developers to become familiar with OBIEE – The Windows default install is pretty straightforward; just don’t go into Production with it! Plan on Windows, regardless of your OS choice, to support some of the tools and Metadata development Use a File Share for the Web Catalog Keep the overall architecture consistent between Devl, Test and Prod as it eases ongoing installations and troubleshooting. The environments don’t have to be sized the same just “architected” the same. DOCUMENT everything you do or you will forget! December 4, 2008 9

Cal Poly OBIEE Technical Infrastructure – Questions/Answers Q&A December 4, 2008 10