To start with the basics, OpenWorld runs from the Sunday through to the Thursday, with Sunday being set aside for the various user groups (IOUG, ODTUG, EOUC etc) to run Sunday-afternoon symposiums usually geared around their various SIGs. I’m helping organize the ODTUG BI Sunday sessions, for example, with myself, Stewart Bryson, Jeff McQuigg, Christian Screen and Kevin McGinley doing sessions around various OBIEE 11g new features. I’m also taking part in the IOUG Sunday sessions, doing an updated version of my OBIEE 11g Architecture & Internals session. If you’re interested in finding out what’s running on the Sunday, go to the Content Catalog, then select Business Intelligence as the Track, and then User Group Forum (Sunday Only) as the Type, like this:

There’s currently fourteen BI sessions on this day, across the various user groups, though unfortunately they don’t at this time say times or rooms. If you arrive in SF on the Saturday, though, I’d recommend you come along to these sessions, get to meet the various user group BI leaders (Shyam Nath from the IOUG BIWA SIG, Faun De Henry from the OAUG BI SIG, myself and Kent Graziano from the ODTUG BI/DW SIG), and have some real-world user group sessions before you get into the OOW week proper.

OpenWorld proper then starts on Monday, and be prepared to get yourself over to the Moscone Center for some early starts, as sessions start at 8am and go through until 5 or 6pm in the evening. Again, if you use the Content Catalog and search for Business Intelligence as the Track, and then Conference Session this time as the type, you’ll see at current count eighty-one BI sessions, across OBIEE, BI Apps, BI Publisher and all the major tools.

You won’t see much Discoverer these days, except around upgrades, nor will you see much on older tools such as Oracle Reports, Daily Business Intelligence and so on. This is Oracle’s showcase for what they want to sell, and what they want to to start planning to adopt in the next year or so, and so most sessions are focused on current tools and whatever it is that Oracle are looking to push at this point in time. That said, the quality of presentations is usually excellent, the Oracle sessions are usually top-notch (particularly ones from the PMs about the products they are working on), and over the past few years more and more non-Oracle speakers have been given session slots as well, such as the team from Rittman Mead who together, last year, gave sixteen presentations between us.

From looking at the catalog now, sessions that I’d like to attend include:

• “Accelerating Business Intelligence with Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database”, Marie-Anne Neimat, Oracle

  I get the impression TimesTen is going to have a lot of new features to support analytics and in-memory capabilities for OBIEE, so this will be a good opportunity to get a heads-up on what’s coming

• “Become a Reporting Superstar with Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Best Practices”, Klaus Fabian & Nikolas Psomas, Oracle

  Klaus and Nikolas are two members of the BIP development team and have been very helpful to us in the past, answering questions about the product and its future direction. I’m keen to see what’s coming up for BIP and if anything’s announced at OOW, it’ll likely to be here.

• “Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation: Advanced Modeling Capabilities and Best Practices”, Bob Ertl, Oracle

  A bit worried here that this will be the same presentation Bob’s given for the last two OOW’s, but Bob’s one of the best when it comes to RPD modeling and of course, he’ll know what’s coming up in future releases. An essential session if your interest is in RPD modeling.

• “Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation: Advanced Modeling and Analysis with Oracle Essbase”, Gabby Rubin, Oracle

  Essbase support in OBIEE11g is still an unfinished area, so I’ll be looking out here for news on how Oracle might better handle MDX in future releases.

• “Agile BI with Oracle Exadata and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g” – Stewart Bryson, Rittman Mead

  Fast becoming Stewart’s “signature” presentation, this session will set out just what’s possible if you combine the sheer horsepower of Exadata with the virtualized dimension model provided by OBIEE 11g.

• “Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation: Deploying from Department to Enterprise”, Bob Ertl, Oracle

  Upcoming releases of OBIEE are likely to have big improvements in terms of developer IDEs, storage of the RPD, team development and so on. I’m looking out here for more details on how this might play out, and perhaps get a first glimpse at the new, Fusion Development IDE-based admin tool?

• “Oracle Business Intelligence Product and Technology Roadmap”, Paul Rodwick, Oracle

  The “Roadmap and Strategy” session is where Oracle publically announce what’s coming with OBIEE, so expect details on 11.1.1.6 and what their thoughts are for the product in the longer term. Essential session if your job involves knowing the future direction of Oracle’s BI tools.

• “Oracle Business Intelligence Systems Management Best Practices and New Features” – Me!

