Showing posts with label Hyperion Installation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hyperion Installation. Show all posts
Essbase 11.1.1 Installation Posts Updated (slightly)
Someone brought to my attention that in my original post, I forgot to include the filenames for the Essbase Server and Client install. I have now corrected that in my install blog post and in the accompanying PDF file.
Debugging the EPM Configurator
I installed WebLogic today and ran the EPM Configurator to deploy APS in WebLogic. Unfortunately, it didn’t work the first few times I tried. It seemed to work except it finished very, very quickly. I never before had a problem with the Configurator so it was a bit surprising, as well as a bit perplexing, as to where to turn next. I did a little Googling and didn’t find anything so I turned to the last resort for us geek-types, ‘reading the instructions’.
Somewhere in the docs I found a reference to the %HYPERION_HOME%\logs\config directory. A quick check of that directory and, sure enough, there were some files with a new timestamp including the configtool_err.log. Here is the entry that logged the error that was causing me problems:
(Dec 17, 2009, 04:37:42 PM), com.hyperion.cis.config.Configurator, ERROR, Error:
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.hyperion.ess.APSAppServerConfigurator
ClassNotFoundException is almost always caused by an incomplete CLASSPATH. It took me a while to find the class. What I finally found was the %HYPERION_HOME%\common\config\9.5.0.0\product\aps\9.5.0.0\aps_1.xml file. It contains information the Configurator uses to understand how to configure APS. This file contained, among other things, the following entries:
<classpath>
C:\Hyperion\products\Essbase\aps\lib\essconfiguration.jar
</classpath>
<productappserverdeployer>
com.hyperion.ess.APSAppServerConfigurator
</productappserverdeployer>
Bingo! A quick check of that directory showed the essconfiguration.jar file was not there. Fortunately, that jar file was present in a number of other Hyperion directories. I copied the jar file to the proper location and I was off and running.
When I get a chance, I am going to go explore those xml’s more to see what I can learn..
Somewhere in the docs I found a reference to the %HYPERION_HOME%\logs\config directory. A quick check of that directory and, sure enough, there were some files with a new timestamp including the configtool_err.log. Here is the entry that logged the error that was causing me problems:
(Dec 17, 2009, 04:37:42 PM), com.hyperion.cis.config.Configurator, ERROR, Error:
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.hyperion.ess.APSAppServerConfigurator
ClassNotFoundException is almost always caused by an incomplete CLASSPATH. It took me a while to find the class. What I finally found was the %HYPERION_HOME%\common\config\9.5.0.0\product\aps\9.5.0.0\aps_1.xml file. It contains information the Configurator uses to understand how to configure APS. This file contained, among other things, the following entries:
<classpath>
C:\Hyperion\products\Essbase\aps\lib\essconfiguration.jar
</classpath>
<productappserverdeployer>
com.hyperion.ess.APSAppServerConfigurator
</productappserverdeployer>
Bingo! A quick check of that directory showed the essconfiguration.jar file was not there. Fortunately, that jar file was present in a number of other Hyperion directories. I copied the jar file to the proper location and I was off and running.
When I get a chance, I am going to go explore those xml’s more to see what I can learn..
Essbase 11.1.1 Installation Now Available as a PDF
To make it easier print and manage, I created a PDF of the Essbase 11.1.1 installation post content. You can download the content at http://www.appliedolap.com/blog/Essbase%2011.1.1%20Installation%20Tutorial.pdf.
Oracle eDelivery Observations
I got a comment on an installation post asking where to find Essbase Server and Client 11.1.1. I went to eDelivery and took a look and, sure enough, it looks like it appears the 11.1.1.0.0 Essbase builds are no longer available. The 11.1.1.1.0 builds are, however, available.
I don't know exactly what the standard procedure is for Oracle for availability of older builds, but it seems somewhat consistent with what Oracle did by removing older versions of the software right after they acquired Hyperion (which used to leave many, many versions available for download.
My advice is to download all of the available files in a specific version and archive it on your own local machines in case you need them in the future. We do exactly that at our company and have stored away all the versions (and their supporting files) that we support with our Dodeca product in the future.
Note: Please do not send me email or comment on this blog asking if I can send you x.y.z version. Those emails/comments will absolutely and unequivocally ignored due to potential legal ramifications.
I don't know exactly what the standard procedure is for Oracle for availability of older builds, but it seems somewhat consistent with what Oracle did by removing older versions of the software right after they acquired Hyperion (which used to leave many, many versions available for download.
My advice is to download all of the available files in a specific version and archive it on your own local machines in case you need them in the future. We do exactly that at our company and have stored away all the versions (and their supporting files) that we support with our Dodeca product in the future.
Note: Please do not send me email or comment on this blog asking if I can send you x.y.z version. Those emails/comments will absolutely and unequivocally ignored due to potential legal ramifications.
A Geek's Valentines Day
Probably many of you have read my bio and have read how great my wife is, but few of you know that our wedding anniversary is Valentines Day. Darlene and I were married twenty one years ago today on Valentines Day of 1990. Of course, we had to get married on a Wednesday to make it Valentines Day. I am actually heading home early today (before 4 pm!) to take a walk on the nearby greenway with Darlene, but first I thought I would leave a little Valentine for all my fellow Essbase devotees..
Back when I was 13 years old, I had my first job pumping gas in my Grandpa's gas station. Between customers, I always tried to read the newspaper and even had a favorite columnist. I know what you are saying, what a geek, right? The columnist was Sidney J Harris and my favorite column ran every Monday. It was always entitled "Things I Learned En Route To Looking Up Other Things." This nugget fits into that category.
I was recently looking for some specific documentation on the Oracle website when I ran across this gem, a PDF full of Tallyrand (11.1.2) infrastructure tips. It also has some answers to questions where I have not previously seen documentation.
Here is a link to the file:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/tallyrand-tips-157617.pdf
I thought that perhaps I was just late to the party finding this information, so I pinged my friend Cameron Lackpour. He was aware of a version for 11.1.1.1. I did a search and found a few other similar documents on the Oracle website:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/epm-tips-issues-1-40-167121.pdf
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/epm-tips-issues-40-up-167122.pdf
Enjoy!
Back when I was 13 years old, I had my first job pumping gas in my Grandpa's gas station. Between customers, I always tried to read the newspaper and even had a favorite columnist. I know what you are saying, what a geek, right? The columnist was Sidney J Harris and my favorite column ran every Monday. It was always entitled "Things I Learned En Route To Looking Up Other Things." This nugget fits into that category.
I was recently looking for some specific documentation on the Oracle website when I ran across this gem, a PDF full of Tallyrand (11.1.2) infrastructure tips. It also has some answers to questions where I have not previously seen documentation.
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/tallyrand-tips-157617.pdf
I thought that perhaps I was just late to the party finding this information, so I pinged my friend Cameron Lackpour. He was aware of a version for 11.1.1.1. I did a search and found a few other similar documents on the Oracle website:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/epm-tips-issues-1-40-167121.pdf
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/epm-tips-issues-40-up-167122.pdf
Enjoy!
