What is different about OHS server in Oracle EPM V11.2.7

 “Technology is no match for human errors.”

Every phase of every project, consultant will agree on this.
 
When we had referred the EPM V11.2.7 Installation-Configuration guide, remembered this point of explicit OHS restart. When actually coming to the end of configuration, checked Workspace URL and got following error.

Well, after remembering the OHS start point from guide, checked Workspace URL on Shared Services Weblogic port 28080 and it worked fine. We were able to access workspace. 

The first thing you may be wondering is: how do you start the OHS server? Well it's a change from the previous few versions as OHS no longer uses OPMN for this task. Instead it uses Node Manager. If you followed the official installation and configuration guide you should have a service like the below:

With that service running we have some helper scripts to get OHS online. Browse to MIDDLEWARE_HOME\user_projects\FND1\httpConfig\ohs\bin\. Then run the following command to start OHS and store the epm_admin credentials so you aren't prompted later:

startComponent.cmd ohs1 storeUserConfig

To stop OHS simply run the command:

stopComponent.cmd ohs1

From now on you can start OHS with:

startComponent.cmd ohs1

Above steps started the OHS server and hence workspace becomes available on 19000 port. 

EPM V11.2 Installers Overview

At Oracle Open World 2019, Al Marciante presented on the latest information related to the EPM On-Premises Applications Update.  Much awaited Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) V11.2 is available from Dec 2019.

Since then, Oracle is announcing a “Continuous Innovation” release model for Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System 11.2, delivering ongoing applications and underlying technology stack updates without a major upgrade.

All EPM 11.2 for Windows download packages are available for download on Oracle Software Delivery Cloud.

Before diving into installation and configuration, we should understand installers of V11.2 well and here is an attempt.

Installers overview

We will be going through those components which are required to be unzipped to install and configure HFM and Planning/Essbase system either on single server or in distributed environment. Rest of the installers will be documented later.

 1)  V998755-01 - Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Client Installers

This zip file contains following clients. As a result, we will end up in downloading the entire file even if we are interested in single client. It is similar to V11.1.2.4 client installers zip. The only difference is number of clients are reduced as most of components are discontinued in V11.2.2.

• Planning (Planning SV Extension)
• EAS Console
• Essbase Client
• CloseMgrSupplementalData SmartView extension
• TaxOpsTaxSupplemental SmartView Extension

 Following clients from V11.1.2.4 are not present in V11.2.2.

• Disclosure Management
• EPMA client
• Essbase Studio
• HFM Client
• FR studio
• Oracle Interactive reporting client
• Production reporting remote client
• Predictive planning
• Smart View
• Strategic Finance Client

 This is different than V11.1.2.1 which was having separate installer for clients. (e.g. Essbase client was involved with Essbase installer)

 The combined zip for clients is started from v11.1.2.2. But IR and PR clients were in separate zip in V11.1.2.2.

 This installer zip is present in both HFM plus and Planning Plus.

 2)  V998784-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Installation Documents and Readmes

As name specifies, it contains all documentation part for Hyperion EPM V11.2.2.

It is present in both Planning Plus and HFM Plus suites

 3)  V933015-01, V933018-01_1of2, V933018-01_2of2

This set of 3 installers zip files contain FMW – Oracle Fusion Middleware.

Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c (12.2.1.3.0) is the latest release of the Fusion Middleware 12c (12.2.1) software

Oracle Fusion Middleware is a comprehensive family of products ranging from application development tools and integration solutions to identity management, collaboration, and business intelligence reporting.

 This has replaced Oracle Identity management in V11.2.4 - V37387-01

In v11.1.2.4, FMW 11g was present – 11.1.1.7.0 OIM – Oracle Identity Manager - Provides provisioning, reconciliation, request-based provisioning, self-service, and integration with heterogenous identity systems through connectors (LDAP, operating systems, mainframe/midrange, ERP packages, email/collaboration suites, databases, etc.)..

 4)  V998756-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Oracle HTTP Server

This file contains separate Oracle HTTP server. We can skip this component if we are planning to use weblogic server as web server. Weblogic server comes along with our Foundation services.

