Getting Up and Running with Essbase Part 1
September 22nd, 2007 by Mark Rittman
Now that I’ve got a bit of spare time (and a 24 hour flight ahead of me), I thought it was about time I got to grips with Essbase and the various Hyperion tools now available for download on http://edelivery.oracle.com. Essbase, like Oracle OLAP, is an OLAP server that stores data multi-dimensionally and provides support for dimensional queries using measures, hierarchies, dimensions and formulas. It’s subtlely different to Oracle OLAP though, and I’ve been meaning to get it up and running over the past few weeks to see how it compares, and differs, to Oracle OLAP and Express. Also, the next release of OBIEE (10.1.3.3.1) is meant to support Essbase as a data source, and there’s talk of including Essbase calculations and so forth in the OBIEE common enterprise information model, so now’s as good a time as any to get the software up and running and give the tyres a kick.
To start off with, I downloaded the following Essbase-related files from edelivery.oracle.com
- Hyperion Essbase - System 9 Release 9.3.1 Server Windows Installer, V11184-01, 193M
- Hyperion Essbase - System 9 Release 9.3.1 Client Windows Installer, V11185-01, 81M
- Essbase Administration Services Release 9.3.1 Windows Installer, V11187-01, 294M
- Essbase Integration Services Release 9.3.1 Windows Installer, V11189-01, 189M
Then I downloaded the Shared Services installer, which Essbase needs for account provisioning etc, together with the docs:
- Hyperion Shared Services Release 9.3.1 Microsoft Windows x86 Installer English, V11229-01, 221M
- Hyperion EPM System Release 9.3.1 Start Here: Installation Documents, and Readmes, V11345-01, 54M
- Hyperion EPM System Release 9.3.1 Product Documentation, V11346-01, 155M
…and then some other files, which seemed to relate to Essbase’s query tools, MS Office add-in and something around “provider services” that the docs recommend that I install after Essbase.
- Hyperion Smart View for Office Release 9.3.1 Microsoft Windows x86 Installer, V11246-01, 48M
- Hyperion Reporting and Analysis - System 9 Client Release 9.3.1 Microsoft Windows x86 Installer, V11205-01, 744M
- Hyperion Reporting and Analysis - System 9 Services Release 9.3.1 Microsoft Windows x86 Installer, V11207-01, 1.3G
- Hyperion Reporting and Analysis - System 9 UI Services Release 9.3.1 Microsoft Windows x86 Installer, V11223-01, 991M
- Hyperion Provider Services Release 9.3.1 Windows Installer, V11186-01, 226M
The last thing to get hold of is the license file, from http://licensecodes.oracle.com/hyperion.html. I go for the Essbase Master License File, which grants access to all the Essbase tools under the usual Oracle development license.
Now to the install. I run the installer for the Hyperion License Server and when prompted, point it to the location where I’ve placed the license file that I downloaded in the previous step.
Once the License Server is installed and set up by the installer as a Windows service, I move on to the Hyperion Shared Services 9.3.1 installer.
Shared Services provides user accounts, provisioning and other centralized services for the Hyperion System 9 platform of which Essbase is a part, and you need to install and configure this before installing Essbase proper. I therefore run the Hyperion Shared Services installer to install the Shared Services application, and then run the Hyperion Configuration Utility to set up the database and application server that Shared Services requires.
When you start the Hyperion Configuration Utility, which you use later on after each subsequent application install to configure those as well, you are presented with a list of Hyperion applications and an indication as to whether they’re configured, require action or have been configured, but the configuration has failed. As this is the first time I’ve installed anything, Shared Services is showing as requiring action.
Before I can start configuring things though, I need to set up a database account for Shared Services to put it’s metadata in. I’m going to use Oracle 10.2.0.3 Enterprise Edition, you can use this or IBM DB/2 or Microsoft SQL Server. To set the Oracle account up, I log in to SQL*Plus, create the account and grant the required roles and permissions:
SQL> create user hypuser 2 identified by password 3 quota unlimited on users 4 / User created. SQL> grant connect, resource, create table, create view, create trigger, 2 create procedure, create sequence 3 to hypuser 4 / Grant succeeded.