Windows 7 / Essbase 11.1.1.3 Installation Tutorial
Note: I have posted a PDF version of this blog post on our website at http://www.appliedolap.com/downloads.
Back in the days when I started with Essbase, the entire Essbase server shipped on a single diskette. The Excel add-in shipped on a separate diskette. My first laptop with Essbase ran Windows NT and probably had a whopping 256 Mb of RAM. Since that time, technology has improved greatly and it is now common to find laptops with 4 Gb of RAM. Many of those laptops run 32-bit Windows XP which, even with a special configuration setting, can use only 3 Gb of RAM. In other words, 25% of the RAM on those machines is never used. However, the amount of RAM will keep continuing to grow and next generation laptops are now available with quad core chips and 16 Gb of RAM. To take advantage of these technological advances, we will need to leave Windows XP behind in favor of a 64-bit platform. The move to 64-bit operating systems gives us a good bit of breathing room for growth as, through the magic of mathematics, 64-bit raises the theoretical amount of addressable memory from about 4 Gb in 32-bit systems to around 18,000,000,000 Gb in 64-bit systems.
Microsoft owns the desktop and they have decided the future of the desktop is called Windows 7. Windows 7 is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit and I expect the 64-bit version to greatly outsell the 32-bit version. From our testing, it seems to be a solid operating system and much better than Vista. Unfortunately, Oracle does not support Windows Vista or Windows 7, and this presents a problem for Hyperion professionals who often want the Hyperion stack installed on their laptops. Of course, one alternative is to run VMWare or Windows Virtual PC with a supported operating system but, those solutions have their problems too. I have always preferred a local install over the VM solution but, unfortunately, initial attempts at installing the Essbase stack on Windows 7 failed. Thus was born this blog entry, with great thanks to my sons Billy Booth and Logan Tow, whose jobs at Applied OLAP included spending hour upon hour figuring out what worked and what didn’t work.
Laptop installations are normally used for development and, as such, there is no significant advantage to running the 64-bit stack. Further, our attempts to install the 64-bit stack ran into significant problems as the installer apparently detected the wrong chip type. As a result, I decided to install 11.1.1.3 (32-bit) on Windows 7 (64-bit). Unfortunately, we ran into some issues installing that version but, in the end, we were able to overcome the problems. In summary, here is what we found:
As part of writing this blog entry, we probably installed all or part of the stack dozens of times to make sure we had the steps down before publishing them. Still, it was rare that we got everything to work on the first attempt to configure, etc. As I wrote the blog entry (and personally installed the stack a half dozen times on fresh VMs), the steps got more refined. Instead of rewriting the blog entry each time, I left the body of the blog entry in the order of my first attempt and made notes/corrections where necessary. By leaving the blog entry in that order, you will have more background information if you see issues in your installation attempts. At the end of the blog entry I created a checklist of the steps in the exact order that I believe are the fastest way to get the software running on Windows 7 64-bit. My final recommendation is to practice, practice, practice on a Windows 7 x64 VM before installing on your base system. With that being said, let’s get started.
First, download the necessary components from the Oracle Technology Network at http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/bi/performance-management/index.html. You could also download the files from http://edelivery.oracle.com. The primary difference is the license agreement you must agree to in order to download the software. If you have any questions on the legal agreements, I encourage you to check with your corporate legal department before proceeding.
If you download the files from OTN, download the files in the categories Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Foundation Services and Oracle Essbase. If you download files from Oracle eDelivery, you will need to choose the appropriate components from the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System. I have included the eDelivery filenames in parentheses but keep in mind the contents of the files are probably exactly the same no matter the source and the steps below are basically the same as well.
The Foundations services products include:
The Oracle Essbase products include:
Once you have the necessary files downloaded, start by creating a temporary work directory. On my system, I created a directory named C:\temp\install. Once you have done that, unzip the System Installer (V17382-01.zip) into the work directory. Next, repeat the process with the 4 Foundation Services zip files into the same directory. Those zip files are:
Note: If you are installing a different version of the software (or even the 64-bit version), the zip file names, which correspond to the Oracle Part Number, will be different.
Here is what my assemblies subdirectory looked like after unzipping the foundation services:
Next, locate and run the InstallTool.cmd file that is unzipped as part of the installer; in my directory structure, it was located in C:\temp\install. In Windows 7, you must run this as an administrator for it to execute successfully. To run as an administrator, simply right mouse click on the cmd file and Choose Run as administrator:
Note: In previous versions of the Oracle installer, you would see a nasty looking exception if you did not unzip product zip files into the installation directories before running InstallTool.cmd. The exception, java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException, sounds a lot worse than it really is. This exception appears because the Java runtime expects to find some installation code to execute and, as the code doesn’t exist in the installer directories, it throws a java exception. I am surprised that the installer does not do a better job of giving a more informative error message.
If you have properly unzipped files into the directories, you will get see the following Installer screen. Note the steps oriented along the left margin of the dialog that will help you keep track of your progress.
In our experience, the above step may result in an error if the Microsoft Loopback Adapter has not been previously installed. The Microsoft Loopback Adapter is essentially a dummy driver that substitutes in for a network card when the network card is not available. As I often use my laptop disconnected from the network on airplanes, I believe it may be necessary that you install the Loopback Adapter and, though I am not sure it is necessary, it certainly can’t hurt. If you need the Loopback Adapter and don’t have it installed, the error message may look like this:
If you encounter this issue, follow these steps to install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter:
Even if you don’t encounter issues with the initial install, I recommend installing the Loopback Adapter if you are running the Hyperion stack on your laptop.
Once you have successfully launched the Welcome tab, press Next to proceed to the Destination tab:
Choose the location where you would like to install the Hyperion components. The default HYPERION_HOME location is C:\Hyperion. Press Next to proceed to the Installation Type tab of the Installer:
If you select Choose components by tier and press Next, the Product Selection tab of the Installer will look like this:
Otherwise, if you select Choose components individually and hit Next, the Product Selection step of the Installer will look like this:
Note that the products that appear in the selection box are based on the product zips that you unzipped into the installation directory.
Once you have selected the products to install, press the Next button to proceed to the Confirmation tab of the Installer:
Click Next to begin the installations. The progress is reported in the dialog and took something like 10 to 20 minutes on the VM on my laptop. After the installations are complete, the ‘Summary’ step shows the status of the installed products:
At this point, I pressed the Configure button to launch the EPM System Configurator and nothing happened. I also tried starting from the Windows Start Menu (Start Menu, All Programs, Oracle EPM System, Foundation Services, EPM System Configurator) and again, nothing happened. After some investigation, including a look at the batch files that launch the Configurator and an attempt to launch from the command line, it was determined the setJavaRuntime.bat was not setting the JAVA_HOME properly. A quick check of the %HYPERION_HOME%\common showed that it did not have a JRE directory.
This is the first major issue installing on Windows 7. To work around the issue, copy a version of the JRE from a working Hyperion install. I checked another 11.1.1.3 machine we have running in the office and it had the JRE version 1.5.0_12 installed. I copied the JRE directory from that machine onto my new Windows 7 machine.