Ø  OHS

 5)  V998761-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Part 1

This is similar to the EPM System Installer and it contains

• Installer (InstallTool.cmd)
• Common products
• Product common components
• Essbase common components
• Opmn

6)  V998765-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Part 2

This zip file contains:

• Static Contents
• Shared Services
• Oracle Common Home
• Tools – HSS Migration Utility

 7)  V998766-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Part 3

This file contains

• DB client – 32 bit and 64 bit
• Calc Manager
• BIplus core services
• BIplus financial reporting
• BPM Architect

 8)  V998769-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Part 4

All the applications are bundled in this file.  In this upgrade case, We are interested only in HFM as those are used in our application, but we will still need to download Planning, strategic finance and all listed components. It then shows all these components while installation. Don’t get confused with unwanted components and ignore them while installation.

• AIF
• ARM
• Financial Close
• HFM
• HPM
• HSF
• ODI
• Planning
• SDM
• TaxOP
• TaxProvisioning
• TSS

This is very similar to v11.1.2.4 installer “Part 5 V74044-01 “

In v11.1.2.1, applications were distinguished among different installers zip files and we could download only required applications.

This did not cause any confusion while installing or configuring among applications

9)  V998771-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Part 5

This installer zip is present only in Planning Plus and not in HFM plus.

It contains Essbase related assemblies

• Essbase services
• EAS webapp
• Essbase webapp

10)   V998779-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Part 6

This installer is all about Weblogic. It contains:

• Weblogic Common components

 11)                   V998780-01- Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release Part 7

It contains setup files

 12)                   V998783-01- DRM

This is separate installer for DRM component which comes bundled with HFM plus or planning plus  

 

Uninstalling Hyperion EPM V11.1.2.2

All Hyperion folks know it clearly that dealing with Hyperion setup will require knowledge about uninstalling Hyperion suite completely.
As it is pending from a long time, here are basic steps to follow to uninstall Hyperion EPM V11.1.2.2.

Uninstall using same admin credentials with which we have installed Hyperion EPM V11.1.2.2

Uninstall all related softwares

EPM uninstaller uninstalls JRE which comes with EPM installer. It is used for installation and configuration of any Hyperion products. The same JRE is used to uninstall related non-Hyperion softwares like weblogic, OHS. So, if we proceed for EPM V11.1.2.2 uninstall, we can not uninstall related softwares by proper procedure and so we might end up in option of deleting folders and cleaning related stuff.

Thus, it is very important to follow following steps before uninstalling EPM V11.1.2.2.

1. Run WL Uninstaller seperately
2. Run OHS Uninstaller separately
3. Run Oracle Application Developer uninstaller separately

Once we uninstall above products, check if the respective directory is removed from MIDDLEWARE_HOME.

Uninstall EPM System V11.1.2.2

1. Stop all Hyperion and Oracle services
2. Uninstall Hyperion EPM system by running "uninstall.bat" located at "MIDDLEWARE_HOME\EPMSystem11R1\uninstall"
3. Once the uninstall is complete, the directory "MIDDLEWARE_HOME\EPMSystem11R1" should be removed.

Post Uninstallation tasks 

 Shortcuts should be removed.

Check from Start--> All Programs, all related shortcuts should have been removed.

Windows Registry

Check under Windows registry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software and HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software whether the Brio > Hyperion > Oracle keys have been removed correctly. 

Search registry and remove all the keys with keyword "Hyperion" or "Brio" or "Oracle"
With Oracle keyword, there will be keys for Oracle client which is installed as pre-requisite of EPM System.

Environment Variables

Following environment variables are created while installing hyperion EPM system and should be removed after uninstalling EPM system.

• ARBORPATH
• EPM_ORACLE_HOME
• ESSBASEPATH
• HYPERION_HOME

To confirm removal of environment variable, first check if the variable is still present.

If the environment variable is still present, delete it as below.

PATH variable

Check the PATH variable and delete any portions that need to be removed.

