EPM Marshall

So you finally get everything working on your shiny new 11.1.2.4 Rapid Deployment and now its time to finally take a look at Planning.  The problem is, we don’t have an app.  The even bigger problem (for me and anyone else used to SQL Server) is that we don’t even have a data source for our application if we had one.  For those of you that are familiar with Oracle 11g, this probably isn’t a problem and you are already using a fresh application that you just created.  If, however, you are still reading…then you might be a little lost as to what to do next.  Before we go through these steps…I’m the furthest thing imaginable from an Oracle DBA, so if anything I’m doing isn’t necessarily “Best Practice”, feel free to leave me a comment on how we could do it better.

Before we can create a Planning application, we of course need our repository.  Since we used a Rapid Deployment, unless we want to install SQL Server, we have to use Oracle 11g as our data source.  We’ll start by opening up Enterprise Manager so that we can create a new user.  Follow these steps to get your user set up:

1. Navigate to Database Control – admin in the start menu:
2. Once Enterprise Manager has opened in your browser, enter SYSTEM for the username and the password you defined for your Rapid Deployment as the password while leaving Normal selected.
3. Click on Server in the top menu area.
4. Click on Users under the Security section.
5. With the ADMIN user and Create Like action selected, click Go.
   
6. Enter Vision for Name, enter a password twice, and click OK.
   
7. Verify that the user was created successfully.
   

Once our database user has been created, we are ready to create our actual Planning sample application.  Follow these steps to set up your sample application:

1. Log into workspace and click Navigate, Administer, Planning Administration.
2. Click on Manage Data Source and click the add data source plus sign.
   
3. Enter localhost for Server, 1521 for Port, admin for SID, Vision for User, and your password for Password under Application Database.  Enter localhost for Server, admin for User, and your Rapid Deployment password for Password under Essbase Server.  Validate your connections and then click Save.
   
4. Click Manage Applications and click the add application plus sign.
   
5. Select your Vision data source, enter Vision for Application, select Sample for Application Type and click Next.
   
6. Verify the information and click Create.
   
7. Wait for the application to be created and populated with meta-data and data.
   
8. Enjoy your new sample app rather than creating one from scratch.

So with that, you should be ready to start working with Planning on your Rapid Deployment!

So 11.1.2.4 just came out and you are thinking to yourself…I bet that’s cool.  Well, there’s only one way to find out.  Set it up!  In this post we’ll go through the absolute quickest way to start playing with 11.1.2.4 in your very own virtual machine.  So what’s the fastest way (not necessarily the best…but I’m impatient)?  Rapid deployment!

Before we get started, let’s talk about what Rapid Deployment is.  Essentially, Oracle has given us a wizard to install all of the required product related to Hyperion Planning on a Windows system with very little required to make it all work.  What do you get?

• Planning
• Essbase
• Calculation Manager
• Financial Reports
• Smart View for Office (assuming you have Office 2010 installed on your server instance)
• Oracle Database 11g
• Weblogic Server

What don’t you get?

• EPMA
• Standalone Essbase Connectivity via Smart View
• Pre-installed Sample Applications

So now that we know what we’re getting when we are done, let’s get started!  First, we’ll need to get a virtual machine configured.  I’ll leave the steps on this to you, as if you are reading this, there is a good chance you don’t need these steps anyway.  Here are the recommended specifications of your server or virtual server as the case may be:

• Quad Core CPU
• 16GB RAM (I find that 12 is likely plenty for those of you with 16GB laptops that still want to be able to actually use them)
• 200GB Storage (I set my VM up with 60GB and after I’m completely done, I still have nearly 20GB free)

You can use VMWare on your laptop, something cloud-based (like AWS), or in my case VMWare ESXi on my server at home (yes, I’m a nerd, just ask my wife).  Now that we have our hardware ready, we need to install some software:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (it may work on 2012 since it is now officially supported, but guide says 2008 R2)
• Microsoft Office 2010
• Microsoft .net 4.0
• Firefox (because who uses IE any more anyway?)
• 7-zip and Notepad++ (so these may not be required, but I always find them handy to have around)

So we finally have our system ready to go, it’s time to start downloading 11.1.2.4.  You can refer to the Rapid Deployment guide from Oracle here:

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E57185_01/epm.1112/epm_planning_rapid_deploy/epm_planning_rapid_deploy.html

This guide is actually pretty complete, but there are a few problems.  First, at the time of this blog post, the edelivery site doesn’t actually have 11.1.2.4.  This means thats outside of Oracle Database 11g, you can’t actually get anything you need from edelivery.  Use this link to get to the files you need for now:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/performance-management/downloads/index.html

Once you go to this link, you will have to spend a bit of time finding all the files needed, but they are all there.  Between these files and your Oracle DB files, you should have all of the following:

Unzip all of these files into one directory with no spaces and you should be ready to go.  Beyond this, the guide should get you from start to finish with no major issues.  I will say that I had to run through the Wizard twice, as the first time I clicked back and forth between the command line that opened to install Oracle 11g and the Wizard.  For whatever reason, that seems to have bombed the installation.  So just let it go and don’t click on anything!

If everything went as planned, you should be able to fire up Firefox (or IE if you really want to), and go to your shiny new workspace:

Now we have everything installed and all of our services are started and everything is great.  But wait!  We don’t have a Planning application to play with.  And surely we don’t want to create one from scratch (again…impatient).  Our next post will continue with the impatient theme and get you into a sample application in a hurry.  Having always used SQL Server, there was a bit of a learning curve for me.