The WebLogic Administration Console's complementary web-based console, rounding out the System Management GUI tools, is the Fusion Middleware Control (Fusion Control). First introduced in Oracle BI 11g for OBIEE, it still exists in a similar capacity for Oracle BI 12c. It is the main interface to configure advanced Oracle BI options and to monitor and troubleshoot the Oracle BI system.
Presentation Catalog is a term introduced in Oracle BI 11g that continues to get used in version Oracle BI 12c. It is synonymous with the legacy term Web Catalog, referring to the Oracle BI Presentation Services' artifacts file repository for dashboards, reports, and so on.
This section will guide you through the Fusion Control console and explain each section as you navigate through it. Let's start by logging in to the EM console to have a look around.
The Fusion Control console is not WLS. It is a completely separate JEE application that is deployed into the AdminServer of the WLS system deployed. In the following steps, you'll learn how to log in to the EM console and navigate around the interface:
- Navigate to the URL
http://<server_name>:9500/em. - Enter the
weblogicuser credentials in the prompt and click the Login button:
The main page provides an overview of the management console and all paths from which you get more insight into the environment. The dashboard is broken up into left and right panes. The right pane always contains some core content information, while the left pane is used for high-level KPIs regarding the environment:
- Click on the menu icon to the left of the bi domain name:
- Click on the link for Business Intelligence > biinstance in the left-hand pane.
- Review the Overview tab, which should be the default tab area presented:
The Overview tab provides a quick glance at the server status, capacity statistics, diagnostics of most recent errors and warnings, and general responsiveness of the Oracle BI instance(s). Initially there will not be much to do from this page, but it is good to know that, once the environment begins to operate, this is a good resource for getting a high-level status.
Click on the Availability main tab.
The Availability tab is a section that the Oracle BI Administrator may reference frequently during development and normal activity. Two sub-tabs are available: Processes and Failover. The Processes sub-tab provides information regarding the status of each individual System Component. Expanding the component using the triangle to the left of the component's name shows the respective port and host machine name. More importantly, this is the area of the management console where you can stop, start, or restart one or all of the Oracle BI System Components as an alternative to using the command-line utility. The Failover tab highlights the current redundancy status of the environment by listing potential points of failure, either from not having the environment scaled-out or not using the Oracle BI Server application clustering option.
Click on the Configuration tab.
The following section covers the various Configuration sub-tabs.
The General tab shows only the general settings for Oracle BI 12c. In the release discussed in this book, only the option for 11g Compatibility Mode exists in this tab area. The 11g Compatibility Mode checkbox, when checked, aligns with the 11g Compatibility Framework in Oracle BI 12c. More about this can be found in Oracle Support Doc ID 2189375.1.
Specific to the Oracle BI application, the Performance sub-tab allows for several of the main performance-related configurations to be modified. Applying changes in this section transparently updates the Oracle BI instanceconfig.xml configuration file for each Oracle BI instance configured. Although there are many other configurations that could manually be adjusted in the physical instanceconfig.xml files, this GUI interface captures the most-used performance-configuration settings deemed most useful to any organization's implementation of Oracle BI. Popular updates in this tab are configuring the Global Cache path, and increasing the Maximum Number of Rows to Download.
This area of the configuration tab provides global configuration settings for how the presentation layer of the Oracle BI graphical layer is viewed, or its interactions used. Currently, several Dashboards Defaults and Analysis (Answers) Defaults can be configured.
This section allows for the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Server configuration in order for an Oracle BI Agent to e-mail content from Oracle BI Delivers. Credentials and the SMTP server hostname used within your organization can be configured here, along with ancillary attributes such as leveraging SSL or limiting the number of sending retries before failing the sending of an e-mail.
Click on the Diagnostics main tab.
The following section covers the various Diagnostics sub-tabs.
This sub-tab shows all errors and warnings relating to all underlying components of the Oracle BI system. Viewing this section is very useful when experiencing any issues within the Oracle BI environment. In addition, it is this section that you will visit when you want to access log files critical to the Oracle BI environment, such as the Oracle BI Server or Presentation Services log files. The section at the bottom, View Log Messages, provides the starting point to launch the Log Viewer for all logs, or one specific log, relating to the System Components.
Log Configuration is quite essential to configuring how log files are generated and at which level of detail they will be created. This section enables you to manage a log file's file size and length of time (Maximum Log Age) to which each log file can be written. Most importantly, the Component Specific Log Levels section on this sub-tab allows management to control the amount of detail each log file will store as it is being written. By controlling the level of file-storage granularity, the log-file size will grow or shrink, but the more granular the logging, the more detailed the diagnostic information.
Click on the Security main tab.
This section allows you to manage the Single Sign-On (SSO) system configuration for Oracle BI. It also provides navigation links to other parts of the Oracle BI System Management tools, such as the WebLogic Server Security Realm, in order to manage users and groups, and links to manage application policies and application roles.
Note
Previous versions of Oracle BI, such as Oracle BI 11g, contained more tabs in the Business Intelligence Instance area of EM, such as an area to deploy the RPD or configure the location of the web catalog. This has been removed from Oracle BI 12c, and the tools to manage such dynamic features are now controlled via the Oracle BI 12c lifecycle management APIs or Command Line Interfaces.