Manual File Deletion

Manually check the file system to see if any files or folders have been left behind. If any of these are left behind, they need to be removed manually.

•     Ensure that <system drive>\Documents and Settings\<install_user>\.oracle.instance file has been deleted.
•     Ensure that .oracle.products file in Middleware_Home\EPMSystem11R1 has been deleted.
•     Remove any files left in the existing HYPERION_HOME if this location is to be re-used.
•     Delete any BEA folder on the file system.
•     Delete or rename installer records in C:\Program Files\common files\InstallShield\* if no other programs installed by this tool remain.
•     Check for Oracle EPM related entries in the inventory.xml file located in C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory\ContentsXML and remove these entries from the file.

•     Clean up any remaining Hyperion-related files and directories under the user's install home. E.g. "D:\Oracle\Middleware"

Registry keys deletion

Registry keys which should be deleted:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\wow6432node\oracle\
    Delete any additional 'dds_proxy' settings in the registry.
    Delete any additional 'arborpath' entries in the registry.
    Delete any additional 'hyperion' entries in the registry.

Reboot the system

Please reboot the server after all the steps in the uninstallation have been performed.

Hyperion EPM V11.1.2.2 Installation Pre-requisites

Pre Installation Checklist

1.       Work Area

·         Internet Access – Outside firewall (Disable firewall for the working folder – e.g. installers and oracle folder)

·         Computer within EPM Servers network

2.       Third party licenses

·         E.g. web server licenses 

3.       Software

Check all installers are downloaded from oracle edelivery

4.       Required documents

Check if all the required documents are downloaded from oracle edelivery 

5.       Preparing the Hardware

·         Confirm your plan of deployment architecture – whether single server or distributed env for EPM

·         Confirm whether computers meet hardware system requirements. Check following matrix.

Hardware requirement Mattrix for EPM V11.1.2.2

·         Prepare each server for installation

·         Resolve Firewall problem

Open a restricted range of ports in your firewalls for client to server or server to server communication.

·         Disable antivirus

Exclude the EPM Oracle home directory from automatic antivirus scans and scan this directory only at scheduled times.

Preparing Environment

Preparing Ports

This section contains information about default port numbers for EPM System products.

EPM Module	Default Port Number	Default SSL Port
Weblogic Administration Server	7001
Websphere	9043
IBM HTTP Server and IIS	80
Oracle Enterprise Manager Web Application	7001
Foundation Services Web Application	28080	28043
Oracle HTTP Server
IIS	80	443
Provider services (SmartView)	13080	13083
Essbase Administration Services	10080	10083
Reporting and Analysis Framework Web Application	45000	45043
Financial Reporting Web Application	8200	8243
Web Analysis Web Application	16000	16043

If required, necessary ports should be enabled on EPM Environment servers. Firewall should be disabled at these ports for communication between servers or between servers and clients.

Installing a Database Client

If you are using Oracle Database, install the full database client and test the database client with the TNSPing command. The details of DB client installation are given in section Preparing the database.

Disabling User Access Control (Windows 2008)

In Windows 2008 environments, disable User Access Control (UAC) on each server in the deployment.

Control Panel à System and Security

 

Setting default authentication level (Windows 2008)

For machines hosting products that require .NET Framework 3.5, the DCOM default authentication level should be set to Connect

Control PanelàSystem and SecurityàAdministrative Toolsà Component ServicesàMy computer àproperties

Synchronizing clocks

The clock on each server must be synchronized to within one second difference. To accomplish this, point each server to the same network time server.

Resolving Host Names

The canonical host name of each server must be the same when accessed from within the server and from other servers in the deployment.

You can modify hosts file located at following location

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

 epmsys_hostname.bat

An archive of the utility (epmsys_hostname.zip) is available in the directory where you unzip

the assembly for EPM System Installer.

Disabling Anti-virus Software

Antivirus software can cause performance issues with EPM System products if, each time you access any resource on the server, the antivirus software tries to open and scan the object. To prevent these issues, exclude the EPM Oracle home directory from automatic antivirus scans and scan this directory only at scheduled times.

