Highlights:

New Features in Presentation Services:

Visual Analyzer: A brand new powerful visualization application in OBIEE Suite. VA

provides greater flexibility to Rapidly create rich analyses through drag-and-drop
configuration of new visual grammar. Using VA we can build the reports from the sources
OBIEE repository and also from external content.

Views Enhancements: New context menu (Right Click) on all graphs & other views to
sort, drill.

New Heat Matrix view type to represent the two-dimensional data. This is well suited
for analyzing large amounts of data and identifying outliers.

New Data Format properties Scale for % (x 100): Specify whether to multiply data
by a 100 to display it as a percentage when setting the properties of a column

New Features in BI Server:

Logical Level Sequence Numbers for Time Dimensions for faster time series
calculations. And to improve the query time.

DISPLAY, SORTKEY Syntax Supported in the SQL ORDER BY Expression

Oracle Database FAN & Connection Failover Supported by Oracle BI Server

Generate Fragmented Aggregates in Aggregate Persistence

Following New Command Line utilities are added

o Download Repository
o Upload Repository
o List Connection Pool
o Update Connection Pool
o Rename Application Role
o Delete Application Role

o Rename Users
o Delete Users
o List Repository Variables
o Update Repository Variables

New Features in Administration:

Installation: Much faster and straight forward. And mostly, the configurations & folders
directories are simple and clean.

NO more OPMN, all services including OBI System & Java services are managed by
WebLogic.

Migrating from OBIEE 11g to 12c: We can migrate the Oracle BI 11g metadata to 12c
is a two step process, and is carried out by using the BI Migration Script (migrationtool.sh). The catalog and WebLogic Security configurations needs to be
reconfigured/migrated like in OBIEE 11g.

BAR (BI Archive file): A new archive format which contains OBIEE Catalog, RPD and
Security packaged in one file. The file will be created in current environment and
imported in Target environment. The BAR file creation process has following options
while creating it.
o export all: To export everything including users and data sources are the same
between two systems.
o export without user folder content: Migrating the Catalog without the Users
Folders.
o export without connection pool credentials: Migrating the upgraded RPD from
one environment to another without connection Pool information. When Imported
the BAR in Target environment, The RPD will be updated the new changed by
not changing the Target System Connection Pool Information.
o Syntax:

Creating the BAR File from Current Environment:

exportServiceInstance(domainHome, serviceInstanceKey, workDir,
exportDir, applicationName=None, applicationDesc=None,
applicationVersion=None, includeCatalogRuntimeInfo=false,
includeCredentials=None)

Importing the BAR file in Target environment:

importServiceInstance(domainHome, serviceInstanceKey, barfile)

New Features in Security:

BISystemUser and BISystem Removed, No need to have BISystemUser in LDAP. The

system user concept is now deemed virtual and is represented by the credential
oracle.bi.system/system.user, for which the values are securely randomly generated by
the Configuration Assistant.

User GUIDs Removed: user GUIDs have been removed to make administration easier.
GUIDs are replaced with user names. There is no longer any need to refresh GUIDs as
part of lifecycle operations

Database Security Store: Policy & Credential store is configured in database instead of
the file System-jazn & etc.

Easier SSL Configuration: Configuring SSL is much easier than earlier versions.

Overall this is a great release after OBIEE 11g from Oracle. Best version to start exploring and
do great analysis.
Stay tuned for more interesting articles on OBIEE 12c here.
OBIEE 12c new features

The long awaited OBIEE 12c has been released by Oracle, 5 years after 11g was released. This is
a major release for OBIEE with the intent to reposition Oracle BI as a big player in the already
crowded field of BI, data discovery, self service. Other BI tools such as Tableau software in
particular have been steadily gaining market share over Oracle BI as confirmed by the 2015
Gartner magic quadrant for BI and analytics platform. The main complaints about the Oracle BI
product are: complexity, difficulty of use beside cost . One of the main features of OBIEE 12c is
the visual analyzer, a web-based tool that allows the business user to explore Oracle analytics
and simplify the creation of visualizations as well as data discovery and data staging and
ingestion . This application is already available in the cloud version of Oracle BI: Oracle BI
Cloud Service. Certain people have dubbed Oracle Visual Analyzer the Tableau-killer, very
doubtful but only time will tell; one thing for sure is that Tableau has gained a lot of momentum
lately. One of the core strength of the BI server has been the ability to federate disparate data
sources; this however required configuration the BI back end metadata repository. In order to
remediate that limitation, OBIEE 12c offers a new self service capability that allows users to
upload their files (limited to Excel xlsx format at this point) and create analyses without having
to modify the Oracle BI repository metadata. The main features are listed below.