For the application server, I can use Oracle Application Server 10.1.2 or 10.1.3, but this requires a number of manual configuration steps and I’m going to go with the bundled Apache Tomcat application server that comes with it, as this will probably be easier to set up. Later on, when I’m more familiar with things, I’ll re-install and configure it to work with Oracle Application Server instead.
I return now to the Hyperion Configuration Utility, click on the Hyperion Shared Services, Configure Database and Deploy to Application Server checkboxes, and press Next to start the configuration process.
The first screen I am presented with asks me to choose between Oracle, SQL Server and IBM DB/2 as my metadata database, and after I choose Oracle, I’m presented with another screen asking for my Oracle connection details. I enter the username and password for the account I just set up, together with the connect string and tablespace choices.
On the next screen, I choose Apache Tomcat 5 and the automatic install option.
Next, I’m asked whether I want to install Shared Services (i.e. Tomcat) as a Windows service, which I do. I note down the port number it’s going to use and then press Next a couple of times to start the configuration process.
Once configuration is complete and everything has been set up correctly, I go over to my Web browser and go to http://localhost:58080/interop to check that Shared Services is working ok. Bringing up this web page then launches a Java applet that asks me for my Shared Services username and password, which on installation is set to the default values “admin” and “password”.
After logging in to the Shared Services console, everything looks to be in order although of course most of it is empty, as we’ve yet to actually install any applications proper.
Now Shared Services is set up, tomorrow I’ll take a look at installing Essbase proper.
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:00 am
[…] Getting Up and Running with Essbase Part 1 […]
October 5th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Thanks Markus. Very useful/interesting!
October 9th, 2007 at 5:25 am
This is a very informative post. Thanks mate.
Looks like System 9 installation is much cleaner and easier than the earlier 7.X versions. Very straightforward.
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Thank you Markus. Quite helpful. I’ll be moving onto Part II today.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Where do i get the installer for the Hyperion licence server. Is it included in Hyperion Essbase - System 9 Release 9.3.1 Server Windows Installer
November 13th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Hi
Excellent write up. I am running through similar issues with my install
Where did you find the Hyperion License Server. I dont see this component in the edelivery downloads.
Thanks much for your feedback
KK
January 25th, 2008 at 2:54 am
I was installing Sys 9 on my laptop and I am following your instructions pretty much word to word. Thanks for this “tutorial”. Just wanted to bring to your notice a small glitch I had. Just after installing shared services and configuring it with MySql and Tomcat on my Windows XP laptop, I tried to open user management console from MS Internet explorer. The popup window never finished loading and I was stumped. I tried to see if there were any known issues with the installation process but I couldn’t find any. After repeated attempts, I just tried Firefox with the same configuration and it worked like a charm. Is there any plugin/setting that needs to modfied in Internet Explorer??
BTW, IE is version 7.0 and firefox is 2.0.
Now off to the rest of the installation.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
@Rajesh - bear in mind with this tutorial that the problems I encountered were, in hindsight, down to the wrong versions of EIS and EAS being uploaded to edelivery.oracle.com at the time. EIS and EAS were at 9.3, the rest of the stack was at 9.3.1, which is what caused the problems when I tried to install these two tools. All of the products are now on edelivery.oracle.com at 9.3.1 and they all install fine now.
My user management console opens up fine, actually - but I’m using IE6.0 rather than 7.0.
regards, Mark
February 25th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Hi,
Need your comments or suggestion on below topic.
Recently, I have downloaded the following Hyperion products from Oracle E-Delivery Center.
Hyperion Shared Services Release 9.2.1 Microsoft Windows x86 Installer V12058-01 244M
Hyperion Essbase - System 9 Release 9.2.1 Server Windows Installer V12008-01 120M
Hyperion Essbase - System 9 Release 9.2.1 Client Windows Installer V12009-01 43M
Essbase Administration Services Release 9.2.1 Windows Installer V12027-01 332M
Hyperion Planning - System 9 Release 9.2.1 Microsoft Windows x86 Installer V12222-01 548M
I have Windows XP on my desktop.