The second major issue installing on Windows 7 is that the OpenLDAP service, which at this point is installed, did not and will not start. This is due to some missing registry entries that did not get set properly during the installation.
In a 64-bit environment, add the following registry entries, with their corresponding values, to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\OpenLDAP\Parameters:
If you are working in a 64-bit environment, the entries will need to be added to the Wow6432Node regardless of whether you're installing 64-bit or 32-bit Essbase. In a 32-bit environment, the procedure would be exactly the same, only everything goes into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\OpenLDAP\Parameters node.
Once you have made the changes to the registry, make sure everything is working correctly by starting the OpenLDAP service.
Once the Java JRE and OpenLDAP issues are resolved, re-launch the Configurator using Run as administrator.
The Configurator opens and displays the components to configure:
Select Next to start the configuration process. The next few screens will gather information required to configure the system. First, the system prompts for the Shared Services database information. In my 11.1.1 install, I used Oracle 11g Enterprise. I found that database to be a bit heavy for the lightweight tasks I needed it for on my laptop, so this time I am going to use SQL Server 2005.
I always write down the settings so I don’t forget them:
Database Type: Microsoft SQL Server
Server: win7x64
Port: 1433
Database: hyperion
Username: hyperion
Password: Hyperion
Note: In SQL Server, I had to create the hyperion database before I could connect with the Configurator. As this was a fresh install of SQL Server, I also had to launch the SQL Server Configuration Manager (Run as administrator, of course), enable TCPIP and, under TCPIP properties, enable the IP addresses individually. If you skip this step, the JDBC driver will not be able to connect to SQL Server and you will encounter errors during the configuration steps.
Press the Next button and you are prompted for common system settings:
Press the Next button and you are prompted for specific database system settings for Calculation Manager, Workspace, EAS and Essbase Studio:
As I am using the previously configured database, I didn’t have to change anything on this screen. Press the Next button to go to the next screen which prompts you for the Workspace Repository directory (assuming you chose to install Workspace):
Press Next to select the application server:
The Embedded Java Container is Apache Tomcat 5.5.17. With the acquisition of WebLogic by Oracle, I expect that we will all see WebLogic quickly become the favored application server for Hyperion products. For laptop or local deployments, especially on Windows 7, Apache Tomcat does basically everything we need it to do.
Press Next to move to the port selection step of the Configurator.
I typically use the default ports for the services. Press the Next button to advance to the next step in the Configurator which prompts for the Workspace port configuration:
All had seemed smooth sailing, but this is where I encountered my third major problem installing on Windows 7. When I pressed Next, the Configurator did not advance. Upon further investigation, it appears the Apache http server did not get installed into the Hyperion common directory. Once again, I went to another machine where I had previously installed 11.1.1.3 and copied the entire common\httpServers subdirectory into my Windows 7 common directory. Once those files were copied, I was able to advance to the next step in the Configurator which sets up the Essbase ports.
This step of the wizard has changed a little since the 11.1.1 installation. In that version, there was a checkbox for setting the ARBORPATH variable. That checkbox is no longer available. However, the option to deploy Essbase in standalone mode is still available. When I do this install on my real laptop, I plan to use standalone mode so I don’t have to run Shared Services and have it take up resources. On this Windows 7 VM, however, I am going to use the default setting.
Finally, the information gathering is complete and you have one final chance to confirm everything before the configuration starts:
Press Next and let it rip! Once it is complete, here is what the dialog should look like:
Now that installation is complete, here are the services that are running:
Note that Calc Manager and Workspace Web Application did not start on my machine. I tried restarting them and got Calc Manager to work but I didn’t get Workspace running. The core stack, except those items, were installed and running properly.
After trying the restarts above, I pressed Validate on the Configurator and ran the Hyperion Validation report. Everything appears to pass except Essbase Studio and Workspace. The normally recommended remedies did not work. I did a bit of digging in the logs to see if I saw anything strange and found a reference to the http server configuration files not being accessible. Sure enough, the entire common\httpservers directory structure was marked as read-only and, as a result, they could not be written. Further, I found that my original copy attempt was from a different installed drive, so the configuration items in the file were looking at an incorrect drive. As the configuration failed due to the configuration files being read-only, I don’t know if the drive letter would be corrected during the configuration. I would recommend copying the common\httpservers directory from a machine where the files are installed on the same drive/directory structure.
Note: if the configuration of any component fails, restart the Configurator or you may encounter JDBC issues connecting to the databases.
Once the configuration has completed successfully, press the Validate button to run the validation utility. Below is a screenshot that shows all green (which is what you want). Note that I had to start the Essbase Studio server manually as a service did not get installed for that server.
One final anomaly we found on Windows 7 is that the EAS Client does not seem to install properly. However, the Java Web Start of EAS works very well on Windows 7 assuming you have a Java JRE installed (other than the one that you copied into the Hyperion\common subdirectory). To launch via Java Web Start, I typed the appropriate URL into the browser:
The EAS console downloads and launches. The only difference between the JNLP version of EAS and the locally launched version of EAS is that, for security purposes, the server that it talks to is limited to the server from which it was launched.
After following these steps, I was up and running with Essbase and the other products I typically use. To summarize the major differences between installing on the Windows 7 (unsupported by Oracle) and Windows 2003 Server (supported by Oracle):
Windows 7 / Essbase 11.1.1.3 Installation Checklist
In the end, I did not get the entire system configured with a single launch of the Configurator due to an error configuring the Foundation database. According to the configuration logs, it appears the error was due to a problem with the initialization of OpenLDAP; a quick reconfigure worked perfectly. In any case, I hope this tutorial leads you to a smoother installation experience. Please send me feedback/corrections at timtow@appliedolap.com and I will work to get them incorporated into this document.
Back in the days when I started with Essbase, the entire Essbase server shipped on a single diskette. The Excel add-in shipped on a separate diskette. My first laptop with Essbase ran Windows NT and probably had a whopping 256 Mb of RAM. Since that time, technology has improved greatly and it is now common to find laptops with 4 Gb of RAM. Many of those laptops run 32-bit Windows XP which, even with a special configuration setting, can use only 3 Gb of RAM. In other words, 25% of the RAM on those machines is never used. However, the amount of RAM will keep continuing to grow and next generation laptops are now available with quad core chips and 16 Gb of RAM. To take advantage of these technological advances, we will need to leave Windows XP behind in favor of a 64-bit platform. The move to 64-bit operating systems gives us a good bit of breathing room for growth as, through the magic of mathematics, 64-bit raises the theoretical amount of addressable memory from about 4 Gb in 32-bit systems to around 18,000,000,000 Gb in 64-bit systems.
Microsoft owns the desktop and they have decided the future of the desktop is called Windows 7. Windows 7 is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit and I expect the 64-bit version to greatly outsell the 32-bit version. From our testing, it seems to be a solid operating system and much better than Vista. Unfortunately, Oracle does not support Windows Vista or Windows 7, and this presents a problem for Hyperion professionals who often want the Hyperion stack installed on their laptops. Of course, one alternative is to run VMWare or Windows Virtual PC with a supported operating system but, those solutions have their problems too. I have always preferred a local install over the VM solution but, unfortunately, initial attempts at installing the Essbase stack on Windows 7 failed. Thus was born this blog entry, with great thanks to my sons Billy Booth and Logan Tow, whose jobs at Applied OLAP included spending hour upon hour figuring out what worked and what didn’t work.
