OBIA 11.1.1.9.1 just released !

Oracle has released today (March 10th, 2015) a new version of Oracle Business Intelligence Applications
OBIA 11.1.1.9.1.( Part Number : B81628-01 M).
More to come as we check for the new features or bug fixes in this release.

Here the link to the Release Notes: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E53672_01/index.htm
and the new content : http://bichaos.blogspot.com/2015/03/obia-111191-new-content.html

Oracle BI Applications - OBIA Performance Guidelines 11g

This is just a quick note for those looking for recommendations on hardware and database sizing plus performance guidelines for OBIA 11g implementations.

Oracle has already made public a Note ID: 1963225.1 about this.

More to come as we digest this new oracle document on this topic.

SQL Developer : Unable to create an instance of the Java Virtual Machine

Have you ever got this error message with SQL Developer ?

"... Unable to create an instance of the Java Virtual Machine ..."

It usually appears the first time you try to launch "SQL Developer" ( I have also found others get similar message with JDeveloper). The error is related to the memory allocated for the  JVM associated with the program we are trying to launch.

There are two SQLDeveloper parameter settings for this purpose :

Add32VMOption  -Xms  and
Add32VMOption  -Xmx

Which can be set in the file product.conf located at (in windows):

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\sqldeveloper\1.0.0.0.0

So, in my case all I had to do is apply the following changes in this file:

# SetJavaHome C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_45 (not required but wanted to use latest JDK)
SetJavaHome C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_51


# AddVMOption -Xms128m
AddVMOption -Xms256m

# AddVMOption -Xms800m
AddVMOption -Xmx512m

You finally get :

BI Pubisher 11g with Gmail

About the title:
I know, actually the title should have been something like: "Configuring Gmail as Delivery Channel Mail Server for BI Publisher 11g".

Available in 11g but could be backport to 10g:
It is about a new feature in BI Publisher only available in 11g unless you request a back port to 10g - Which I understand is also possible but has to be requested as Enhancement Request through Oracle
 Support and then Shinji's team will make it possible.

Benefit:
Well, now having this available in BI Publisher 11g it is possible to configure our Gmail email account to send or deliver BI Publisher reports. This is useful for some companies which rely in such email providers and prior to BIP11g this was not possible. Also, it is useful for developers to test email delivery channel with no need to use a local company's Email Server.
Actually, this is also supposed to work for TLS (Transport Layer Security) configuration. Suffixes for me to explain here that this is the successor of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and thus improves the network communications and reduces the risk of eavesdropping and tampering. More on TLS here.
But unfortunately, at the time of this note this feature does not seem to be working. If you get it to work I would be pleased to hear about it.

Use: To take advantage of this new feature simply enter the following values:
Port : 465
Encryption: SSL

BI Publisher 10g on Weblogic 10.3.4 : Common Error

If you are trying to use BI Publisher 10g on Weblogic Server 10.3.4 it is very likely you have missed one important step in your installation.

In the Release Notes (search for "BI Publisher Deployments to WebLogic 10.3 Require Additional Setting at Startup")
It clearly explains that we have to update the Weblogic Startup script to make WLS aware of the toplink libraries (which in the case of OC4J it is already included) for the scheduler to work:

Locate the startup script as follows:

/weblogic_home/user_projects/domains/base_domain/bin/startWebLogic.sh

Add the following setting:

-Dtoplink.xml.platform=oracle.toplink.platform.xml.jaxp.JAXPPlatform 

As in the picture

This setting is required to enable BI Publisher to find the TopLink JAR files to create the Scheduler tables.

BI Publisher 11g - Webservices

If you are looking BI Publisher Webservices then you can simply find them under the following location:
http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services
You will get a list for these services :

• v2/ScheduleService (http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services/v2/ScheduleService?wsdl)
• v2/ReportService (http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services/v2/ReportService?wsdl)
• PublicReportService ( http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services/PublicReportService?wsdl )
• ReportService ( http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services/ReportService?wsdl )
• v2/SecurityService (http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services/v2/SecurityService?wsdl)
• ServiceGateway ( http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services/ServiceGateway?wsdl )
• XMLPService ( http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services/XMLPService?wsdl )
• v2/CatalogService (http://servername:9704/xmlpserver/services/v2/CatalogService?wsdl)

Some of them are new in this release and therefore may not be compatible with Webservices for BIP10g.
In future posts I will write on some of these new webservices.
That's it for now. Got to go back to my daily duties for my current customer :)

Enabling LOG messages in BI Publisher 10g

Enabling BI Publisher 10g to DEBUG mode is pretty simple. I will show you how to do it in OC4J.

1. Stop OC4J
2. Make a backup of this file:
C:\OracleBI\xmlp\XMLP\Admin\Configuration\xmlp-server-config.xml
3. Modify the file xmlp-server-config.xml and set this value:
   <property name="DEBUG_LEVEL" value="debug"/>
4. Save the file
5. Restart OC4J

It should be now in Debug mode