Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (OBIA) 11.1.1.10.2 installation on Oracle Linux 7.2 - Prep

Installing, configuring, and working with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 11g (OBIA or BI Apps) is a complex task. It can be daunting even for the most seasoned veterans of the Oracle Business Intelligence platform.

In this series of blog entries, I will be showing how to install BI Apps 11.1.1.10.2 on Oracle Linux 7.2. This is the first in a series of fourteen posts. For your reference, here is a list of URLs for each of the posts that make up this series:

Why Oracle Linux 7.2?

There's no specific reason why I selected Oracle Linux 7.2 over any of the other supported operating systems. In fact, I would certainly consider doing future blog entries of the OBIA installation on other platforms depending on the feedback I receive. However, for this series of posts I thought I'd stick with Oracle's own operating system. I chose version 7.2 over older supported OS versions for OBIA 11.1.1.10.2 simply because I had complete flexibility in choosing whatever OS I wanted, and so I simply chose to go with the highest version supported by OBIA 11.1.1.10.2.

Links to installation documentation

Before we get started, as a point of reference I wanted to provide a list of the main sources of documentation used to put together this guide:

System Requirements and Specifications for Fusion Middleware (FMW) products
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/ias/downloads/fusion-certification-100350.html
Fusion Middleware (FMW) Requirements
http://docs.oracle.com/html/E18558_01/fusion_requirements.htm
WebLogic (WLS) 10.3.6
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24902_01/doc.91/e18840/install_config_10_3_6.htm
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 11.1.1.9
https://docs.oracle.com/middleware/11119/bisuite/BIEIG/c3_requrmnts.htm#BIEIG353
Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) 11.1.1.9
https://docs.oracle.com/middleware/11119/core/ODING/install.htm
Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (OBIA or BI Apps) 11.1.1.10.2
https://docs.oracle.com/applications/biapps102/install/toc.htm

Is my combination of Operating System, Java, etc. certified for OBIA 11.1.1.10.2?

Oracle publishes and maintains a series of spreadsheets called "System Requirements and Specifications" for OBIA, OBIEE, ODI, FMW, and others. It very well may be technically possible to use combinations of Operating Systems, Java, FMW, etc. that are not certified for OBIA 11.1.1.10.2, however I wouldn't recommend it as you most likely will end up in a situation where you will not be supported by Oracle.

OBIA 11.1.1.10.2

Firstly, let's look at the SRSP for OBIA 11.1.1.10.2 (File Name: biapps-11-1-1-10-2-3093800.xlsx, File Date: 2016-06-20).

Looking at the System Certification tab in this file, if the OS is Oracle Linux 7, BI Apps is only certified on version 7.1 or higher with 64-bit Java 1.7.0_55 or higher. Furthermore, the database needs to be Oracle 11.2.0.3 or higher, or 12.1.0.1 or higher. Also, at the bottom of the page you'll see a note that the Oracle Database software needs to be Enterprise Edition (not Standard Edition or others) configured for Unicode (AL32UTF8)

Furthermore, on the Infrastructure Pre-requisites tab, it is clear that the following versions of software are required:

WebLogic Server 10.3.6
OBIEE 11.1.1.9.0+
ODI 11.1.1.9

Please note that the version of OBIEE is 11.1.1.9.0+. Furthermore, in the comments section of the SRSP, it notes that OBIEE 11.1.1.9.6 is certified. This is a point of some confusion. As far as I'm aware, there was no OBIEE version 11.1.1.9.6. There was a version 11.1.1.9.5, but then after that release, Oracle switched to their new versioning nomenclature. As a result, the next patch release after 11.1.1.9.5 was 11.1.1.9.160117. As you will see as we proceed through the OBIA installation process, the platform patches that will get applied to OBIEE will patch it up from 11.1.1.9 up to 11.1.1.9.160117. So, if you're wondering what to make of this "OBIEE version 11.1.1.9.6" - as I did upon initially reading the SRSP - you can rest assured that by simply downloading OBIEE 11.1.1.9, the remaining versioning will take care of itself as the installation of the entire OBIA 11.1.1.10.2 platform proceeds.

Optional components include:

Essbase 11.1.2.3
GoldenGate 11.2.1.0.1

For the purposes of this series of blog entries however, we will not be installing Essbase and GoldenGate.

WebLogic Server 11gR1 (10.3.6)

The SRSP for WebLogic Server 11gR1 (File Name: fmw-11gr1certmatrix.xls, File Date: 2016-05-26) indicates that while WebLogic Server standalone is certified on Oracle Linux 7.0 and above on 64-bit Java 1.7.0_55 and above, the ALL entry states that it is only certified on Java 1.7.0_80 and above. This suggests that some Fusion Middleware products will not work on Java 1.7 versions under 1.7.0_80.

OBIEE 11.1.1.9

For OBIEE 11.1.1.9, the SRSP (File Name: bi-11gr1certmatrix-11-1-1-9-0-2541437.xls, File Date: 2016-03-01) indicates that it is certified on Oracle Linux 7.0 and above on 64-bit Java 1.7.0_80 and above.

It is important to note that the BI Development Client Tools are not supported in Linux and are only supported in Windows. It is also important to note that "BI Development Client Tools" specifically means the OBIEE Administration Tool and Web Catalog Manager. ODI Development can be done in Linux as we will see below. Furthermore, OBIEE report development is done in a browser.

ODI 11.1.1.9

For ODI 11.1.1.9, the SRSP (File Name: odi-11gr1certmatrix-11-1-1-9-0-2541436.xls, File Date: 2016-01-26) indicates that both the ODI Agent and ODI Studio are certified on Oracle Linux 7.0 and above on 64-bit Java 1.7.0_80 and above.

Notes on the JDK version

From a JDK version perspective, looking at all of the results across all the SRSPs, one would conclude that any version of Java 1.7.0_80 or greater should be fine. However this is not the case - at least not for the installation.

Firstly, it is important to note that Java 8 is not supported for WebLogic 10.3.6. In fact, if you try to do the installation using Java 8, it will fail (see Oracle Doc Id 2099433.1).

Secondly, I initially attempted to do the installation using the latest Java 7 version (which was 1.7.0_111 at the time) and it failed when trying to configure OBIEE. After reading through some of the community forums, I found this thread which indicated that OBIEE 11.1.1.9 does not install if the Java 7 version is ANYTHING BUT version 1.7.0_80. When I redid the installation using 1.7.0_80, it completed without any issue. Therefore, please use only version 1.7.0_80 to complete the installation process. Then, post-installation, you can investigate upgrading Java (in fact I may do a future blog entry on this matter).

Summary

To summarize, we have learned that Oracle Linux 7.2 is a supported operating systems for OBIA 11.1.1.10.2 In addition, we also know that we need a specific 64-bit Oracle JDK: 1.7.0_80.

Furthermore, we identified the following software components and versions that comprise OBIA 11.1.1.10.2:

WebLogic version: 10.3.6
OBIEE version: 11.1.1.9
ODI version: 11.1.1.9

And finally, we identifed that each of these components are certified on Oracle Linux 7.2 with 64-bit Oracle JDK 1.7.0_80.

Looking ahead

Now that it is clear on what is required to install Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 11.1.1.10.2 on Oracle Linux 7.2, in my next blog entry, I'll show where to download all of this required software.