Laptop installations are normally used for development and, as such, there is no significant advantage to running the 64-bit stack. Further, our attempts to install the 64-bit stack ran into significant problems as the installer apparently detected the wrong chip type. As a result, I decided to install 11.1.1.3 (32-bit) on Windows 7 (64-bit). Unfortunately, we ran into some issues installing that version but, in the end, we were able to overcome the problems. In summary, here is what we found:
- We had to choose to ‘Run as administrator’ despite the fact that we were logged into the computer as an administrator.
- The install needed the Microsoft Loopback Adapter for the network settings to be detected properly (possibly due to the use of a DHCP to dynamically assign an IP address).
- OpenLDAP did not run as installed.
- The Java runtime did not install causing the Configurator to not run.
- The Apache http server did not install causing numerous problems with configuring and running Workspace.
As part of writing this blog entry, we probably installed all or part of the stack dozens of times to make sure we had the steps down before publishing them. Still, it was rare that we got everything to work on the first attempt to configure, etc. As I wrote the blog entry (and personally installed the stack a half dozen times on fresh VMs), the steps got more refined. Instead of rewriting the blog entry each time, I left the body of the blog entry in the order of my first attempt and made notes/corrections where necessary. By leaving the blog entry in that order, you will have more background information if you see issues in your installation attempts. At the end of the blog entry I created a checklist of the steps in the exact order that I believe are the fastest way to get the software running on Windows 7 64-bit. My final recommendation is to practice, practice, practice on a Windows 7 x64 VM before installing on your base system. With that being said, let’s get started.
First, download the necessary components from the Oracle Technology Network at http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/bi/performance-management/index.html. You could also download the files from http://edelivery.oracle.com. The primary difference is the license agreement you must agree to in order to download the software. If you have any questions on the legal agreements, I encourage you to check with your corporate legal department before proceeding.
If you download the files from OTN, download the files in the categories Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Foundation Services and Oracle Essbase. If you download files from Oracle eDelivery, you will need to choose the appropriate components from the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System. I have included the eDelivery filenames in parentheses but keep in mind the contents of the files are probably exactly the same no matter the source and the steps below are basically the same as well.
The Foundations services products include:
- Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Installer, Fusion Edition
- Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Architect, Fusion Edition
- Hyperion Reporting and Analysis Migration Utility
- Hyperion Reporting and Analysis Portlet
- Hyperion Shared Services
- Oracle Hyperion Workspace
- Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office, Fusion Edition
- Oracle Hyperion Calculation Manager
The Oracle Essbase products include:
- Hyperion Provider Services
- Essbase Client
- Essbase Server
- Essbase Administration Services
- Essbase Studio
- Essbase Integration Services
- Smart Search
- Smart View/HVE
Once you have the necessary files downloaded, start by creating a temporary work directory. On my system, I created a directory named C:\temp\install. Once you have done that, unzip the System Installer (V17382-01.zip) into the work directory. Next, repeat the process with the 4 Foundation Services zip files into the same directory. Those zip files are:
- V17397-01.zip
- V17369-01.zip
- V17370-01.zip
- V17371-01.zip
- V17388-01.zip
- V17389-01.zip
- V17390-01.zip
- V17402-01.zip
Note: If you are installing a different version of the software (or even the 64-bit version), the zip file names, which correspond to the Oracle Part Number, will be different.
Here is what my assemblies subdirectory looked like after unzipping the foundation services:
Next, locate and run the InstallTool.cmd file that is unzipped as part of the installer; in my directory structure, it was located in C:\temp\install. In Windows 7, you must run this as an administrator for it to execute successfully. To run as an administrator, simply right mouse click on the cmd file and Choose Run as administrator:
Note: In previous versions of the Oracle installer, you would see a nasty looking exception if you did not unzip product zip files into the installation directories before running InstallTool.cmd. The exception, java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException, sounds a lot worse than it really is. This exception appears because the Java runtime expects to find some installation code to execute and, as the code doesn’t exist in the installer directories, it throws a java exception. I am surprised that the installer does not do a better job of giving a more informative error message.
If you have properly unzipped files into the directories, you will get see the following Installer screen. Note the steps oriented along the left margin of the dialog that will help you keep track of your progress.
In our experience, the above step may result in an error if the Microsoft Loopback Adapter has not been previously installed. The Microsoft Loopback Adapter is essentially a dummy driver that substitutes in for a network card when the network card is not available. As I often use my laptop disconnected from the network on airplanes, I believe it may be necessary that you install the Loopback Adapter and, though I am not sure it is necessary, it certainly can’t hurt. If you need the Loopback Adapter and don’t have it installed, the error message may look like this:
If you encounter this issue, follow these steps to install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter:
- Open the Device Manager from the Control Panel.
- Select Action, Add Legacy Hardware from the menu.
- In the resulting wizard, click Next.
- Choose to install the hardware that you manually select from a list and click Next.
- Select the Network adapters category and click Next.
- Select Microsoft as the Manufacturer and Microsoft Loopback Adapter as the Network Adapter and click Next.
- Click Next to install the adapter and then Finish to close the wizard.
- Restart the InstallTool again selecting Run as administrator.
Even if you don’t encounter issues with the initial install, I recommend installing the Loopback Adapter if you are running the Hyperion stack on your laptop.
Once you have successfully launched the Welcome tab, press Next to proceed to the Destination tab:
Choose the location where you would like to install the Hyperion components. The default HYPERION_HOME location is C:\Hyperion. Press Next to proceed to the Installation Type tab of the Installer:
If you select Choose components by tier and press Next, the Product Selection tab of the Installer will look like this:
Otherwise, if you select Choose components individually and hit Next, the Product Selection step of the Installer will look like this:
Note that the products that appear in the selection box are based on the product zips that you unzipped into the installation directory.
Once you have selected the products to install, press the Next button to proceed to the Confirmation tab of the Installer:
Click Next to begin the installations. The progress is reported in the dialog and took something like 10 to 20 minutes on the VM on my laptop. After the installations are complete, the ‘Summary’ step shows the status of the installed products:
At this point, I pressed the Configure button to launch the EPM System Configurator and nothing happened. I also tried starting from the Windows Start Menu (Start Menu, All Programs, Oracle EPM System, Foundation Services, EPM System Configurator) and again, nothing happened. After some investigation, including a look at the batch files that launch the Configurator and an attempt to launch from the command line, it was determined the setJavaRuntime.bat was not setting the JAVA_HOME properly. A quick check of the %HYPERION_HOME%\common showed that it did not have a JRE directory.
This is the first major issue installing on Windows 7. To work around the issue, copy a version of the JRE from a working Hyperion install. I checked another 11.1.1.3 machine we have running in the office and it had the JRE version 1.5.0_12 installed. I copied the JRE directory from that machine onto my new Windows 7 machine.
