[OBIEE11g] - Configuring of RPD deployed on Linux to access an Oracle Database

This webpage is successive material to the one with the heading ” OBIEE 11g6: Installing OBIEE 11g on Linux Fedora 17 “
This is shows the details on installing Oracle 11g Client on Fedora 17 Linux OS so that the RPD deployed in our OBIEE server can connect to the oracle database.

1. Before we begin the installation of the Oracle 11g Database Client, we need to first get the missing unixODBC packages installed as per below procedure:
   # yum search unixODBC
   # yum install unixODBC.x86_64
   # yum install unixODBC.i686
   # yum install unixODBC-devel.x86_64
   # yum install unixODBC-devel.i686
2. Once that is done download the file linux.x64_11gR2_client.zip from otn.oracle.com and extract to your home directory on linux.
3. Go to the uninstalled location e.g client
4. Execute the ” ./runIntaller” in the client directory.
5. In the first screen select the “Runtime” option and click “Next >”
   
6. In the “Select Product Language” screen leave the default “English” and click “Next >” button.
   
7. We can keep the default location, where to install our client to as shown below and click “Next >” button
   
8. Keep the default location for the “Inventory Directory” as shown below then click “Next >” button
   
9. On the “Preform Prerequisite Checks” Screen select the “Ignore All” checkbox then click “Next >” button.
   
10. Click “Finish” button to start installing as show below:
    
11. You will see the below screen once the installation has started.
    
12. Once you get the “Scripts to be executed” dialog box. Execute the mentioned orainstRoot.sh and root.sh scripts as root user then come back and click the “OK” button.
13. Then click the “Next >” button.
    
14. Click the “Close” button once you see the screen as shown below:
    
15. After the installation is done, Open a unix terminal window.
16. Goto the home directory and edit the file ” .bash_profile” and add the TNS_ADMIN entry at both places as show in below screen shot.
17. Make sure copy over the tnsnames.ora file from the Oracle Database’s server and modify the hostname so it is pointed to the proper Database server’s ip-address.
18. Then copy the tnsnames to the TNS_ADMIN location as shown below:
    
19. You will now need to logout and log back in for the TNS_ADMIN changes to be seen to the OBIEE installation.
20. Once you are logged in again use below commands to start your OBIEE services:
21. under $FMW_HOME/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/bin
    [srikanth]$ ./startWeblogic.sh
    [srikanth]$ ./startManagedWebLogic.sh bi_server1
22. under $FMW_HOME/instances/instance1/bin
    [srikanth]$ ./opmnctl startall
23. Once all the OBIEE services are up, it is time to deployed your working RPD on the Weblogic server at the URL:http://localhost:7001/em
24. Make sure your connection strings are proper so once you deploy your RPD file on the Weblogic server it will be able to talk to the Oracle Database.
25. The main things to watch out for so that your deployed RPD can talk to the Oracle Database are the:
26. “Data Source Name” which should match the one in your tnsnames.ora existing in your $TNS_ADMIN location.
27. “User name:” which should be Oracle Databases’s schema username along with correct Password.
    
28. After you have deployed your RPD on the Linux’s box’s OBIEE server. Login to the URL: http://localhost:9704/analytics
29. If you get and error saying that your are supplying the wrong username or password, you can verify in the path and file “nqserver.log” as show in below screen shot:
    
30. If the error is related to GUID referenced the as in the case above.
31. Open up the “Oracle BI Administration Tool” and goto “Manage” -> “Identity…” option.
32. In the “Identity Manager” window select “BI Repository” and delete the users shown on the right pane and save your changes.
33. Re Deploy the RPD file again in your Weblogic Server and Restart your services.
    
34. Now you should be able to login and continue to your “Answers” screen.

Summary:
In order for you Deployed RPD file on our Weblogic server sitting on a Linux Machine be able to access the data in an Oracle Database. We first need to install the Oracle Database client software then setup TNS_ADMIN variable to point to the tnsnames.ora in the Oracle DB Client install.
We would also need to make sure that the “Data Source Name”, Username, Password are proper and that the Data Source Name exists in the tnsnames.ora file pointing to the correct machine name and port number.