Oracle BI Multiuser Development Obstacles and Solutions

Transcription

1 Oracle BI Multiuser Development Obstacles and Solutions Christian Screen, Oracle Analytics Practice Director (Oracle ACE) Sierra-Cedar, Inc. Oracle BIWA Summit 2015

2 Abstract: Session 187 Leveraging the multi-user development environment (MUDE) in Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE) has its challenges even though it was built to handle many basic software development lifecycle scenarios. OBIEE MUDE is functional within small and large Oracle BI development teams and it has several hooks and APIs which allow it to adapt to existing version control standards. However, companies using Oracle BI MUDE have mixed approaches for engaging with multiuser metadata development which should typically include Oracle BI artifacts such as the RPD, web catalog, and security. Attend this session to see examples of bad Oracle BI multi-user development processes and obstacles that stymie development teams from being as efficient as they could be when using OBIEE MUDE. Also learn how to properly use MUDE and multi-user development scenarios within an Oracle BI implementation to create efficient MUDE processes. Oracle BIWA Summit 2015

3 Christian Screen Oracle ACE in Business Intelligence Oracle BI 11g Specialist Oracle Deputy CTO & EPM/BI Counselor Hyperion Essbase Certified Consultant Co-Author of the 1 st Book on Oracle BI 11g 15+ Years in BI and Data Warehousing Open Source Software Contributor Contributor at ArtOfBI.com Blog Oracle Analytics Practice Director at Oracle BIWA Summit 2015

4 About Sierra-Cedar Our BI-EPM business unit is a Management Consulting group specializing in the implementation of Oracle s Enterprise Performance Management and Business Intelligence solutions. Oracle s EPM Suite Hyperion Financial Close Suite Hyperion Planning Oracle Budgeting Cloud Service Hyperion Strategic Finance Essbase Analytics HPCM DRM Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) Integration with Essbase Analytics and Oracle EPM products OBIA pre-built applications over EBS, PeopleSoft, and JDE Data Warehouse design and development to fully support total solutions Full automation with Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), MaxL, FDMEE and more Merged into Sierra-Cedar 2014 (Previously Analytic Vision) Extensive business experience across many verticals: Higher Ed, Public Sector, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Financial Services, Distribution, Retail, Health Sciences, Communications, and more

5 Agenda Multiuser Development Oracle BI Multiuser Development Understand Common OBIEE MUDE Issues (Problems) Review OBIEE Multiuser Development Solutions and Integrations Review Progress in Agile BI Development Q&A Oracle BIWA Summit 2015

6 What is Multiuser Development?

7 Multiuser Development Multiuser Development is the ability for one or more users to collaborate or work in a system by which simultaneous efforts can be achieved! The Oracle BI Multiuser Development Environment (MUDE) is the light structure within OBIEE in which multiple OBIEE developers can be facilitated to develop against a single RPD

8 Multiuser Development Can you have multiuser development with just one developer?! Yes. But it should be a structure that scales to maximize efforts

9 Oracle BI Multiuser Development Environment

10 Oracle BI Multiuser Development Environment The built-in functionality in Oracle BI allowing RPD development between multiple OBIEE developers and administrators.! A manual process with functionality for handling basic management of development efforts.

11 Oracle BI Multiuser Development - Common Problems Team conception of Oracle BI development not matching other internal application development efforts! RPD is Binary! RPD Only! Does not take into account other artifacts! Users Developing on a Single RPD in online mode! No Sandbox or Per-Developer BI Servers?! No User Tracking for Accountability for Changes or Checkouts! Windows Share Required for OBIEE MUDE! No automated process for migration! No snapshots or rollback

12 Oracle BI MUDE - How it Starts Initial development, prototyping, and usually a single developer! Development work goes to production, or even working in online mode! Incremental updates of RPD and catalog potentially via merge(ing)

13 Oracle BI Multiuser Development - No Process Are you a Cowboy OBIEE Developer?! Signs of Cowboy Development in OBIEE:! Making manual changes to any environment other than dev in online mode! Developers do not have their own sandbox! All migrations are purely manual! Developing or modeling arbitrarily! Start with process from the beginning!

14 Oracle BI MUDE - Real-World Observations

15 Oracle BI Multiuser Development - Observations With no process in place developers often resort to the easiest an quickest solutions.! Questions are asked usually too late:! Does the process need to change as more metadata and more users are involved in development?! Do I need process for just one developer?! Are all of the challenges identified by the Oracle BI MUDE solution?! Do we know what an OBIEE development lifecycle should look like?