The second major issue installing on Windows 7 is that the OpenLDAP service, which at this point is installed, did not and will not start. This is due to some missing registry entries that did not get set properly during the installation.
In a 64-bit environment, add the following registry entries, with their corresponding values, to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\OpenLDAP\Parameters:
- ConfigFile - C:\\Hyperion\\products\\Foundation\\openLDAP\\slapd.conf
- URLS - ldap://:28089
- DebugLevel - 0
If you are working in a 64-bit environment, the entries will need to be added to the Wow6432Node regardless of whether you're installing 64-bit or 32-bit Essbase. In a 32-bit environment, the procedure would be exactly the same, only everything goes into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\OpenLDAP\Parameters node.
Once you have made the changes to the registry, make sure everything is working correctly by starting the OpenLDAP service.
Once the Java JRE and OpenLDAP issues are resolved, re-launch the Configurator using Run as administrator.
The Configurator opens and displays the components to configure:
Select Next to start the configuration process. The next few screens will gather information required to configure the system. First, the system prompts for the Shared Services database information. In my 11.1.1 install, I used Oracle 11g Enterprise. I found that database to be a bit heavy for the lightweight tasks I needed it for on my laptop, so this time I am going to use SQL Server 2005.
I always write down the settings so I don’t forget them:
Database Type: Microsoft SQL Server
Server: win7x64
Port: 1433
Database: hyperion
Username: hyperion
Password: Hyperion
Note: In SQL Server, I had to create the hyperion database before I could connect with the Configurator. As this was a fresh install of SQL Server, I also had to launch the SQL Server Configuration Manager (Run as administrator, of course), enable TCPIP and, under TCPIP properties, enable the IP addresses individually. If you skip this step, the JDBC driver will not be able to connect to SQL Server and you will encounter errors during the configuration steps.
Press the Next button and you are prompted for common system settings:
Press the Next button and you are prompted for specific database system settings for Calculation Manager, Workspace, EAS and Essbase Studio:
As I am using the previously configured database, I didn’t have to change anything on this screen. Press the Next button to go to the next screen which prompts you for the Workspace Repository directory (assuming you chose to install Workspace):
Press Next to select the application server:
The Embedded Java Container is Apache Tomcat 5.5.17. With the acquisition of WebLogic by Oracle, I expect that we will all see WebLogic quickly become the favored application server for Hyperion products. For laptop or local deployments, especially on Windows 7, Apache Tomcat does basically everything we need it to do.
Press Next to move to the port selection step of the Configurator.
I typically use the default ports for the services. Press the Next button to advance to the next step in the Configurator which prompts for the Workspace port configuration:
All had seemed smooth sailing, but this is where I encountered my third major problem installing on Windows 7. When I pressed Next, the Configurator did not advance. Upon further investigation, it appears the Apache http server did not get installed into the Hyperion common directory. Once again, I went to another machine where I had previously installed 11.1.1.3 and copied the entire common\httpServers subdirectory into my Windows 7 common directory. Once those files were copied, I was able to advance to the next step in the Configurator which sets up the Essbase ports.
This step of the wizard has changed a little since the 11.1.1 installation. In that version, there was a checkbox for setting the ARBORPATH variable. That checkbox is no longer available. However, the option to deploy Essbase in standalone mode is still available. When I do this install on my real laptop, I plan to use standalone mode so I don’t have to run Shared Services and have it take up resources. On this Windows 7 VM, however, I am going to use the default setting.
Finally, the information gathering is complete and you have one final chance to confirm everything before the configuration starts:
Press Next and let it rip! Once it is complete, here is what the dialog should look like:
Now that installation is complete, here are the services that are running:
Note that Calc Manager and Workspace Web Application did not start on my machine. I tried restarting them and got Calc Manager to work but I didn’t get Workspace running. The core stack, except those items, were installed and running properly.
After trying the restarts above, I pressed Validate on the Configurator and ran the Hyperion Validation report. Everything appears to pass except Essbase Studio and Workspace. The normally recommended remedies did not work. I did a bit of digging in the logs to see if I saw anything strange and found a reference to the http server configuration files not being accessible. Sure enough, the entire common\httpservers directory structure was marked as read-only and, as a result, they could not be written. Further, I found that my original copy attempt was from a different installed drive, so the configuration items in the file were looking at an incorrect drive. As the configuration failed due to the configuration files being read-only, I don’t know if the drive letter would be corrected during the configuration. I would recommend copying the common\httpservers directory from a machine where the files are installed on the same drive/directory structure.
Note: if the configuration of any component fails, restart the Configurator or you may encounter JDBC issues connecting to the databases.
Once the configuration has completed successfully, press the Validate button to run the validation utility. Below is a screenshot that shows all green (which is what you want). Note that I had to start the Essbase Studio server manually as a service did not get installed for that server.
One final anomaly we found on Windows 7 is that the EAS Client does not seem to install properly. However, the Java Web Start of EAS works very well on Windows 7 assuming you have a Java JRE installed (other than the one that you copied into the Hyperion\common subdirectory). To launch via Java Web Start, I typed the appropriate URL into the browser:
The EAS console downloads and launches. The only difference between the JNLP version of EAS and the locally launched version of EAS is that, for security purposes, the server that it talks to is limited to the server from which it was launched.
After following these steps, I was up and running with Essbase and the other products I typically use. To summarize the major differences between installing on the Windows 7 (unsupported by Oracle) and Windows 2003 Server (supported by Oracle):
- You must run everything using Run as administrator.
- The Java JRE does not get installed and you must copy it from an install on a supported Windows platform.
- The Apache HTTP server does not get installed and you must also copy it from the same directory of an install on a supported Windows platform (and assure the copy is read-write).
- OpenLDAP does not get configured properly and you must manually configure the registry and start the service.
- You must launch the EAS client using Java Web Start.
Windows 7 / Essbase 11.1.1.3 Installation Checklist
- Confirm your relational datastore is setup properly, that a database/username/password has been created and configured to hold the Hyperion configuration information, and that you can connect to it via TCPIP.
- Confirm the Microsoft Loopback Adapter device is installed or install it if necessary.
- Create a Hyperion\common directory where you intend to install the Hyperion products. Copy the JRE and httpServers directory in from a successful install on a supported operating system. Set the files in httpServers to be read-write if they are not already. Confirm that the following file is read-write: common\httpServers\Apache\2.0.59\conf\httpd.conf
- Unzip the Oracle Installer zip into a temp directory. Then, unzip the product zips you wish to install into the same directory.
- Run the Oracle installTool.cmd file ‘as Administrator’. Choose the products you want to install and let the installation wizard install them.
- Add the OpenLDAP registry entries and start OpenLDAP.
- Start the EPM System Configurator ‘as Administrator’ and run through the configuration steps in the wizard.
- If you installed Essbase Studio, start the Essbase Studio service manually from the menu.
- Make sure the appropriate services were installed and running on your machine. Run the Validate button to check your results.
- If you installed EAS, start EAS from Java Web Start to validate it is running.