  The first of my two main conference sessions, this first one on systems-level management of OBIEE including managing weblogic, backup & recovery, WLST scripting, and monitoring the system

• “Oracle Business Intelligence/Oracle ADF Integration Using the Action Framework”, Me, and Andrejus Baranovskis

  A collaboration between myself and fellow ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis, where we’ll be building a “roll-your-own” Fusion app made up of ADF and BI components, and using the Action Framework to tie it all together. Essential for both OBIEE, and ADF, developers

• “Oracle Scorecard, Strategy Management, and KPIs” – Jacques Vigeant, Oracle

  I still think scorecards & KPIs are the hidden secret in OBIEE, and I’m keen to hear what’s coming around the corner with the 11.1.1.6/7 releases. Anyone moving up from OBIEE 10g to 11g and looking for justifications for the migration should get along to this session, this just takes OBIEE to the next level.

• “Packaged Cloud-Based BI with Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications”, Jon Mead, Rittman Mead

  If only to see what Jon comes up with, this is a hugely ambitious and very relevant look at how we can take the BI Apps into the cloud, courtesy of Golden Gate, Oracle’s latest replication and lightweight-ETL tool

• “Performing a Security Audit on Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g”, Venkat Janakiraman, Rittman Mead

  Venkat always puts a huge effort into the R&D behind his OOW presentations, and I know he’s been doing a lot of work behind the scenes with our clients on coming up with an automated way to test the security in OBIEE installations. Be ready to take lots of notes for this one.

• “Taking Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to the Next Level of Performance”, Jon McGale, Performance Architects Inc.

  I have to say, I’ve not met Jon McGale before, but this is a topic close to my heart. It’ll be interesting to see an alternative take on performance enhancement for OBIEE, particular in terms of how others use caching, configure the RPD and so on.

• “Under the Covers: Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Architecture and Infrastructure”, Mike Durran & Nick Tuson, Oracle

  Again, what I’m looking out for here is news on what’s coming up in future releases, plus the PM’s perspective on some of the features I’ve been working with day-to-day (WebLogic, scripting, product architecture, high-availability etc)

• “Using Oracle Business Intelligence Actions Framework to Improve Your Business Processes”, Adam Bloom & Nick Tuson, Oracle

  Either this will be a re-run of the standard Action Framework presentation, or we’ll get to hear about what’s coming up in future releases. I’ll pop my head around the door, get a feel for how much I’ve heard it before, if there’s new content I’ll definitely stay.

• “What’s Next for Oracle Business Intelligence Applications? A Sneak Peak into the Future” – Florian Schouten, Oracle

  Probably for me, one of the most important talks of OOW. The BI Apps, in contrast to OBIEE “the platform”, is a bit of a mystery in terms of what’s coming up in future releases. We know the big-picture stuff (Fusion Apps will be supported first, later on ODI will be an option, that sort of thing) but I’m keen to hear a bit more detail on how we are going to transition from the fur-ball that is the current BI Apps through to something that uptakes all the “rapid application development” stuff that we’re hearing is coming for OBIEE itself.

So you probably get the idea that OOW, at least for me, is mostly about getting a handle on what’s coming up for the products, what new features are likely to appear in future releases, and what new products are starting to become “strategic” for Oracle. For me, OOW is essential as it’s when anything “new” is announced, and so I use it to work out what training courses we should be offering in the next year, what skills our team are going to need to get to learn, what products we need or orientate our services around.

The other main attraction of OOW for me is that it generally marks the start of the conference season, in that we generally write new content for OOW and then re-use it at the various regional events over the next twelve months. Certainly for me, I tend to propose sessions that fill-out areas I’ve not properly explored before but for which I know there is a lot of interest, and the content I write for this event then becomes the main new material I use at the events such as the UKOUG conference, Collaborate and ODTUG KScope. So if you are particularly interested in hearing new content, this is the conference to be at, particulary in terms of product announcements from Oracle

If you’re a customer, the main reason you’d go to OOW is to get a condensed set of briefings on Oracle’s product direction, and on the key new products they want you to work with. For example, if you’re a BI Apps customer, you should attend the roadmap sessions, and any on where they think developers should be focusing their attention in the next twelve months. Be sure also to ask lots of questions (I’m usually the guy with the English accent doing this, sat near the front jotting down the bullet points from the slides) and also try and say hello to the speakers, take down their contact details and so on, particularly if it’s a PM presenting and they sound like they know the internals of the product. Also, be aware that for the “roadmap”-type sessions that Oracle run, often the slides don’t make it onto the download page after the conference, so make lots of notes if you’ll need to refer to them afterwards.

