OBIEE 11g: Direct Query from Database, bypassed Cache

To make sure the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) report / analysis' query pulls data directly from the database and not from Presentation or Server cache, follow these steps:

1. After selecting appropriate columns in Criteria tab

2. Click on Advanced tab

3. On Prefix section, enter: SET VARIABLE DISABLE_CACHE_HIT=1;

4. Click on Results tab.

5. Keep in mind that it might take little longer than usual, since the report will have to pull fresh data.

Hope this helped & feedback is always welcomed!

Re: Interview Tips

I understand that this has been said so many times by so many people, yet, it is still a common mistake among so many individuals while preparing for an interview. For that reason, here are few quick tips:

1. Prior to agreeing for an initial interview (whether telephonic or in-person), if recruiter proposes a time, ask if there is another time slot available, because you already have another interview scheduled. However, DO NOT persist and always leave a back-door.
1. This is a simple self-marketing strategy, to let the recruiter(s) know that you're in-demand.

2. READ the job description WELL
1. I am sure you will always find good questions from the job description itself. And by doing so, you will send a message that you did your homework and remain interested.

3. PREPARE your story
1. What was the first spark that ignited you to pursue this career / industry?
1. i.e. Conducting an internship / fellowship at ABC company OR independent project / research helped me to find my passion in XZY areas and enabled me to further strengthen my skills.

4. AVOID lips talking
1. Instead of "humming" (i.e. um-hmmm) as an indication of "acknowledgement," say those words. You may underestimate these small details, but they do count towards evaluation and building the first impression of you.

5. ASK at least a question
1. Simple question like:
1. How would you describe a fit candidate for this position?
2. What would you expect a hired candidate to achieve in first 30-60 days?

6. Not "WE" use "I"
1. Never use "we" accomplished 123, always use "I".
1. i.e. I contributed to the team…
2. I was able to do…

7. Control the interview as much as you can
1. This may sound impossible, but if you master the art of speaking, you can certainly control at least certain percentage of it.

Hope this is useful and feedback is always welcomed!

Creating a Batch File in MS Windows

1. Open Notepad
2. Type-in command prompts that are executable

      Echo on/off
      Echo XYZ Services Start
      Net start "avast! Antivirus"  (Open MS Local Services and type in service name EXACTLY as shown)

     
      Net start "-----------------" (Open MS Local Services and type in service name EXACTLY as shown. You can add as many service(s) as you wish)
      Echo XYZ services started

3. Save the notepad.
4. Change the file extension from .txt  to  .bat
Hope this helped!

Anonymous Quote

"Excellence is never an accident; it is the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities"

Windows 7 Taskbar Icon Manager

If you are looking for ways to organize your frequently used shortcuts pinned to the taskbar, I found 7stacks very useful and is simple to use.
Here how it works:

1. Download the FREE 7stacks from: http://alastria.com/software/7stacks/  & unzip it.

2. Run and Finish the installation.

3. Create a new Folder (anywhere) where you can save all your shortcuts. i.e. First create the shortcut of all frequently used programs and cut and paste them into one folder.

4. Open the 7stacks

5. For – Folder to use for stack:  > navigate to new folder that was created on Step 3.

6. You can select Stack Type as Vertical Stack, Grid and etc. You can test those out after pilot testing the initial setup.

7. Click on Create Shortcut on Desktop – this will create a shortcut on your desktop and right click on 7stack icon > Pin to Taskbar

8. Here how it looks:

Hope it helped & Enjoy!

Enabling Quick Launch on Windows 7

Quick Launch is a set of icons that are used frequently. This feature view is mainly available on Windows Vista & XP, it is also available in Windows 7, but cannot be setup as easily as one would in Windows XP and Vista.

Here is how it can be setup:
1. Right click on the taskbar and then select New Toolbar.

2. You need to put the following location %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch in the new window that appears.

3. Next, click on 'Select Folder'.

4. Quick Launch will appear on the taskbar but will contain text of the respective icon. To hide it, click on the dotted lines and uncheck 'Show Title' and 'Show Text'

Hope it helped!

How to login to OBIEE 11g with User and Password hardcoded URL?

If you would like to just login with URL into OBIEE 11g content, you can hardcode the URL and not have to worry about it anymore. The ingredients are below. The content in red indicates your input to your specific environment:

http://hostname:7001/analytics/saw.dll?answers&NQuser=username&NQpassword=Password

i.e. if your hostname is localhost; where you would like to login: answers, dashboard; username: weblogic, password: Admin123. The complete URL in this case will be:
http://localhost:7001/analytics/saw.dll?dashboard&NQuser=weblogic&NQpassword=Admin123Hope this helped!

How to Enable / Disable Recent Files List in Windows 7 Taskbar Jump List

First to edit the number of files shown in that list:

1. Right Click in your start menu and chose Properties
2. Click on Customize button under Start Menu tab
3. You'll get the Customize Start Menu dialog, at the bottom of which you will see the Start menu size section where you can set a new value for Number of recent items to display in Jump Lists
3. Set your preferred value and click on OK twice to apply the settings

Note that setting Number of recent items to display to 0 will remove the recent files list from taskbar, but still store your recent files at the back-end. So that you can restore it later.

To completely disable this feature:

1. Right Click in your start menu and chose Properties
2. Under Privacy section, You can find Store and display recently opened items in the Start Menu and the Taskbar check box. Uncheck it.
3. Click on OK to apply the settings.

Hope it helped!