In the end, I did not get the entire system configured with a single launch of the Configurator due to an error configuring the Foundation database. According to the configuration logs, it appears the error was due to a problem with the initialization of OpenLDAP; a quick reconfigure worked perfectly. In any case, I hope this tutorial leads you to a smoother installation experience. Please send me feedback/corrections at timtow@appliedolap.com and I will work to get them incorporated into this document.
Issue Upgrading 11.1.1.1 to 11.1.1.3
I got an email this week from old friend and Essbase practitioner, Bryan Bain, about an issue he was encountering when trying to upgrade a customer from Hyperion 11.1.1.1 to Hyperion 11.1.1.3. As we focus on software development, we don't run production systems on our servers and thus never have a need to upgrade
Bryan emailed me back a short time saying he had "found the solution and it's pretty cool. You should probably blog about it, but you have to give me credit. :)". Better yet, I convinced Bryan to be a guest blogger here. So, without further adieu, here is Bryan's writeup:
The issue was encountered with a 11.1.1.1 system being upgraded to 11.1.1.3.
When we attempted to upgrade 11.1.1.1 to 11.1.1.3 using the Oracle installer, the “Apply maintenance release” option was disabled. Click on the graphic below to see a full size copy of the dialog.
We determined the original installation was performed while logged into the Windows server as. Unfortunately, had left the company and thus the login was no longer available. As in many companies, getting IT to resurrect the login would’ve taken an act of Congress.
After some research, we found the initial installation places a small file, called oracle.products, in the users home directory (i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\). The Oracle installer apparently looks for this file and, if it is not found, the installer will not recognize that any Oracle products are installed and thus applying a maintenance release would not be possible. The simple solution was to copy this file from the home directory to the home directory for the user login we were using.
The lesson for all of us doing infrastructure work is to always perform installation steps using a permanent, non-expiring ID. When I set up an environment, I typically ask for a non-expiring ID that will be used for the installation and to run the EPM services. If you run the install using this ID, you would never run into this issue during subsequent upgrades/patches.
Thanks Bryan for sharing this information!
Bryan emailed me back a short time saying he had "found the solution and it's pretty cool. You should probably blog about it, but you have to give me credit. :)". Better yet, I convinced Bryan to be a guest blogger here. So, without further adieu, here is Bryan's writeup:
The issue was encountered with a 11.1.1.1 system being upgraded to 11.1.1.3.
When we attempted to upgrade 11.1.1.1 to 11.1.1.3 using the Oracle installer, the “Apply maintenance release” option was disabled. Click on the graphic below to see a full size copy of the dialog.
We determined the original installation was performed while logged into the Windows server as
After some research, we found the initial installation places a small file, called oracle.products, in the users home directory (i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\
The lesson for all of us doing infrastructure work is to always perform installation steps using a permanent, non-expiring ID. When I set up an environment, I typically ask for a non-expiring ID that will be used for the installation and to run the EPM services. If you run the install using this ID, you would never run into this issue during subsequent upgrades/patches.
Thanks Bryan for sharing this information!
Essbase Docs Now Included - Retraction?
Yesterday I posted about the Essbase docs being included in the build.. Well, we may have scratch that comment. Last night I was looking for the docs to start digging into the new text measures functionality in Essbase but when I launched the C:\Hyperion\products\Essbase\EssbaseServer\docs\esb_infomap.htm file, which is the 'launch point' for the documentation, I noticed there were not any links to the DBAG, etc. I looked at the files in the directory and discovered that file exists along with an images subdirectory, but there are not any other docs there.
I looked around on my installation and noticed that EAS docs are installed, the Essbase Client docs are installed, the Java API docs are installed (3 times in different places) but I could not find the DBAG in either HTML or PDF format. I figured that during my search, I must have accidentally deleted the files, so I checked on of our VMs at the office this morning. Those VMs are exactly the same!
I went out and looked at the stuff we had downloaded from eDelivery but I didn't see a separate zip for that. Perhaps they are there somewhere and I just missed it?
I looked around on my installation and noticed that EAS docs are installed, the Essbase Client docs are installed, the Java API docs are installed (3 times in different places) but I could not find the DBAG in either HTML or PDF format. I figured that during my search, I must have accidentally deleted the files, so I checked on of our VMs at the office this morning. Those VMs are exactly the same!
I went out and looked at the stuff we had downloaded from eDelivery but I didn't see a separate zip for that. Perhaps they are there somewhere and I just missed it?
Feedback on Installation Instructions
A few weeks ago, I got an email from someone who used my instructions and were still having some issues. In the spirit of helping others who may be facing similar issues, I decided to post it with my responses/comments; my comments are in blue. Thank you Andre for your feedback!
Email from Andre:
A) I tried the installation on a Work Station WinXP Professional (OS German) SP2 4GB RAM.
1. And this is a really important thing. NEVER install anything into the SYSTEM Schema of an Oracle DB. This is an absolute No-go. Before you start installing the EPM with a Oracle repository back end make sure that you have created an empty schema at the target DB, e.g. schema name (call it user as well) : EPMREP. This Schema must have some privileges needed to fulfill it's purpose. You can use the DDL-Script at the bottom of this text (You have to execute it as SYS (DBA)). Now you can use this schema as container for your EPM repository. To do this in the config tool “Shared Services and Registry database Configuration” enter for “Username” the value “EPMREP” and your Password (in my script this is the same as the User “EPMREP”).
I absolutely agree. I think what I did when I worked with our Dodeca product on Oracle was to create an Oracle tablespace, created a user and assigned the user to the tablespace. You could also use SQL Server and just create a database to hold the tables.
2. The Oracle DB must have some special setting as noticed in the install hints. It is important to follow these rules. If you break these rules, shared services are unable to use the repository DB and you will get very strange (and misleading) error messages. If you are unexperienced with Oracle DB you have less chances to find out what is wrong. If you need help from a DBA (there are a lot of reasons) don't hesitate; to be sure that you will get what you need give him/her a paper copy from the appropriate page of the install manual.
Definitely work with an experienced DBA on your production system if you don't have relational database skills. I remember back in the early days of Essbase, often the Essbase admin had absolutely no idea what SQL was all about; it seems to me that is becoming less the case (but remember, when I started doing Essbase, nobody had ever heard of 'the web').
3. Run the installation and configuration of shared services in one round. When you are done with that EXIT (close) the install tool. Reboot the system. This is important, since it seems there are internal problems that causes problems in the following install steps. Start the installer again and now you can install all the other components in another single round.
I didn't experience this issue in any of the installs I did prepping for the blog entry nor did my assistant, who has done probably about a dozen 11.1.1 installs now, report this problem.
4. It is absolutely likely that you will fail with your first attempt of installation. Make a backup (image) of your system before you start. In my attempts I found that a lot of things remain on the system even if you use the uninstall. The system path for example becomes longer and longer because you will find the settings of every installation one after the other. If you do not have a backup make sure that you delete the Hyperion directory from you system, clean the registry (I used the cleaner tool “ccsetup213.exe”), clean all system variables relating to Hyperion and reboot the system before you start another try.
If possible, practice the install before you attempt it on a production system. VMWare is your friend here! I absolutely agree on doing the final cleanup steps.
