Oracle BI Publisher Cluster / HA

Oracle BI Publisheris J2EE application which can be deployed on OC4J or any application Server like Oracle Application Server, IBM Web Sphere, Apache, BEA Weblogic ….

Here is quick overview of clustering BI Publisher or Configuring High Availability

Options Available for clustering BI

1. HA (High Availability) – Also called as Active-Passive deployment where one node is active and other one is passive . Passive node becomes active in case first active node fails.

2. Load Balancing– Also called as Active-Active configuration where two more BI Publisher are front ended by Load Balancer which distribute load to various BI Publisher configured as part of Cluster.
Important Points for BI Publisher Clustering
1. Cluster members don’t share session information (also called as share nothing architecture)

2. Session stickiness should be configured i.e. once a client connection is made to a BI Publisher Server, all further connection should go to same BI Publisher server

3. All BI Publisher cluster member share same repository to store data

4. In case of Server failure, any Job running on failed server has to be restarted .

5. BI Publisher repository can be file based repository or Oracle XMLDB  repository. For file based repository, file system (for repository) should be shared across cluster members.

6. Clocks on all servers participating in cluster should be synced with in one second difference.

7. Configure scheduler to operate in cluster node. (Use BI Publisher Administration screen)

8. Temp directory used to cache reporting data should NOT be shared across cluster members

Configuration Steps
1. Install BI Publisher on machine 1  (Follow BI Publisher installation doc)
2. Install BI Publisher on machine2
3. Configure Load Balancer in front of web server and reconfigure Web Server to use load balancer URL (Follow respective application server documentation)
4. Configure session stickiness in load balancer

About the Author Atul Kumar

Oracle ACE, Author, Speaker and Founder of K21 Technologies & K21 Academy : Specialising in Design, Implement, and Trainings.

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13 comments
Sunny says October 4, 2008

Hi, We are trying to install BI publisher 10.1.3.3.3 on Weblogic 9.2 app server on Solaris 9 OS as a clustered(weblogic cluster) app. We did follow the instructions in the manual but we get the following exception when we try to activate the application.
xdo.server.config.dir = null
[093008_060204785][][EXCEPTION] org.xml.sax.SAXException: Unexpected element: file
at oracle.apps.xdo.servlet.config.ConfigHandler.startElement(ConfigHandler.java:142)
at oracle.apps.xdo.servlet.config.ConfigRootHandler.startElement(ConfigRootHandler.java:42)
at oracle.xdo.parser.v2.NonValidatingParser.parseElement(NonValidatingParser.java:1227)
at oracle.xdo.parser.v2.NonValidatingParser.parseRootElement(NonValidatingParser.java:314)
at oracle.xdo.parser.v2.NonValidatingParser.parseDocument(NonValidatingParser.java:281)
at oracle.xdo.parser.v2.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:195)
at oracle.apps.xdo.servlet.ConfigHelper.configure(ConfigHelper.java:77)
at oracle.apps.xdo.servlet.GlobalContext.init(GlobalContext.java:62)
at oracle.apps.xdo.servlet.XDOServlet.init(XDOServlet.java:85)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletInitAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:278)

Do you any idea about this? If you need some more information then let me knw. Thanks in Advance

Reply
Atul says October 5, 2008

Sunny update link which you followed to deploy BIP on weblogic cluster

Reply
Sunny says October 8, 2008

Hi , I got it resolved. I went through the code and found that the xmlpserver-confix.xml was not getting parsed correctly . Then i verified with my team on how they were deploying it. I found that while updating the xml file there were adding adding a tag of file. They were commenting the prev file tag but using the unix comment and not xml :)..Thanks for your help

Reply
vasavi says November 15, 2008

Hi Atul,

Can u give me the procedure how integrate the SSO BI publisher using OAM. I done with Analytics..i don’t know how to do with the xmlpserver..can u let me know how to do this one.

Thanks & Regards

vasavi

Reply
Atul Kumar says November 15, 2008

Vasavi,
How is BI Publisher (earlier XML publisher) implemented ?

Is this standalone BI Pub (which apps server) ?
With OBIEE ?

Do you want to integrate it with SSO of Oracle Access Manager and not 10g AS ?

Reply
vasavi says November 15, 2008

Hi Atul,

I implemented the BI publisher like selecting the Basic installation anf on OC4J container. Ans i didn’t implemented Bi on any APps Server.

I want to protect the BI Pub with OAM and if Authorization is success it has to automatically login.

I done this scenario for the Analytics. like already i have done the OAM on IIS and i installed the another Webgate on APache. I created the one policy to protect the the Analytics and i redirected the APache url to OC4J usinf proxy module..i createde the impersotor user.. i succeed in this way…

May i know that is there any same way to protect the BI Pub what i did above without installing the Apps server all the things..

Thanks & Regrds
vasavi

Reply
vasavi says November 17, 2008

HI Atul,

I really need this one.I need to implement the SSO for OAM not for the Oracle APPs server.Can any help me regarding this one.

Vasavi

Reply
Srini says June 6, 2009

Hi ,

Any body knows how to install OBI Publisher in Solaries Boxes..

I don’t have any idea on Solaries Environment.

If any one have idea pleas let me know .This is very urjent requirement 4 me.
Please pass any inforamtion to my mail id srin_siebel@yahoocom

Thanks in Advance.
Srini

Reply
Krishna says October 22, 2009

HI Atul,

For the BI publisher High Avilability I have seen the steps mentioned above and i have few queries on them .

As per your steps do we need to install the BIPublisher twice on each application server?
Can I not install the BI Publihser once only on a clustered environment of the App server?
Did you face/any known issues in installing this way?

Reply
Chiedu says March 4, 2010

Hello

I have a problem logging into BI Publisher Desktop.
When I click the login bar in word I get this
Compile error Hidden module: UserForm_ProgressBar

what is the problem?

Reply
Shailesh says June 17, 2010

Hi Atul,

When iam trying to connect Oracle BI Publisher Data source Demo,its giving
“Could not establish connection ”

how i can configure oracle jdbc driver to make this conneciton Please suggest

Thanks,Shailesh

Reply
Eugene says February 21, 2011

Hi Atul,

We have Oracle BI Publisher 10.1.3.4.0.
The issue we experience is that our Server is running on 99% of 4Gb memory all the time. We are unable to see any “non-essential” processess that are running & taking up the memory.
Usually,
the system stops rendering reports… giving the error that “The report has no data”. A server bounce solves this for a couple of hours.

Please suggest a resolution.

Tx.

Reply
Atul Kumar says February 22, 2011

@ Eugene,
Either 4 GB memory is not enough for your applicatuion or their is memory leak in your BIP application.

Run java analyser tool (like jconsole) to monitor JVM and garbage collection cycle.

Reply
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