Apart from the content then, what else do you need to know? If you’re looking to book accommodation, make sure you firstly, use the OOW booking system (available when you register, and afterwards if you log back in) as you get discounts on the hotels using this; secondly, don’t leave booking your hotel until the last minute as otherwise you’ll be stuck out by Fisherman’s Wharf, out along the dodgy part of Market Street, or worse, out by the airport.

In terms of places to meet up and socialize (particularly if you’re new to OOW), typically the bars along Howard Street (Thirsty Bear being my usual haunt), 4th Street (the ApEx guys often meet at the 4th Street Bar & Deli), and up near Geary/Mason/O’Farrell near the Hilton (Johnny Foley’s is usually packed with OOW attendees). There’s usually some sort of event on most nights as well, with the OTN night often on Monday or Tuesday,  the big concert on the Wednesday, and regional / product-specific events on most nights.

For a lot of people, the highlight of the week are the keynotes, particularly the one from Larry on the Wednesday and the Fusion Middleware one by Thomas Kurian on the Tuesday. For the Larry keynote, as it can often go on for quite a while I tend to watch it, with a beer in hand, in the OTN Lounge in Moscone West (reading the various tweets from attendees as it goes along), but the Fusion Middleware one is particularly worth attending as it tends to be the showcase for whatever Oracle have been doing on the development side of the last twelve months. The other benefit of watching the keynotes in the OTN lounge is that you can do something else when the dreadfully-earnest-but-dreadfully-boring Infosys/HP/Other Vendor presentations take place before Larry’s session, or at least catch up with email or do something to kill the time. If you do intend to go in person to the keynotes though, particularly in the case of Larry’s one make sure you queue up early, and if you’re a blogger, consider getting registered for blogger credentials as you’ll get reserved seating near the front, with power outlets for your laptop.

Another important aspect of the event for customers in particular, is the exhibition, which usually runs in the main Moscone Center building (North?) from the Monday onwards. You’ll find most of the major vendors, consultancies and so on there, and if you’re looking for a partner to come and help you with an implementation, this is a good way to meet a lot of companies in a short space of time. For me, I’m not so sure on the exhibition – as an attendee, I’m not sure I want to spend what little time I have there being hit-on by salespeople, or collecting pens and bags, but if there was a particular product or vendor I wanted to speak to, it could be a good way to get this done, particulary if I was looking to justify a visit out to the event. What can be more interesting though is the Oracle Demogrounds that are usually in the same exhibition hall – often these are manned by the same PMs that you’ll see presenting later in the week, and it’s a good opportunity to get some hands-on time with the products and ask questions of the PMs responsible.

So, for me, it’ll be an especially long OOW this year, as I arrive on the Wednesday before to attend the Oracle ACE Director 2-day briefing at HQ, then I go down to San Francisco on the Saturday to get ready for the start on Sunday. I’m also staying for an extra day to meet some of the product people on the Friday, before flying back late on Friday night. But if you’re an OBIEE enthusiast, or a customer looking to get a heads-up on what’s coming for the products in the next twelve months, this is the event you can’t afford to miss – just make sure you do your homework (and book into the sessions, as they usually fill up fast) before you go.

At the time I said:

“Fast forward to 2009, and if I was recruiting an Oracle Business Intelligence developer now, what would I be looking for? Ideally, most if not all of the following product skills:

• Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, usually with a specialization in either the back-end (the BI Server) or front-end (Answers, Delivers, BI Publisher), would be mandatory
• Essbase skills would be very desirable, and would be required far more than Oracle OLAP skills in the past.
• Oracle BI Application experience is a definite bonus, with the real skill in being able to apply customizations to the ETL and RPD layers
• Another very desirable skill is being able to implement at least Hyperion Planning, and ideally some more of the Hyperion financial applications. It’s rare though to find people with both good OBIEE and Hyperion skills, those that do can virtually write their own salary cheque.
• In terms of ETL, OWB is now “mainstream” and is a mandatory skill. ODI is rising in importance, but I don’t see many “classic BI” projects that use it, at least at the moment.