5. In none of my attempts I have set the option “Deploy Essbase in standalone mode”, because I wanted to have the authentication with ssh. However so far it does not work, although the config tool stated to me that all tasks (in particular Register with Shared Services) have been successful. At this point I'm still investigating.
I don't think I ran an install where security was automatically externalized. I will ask my assistant if he ran any in that mode.
6. I have no idea why, but none of the known sample apps have been installed during the installation round. I found no option for that, so I assume it should have been installed by default as it was in all older versions of essbase. Only one App “$_DM...” is there but not visible in the AAS. Very strange.
I agree that is strange but it sounds familiar; I think I saw this behavior but, unfortunately, don't remember what I did to fix it (if anything).
7. Be absolutely sure that your account has FULL admin privileges on you system. I run into problems because my account had only “derived” admin privileges from a domain. It seems to be best if you logon to your system as a local admin user. Before I realized that, I was wondering why after a successful uninstall the Hyperion directory was still filled with a lot of sub-directories that should have been deleted. Please note that you get no error or warning in such a case.
Agreed!
B) I tried the installation on a Win2003 Server (OS English) 4GB RAM.
B1) First try:
1. The installation failed. Non of the components could be registered with ssh. I have tested the install process without a reboot after the installation and configuration of ssh components – although she installer and the check stated that everything was OK. So it seems that an reboot is essential after the install of ssh is done.
2. I was connected NOT as the (local) user “administrator”. This username is forbidden in our environment. Renaming the “administrator” to a different name is the first task after setting up a machine.
3. Then sample apps has been installed. This has been (and still is) an issue on my PC.
4. Uninstall failed with the same issue as in 7. above (directories and files still there).
B2) Second try.
1. I have NOT deleted anything manually (like I did it after the latest uninstalls on my PC), but rather started the install tool like I did for the first try.
2. During the install of the ssh I was not asked (like I woild expected it) to specify the repository DB. I started the ssh console and the site opened correctly. At this point nothing else to do; but to reboot the system …
3. Enter the install tool and installed the rest of the foundation components (these that are not installed in the same round with ssh), Essbase, Web Analysis, HPS.
4. Stopped all running EPM services and Reboot.
5. Want to start the config utility, however it is not longer in the program’s directories path.
6. Well, this is the point where I stop, since this indicates (at least to me) that the EPM system is no longer in a consistent condition. So it makes no more sense to make any further effort in trying to get the system work properly.
7. I will restore the backup image on next Monday and try it again.
So fare it would like to conclude my experiences in the following:
1. Maybe there is at least one way (or even more ways) to install the above mentioned components properly, however I did not found one.
2. There seems to be a lot of critical / important conditions to be considered, but sadly enough there are no hints relating to these things.
3. It is very easy to bring the system into an inconsistent (or at least not understandingly) condition.
4. Most queerly it seem to be a mission critical issue if the installer is not connected as user “administrator” at the local machine. In particular this seems to be critical for the uninstall procedure that is not working properly if you install and uninstall as a different user.
5. A reboot between the single steps of installation and/or configuration seem to be needed, but is not forced (or at least advised) by the installer/config tool.
6. If you don’t have a clean before image you will likely end up in a mess. So never make a try without such a fallback solution.
Well, this is not my first installation with Hyperion.
I’m working with Essbase / System 9 for more then 7 years now.
However, it has never been that frustrating and messy.
Best Regards!
Andre
DDL-Script for creating the EPM-Repository-Schema in a Oracle 11gR1 DB:
Connect as SYS (DBA) and run this script:
CREATE USER EPMREP
IDENTIFIED BY EPMREP
DEFAULT TABLESPACE USERS
TEMPORARY TABLESPACE TEMP
PROFILE DEFAULT
ACCOUNT UNLOCK;
-- 1 Role for EPMREP
GRANT CONNECT TO EPMREP;
ALTER USER EPMREP DEFAULT ROLE ALL;
-- 12 System Privileges for EPMREP
GRANT CREATE SYNONYM TO EPMREP;
GRANT ALTER SESSION TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE VIEW TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE SESSION TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE SEQUENCE TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE PROCEDURE TO EPMREP;
GRANT ALTER USER TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE TRIGGER TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE TABLE TO EPMREP;
GRANT SELECT ANY DICTIONARY TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE TYPE TO EPMREP;
GRANT ALTER SYSTEM TO EPMREP;
-- should be revoked after Installation of EPM
-- REVOKE ALTER SYSTEM TO EPMREP;
-- 1 Tablespace Quota for EPMREP
ALTER USER EPMREP QUOTA UNLIMITED ON USERS;
To sum it up, despite improvements in the installation process with 11.1.1, it still isn't a process for the faint-of-heart.
Tim
Email from Andre:
A) I tried the installation on a Work Station WinXP Professional (OS German) SP2 4GB RAM.
1. And this is a really important thing. NEVER install anything into the SYSTEM Schema of an Oracle DB. This is an absolute No-go. Before you start installing the EPM with a Oracle repository back end make sure that you have created an empty schema at the target DB, e.g. schema name (call it user as well) : EPMREP. This Schema must have some privileges needed to fulfill it's purpose. You can use the DDL-Script at the bottom of this text (You have to execute it as SYS (DBA)). Now you can use this schema as container for your EPM repository. To do this in the config tool “Shared Services and Registry database Configuration” enter for “Username” the value “EPMREP” and your Password (in my script this is the same as the User “EPMREP”).
I absolutely agree. I think what I did when I worked with our Dodeca product on Oracle was to create an Oracle tablespace, created a user and assigned the user to the tablespace. You could also use SQL Server and just create a database to hold the tables.
2. The Oracle DB must have some special setting as noticed in the install hints
Definitely work with an experienced DBA on your production system if you don't have relational database skills. I remember back in the early days of Essbase, often the Essbase admin had absolutely no idea what SQL was all about; it seems to me that is becoming less the case (but remember, when I started doing Essbase, nobody had ever heard of 'the web'
3. Run the installation and configuration of shared services in one round. When you are done with that EXIT (close) the install tool. Reboot the system. This is important, since it seems there are internal problems that causes problems in the following install steps. Start the installer again and now you can install all the other components in another single round.
I didn't experience this issue in any of the installs I did prepping for the blog entry nor did my assistant, who has done probably about a dozen 11.1.1 installs now, report this problem.
4. It is absolutely likely that you will fail with your first attempt of installation. Make a backup (image) of your system before you start. In my attempts I found that a lot of things remain on the system even if you use the uninstall. The system path for example becomes longer and longer because you will find the settings of every installation one after the other. If you do not have a backup make sure that you delete the Hyperion directory from you system, clean the registry (I used the cleaner tool “ccsetup213.exe”), clean all system variables relating to Hyperion and reboot the system before you start another try.
If possible, practice the install before you attempt it on a production system. VMWare is your friend here! I absolutely agree on doing the final cleanup steps.
5. In none of my attempts I have set the option “Deploy Essbase in standalone mode”, because I wanted to have the authentication with ssh. However so far it does not work, although the config tool stated to me that all tasks (in particular Register with Shared Services) have been successful. At this point I'm still investigating.
I don't think I ran an install where security was automatically externalized. I will ask my assistant if he ran any in that mode.
