Clustering Oracle Business Intelligence , BI Server, Presentation Services, Plug-In, Scheduler & Javahost

BI Cluster

This post covers Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE) deployment for High Availability (cluster).

Lets first understand components of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

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Components of BIEE

Oracle BI (Business Intelligence) consist of following components
i) BI Server– maintains logical data model in local proprietary file (.rpd).
ii) BI Presentation Service – provide framework and interface for presentation of BI data to web clients.
iii) BI Publisher – generates enterprise reports
iv) BI Scheduler – scheduling reports to be delivered to user at specified time
v)  BI Java host– provide services to presentation services for charts, PDFs and Gauges
vi) BI Presentation Service plug-in – entry point for web clients to presentation service requests.

Some of these components can be deployed in Active-Active Cluster while others in Active-Passive

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Things good to know about Clustering of Business Intelligence Component

1. BI Presentation Service and BI Server can be deployed in Active-Active where as BI Schedulers participate in cluster with Active-Passive configuration.
2. Cluster controller is entry point for clustered BI Servers
3. BI Server metadata is stored in repository file (.rpd) which is local to each BI server in cluster
4. For BI Server in cluster, one BI Server is designated as MASTER. Online changes to RPD file (repository) are made to master and these changes are replicated to other members of BI Server.
5. Multiple Presentation Services instance in cluster can either share common presentation catalog or catalog may be replicated to each BI presentation Services instance.
6.There can be up to 16 BI Servers in a network domain acting as single server.
7. BI Java host is installed with each BI Presentation Service in cluster. By default BI Presentation Service make request to its local BI Java host. BI Java host can be configured to provide load balancing so that BI Presentation Service can make request to remote BI Java host.
8. Multiple BI Presentation Services in cluster are NOT controlled by Cluster Controller (Cluster Controller maintains multiple BI Servers in cluster)
9. Cluster controller runs in Active-Passive Mode
10. BI Scheduler server runs in Active-Passive Mode
 

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Now lets understand additional components which are specific to BI Cluster
“BI Cluster” Server components
i) BI Cluster Controller – is first point of contact for new requests from BI presentation Services and other clients to BI Server.
       Cluster Controller monitors operations of BI servers in cluster and BI scheduler instance (Active-Passive).
 Cluster Controller is deployed in Active-Passive configuration i.e. only one cluster controller is up at a time.

ii) Cluster Manager – is available in Administration Tool when a repository is open in online mode.

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How components in BI cluster (BI Servers, Presentations Services, Presentations Plug-in, Cluster Controller, BI Scheduler, BI Javahost) communicate with each other coming soon …
Client -> Web Server -> BI Presentation Service Plug-in -> BI Presentation Service

BI Presentations Service -> BI Cluster Controller (in clustered environment) or BI Java Host

BI Cluster Controller -> BI Server or BI Scheduler

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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10 comments
Krishna says August 25, 2008

Hi Atul
How to find the BI version on Oracle Apps?
While applying Patch, how it will update BI server also when it is located on other server?

Thanks

Reply
Business Pens says September 12, 2008

Im sorry i really need to know where i can get the BI version of Oracle Apps, ive seen somebody asked but no reply and i cant find it anywhere, i really need it. You think you could help me out?

Thank you in advance,
Shruti

Reply
Atul says September 13, 2008

Shruti,
What do you mean by BI version of Oracle Apps ?

Is this Siebel Applications ? (Now BI Applications)

or

Siebel Analytics (now OBIEE)

or
Oracle Discoverer (Oracle BI & Forms)

All downloads are either at http://download.oracle.com/ or at
http://edelivery.oracle.com/

Reply
Christoph says May 14, 2009

Hi,

concerning clustering I have already read the deployment guide and it explains well most of the parts. One thing that I could not find and where I would appreciate help is the following:

In the guide it is mentioned that the plugin connects to the same presentation server. Where is this info stored ??? Does the plugin store this info or the presentation server ? Since I think that the presentation server itself does not know anything about clustering I assume that the plugin stores the info which client belongs to which presentation server.

The reason why I am asking is the following: If the info is stored in the plugin and not in the presentation servers, then the load balancer needs to forward each request from a client to the same http server, the same plugin, otherwise it might get to another presentation server, right ??? This means that the load balancer has to support sticky connections if various http servers are used, right ?

Thanks very much for your help.

Christoph

Reply
Suren says June 30, 2009

Hi Atul,

Thanks a lot for your posts on OBIEE.
They are really good and please keep up your good work.

I have a question on installing Cluster controller in VMware environment.

Can I install Primary and Secondary cluster controllers in two redhat linux (guest OS) servers using VMware on the same Windows OS (Host OS)(using VMware)????

Could you please point me to a step by step install for achieving this?

Thanks,
Suren

Reply
Atul Kumar says June 30, 2009

@ Suren,

Can I install Primary and Secondary cluster controllers in two redhat linux (guest OS) servers using VMware on the same Windows OS (Host OS)(using VMware)????

Yes, its possible.

Reply
IMRAN says July 30, 2009

can you send me step by step configuration of clusters on window environment.

Thanks in Advance

Reply
R says February 15, 2010

How about BIOffice addin in cluster environment? Do you have configuration specs for this case?

Reply
sajid says June 16, 2010

I have installed OBIEE on 4 servers Linux based, and done the configuration for clustering as under

NodeA: Primary Cluster Controler, Master BI Server, Primary BI Scheduler, Presentation Services
NodeB: Secondary Cluster Controler, BI Server, Secondary BI Scheduler, Presentation Services
NodeC: BI Server, Presentation Services
NodeD: BI Server, Presentation Services

Now i need 1 URL to give to clients to access, I dont want to give them follwoing URL:
http://Node1.mew.gov.kw:9704/analytics
Please suggest me, how can i change the URL used by the clients.

Reply
Catherin Jose says October 15, 2013

Hi

In my opinion it is very important that what are the components of OBIEE,how they helpful to bright future life. OBIEE is a complete Dataware house Technology.It is very helpful to build your career in Oracle.Make your bright future in OBIEE by online learning.OBIEE is complete business intelligence platform that deliver fully vary of analytics and reporting.Anyway thanks for this great sharing.

Reply
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