Compared to five years ago, skills in the Oracle database, and in particular with the Oracle Application Server, are less of a priority, as security for example is usually handled now by the OBIEE BI Server, and fast access to data is typically done through Essbase. Also, now that Oracle’s BI tools (and Fusion Middleware) are designed to work across heterogeneous platforms, its more useful now for developers to have experience with Active Directory, for example, compared to Oracle Internet Directory, and it’s also useful to have knowledge of other database platforms such as Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Analysis Services and the like as Oracle’s BI tools are increasingly being sold to non-Oracle database customers.”

So how have things changed, now it’s 2011? Well, some things are much the same; OBIEE, if you’re an Oracle BI developer, is a mandatory skill, and as back in 2009, you tend to specialize in the backend (RPD development, possibly Informatica if you’re an Oracle BI Applications developer), or the frontend, creating the analyses and dashboards that are most visible to the end users. Take away all of the stuff about WebLogic, Enterprise Manager and Fusion Middleware, and the core of OBIEE hasn’t changed much since the days of Siebel Analytics, and we typically see the same old problems, misunderstandings and so on with RPD development that we’ve seen since first transitioning to the technology back in 2005. Expect things to change fairly rapidly in the next couple of years though, with a new Administration tool, possibly a new (or alternative) XML or database-based repository, and a lot of work going on within Oracle to make the whole process of developing and deploying repositories a lot more automated.

One skill that an Oracle BI developer will need, and that wasn’t such a requirement back in 2009 (even, in my view at the time, becoming a less relevant skill), is application server skills, specifically Oracle WebLogic Server. For the time being at least, if you’re deploying OBIEE 11g, you’re deploying WebLogic Server, and having skills in such areas as WebLogic security, WebLogic Scripting Tool, the WebLogic Admin Console, and technologies such as admin and managed servers, node managers and OPMN is pretty much a requirement if you’re going to be an end-to-end OBIEE 11g developer. You could pretty-much install OBIEE 10g and forget about it, but nowadays you need to have some systems administration skills if only to get the product installed and running.

Another skill I downplayed in 2009 but is increasingly relevant now, is security. OBIEE 10g took care of security and connectivity to LDAP servers from within the Administration tool, but now you need to know Oracle Platform Security Services, application roles and policies, and all the associated technologies around WebLogic’s implementation of security. In fact, one major skill you need now is the ability to read and digest reams of documentation, made all the worse by OBIEE’s content being folded in with the rest of the Fusion Middleware product line, making it tricky to pick out how, for example, you can connect OBIEE to third-party LDAP servers, or how to perform upgrades between releases of 11g. It’s all a lot more complicated now, and you can’t just charge in, ignore the documentation and not do your homework.

Essbase was something I highlighted back in 2009, and at the time, it seemed fairly imminent that all Essbase projects would use Oracle BI technology, and all Oracle BI projects would include an element of Essbase. Now, i’m not so sure; Essbase is going gangbusters and if you’re an Essbase specialist, you can more or less name your price, but for OBIEE projects, we see a bit of Essbase, but it’s not gone mainstream yet. Realistically, whllst OBIEE 11g solved a number of 10g-era problems with OBIEE/Essbase integration, it’s just introduced another set of new ones, and I don’t see many WebAnalysis, Financial Management or Interactive Reporting customers moving to OBIEE unless their application was pretty-much relational in form, in the first place. If you’ve got Essbase skills, it’s certainly a bonus, but unless you’re prepared to get to expert level, you’ll probably find most Essbase projects are handled by specialist Hyperion consultants, and your job is probably more likely to be raising SRs and working with the client to try and fix the OBIEE to Essbase connectivity issues.

I smile to myself when I look back at the comment on OWB. Certainly, in terms of new projects, OWB is dead now and every customers is moving towards ODI. Maybe it’s because it’s all that Oracle will sell on new projects, maybe it’s because customers don’t want to invest in products that have been sunsetted, or maybe it’s because ODI is better, but nowadays, you need to know ODI if you’re an OBIEE developer. This means knowing things like how to create knowledge modules, how to migrate projects from environment to environment, and how to use new features such as ODI OBIEE data lineage. But if you’re an OBIEE developer and you’ve got time to learn one more skill, make it ODI.