E.g. – In our Vodafone single server env, we are using Symantec antivirus software which needs to be disabled as below

Excluding the EPM Oracle home directory from automatic antivirus scans 

Scan EPM Oracle home directory only at scheduled times.   

Preparing User Accounts

·         Do not use the Administrator user to install and configure. Run EPM System Installer and EPM System Configurator as a user with administrator rights.

·         When you upgrade, apply a maintenance release, or patch this server, use the same user account that was used to install and configure the earlier release.

Preparing Database

Before installing EPM System, install supporting database (RDBMS)

·         IBM DB2

·         Oracle

·         MS SQL

The version of DB should match the version of operating system.

Oracle Database

Install the full Oracle Database client on the following machines before you start your installation of EPM System products:

·         Performance Management Architect Dimension server

·         Financial Management application server

·         FDM Application Server and any machine that has FDM Workbench

·         Strategic Finance

For v11.1.2.2 installation, we need to install DB client. Following are some bullet points to be highlighted.

·         We need to install Oracle DB client (Both 32 bit and 64 bit) on HFM and FDM server if we are using distributed environment.
Reason – HFM is 32 bit application and for running all processes properly, we need both 32 as well as 64 bit DB client.

·         For Foundation server, we can install only 64 bit client. 32 bit client can be skipped.

·         While installing client, 32 bit DB client is first installed followed by 64 bit client installation.

Database Privileges

The following privileges must be granted to the owners of the database schemas:

l CREATE SESSION

l CREATE VIEW

l CREATE TYPE

l CREATE TABLE

l CREATE CLUSTER

l CREATE TRIGGER

l CREATE SEQUENCE

l CREATE INDEXTYPE

l CREATE PROCEDURE

l CREATE ANY SYNONYM

l DROP ANY SYNONYM

l UNLIMITED TABLESPACE

Enabling Statement Caching for Financial Management

If you use Oracle Database Client 10.2.x or 11.1.x for Financial Management, you must set the StmtCacheSize registry setting for Oracle OLE DB to 10 on all Financial Management application servers. This is due to a memory issue in Oracle Provider for OLE DB.

Preparing Web Application Server

Oracle provides a limited-use license of WebLogic Server for use with EPM System products. IF we are using the weblogic server which comes by default with EPM system installers, we need not to take any action for web application server.

The Middleware directory of web server should be similar to EPM System Middleware directory.

Preparing Web Server

We can deploy Hyperion EPM applications on list of supported web servers.

Oracle HTTP server

It is installed automatically during EPM installation.

Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)

To verify the IIS installation, ensure that the IIS services are running:

·         IIS Admin Service

·         World Wide Web Publishing Service

Preparing Web Browsers

 

Disk Space and RAM

While installation, the installer checks for twice the disk space required as per following table.

Hyperion EPM V11.1.2.2 installation user account pre-requisite

As already committed, I will come up with exact prerequisites post for  installing and configuring Hyperion EPM System V11.1.2.2 soon. But till then, thought to share this very basic and simple pre-requisite of EPM System while on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 operating system.

When I just tried to run installTool.cmd by double clicking it, I got following errors. This is good feature of V11.1.2.2 about the detailed description of installation prerequisites. 

The last error is related to user account used for installation. I was using my own account which is admin user of the system and still, got this user account error.

Solution – Instead of just running the installer installTool.cmd, run the installer as administrator.

Right click installer – installTool.cmd and run as administrator.

 After this, the last error got resolved but still the first error was still present while installing hyperion EPM System V11.1.2.2 installer as given below.

The user account control error shown above can be resolved by user account control settings as given below.

In Windows 2008 environments, disable User Access Control (UAC) on each server in the deployment.

Control Panel -> System and Security

With these very basic solution, both prerequisites errors were resolved and the installation of Hyperion EPM System V11.1.2.2 started successfully.

