Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 1 Data Warehousing Concepts 2 Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Architecture 3 Security in Oracle BI 4 Some Good Features of OBIEE 5 Oracle Business Intelligence Application

What is a Data Warehouse ? Can I see credit report from Accounts, Sales from marketing and open order report from order entry for this customer Data from multiple sources is integrated for a subject A data warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, nonvolatile, time-variant collection of data in support of management's decisions. - WH Inmon Data stored for historical period. Data is populated in the data warehouse on daily/weekly basis depending upon the requirement. Identical queries will give same results at different times. Supports analysis requiring historical data

Subject-Oriented- Characteristics of a Data Warehouse Information is presented according to specific subjects or areas of interest, not simply as computer files. Data is manipulated to provide information about a particular subject.

Integrated - Characteristics of a Data Warehouse A single source of information for and about understanding multiple areas of interest. The data warehouse provides one-stop shopping and contains information about a variety of subjects.

Non-volatile - Characteristics of a Data Warehouse insert change Operational Data Warehouse insert delete Stable information that doesn’t change each time an operational process is executed. Information is consistent regardless of when the warehouse is accessed. load read only access replace change

Time Variant - Characteristics of a Data Warehouse Operational Current Value data time horizon : 60-90 days key may not have element of time Snapshot data time horizon : 5-10 years key has an element of time data warehouse stores historical data Containing a history of the subject, as well as current information. Historical information is an important component of a data warehouse.

Transactional Vs Analytical Systems Transactional System Analytical System Transaction Processing Query Processing Time Sensitive History Oriented Operator View Managerial View Organized by transactions (Order, Input, Inventory) Organized by subject (Customer, Product) Relatively smaller database Large database size Many concurrent users Relatively few concurrent users Volatile Data Non Volatile Data Stores all data Stores relevant data

Warehouse Architecture EIS /DSS Metadata Select Extract Transform Integrate Maintain Query Tools Data Warehouse OLAP Web Browsers Operational Systems/Data Middleware/ API Data Preparation Data Mining

Dimensional Modeling Dimensional Modeling It is a technique for logically organizing business data in a way that helps end users understand it Data is separated into facts and dimensions Users view facts in any combination of the dimensions Every dimensional model is composed of one table with a multipart key, called the fact table, and a set of smaller tables called dimension tables.

Dimensional Modeling Concepts–Star Schema Single data (fact) table surrounded by multiple descriptive (dimension) tables resulting in a star like framework (structure) In the example, sales fact table is connected to dimensions location, product, time and organization.

Fact The fact table is where the numerical measurements of the business are stored Facts Numeric in Nature For Examples: Sales Quantity, Unit Sales Price, Sales Amount etc. Key performance indicators of the business Analyzed across the dimensions Sales Fact DATE KEY ITEM KEY STORE KEY PROMOTION KEY POS TRXN# Sales Quantity Unit Sales Price Sales $ Amount

Dimension Provide Descriptive Information Represent hierarchical relationships Common Dimensions Date Product Location/Region Customers ITEM KEY Item Description Item Size Package Type Category

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Architecture Oracle BI Presentation Services Oracle BI Server Data Sources

Oracle BI Presentation Services Oracle BI Presentation Services consists of the following interfaces. Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards - Interactive Access Oracle BI Answers - Interactive Access Oracle BI Delivers - Proactive Alerts

Oracle BI Answers It provides answers to business questions. It allows users with the appropriate permissions to build and modify reports that let end users explore and interact with information. Reports can be saved in the Oracle BI presentation Catalog and integrated into any dashboard The results can be formatted, saved, organized, and shared with others. A report can be configured to refresh results in real-time.

Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards It provides points of access for analytics information. It consists of one or more pages, which appear as tabs across the top of the dashboard Pages can display anything that you can access or open with your Web browser, such as saved Oracle BI requests, alerts from Oracle BI Delivers, images, charts, tables, text, and links to Web sites and documents.

Oracle BI Delivers It is used to create alerts based on analytics results. To detect specific results and immediately notify the appropriate person or group through Web, wireless, and mobile communications channels. Uses intelligence agents or Bots, called iBots. iBots are software-based agents driven by schedule or events that can access, filter, and perform analytics on data based upon defined criteria

Oracle BI Administrative tool To create and edit repositories. Physical layer: Represents the physical structure of the data sources to which the Oracle BI Server submits queries. Business Model and Mapping layer: Represents the logical structure of the information in the repository. Presentation layer: Represents the presentation structure of the repository. It allows you to present a view different from the Business Model and Mapping layer to users.