And so finally on to the Oracle BI Applications. My experience has been that most BI Applications projects have been handled by the big ERP integrators, occasionally calling on specialists if the OBIEE element goes wrong. Either you’re an RPD, DAC and Informatica developer, or you’re an OBIEE, RPD and OWB/ODI developer, and if you’re the former you’re probably a contractor or working for a large SI. The major bonus skill that you’d have as a BI Apps developer is knowledge of either Siebel or Oracle E-Business Suite as a data source, but all of this is going to change in the next couple of years as Oracle transition to the Fusion Applications, with the 11g release of the BI Apps focusing on the Fusion Applications first and then only with support for Apps Unlimited (basically, all the legacy ERP suites Oracle developed or acquired) coming later on. The big question though, at least in my mind, is whether you can still be a BI Apps developer in the future without also being a Fusion Apps developer, and a Fusion Development (ADF, JDeveloper, SOA Suite) developer; the 11g BI Apps will be embedded in the Fusion Apps, and whilst it’s possible to develop for the 7.9.x release of BI Apps as a standalone piece of technology, I wonder how much you’ll be able to achieve in isolation from the Fusion Apps.

So, to summarize, and to update my 2009 comments about what skills an Oracle BI developer needs, in 2011 I think you need:

• OBIEE 11g skills, both in terms of new functionality (mapping, analyses, KPIs and Scorecards etc) and new infrastructure (WebLogic, EM, OPSS etc)
• A smattering of Essbase skills, focused mainly on the integration with OBIEE and Essbase (and the many workarounds and gotchas)
• Good ODI skills, both in terms of the basics, but also being able to write knowledge modules, integrate with OBIEE, deployment and migration
• Solid database skills – OBIEE gave the illusion through aggregates etc that database tuning was redundant, but time has shown it’s by far the biggest success factor in a project – get the database design and optimisation wrong, and your project is toast. You need to know partitioning, materialized views, index types, and increasingly, you need to get yourself on an Exadata project as customers are buying the technology but you can’t teach it to yourself at home
• BI Apps skills, but watch out for everything changing when BI Apps 11g comes out, and be prepared to learn the Fusion Apps and JDeveloper if you want to stay in the game
• Looking to the future, keep an eye on technologies such as in-memory (TimesTen), mid-tier caching (Coherence), plus technologies such as Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), “big data” (Hadoop, large data sets, NoSQL), complex event processing and maybe products such as Qlikview, just in case Oracle buys them, or at least to know what the competition are up to, or more importantly pitching to your boss

The other thing to bear in mind of course, if you’re an Oracle BI developer, is that you need to have great business, communication and data modeling skills. But that’s another topic in itself, and maybe one of my colleagues will have some views on that.

As you are probably aware, BI Apps basically contains a single master BMM (for the core reporting) containing all the necessary fact tables and dimensions. Depending on the modules chosen during install, the number of fact tables in the BMM can increase or decrease. For example, in the screenshots below, we have the BI Apps repository with 4 modules. As you see we just have 4 projects(1 corresponding to each module).

Now let’s assume this is what we chose during the first time install of BI Apps. After the successful rollout of all these modules, lets assume that the requirement is to add say Sales Analytics into the repository. BI Apps 7.9.6.3 basically provides us with 2 Repositories.

1. EnterpriseBusinessAnalytics.rpd

2. OracleBIAnalyticsApps.rpd

The first one is the master repository containing all the modules.

And the second one will contain only the necessary modules we have chosen during the install i.e.

This is what we will typically use for our development. Now our requirement is to add the Sales Analytics module into the rpd. To do that we will be using the AdminTool command line switch. So, basically open up a text file and enter the following commands

New C:\oracle\biee11115\instances\instance1\bifoundation\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1\repository\WithSales.rpd Admin123
ImportRepository Offline C:\oracle\biee11115\instances\instance1\bifoundation\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1\repository\EnterpriseBusinessAnalytics.rpd Admin123
ImportRepositoryObject Project "Financial Analytics Fusion Edition" True True
ImportRepositoryObject Project "Human Resources Analytics Fusion Edition" True True
ImportRepositoryObject Project "Financial Analytics Fusion Edition" True True
ImportRepositoryObject Project "Project Analytics Fusion Edition" True True
ImportRepositoryObject Project "Supply Chain and Order Management Analytics Fusion Edition" True True
ImportRepositoryObject Project "Sales Analytics Fusion Edition" True True
ImportRepositoryExecute
Save

Now use the command line switch of Admin tool to generate the new RPD. All this script does is, it uses the deprecated Import from Repository feature to import the necessary projects. So, this method is not recommended if your existing repository already has data(as there are possibilities of object overlaps). But for an empty repository (like in our case), this will not be a problem.

