New OTN Article: Installing and Configuring Oracle BI Apps 11.1.1.7.1
A few months ago I posted a series of articles on our blog about the new 11.1.1.7.1 release of the BI Applications, focusing on the new ODI 11g-based architecture and its supporting utilities. At the same time, Accenture's Kevin McGinley was also investigating and writing about this new release, and co-presented with Oracle's Florian Schouten on it at this year's BI Forum event in Atlanta. At the time, the three of us agreed that what developers really needed was a step-by-step guide, or "cookbook", for getting BI Apps 11.1.1.7.1 up and running in a test environment, as so much of the architecture was new and the official docs covered all eventualities rather than just the steps needed to get a "minimal install" up and running.
Kevin and I therefore went away and put such a guide together, based on a Windows-only (typically VM) environment, using Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3 as the data source and aiming to get a basic set of data into the BI Apps tables and dashboards. It's just now been published OTN as "Cookbook: Installing and Configuring Oracle BI Applications 11.1.1.7.1", and whilst It's by no means an exhaustive guide (ignoring Linux installs for example, or multi-tier installs), it takes you through the download, install, configuration and then load of some basic EBS data into the BI Apps data warehouse. For anyone who's interested, I put the architecture and install piece together, with Kevin then tackling the part around system configuration and the initial data load. Hopefully it'll give readers a head-start in pulling a BI Apps 11.1.1.7.1 system together, show you how the ODI part works, and see how Informatica and the DAC are replaced by ODI and some web-based configuration tools.
Finally, as we put the article together around the time of ODTUG KScope'13, Rittman Mead and Accenture decided to donate the article fee to ODTUG's chosen KScope'13 charity - Wine to Water, a 501(c)(3) non-profit aid organization focused on providing clean water to needy people around the world. If you were lucky enough to be at KScope'13 you'll probably know all about Wine to Water, but if not, full details on the excellent work they do can be found on their website.