Oracle BI Presentation Services Renders pages Extension to Web Server Uses a catalog folder to store user content Acts as an intermediary, receives data from Oracle BI server and provides it to the client. Presentation Catalog: Stores the application Dashboards, requests definitions, pages and filters Contains information regarding permissions accessibility of the Dashboards by groups and users Is administered using Oracle BI Catalog Manager

Oracle BI Server Provides processing to intelligently access the physical data sources and structure the information Uses Metadata to direct processing Generates dynamic SQL to query the data sources Connects natively or through ODBC to the RDBMS Provides data to the Oracle BI Presentation Services Components used by Oracle BI Server: Repository File (.rpd) Cache NQSConfig.ini DBFeatures.ini Log files Oracle BI Server Cache NQSConfig.ini NQSServer.log .rpd DBFeatures.ini NQSQuery.log Oracle BI Administration Tool

Oracle BI Server NQSConfig.ini Is a configuration file used by the Oracle BI Server at startup Specifies values that control processing, such as: Defining the repository (.rpd) to load Enabling or disabling caching of results DBFeatures.ini Is a configuration file used by the Oracle BI Server Specifies values that control SQL generation Defines the features supported by each database Log Files NQSServer.log records Oracle BI Server messages NQSQuery.log records information about query requests Cache Contains results of queries Is used to eliminate redundant queries to database Speeds up results processing

Oracle BI Scheduler & Data Sources Manages and executes jobs requesting data analytics Schedules reports to be delivered to users at specified times In windows, the scheduler runs as a service Data Sources Contain the business data that users want to analyze Are accessed by the Oracle BI Server Data sources can be: RDBMS OLAP databases Flat files Spreadsheets

Sample Request Processing User views a Dashboard or submits an Answer request The Oracle BI Presentation Services makes a request to the Oracle BI Server to retrieve the requested data The Oracle BI Server, using the .rpd file, optimizes functions to request the data from the data sources The Oracle BI Server receives the data from the data sources and processes as necessary The Oracle BI Server passes the data to the Oracle BI Presentation Services The Oracle BI Presentation Server formats the data and sends it to the client

Security in Oracle BI

Security in Oracle BI Oracle BI supports security mechanisms that allow users to access only the data for which they are authorized. Business logic object security: This security mechanism controls access to objects, such as subject areas, tables, and columns. For example, report designers in a particular department can view only the subject areas that belong to their department when using Oracle BI Answers. Presentation Catalog object security: This security mechanism provides security for objects stored in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, such as dashboards, dashboard pages, folders, and reports. Users can view only the objects for which they are authorized. For example, a mid-level manager may not be granted access to a dashboard containing summary information for an entire department.

Security in Oracle BI Data level security: This security mechanism controls the type and amount of data that is available in a report. When multiple users run the same report, the results that are returned to each user depend on their access rights and roles in the organization. For example, a sales vice president sees results for all regions, while a sales representative for a particular region sees only data for that region.

Some Good Features of OBIEE Write back - update or write to the back-end database using the write-back capability. For example, Business users can enter the sales targets for the current quarter in a Sales dashboard. Reports created from any Microsoft application(word document, excel or paint) can be imported to OBIEE using BI Publisher. Developers can customize the reports. Level of customization is 100%

Some Good Features of OBIEE Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics allows you to view analytics data, Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards, and queries when you cannot connect to the network to access the Oracle Business Intelligence application. Typically, disconnected users connect their personal machines (usually laptops) to a server that runs Oracle Business Intelligence. After downloading an Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics application, they can disconnect their laptops from the network . For example, to travel on a business trip and still view dashboards and queries on their laptop machines

Some Good Features of OBIEE Time Series feature - in the form of AGO and TODATE. AGO gives you, for example, the value of sales one month ago or one quarter ago, whilst TODATE gives you the total of sales month-to-date, or quarter-to-date, or year-to-date. Various report views like compound Layout, Narrative etc. Column Selector To permit users to dynamically change which columns appear in results. This allows users to analyze data along Several dimensions. Narrative To show the results as one or more paragraphs of text.

Some Good Features of OBIEE Ticker To show the results of the request as a ticker or marquee, similar in style to the stock tickers that run across many financial and news sites on the Internet. Compound Layout To assemble different views for display on a dashboard. View Selector To select a specific view of the results from among the saved views. When placed on a dashboard, the view selector appears as a drop-down list from which users can make a selection. Drilling down from different data sources seamlessly. For example I am loading data from SQL Server and Oracle 10g and my report when drilling down to the lower level will use SQL Server data source to a certain point and then use Oracle 10g data source.

Oracle Business Intelligence Application Oracle BI applications include Extract Transform Load (ETL) routines to extract, transform, and load data into the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse. An Oracle BI application consists of prebuilt, industry-specific Oracle BI interactive dashboards and Oracle BI reports that are built using industry best practices and address key functional areas within an organization.