If we now open up the RPD, it will contain the master repository but with just 5 modules (makes our job of merging with our work repository easier).

From here on, its just a matter of merging this repository with our work repository. You might ask why are we doing the intermediate step of creating a new rpd with just 5 modules. The primary reason is to reduce the number of decisions we will have to make during the final repository merging.

It is also possible to use the direct import from repository to import the new projects(by altering the above command line switch). Since it is deprecated and also since it does not show us what objects are getting updated/deleted etc, it is better it go with the merge option. The above method will also be very helpful when you want to have a centralized development but multiple deployments (similar to BI Apps).

So, we start off with the first major change in this release, i.e. the BI Applications Installer. To do a quick recap on the BI Apps install process, following is what we generally do to install BI Apps.

1. Install BI EE.
2. Install BI Applications (only on windows)
3. Install Informatica and import the pre-built repository.
4. Install DAC and configure DAC
5. Configure BI EE to point BI Apps RPD and WebCat
6. Run a full load

This install process is still the same with 7.9.6.3. But if you look at the BI Applications installer, there are 2 things that you will notice

1. Installer now looks for Oracle BI Home, Oracle Instance directories (11g specific) instead of the old OracleBI and OracleBIData folders.

2. The installer needs the Weblogic Server and the Node Manager to be up and running.

Some screenshots of the install process is given below.

Post the install, you will notice that the BI Apps is now installed under the Oracle_BI1 (Oracle BI Home) directory as shown below.

One key thing in a BI Apps install is, the RPD size changes based on the modules selected. So, the install process itself will be merging all the necessary Projects (1 per module). I will be covering the exact merge process in another post. The key point to know is, the merge process has changed (does not use RPD merge directly) but instead uses the command line switches of the BI Administrator. I had blogged about the command line switches available for 10g here. Looks like this has been enhanced a lot more in 11g (Again an excellent change).

The other important thing that has changed is the Informatica version. 7.9.6.3 uses 9.0 version of Informatica. Couple of things to keep in mind during the install

1. Hotfix is now included as part of the install itself.

2. If you are downloading from edelivery, ensure that you use WinRar to extract the files. This is the first time i am seeing a .z01 file in a software binary from Oracle. Basically Oracle have split a file into 2 and WinRar seems to be the only one that works correctly.

Another important change from an Informatica standpoint is, there is now a single set of usernames and password i.e. in earlier versions the actual Admin Console user and the Repository users will be set differently(can be changed manually). But in this release just a single set of usernames and passwords will suffice.

In terms of the client tools, i somehow feel that the informatica client components respond much faster than the earlier release. Again this is just my perception.

Lets now take a look at the pre-built repository.

Some of the pre-built subject areas don’t seem to use the Hierarchical Columns. But some other subject areas like Financials – GL Balance Sheet do have them (which is good).

So, far i have not seen any usage of the Parent-Child hierarchy feature. Perhaps the reason for that is it requires closure tables to be created which in turn requires a change to the ETL process. Let’s now do a consistency check to find out whether all the warnings that we used to get post upgrading BI EE 10g rpd have all been removed.

Interestingly there still are around 300 odd warnings. Let’s now take a look at the security. If you notice, you can see that the import process would have automatically created all the Application Roles (10g Groups) as shown below. I guess this is the reason why the installer requires a connection to the Weblogic Admin Server.

Let’s now do a full load on just the GL and Budget Subject areas (i have a Vision EBS instance and the BI Apps running on a single macbook – hence the need to just 2 subject areas).

Let’s now take a look at the reports and dashboards.

There is now a native 11g feel to the reports and dashboards. Also, so far based on my testing i haven’t actually seen the hierarchical columns setup in the rpd being used anywhere.

Having worked with an upgraded BI EE 11.1.1.3 on 7.9.6.2, i would say BI EE 11.1.1.5 seems to much quicker atleast in the UI. Rendering of the pages are pretty fast. To find out whether there have been any new additions to the pre-bundled reports/dashboards, i fired up our WCA utility and ran the audit on an upgraded 7.9.6.2 web catalog and on the 7.9.6.3 web catalog. Seems like the number of pre-bundled reports/dashboards have been reduced significantly in this release.

I haven’t spent a lot of time in analyzing which exact reports/dashboards have gone missing(maybe it could be due to non-certification of certain modules on BI EE 11g yet). That is perhaps for another post.