OBIEE 11g OBI Server and Presentation Cache Management

Oracle BI Server Cache Management

• BI server could be leveraged by multiple users and reports depending on whether they are accessing similar or subset of the cached data, though from a different reports.
• To purge OBI Server cache the best-practice is to set it as automated process after completing ETL, because if we set the auto-purge at specified time, but for some reason ETL fails, the BI Server cache gets purged and all user queries will have to get executed all over, which will impact the BI Server performance.

1. To complete this task, please follow these steps:
2. Create a text file called: PurgeAllCache.txt and save it in C:\ (easier to remember)
3. Open and type the following: Call SAPurgeAllCache()
4. Save and Close.
5. Create another text file called: PurgeCache.txt (we will later convert this file into batch file .bat) and save it in C:\
6. Go to: \Oracle_BI\bifoundation\server\bin\nqcmd.exe and make sure you see the file DO NOT run it.
7. Copy and paste the nqcmd.exe file directory somewhere temporary
1. This is a ODBC client that runs commands
8. Now, go to: Start > All Programs > Administrative Tools > Data Sources (ODBC)
9. Click on System DSN tab and locate Oracle BI Server 11g_XXXXX > click on Configure…
10.  
11. Copy and paste the Name: with nqcmd.exe file path for now. The ODBC name in this case is: coreapplication_OH905911364
12.  
13. Cancel to close Oracle BI Server and ODBC windows.
14. Open PurgeCache.txt and type the following:
1. Echo off
2. \Oracle_BI\bifoundation\server\bin\nqcmd.exe -d coreapplication_905911364 -u weblogic -p password -s C:\PurgeAllCache.txt
1. Make sure this command is ALL IN ONE LINE
3. Echo 

• Explnation:
• \Oracle_BI\bifoundation\server\bin\nqcmd.exe [nqcmd.exe file path]
• -d coreapplication_905911364 [my DSN ODBC name]
• -u weblogic [-u BI Admin Username]
• -p password [-p BI Admin Password]
• -s C:\PurgeAllCache.txt [-s SQL Input File to execute]

1. Save and Close. 
2. Change PurgeCache.txt into PurgeCache.bat this will convert the file into executable file. 
3. Now run couple of analysis in OBIEE. 
4. Open the RPD in an Online mode:
5. Go to: Manage > Cache - and you'll see recent saved cache.
6. Now run PurgeCache.bat and recheck the RPD Cache, you will see that it is cleaned :).

 

Oracle BI Presentation Cache Management

• When users run analyses, Presentation Services can cache the results of those analyses. Presentation Services determines if subsequent analyses can use cached results. If the cache can be shared, then subsequent analyses are not stored.
• The files for the Presentation Services cache have names such as nQS_xxxx_x_xxxxxx.TMP.
• The files are created by the ODBC driver but generally do correspond to ODBC requests that the Presentation Services cache keeps open. The files are stored in the following directory: 
•  ORACLE_INSTANCE\tmp\OracleBIPresentationServices\coreapplication_obipsn\obis_temp
• The files for the cache are removed whenever Presentation Services shuts down cleanly. If Presentation Services shuts down unexpectedly, then various cache files might be left on disk. You can delete the files when Presentation Services is not running.
• The Presentation Services cache is not the same cache that is accessed by the Oracle BI Server. You can change the defaults for the Presentation Services cache by modifying the instanceconfig.xml file to include the cache entries.
• i.e. if the requirement is to set the cache to expire every 15 minutes; open to edit the instanceconfig.xml for OBI Presentation Services and add the following : 
• Your code should look like this:
   
• 
• Save and Close the file.

Alternative Cache Management Techniques

• Open  BI Administration Tool > Open the RPD
• Go to: Physical table properties
• Check: Checkeable and choose as appropriate
• Cache never expires - self-explanatory
• Cache persistence time - specify how often the table should purge the cache
• Note: this implies only to this table and is not the best-techniques when you are working with 100s of tables.

OBIEE 10g vs 11g

1. NQSconfig.INI File Path:
1. OBIEE 10g: OracleBI/server/Config
2. OBIEE 11G: ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obisn

2. Repository (.rpd) Encryption:
1. OBIEE 10g - certain sensitive elements within a repository are encrypted.
2. OBIEE 11g - entire repository is encrypted using a key derived from a user supplied password. An 11g repository can ONLY be opened with the password, and there is no mechanism to recover a lost password.

3. Defining Users and Groups –
1. OBIEE 10g - it was possible to define users and groups within a repository file using the Oracle BI Administration tool.
2. OBIEE 11g - users and groups are defined and set from Admin Console
1. You can no longer define users and groups within a repository. The Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Upgrade Assistant migrates users and groups from a 10g repository into the embedded LDAP server in an 11g installation.

4. OBIEE 10g Architecture:
1. No WebLogic
2. Security is set via LDAP Tables within RPD
3. No Lookup feature
4. No RollingPeriod - Time Series
5. Stop Services - Copy RPD > Repository folder >
6. NQSConfig.INI - manual

5. OBIEE 11g Components:
1. OBI Server
2. OBI Presentation Server
3. OBI Scheduler
4. OBI Cluster Controller
5. OBI Java Host

6. OBIEE 11g Only Features:
1. Admin Console
2. Enterprise Manager - most server management are done
3. Lookup tables
4. Skipped Hierarchy
5. Time Series > RollingPeriod - Measure Functions
6. Dynamic re-arrangement of pivot tables columns in the dashboard
7. Dynamic grouping and sorting on pivot and other views
8. Instanceconfig.INI - OBI Server
9. Instanceconfig.xml - OBI Presentation

"Live, Learn, Apply & Educate!" DRAZDA