5 Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. Testing and Validating a Repository

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Objectives After completing this lesson, you should be able to execute the steps to test and validate a repository.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Validating a Repository The following steps validate whether a repository is constructed correctly and whether it yields the expected query results: Checking repository for consistency Enabling logging Loading a repository Checking a repository using Oracle BI Answers Inspecting the query log

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved ABC Example Validate and test the SupplierSales business model before making it available for querying by users. SupplierSales is not available for queries.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Consistency Check Is a feature of the Administration Tool that checks whether a repository has met certain requirements, such as: All logical columns are mapped directly or indirectly to one or more physical columns. All logical dimension tables have a logical key. All logical tables have a logical join relationship to another logical table. There are at least two logical tables in the business model: a logical fact table and a logical dimension table. Both can map to the same physical table. There are no circular logical join relationships. A presentation catalog exists for the business model.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Checking Consistency Check consistency for the entire repository or for individual repository objects by using either of the following menus: File menuTools menu Right-clicking the object

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Consistency Check Manager Displays consistency check messages Errors: Must be fixed to make the repository consistent Warnings: Condition that may or may not be an error Best Practices: Condition does not indicate an inconsistency

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Disabling Consistency Check Messages The Options tab in the Consistency Check Manager helps to enable or disable consistency messages.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Enabling Logging Oracle BI Server provides a facility for logging query activity at the individual user level. Logging is intended for quality assurance testing, debugging, and use by Oracle Technical Support. Query logging is normally disabled in production mode. The query log file is named NQQuery.log and is located in the \OracleBI\server\Log directory.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Setting a Logging Level Use the Security Manager to enable logging level for individual users. Set the logging level.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Logging Levels Log levels 1 and 2 are designed for server administrators. Repository name, business model name, presentation catalog name SQL for the request using business model names SQL for the request using physical data source syntax Query status (success, failure, termination, or timeout) All items for Level 1, plus those mentioned below: Username, session ID, and request ID for each query Queries issued against the cacheElapsed times for query compilation, execution, query cache, and back-end database processing Number of rows returned from a physical database Number of rows returned to the client Level 2 Logs:Level 1 Logs:

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Adding a Repository Entry to an Initialization File After you build a repository and it is consistent, you need to add an entry in the NQSConfig.ini file.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Loading the Repository If the repository was edited in offline mode, start or restart Oracle BI Server to load the repository. If the repository was edited in online mode, check in changes and reload the server metadata in Answers. Reload server metadata. Start Oracle BI Server.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Validating by Using Oracle BI Answers Use Oracle BI Answers to validate the Presentation layer display and query results.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Inspecting the Query Log Use the query log to check query results: SQL issued from client Repository, business model, presentation catalog SQL sent to database Query status

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Oracle BI SELECT Statement Syntax Basic syntax for an Oracle BI SELECT statement SELECT columns FROM catalog folder or tables WHERE filtering conditions GROUP BY (optional, special use) ORDER BY columns (optional) Example SELECT Region, Dollars FROM SupplierSales WHERE Year = 1999 ORDER BY Dollars desc

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Oracle BI SELECT Statement Compared with Standard SQL Oracle BI SELECT statements are different from standard SQL in the following ways: No join information is required. –Join conditions are predefined in the repository. –Any join conditions supplied in a query are ignored. No aggregation functions are required. –Aggregation rules are known to the server and aggregation is performed automatically. No GROUP BY clause is required. –If aggregated data is requested in the SELECT statement, a GROUP BY clause is automatically assumed by the server. No DISTINCT keyword is required. –Oracle BI Server always issues SELECT DISTINCT to eliminate duplicate rows automatically.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Summary In this lesson, you should have learned how to execute the steps to test and validate a repository.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Practice 5-1 Overview: Testing the Repository This practice covers the following topics: Checking repository for consistency Enabling logging Loading a repository Validating a repository using Oracle BI Answers Inspecting the query log

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved Practice 5-2 Overview: Checking Consistency This practice covers the following topics: Generating an inconsistent business model Checking consistency Fixing consistency errors