[OBIEE11g] Migration Approach

OBIEE11g Migration Approach

1. Export the Discoverer EUL in to a .EEX file
2. Create a new test instance and install OBIEE 11g
3. Run the MigrateEUL.exe utility to covert the .EEX file to OBI 11g RPD
4. Perform the post-upgrade steps on new OBI 11g test system
5. Move the system from test OBI 11g environment to 11g production

Descriptive Migration Approach

A.1 Export the EUL from Discoverer in to .EEX File
B.1 Set up the New test Instance of OBIEE 11g
B.2 Install the Oracle Business Intelligence 11g software
C.1 Run the utility in Oracle BI 11g to convert the .EEX file in to BI RPD and assign a password to the repository. (Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/server/bin)
C.2 Upgrade the Repository Metadata
C.3 Check Repository Consistency
C.4 Enable the New BI RPD on the BI Sever through EM (Enterprise Manager)
C.5 Need to migrate the Workbook of Discoverer to OBI Analytics manually using “Create Direct Database Request” option
C.6 Create or Migrate the Users and Roles using Weblogic console in OBI 11g
C.7 Implement the New features of OBIEE 11g
D.1 Test the OBI 11g System
E.1 Migrate the test 11g system to 11g production environment

Detailed Approach

 
Upgrading a Discoverer to Oracle Business Intelligence 11g needs preparation, planning and testing. Oracle provides tools and technologies to automate most of the upgrade process. The precise strategy that you want to adopt depends on the configuration of the existing Discoverer system and the upgraded OBIEE 11g system.

Export EUL from Discoverer to .EEX file

 
First step is to Export EUL from Discoverer to .EEX file

• In Oracle Discoverer Administrator, go to the FILE -> Export
• When the Export Wizard open select the “The Entire End User Layer” option to export the entire EUL.
• In the next window select the location and file name (.EEX) that will contain the export.
• A progress window will be displayed, and you can capture the log as a text file to review at a later time.

Create a new test instance and install OBIEE 11g

Create a new instance for OBIEE 11g, where all the migration takes place.
Start up all the OBIEE 11g related services (BI Services and Web logic Server) and check that you can log in to the Enterprise Manager, WLS Admin Console and OBIEE Analytics.

Enterprise Manager : http://localhost:7001/em
WLS Admin Console: http://localhost:7001/console
OBIEE Answers/Dashboard : http://localhost:9704/analytics

All the relevant TNS names used in the Discoverer connections are present in

<OBIEE_MW_HOME>/Oracle_BI1/network/admin/tnsnames.ora file

Run the Oracle Discoverer Metadata Conversion Assistant.

 
The Oracle Discoverer Metadata Assistant utility is run from command line. We can refine the implementation of migration by settings in the properties file. (Note: the utility must be run on the same machine on which the OBIEE is installed.)

Properties can be set on MigrationConfig.properties File

Run MigrationEUL.exe utility to convert .EEX file in to OBIEE 11g RPD. Executing the Migration Assistant generates OBIEE 11g RPD and it creates two log files: the XX.migration.log has information about the process of the migration to high level and XX.exception.log indicates the items that were not migrated.

Open the repository file in offline mode using the OBIEE Administrator and assign the password to the repository file.

• To do this task we must use the Oracle BI Administration Tool and open the repository in the offline mode. Once opened, go to File -> Change Password.
• Move or copy the repository file to the location instances\instance1\bifoundation\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1\repository

Perform the post-upgrade steps on new OBI 11g test system

 
Perform the post-upgrade activities to validate the new OBIEE 11g RPD.
Create a test plan to validate the objects and customize the files instanceconfig.xml and nqsconfig.ini.

Test Plan

Migrating Workbooks

 
There is no tool available that would do migration of workbook automatically.
The two approaches are:-

• Need to recreate the queries from scratch.
• Reuse the SQL queries generated by Discoverer and apply them directly in to OBIEE 11g “Create Direct Database” request.
• Open the workbook in Oracle Discoverer, using either Discoverer Plus or Discoverer Desktop.
• Once opened, go to the Tools (Tools) -> Show SQL.
• Use the copy button in the window to copy the entire SQL statement.
• Go to OBIEE and select “Create Analysis” and then “Create Direct Database Request”.
• Enter the name of the Connection Pool and paste the SQL statement copied from Discoverer. Press the button Validate SQL and retrieve columns to select columns.
• Switching to the Results tab displays the data for this query

Move the system from test OBI 11g environment to 11g production

 
Setup new OBIEE 11g production environment and migrate the objects from OBIEE 11g test environment.
Once all the objects are migrated shutdown the existing Discoverer Production system.

 

Important Considerations

 
Your migration is now complete. There are some important additional considerations.

For example, there is a fundamental difference between OBIEE and Discoverer in the preferred relationship model. In the Business Model layer of the OBIEE repository, the relationships between tables should represent a star schema – as a minimum requirement there is a dimension table and a fact table. In comparison, Oracle Discoverer doesn’t demand any special type of relationship between data. For that reason, if the Discoverer data model doesn’t represent star schemas, changes may be needed after migration in order to respect this structure. Otherwise the repository will not be available and enabled for queries.