Tuesday, July 31, 2012

OBIEE 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 - in English

Due to popular demand I translated this post to English. 

Please note, since OBIEE 11.1.6.11 is available (see here) you should consider it instead of 11.1.1.6.2.1.


OBIEE Patch 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 is available for download from Oracle Support site (http://support.oracle.com or http://supporthtml.oracle.com ). It appears as patch 14223977, but that is not 100% true, as you will see bellow.
The Patch should cover 11.1.1.6.1 and 11.1.1.6.2 patches and can be installed on top of any 11.1.1.6.X release (11.1.1.6, 11.1.1.6.1 & 11.1.1.6.2).
Please note that in article “How to Apply The OBIEE 11.1.1.6.2 Roll-Up Patches [ID 1459232.1]” you might be directed to 11.1.6.2.0 patches and not 11.1.1.6.2 BP1. The BP1 means additional functionality and bugs fixing.

For IPAD users, there is a new application at Apples Apps Store: Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile HD -  http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/oracle-business-intelligence/id534035015. This application is for 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 server. The new features will not work with older 11g BI servers. Below is a screen-shot from my IPAD. (If you are Oracle Partners and want to test it on your IPADs read here how to connect to Oracle demo server.)


 
The real patch has 7+1 parts. The installation steps for the first 7 are similar. I recommend reading the first readme – patch 14223977 readme file. To be totally correct it’s not the first 7, but first 6 since patch number 7 contains only client tools (BI Administration, MapViewer…).

The Oracle Business Intelligence 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 patchset comprises a number of patches:
14223977, 14226980, 13960955, 14226993, 14228505, 13867143, 14142868

Beyond those patches it is recommended to install the JDeveloper patch is:  Patch 13952743 - RUP3 MLR4.3  CUMULATIVE: BASED ON JDEVADF_11.1.1.6.2_GENERIC_120329.1447.6268.1 (Patch)
Please note: this is actually not only Jdeveloper patch. It’s an absolute must if you use BI Composer.


While the patch is built of terrifying set of 8 patches, some of us are very smart and not too formal. You might check the following list and come to the conclusion that “You don’t need all the Patches”. DON’T be so smart! The support site and our experience (and even Mark Rittman) recommend installing all the parts. Last time we tried to be “smart” with BP1, we were very sorry.

So we follow the recommendations of Patch 14223977 (the smaller one). There is an improvement comparing to version 11.1.1.6.2 of the patch.
So let’s review the different parts of the patch:

Patch 14223977 - 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 (1 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence Installer                

Patch 14226980 - 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 (2 of 7) Oracle Real Time Decisions                               
Patch 13960955 - 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 (3 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher                
Patch 14226993 - 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 (4 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence ADF Components  

Patch 14228505 - 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 (5 of 7) Enterprise Performance Management Components Installed from BI Installer 11.1.1.6.x       

Patch 13867143 - 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 (6 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence                              
Patch 14142868 - 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 (7 of 7) Oracle Business Intelligence Platform Client Installers and MapViewer  

Patch 13952743 - JDeveloper patch -   - RUP3 MLR4.3  CUMULATIVE: BASED ON JDEVADF_11.1.1.6.2_GENERIC_120329.1447.6268.1
I remind you, it’s only named Jdeveloper patch and it is relevant for all Weblogic based products.

For the upgrade you have to download from Oracle Support all the patches. They total to ~3.5GB.
The guidelines for the first 7 patches are the same:
Unzip then in the Oracle_BI1 directory that is in you Installation. Let’s assume you installed OBIEE in directory prod_mwhome. Please not that the result should be a directory named as the patch number (some default windows zip utilities create an extra, unnecessary level). 
The Readme says the following:
  1. Stop the server.
  2. Backup everything (RPD, catalog, configuration files, maps configuration file…). Don’t skip the backup part.
  3. In paragraph 5 you are advised to delete directories org.eclipse.equinox.app and org.eclipse.osgi that are at prod_mwhome/Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/web/catalogmanager/configuration/ , if such directories exist.
  4. Open Dos or Terminal window and run the following setting:

* On Linux, set the environment variables by typing the following:
       setenv ORACLE_HOME $PWD
       setenv PATH $ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
       setenv JAVA_HOME $ORACLE_HOME/jdk
       setenv PATH $JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
       setenv PATH $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch:$PATH

* On Windows, if the Oracle BI Home directory is C:\prod_mwhome\Oracle_BI1, 
set the environment variables by typing the following:
       set ORACLE_HOME=C:\prod_mwhome\Oracle_BI1
       set PATH=%ORACLE_HOME%\bin;%PATH%
       set JAVA_HOME=%ORACLE_HOME%\jdk
       set PATH=%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%PATH%
       set PATH=%ORACLE_HOME%\OPatch;%PATH%

Enter the prod_mwhome\Oracle_BI1 directory and the directory with patch number (you might want to do it in the patches order) and run the following:
 opatch apply
When done you should see Opatch Succeeded.

This way you should pass among all the patch parts, one by one.
The complete explanation is in the readme of patch 14223977. There you will find additional recommendations for backups.
  1. Please note that the 7th part of the patch is client tools. If you install on Windows machine or want to install the new version on your personal PC you should get the relevant files from that patch. The 32 or 64 bit options are there, based on your Windows computer.
  2. Something we didn’t see in the Readme, but is advisable: Open your previous RPD file in offline state of the new Administration and save it (now its new version RPD). Then you can upload it on the server.
  3. The last patch 13952743, should be opened in a separate DOS / Terminal Windows. Since there is a different definition of ORACLE_HOME:
The Readme there states:
In par. 2 – Stop all the servers
And also
Set environment variable ORACLE_HOME to your "[MW_HOME]/oracle_commondirectory.
On my personal server it is C:\or\BI\oracle_common.
I personally preferred at this state to rerun the set commands from point 4 above, just with the relevant ORACLE_HOME value.
In par 3 you are advised to create directory PATCH_TOP (don’t ask me why) and unzip the patch into it.
Then cd PATCH_TOP/13952743
And run opatch apply

If, after the installation you have a problem with charts, in environment with custom SKIN & STYLE, please read:

There is one more problem: to the best of my knowledge, the upgrade utility from OBIEE 10 is not working after the 11.1.1.6.2 BP1 patch installation. So if you need to migrate from 10 to 11, please do it before the patch.

One more problem: If some users miss tabs in dashboards or during reports modification, they should clear the browser cache.


If you want to see a list of new features of OBIEE 11.1.1.6.2 & 11.1.1.6.2.1 please see the second half of the Hebrew post. It is all in English.

 

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