Installation sequence as below:
1. Shared Services
2. Essbase Server
3. Essbase Administration Services
4. Essbase Client
5. Hyperion Planning
Installation was done successfully for all the products, except Hyperion Planning. When I was trying to install Planning on my desktop, I found the below message.
Only Planning Client will be installed on Windows XP.
I did proceed to install it. After some point of time, I got the below message.
HspSetupSupport:
Application Name -:Please use HsxSysAdmin.msc to specify system connection
Q: What is this error about and how to resolve it?
Also, HspJsHome.Properties file is not generated in the specified path.
Q: Does it necessary to have Windows 2000 Server SP1 OS?
Q: I did not make use of any License file provided by Oracle? Does it cause any problem?
When I was trying to create an application from planning desktop client, I was getting the below error.
IHspAppAssistantACM_SaveAppAssistant() Error
Unable to create application
Error Number: -2147160060
HspEventLog:
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:25*CHspDataSourceImp.cpp*Line 420*Entering CreateApplication: *
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:25*CHspDSSQL.cpp*Line 3255*Could not retrieve planning version*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:25*CHspDSSQL.cpp*Line 3326*Could not retrieve product release*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:25*CHspDSSQL.cpp*Line 3397*Could not retrieve product CSS Version*
Error*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:25*CHspDSSQL.cpp*Line 217*Version & Release not found*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:27*CHspDataSourceImp.cpp*Line 436*CreateApplication: Deleting old schema*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:27*CHspDataSourceImp.cpp*Line 450*CreateApplication: Recreating security tables*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:27*CHspDataSourceImp.cpp*Line 479*CreateApplication: Creating Essbase application*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:45*CHspDataSourceImp.cpp*Line 537*CreateApplication: Creating new schema*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:49*CHspDataSourceImp.cpp*Line 616*CreateApplication: Initializing schema*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:50*CHspDataSourceImp.cpp*Line 684*CreateApplication: Creating plantypes*
Information*16*Hyperion*02/25/08 17:32:51*CHspDataSourceImp.cpp*Line 796*CreateApplication: Creating application owner user*
Please help me out!!
Thanks!!
Pravi
February 25th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Hi Pravi,
I’m afraid I’ve not installed Hyperion Planning, so can’t really help with this. It sounds though like an issue with Windows XP not being supported as a platform for the server element of Hyperion Planning, did you check the list of supported platforms before installing it? You may need to install it on Windows Server 2000 or 2003 instead.
regards, Mark
February 29th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Excellent going through your documentation. I do have one issue.
I dont Hyperion License Server in the edelivery downloads. From where should i get it..
February 29th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Can we use the Hyperion License Server Release 9.3 Microsoft Windows x86 Installer English..I found it in a different release under oracle downloads
Hyperion Performance Management and BI (9.3.x) Media Pack for Microsoft Windows (32-bit)…
The rest i have downloaded Hyperion Performance Management and BI (9.3.1) Media Pack for Microsoft Windows (32-bit)..
As you could see the rest are all 9.3.1 but this is 9.3.x (does x stand for all)..
Should it cause any problem while installing like “Your licensed server version is different to the shared services” and so on..
Thanks!!
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Ashwin, you shouldn’t need the license server if you’re installing the latest (9.3.1) version of the various Hyperion tools, they install fine without it now.
regards, Mark
April 14th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
HI Mark,
The tutorial you published is very helpfull,
Me iam very new to hyperion but with your tutorial and some other forums i was able to install hyperion 9.3.1 succesful inorder to start off please if you have any screen shots of issues will be helful
But i need help how to start off with EIS Console. when i started its asking for ODBC DSN .
Please help me out with this situation and one more issue when i confiured with HSS..everything is working fine but i cant see any applications in it and when try to do something by adding users or groups it gives me message please check security administartive sevices.
Appreciate and thanks in advance.
Navin
May 28th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
please can you give detailed instructions for installing planning and how to configure, i am tired installing planning when i installed every thing was alright but the workspace doesn’t come up and even after installing planning my essbase server just blinks and goes off…..
May 30th, 2008 at 2:41 am
Mark,
I am unable to register with shared services in the configuration utility. I am providing username as admin and password as password. Is there any other parameter that I need to take care of?
Please let me know..!!!
Thanks,
Kalyan.