OBIEE Components

For Beginners let me give a clear picture how this tool works

OLTP DATABASE   ------>  ETL  -------->  OLAP DATABASE  ------->  OBIEE

In OBIEE

RPD  ---------->  BI server   -------->   Presentation Server -------> Reports/Dashboards

Components of OBIEE :

OBIEE can be divided into 3 parts

i.    Repository or Administration Tools

ii.   Reports/ Dashboards

iii.  Ibots/Agents(11g)/Delivers

OBIEE has two types of components

1.      Server Component

2.     Client Component

1. Server Components :
1. Oracle BI Server (can be considered as heart for OBIEE)
2. Oracle Presentation Server
3. Application Server
4. Scheduler
5. Cluster Controller

Oracle BI Server: It is a core engine acts as a heart of entire OBIEE software which performs following operations. It controls/coordinates all reporting/repository building operations by communicating/coordinating with other server components. It takes the logical SQL requests from Presentation server and generates the optimized queries against the report request. These queries are send to physical database for execution. It manages cache to redirect queries to cache /purge cache ..etc. It is also responsible for security implementation, online repository building, Multi user development..etc. following are the other components which BI server controls/coordinates.

Repository: Repository is a meta data of physical data warehouse structures which were converted to Logical dimensional structures. Presentation Layer of the repository contains the objects which needed to exposed to users for report generation. This repository stores in a file with extension .rpd.

NQSConfig:         This file is  key configuration file from where OBIEE server reads the initial parameters information before it starts. It is by default located at x:\OracleBI\server\Config(for 10g)  and  x\Oracle\Middleware\instances\instance1\bifoundation\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1\repository(for 11g). In 11g you can change the repository using EM

Log files: All the log files are placed by default at x:\OracleBI\server\Log(For 10g) and in 11g you can directly find them from EM

I

NQCluster: Logs OBIEE clustering information if it is configured as cluster.

NQQuery:   Records all the step by step process of each and every report/query activity in OBIEE. We can see all physical and logical queries in this log.

Logical query can be understood only by OBIEE server. These queries are generated based on the reports/answers criteria which executed from OBIEE presentation services.

Example;

SELECT PROD_NAME from PRODUCTS saw_0

FROM "Sales1" ORDER BY saw_0

Physical Query: OBIEE server will convert logical queries to database specific physical queries which can be executed on DW database. Logical queries are converted to physical queries based on logical/physical model metadata definitions in repository file.

A repository is a collection of data definitions. Or data about data (Metadata).

Cache: Caching is a process of storing the Info on separate layer after fetching data from physical warehouse. This helps to reuse the Information which is frequently going queried by users without hitting the database for every request.

Presentation Server:

Presentation service is a Single application that provides Oracle BI Answers, Dashboards, delivers etc via web browsers.

·        Take the request form the client tools and pars the request to OBIEE server.

·        Since presentation services are service components, in order to work on presentation services it requires a application server.

·         

Application Server:

Application Server is the server which provides the 3-tier Architecture features and helps to work on web based client components and by default oracle provides oc4j(10g) application server along with OBIEE s/w. These can be changed in case organization wants to go with diff app. Servers like IIs or web sphere. OBIEE provides a default application server by name OC4J. In the real production servers we can replace this by any other 

OBIEE 11g uses weblogic server

OBI Scheduler:

Is a server component helps to schedule a job. To install and configure BI Scheduler requires a relational repository. We need to create a empty user and configure to BI scheduler. While creating repository OBIEE will create required tables in this user. It stores all schedule related information. For running iBots this components is mandatory. The jobs which are schedule by BI Scheduler can be monitored by job manager.
iBots are known as Agents in 11g

Client Components : 

OBIEE has two types of client components

·        Browser (Web )based client

·        Non web based client

Non web based client components :

               OBIEE Administration tool is used to  build a repositories (metadata model) on top of physical data ware house It contains three layers.

·        Physical layer

·        Business layer

Presentation This helps to easily navigate unix folder structures via graphical interface.

ODBC Client: allows to connect to a database and execute SQL commands. Mostly BIEE testers will use this tool to test the repository/reports.

Browser based Clients : These tools will wok only on any internet browser. Following the tool.

1.     Interactive Dashboards : Dashboard is a logical container of components developed by OBIEE like answers, other web pages, other dashboards. This provides additional features like prompts, guided navigation etc.

2.      Answers : Oracle BI Answers also called as reports provides a highly Interactive user interfaces to generate reports/analytics with complex calculations and multiple views and filters etc.s

3.     Oracle Delivers : Create proactive alerts with the help of a engine called iBots. It  also helps to deliver the contents in various formats to different. Destinations.

4.     Disconnected Analytics : Simulated online working environment even though not connected to data ware housing.

5.     MS_Office Plugin : Integrates the OBIEE generated data with all MS_Office product which can further analyzed on local desktop Office products.

6.     BI presentation Service Administration : Client component helps to admin the activities which are being in progress within presentation services.

7.      BI Publisher : OBI publisher which was knows as XML publisher allows to create reports based on the layouts created in MS word or Excel. The report output can be published/bursted to various media and various people.