16 Multi-User Development Additional developers join the team or need to integrate to single RPD/WebCat! Potentially all developers access RPD online, concurrently, and hit the wall! Developers quickly learn they need their own sandbox environments! Technical Debt begins to appear

17 Oracle BI MUDE - Real-World Observations Windows Share (Required?)! OBIEE is of course multiplatform, so this adds bulk and disparate environment potential.! What about *Nix customers?

18 Oracle BI MUDE - Real-World Observations Copy & Paste RPD Artifacts! Some clients revert to a silo d development approach in RPD! Not projects! Some OBIEE development teams revert to migration and management tactics that fill tactical needs which become permanent bad practices.

19 Oracle BI MUDE - Real-World Observations Oracle BI MUDE Projects! Requires [reparation to set up and align by a logical delineation of work! No security really applied so any developer can get to any project! In OBI 11g the Binary RPD isn t really that large anymore so does splitting the RPD really matter?

20 Oracle BI MUDE - Real-World Observations Publish just to test development! Requires a manual BIAdministrator (gatekeeper/captain) to check, merge, handle conflicts, equalize, patch, unit test, before migrating a change.! OBI 11g makes the RPD binary much smaller than previous versions so is splitting the RPD for development still necessary?

21 Oracle BI MUDE - Real-World Observations Merging is mainly a manual process! Deployment cycles increase due to complexity! OBI 11g provides APIs to utilize command line interfacing for many RPD and Web Catalog functions.! But this is now a coding effort most aren t prepared for.

22 Oracle BI - MUDE Solutions

23 Oracle BI - Continuous Integration and SCM

24 SCM and Continuous Integration in OBIEE Source Control Management is the management and usually storage of changes to documents, code, or metadata! Continuous Integration is the process by which continual development, visibility to develop efforts, and frequent deployments are taking place.! Git is a Source Control Management system which we can use to integrate with OBIEE UDML MDS XML.! Jenkins is one of many Continuous Integration server systems which allows build and deploy capabilities which assist in automating development life cycles.

25 Getting Started with OBIEE Continuous Integration and SCM Compile Build BIMUDFlow.com OBIEE Git SCM! Server OBIEE Continuous Integration Server Test Pu Check-In / Push / Pull Changes + MUDE Collaboration Oracle BI Server! Query Ready! Pass/Fail Notifications & Collaboration Pass or FailPass Other Environments for Testing & Approvals Production Readiness

26 Oracle BI - Software Development LifeCycle

27 OBIEE Development LifeCycle Waterfall design and development is not iterative enough for today s business user demands! Stakeholders are dissatisfied with the speed of development! The answer is quicker iterations with feedback.! Think Agile Development for OBIEE

28 Oracle BI Agile Development OBIEE Continuous Integration! More up-time and visibility to development for users! Mitigates risk of falling into technical debt.! Business value is produced by visibility and improved quality of deliverables! Unless using Continuous Integration traditional OBIEE development is just waterfall

29 OBIEE Development By Feature or Fix Perhaps a new concept to most OBIEE or Application Development teams! Developers will now develop using a proven SDLC process for developing new features, fixes to issues, and other development based on a ticketed approach! This requires assistance of a issue tracking system (ex: JIRA) to avoid conflicts but also understand what is being worked on and by whom! Generate a new branch in OBIEE Git SCM for each ticket to be worked on! Branch names relate to the ticket and are closed once the development solution is committed and merged into the main development branch! Branches are typically deleted after being merged into the main development branch

30 OBIEE Development By Feature or Fix Users will be assigned individual tasks for a new feature or an issue to fix! Develop within those confines, test, and then push their changes

31 Getting Started with OBIEE Continuous Integration and SCM Each environment (DEV, QA,, PROD) should have some nuances in RPD logic! Providing patching based on changes and based on nuances allow automation and rollback

32 Summary & Opportunities Oracle BI MUDE out-of-the-box only assists part of SDLC! We need SCM for true multiuser development.! OBI 11g provides some tools to assist with this but bring or buy your the process! Continuous Integration seeks to automate builds, unit tests, and frequency of deployments to users! Visibility to development features and fixes is critical! Make an effort to see what tools and solutions are available.! Get assistance to make sure you get an agile OBIEE process going from the start to avoid too much technical debt

33 Questions? Christian Screen! Oracle BIWA Summit 2015