EPM System V11.1.2.2 - Sample 2 servers architecture

As I have mentioned before, I am in process of upgrading Hyperion EPM System from V11.1.1.3 to V11.1.2.2. So, the basic requirement was to finalize the architecture.
It helps a lot to understand Hyperion EPM System.

The architecture is based on 5 different layers:

1. Database layer (RDBMS)
2. Foundation layer (Shared Services)
3. Application layer (Hyperion applications - HFM, FDM)
4. Web layer 
5. Client layer (HFM client, FDM client, FR studio, SMartview)

Installation and Configuration of Hyperion EPM System V11.1.2.2

The current HFM application resides on V11.1.1.3 in production environment. And we are in process of upgrading to V11.1.2.2.

Though production environment is distributed, we have got one development environment consisting only one server. So, I am going to try installing and configuring Hyperion EPM system V11.1.2.2 on this single server environment.

As the server was already used before for Hyperion EPM system, I did not care much about pre-requisites. Otherwise, before starting installation and configuration of Hyperion EPM system, we should really follow the pre-requisite checklist. I will cover this pre-requisite checklist soon in this blog.

Once required installers from the bundle of EPM system V11.1.2.2 installers from Oracle Edelivery site are extracted in one folder, run installTool.cmd as an administrator

Before proceeding further, let us take a brief overview about the environment used. I am here interested in single server HFM-FDM application environment. To give the exact idea, refer to following architecture.

So, we are interested in installing HFM and FDM on our server. Please refer following post of this blog to get the exact idea of required installers.

 http://evolvewithhyperion.blogspot.com/2013/06/epm-system-v11122-installers.html

As per our requirement, I selected only Foundation Services, HFM and FDM components from the installation list.

Once the installation is successful, we can either start for configuration or we can finish up the installation process and select to configure later.

Selected configure to complete the configuration process.

Before starting installation of Hyperion EPM System V11.1.2.2, we need to create DB schemas for required components. The topic will be covered in details in a separate post about pre-requisite checklist.

Right now, I am giving a list of DB schemas I created on Oracle 11g DB residing on Unix server.

Shared Services	Hyp11_hss
HFM	Hyp11_hfm
FDM	Hyp11_fdm3
	Hyp11_fdm4
	Hyp11_fdm5

Referring to above table, give DB schema details.

I decided to go step by step for configuration. First configured only common settings of Shared Services and configured Shared Services DB.

After that, I selected to deploy foundation services to application server.

 The default application web server is Weblogic which gets installed along with EPM system. I am using this default application web server.

We have got two options either to deploy to single managed server which is referred as compact deployment or we can choose to deploy to separate managed servers.

These managed servers are created on weblogic admin server.

Compact Deployment

 Separate Managed Servers:

I selected deployment on separate managed servers; deployment takes several minutes and almost checks our patience. The only good thing is to see changing messages like deploying shared services, creating server for shared services while configuration.

We are now remaining to configure Foundation services web server. This will be the last option we will be doing after completing whole configuration.

Now, we will be configuring HFM components.

Select to start IIS features.

Refering to our DB schema table, please give proper schema details created for HFM.

As weblogic domain is already created while configuring Foundation Services, select option to deploy to existing weblogic doman.

As I am going to deploy on separate managed servers, another managed server HFMWeb0 will be created on weblogic admin server.

 Configure DCOM. Enter user in format "DomainName/Username"

 Configure application Server and cluster.

 

Configure  HFM Web server

Provide application web directory and directory name.

 Configure Provider services which enables SmartView

Configure HFMLCM service which enables Life Cycle management

Enable Web Services.

 

During this first attempt, DCOM configuration was failed.

While investigation, found that, the user “hyperionepm” which I was using for installation and configuration of Hyperion EPM system V11.1.2.2 is connected to secondary domain controller but the during configuration, only primary domain controller was hit for DCOM configuration.

We are connected to following domain controller.

For this issue, a new dll file was provided by Oracle as a temporary solution so that if the user does not exist on primary domain controller, it checks if the user exists on secondary domain controller.

A patch will be provided later for production environment.

After HFM, FDM is configured.