6. I have no idea why, but none of the known sample apps have been installed during the installation round. I found no option for that, so I assume it should have been installed by default as it was in all older versions of essbase. Only one App “$_DM...” is there but not visible in the AAS. Very strange.
I agree that is strange but it sounds familiar; I think I saw this behavior but, unfortunately, don't remember what I did to fix it (if anything).
7. Be absolutely sure that your account has FULL admin privileges on you system. I run into problems because my account had only “derived” admin privileges from a domain. It seems to be best if you logon to your system as a local admin user. Before I realized that, I was wondering why after a successful uninstall the Hyperion directory was still filled with a lot of sub-directories that should have been deleted. Please note that you get no error or warning in such a case.
Agreed!
B) I tried the installation on a Win2003 Server (OS English) 4GB RAM.
B1) First try:
1. The installation failed. Non of the components could be registered with ssh. I have tested the install process without a reboot after the installation and configuration of ssh components – although she installer and the check stated that everything was OK. So it seems that an reboot is essential after the install of ssh is done.
2. I was connected NOT as the (local) user “administrator”. This username is forbidden in our environment. Renaming the “administrator” to a different name is the first task after setting up a machine.
3. Then sample apps has been installed. This has been (and still is) an issue on my PC.
4. Uninstall failed with the same issue as in 7. above (directories and files still there).
B2) Second try.
1. I have NOT deleted anything manually (like I did it after the latest uninstalls on my PC), but rather started the install tool like I did for the first try.
2. During the install of the ssh I was not asked (like I woild expected it) to specify the repository DB. I started the ssh console and the site opened correctly. At this point nothing else to do; but to reboot the system …
3. Enter the install tool and installed the rest of the foundation components (these that are not installed in the same round with ssh), Essbase, Web Analysis, HPS.
4. Stopped all running EPM services and Reboot.
5. Want to start the config utility, however it is not longer in the program’s directories path.
6. Well, this is the point where I stop, since this indicates (at least to me) that the EPM system is no longer in a consistent condition. So it makes no more sense to make any further effort in trying to get the system work properly.
7. I will restore the backup image on next Monday and try it again.
So fare it would like to conclude my experiences in the following:
1. Maybe there is at least one way (or even more ways) to install the above mentioned components properly, however I did not found one.
2. There seems to be a lot of critical / important conditions to be considered, but sadly enough there are no hints relating to these things.
3. It is very easy to bring the system into an inconsistent (or at least not understandingly) condition.
4. Most queerly it seem to be a mission critical issue if the installer is not connected as user “administrator” at the local machine. In particular this seems to be critical for the uninstall procedure that is not working properly if you install and uninstall as a different user.
5. A reboot between the single steps of installation and/or configuration seem to be needed, but is not forced (or at least advised) by the installer/config tool.
6. If you don’t have a clean before image you will likely end up in a mess. So never make a try without such a fallback solution.
Well, this is not my first installation with Hyperion.
I’m working with Essbase / System 9 for more then 7 years now.
However, it has never been that frustrating and messy.
Best Regards!
Andre
DDL-Script for creating the EPM-Repository-Schema in a Oracle 11gR1 DB:
Connect as SYS (DBA) and run this script:
CREATE USER EPMREP
IDENTIFIED BY EPMREP
DEFAULT TABLESPACE USERS
TEMPORARY TABLESPACE TEMP
PROFILE DEFAULT
ACCOUNT UNLOCK;
-- 1 Role for EPMREP
GRANT CONNECT TO EPMREP;
ALTER USER EPMREP DEFAULT ROLE ALL;
-- 12 System Privileges for EPMREP
GRANT CREATE SYNONYM TO EPMREP;
GRANT ALTER SESSION TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE VIEW TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE SESSION TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE SEQUENCE TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE PROCEDURE TO EPMREP;
GRANT ALTER USER TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE TRIGGER TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE TABLE TO EPMREP;
GRANT SELECT ANY DICTIONARY TO EPMREP;
GRANT CREATE TYPE TO EPMREP;
GRANT ALTER SYSTEM TO EPMREP;
-- should be revoked after Installation of EPM
-- REVOKE ALTER SYSTEM TO EPMREP;
-- 1 Tablespace Quota for EPMREP
ALTER USER EPMREP QUOTA UNLIMITED ON USERS;
To sum it up, despite improvements in the installation process with 11.1.1, it still isn't a process for the faint-of-heart.
Tim
Essbase Docs Now Included!
This morning I needed to look at the Essbase docs and remembered that I didn't select an option to install the docs when I did the Essbase 11.1.1 install. In the System 9 (and earlier) days, the doc installer was a separate download and separate install. This created a number of questions on the forums as to where to find the docs.
I took a quick look in the directory structures for 11.1.1 and didn't initially see the docs anywhere. A quick search, however, revealed the docs for the server were installed automatically to C:\Hyperion\products\Essbase\EssbaseServer\docs. This is certainly an improvement over previous versions.
I took a quick look in the directory structures for 11.1.1 and didn't initially see the docs anywhere. A quick search, however, revealed the docs for the server were installed automatically to C:\Hyperion\products\Essbase\EssbaseServer\docs. This is certainly an improvement over previous versions.
Strange Installation Anomaly
I was installing 11.1.1.2 on one of my employees laptops last week and saw this really strange thing. I thought I would write about it as it may save someone time if they see this strange behavior.
First off, let me say that the bulk of the time I spent on the installation was:
First off, let me say that the bulk of the time I spent on the installation was:
- Uninstalling System 9.3.0
- Copying 11.1.1.2 installation files to the machine (almost 2 hrs!)
- Upgrading SQL Server 2005 to Service Pack 3 (required for XML/A from Reporting Services to work properly)
I finally started the actual 11.1.1.2 installation at about 6 pm. My employee took off to run some errands and said if I needed to reboot, just login using the laptops admin/password. I did the complete installation process under her login and everything was smooth. I started the configuration process and was able to connect to my relational datastore (SQL Server) but was unable to proceed with EAS on port 10080. I instantly remembered this was due to the port issue with AVG antivirus; I blogged on that issue a while back.
I disabled the AVG Web Shield and still, no luck with port 10080. I could have easily continued with another port but, for simplicity, I like to use the default ports. I thought to myself that perhaps a reboot was needed. I rebooted, logged in with our admin username and proceeded to the Configuration Utility. This time, though, was less successful.
After the reboot, I could not, for the life of me, get the Configuration Utility to connect to SQL Server. I did everything including dropping/recreating the SQL Server database. After several tries, I was pretty frustrated. That is when I noticed the command window that launched the Configuration Utility had a stack trace in it. The stack trace showed a Java NullPointerException was being thrown in, get this, the validate() method. Some validation routine that is!
As it was getting to be late, about 8 pm, I decided to call my employee and try just one more time using the employees username/password. It worked! It appears that the Oracle Installer or the Configuration Utility may put some files into the users home directory (or users temp directories) and cannot proceed without those files. Very strange.
Note: In a followup to my AVG post, I also discovered you must disable both the Web Shield and LinkScanner components to free up port 10080.
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