Oracle BI Metadata Repository

New Command Line Utilities

Download Repository Command: to download the repository used by the service instance.
Upload Repository Command: to upload the repository to Oracle BI Server
List Connection Pool Command: to create a list of connection pools in JSON format for a
specific service instance: to upload a modified JSON file containing updated connection pool
values to a specific server instance
Update Connection Pool Command: to upload a modified JSON file containing updated
connection pool values to a specific server instance
Rename Application Role Command: to rename application roles
Delete Application Role Command: to delete application roles
Rename Users Command: upload a JSON file containing a list of application roles that you
want to delete from a specific server instance
Delete Users Command: to upload a JSON file containing a list of users that you want to delete
from a specific server instance
List Repository Variables Command: to create a list of repository variables in JSON format for
a specific service instance
Update Repository Variables Command: to upload a JSON input file or a modified JSON
file containing variable information to a specific server instance
DISPLAY | SORTKEY Syntax Supported in the SQL ORDER BY Expression
The Oracle BI Server now accepts the DISPLAY and SORTKEY keywords in the SQL ORDER
BY expression.
Logical Level Sequence Numbers for Time Dimensions
The Sequence Numbers tab has been added to the Logical Level dialog. The new tab allows you
to add absolute or relative sequence numbers to time dimensions.
Oracle Database Fast Application Notification and Fast Connection Failover Supported by
Oracle BI Server
The Oracle BI Server supports the Fast Application Notification (FAN) event and Fast
Connection Failover (FCF) Oracle Database configuration. Fast Connection Failover enables
quick failover when the data source's Oracle database is not available. According to the
documentation, This functionality will run in the background. When an Oracle Business
Intelligence query initiated by an analysis user fails due to the Oracle database being unavailable,
the query will fail quickly and the user can then retry the query rather than waiting for the
database request to time out.

Oracle BI Publisher

Generate Explain Plan from SQL Data Set

You can now generate an Explain plan at the data set level for a single query or at the report
level for all queries in a report.

System Administration
Invoking WLST From a Single Location: Contrary to previous versions, WLST can only be
invoked from the Oracle_common folder
Oracle Home Location Redefined and No Middleware Home: simplification of the folder
hierarchy; there is no more a Middleware home only ORACLE_HOME.
OPMN is No Longer Used in Fusion Middleware:
OPMN has been deprecated; system components are managed by the Web Logic Management
Framework. The WebLogic Management Framework provides heterogeneous management
capabilities for Oracle Fusion Middleware products that require basic administrative capabilities.
Its capabilities include start, stop, configuration settings, and other such basic product lifecycle
operations through a common command line, API and user interface.
Moving From Test To Production is Carried Out in a Different Way: The migration process
between environment has radically changed, we shall revisit this in future posts. This used to be
a major pain point when working with Oracle BI.
New Commands For Process Control: new capabilities that include start, stop, configuration
settings, and other such basic product lifecycle operations through a common command line, API
and user interface.
Managing Metadata In Business Intelligence Archive Files: A compressed archive file that
contains a cohesive set of BI metadata artifacts (data model, content model, and authorization
model). Again one of the main pain points of Oracle BI; one can now get a compressed file
containing a cohesive set of BI artifacts (web cat, repository, security etc) that can be imported
into a BI instance. This makes it much easier to take a backup of a BI instance.
Single Enterprise Install: The Oracle BI installation has been simplified by only offering a
single install type for your Enterprise which provides an Administration server, and a Managed
server doing away with the Simple Install and the Software Only install.
Changes to Scaling Out: Scale out procedures for Oracle Business Intelligence have changed
Simplified Configuration: Configuration files are no longer duplicated.
Managing System Component Instances Using Commands: OBIS (BI Server) system
component instances are separately managed in BI 12.2.1 using service instance commands
Collecting Diagnostic Bundles: A new script enables you to collect the diagnostic bundles
Synchronizing Mid-Tier Database Connection Details Command needed by Oracle Support or
Development to help resolve issues
Synchronizing Mid-Tier Database Connection Details Command: Synchronizing Mid-Tier
Database Connection Details Command

Security features
BISystemUser and BISystem Removed: To simplify administration and configuration in this
release Oracle Business Intelligence no longer requires a real user called BISystemUser (or
equivalent) for internal communication. The system user concept is now deemed "virtual" and is
represented by the credential oracle.bi.system/system.user, for which the values are securely
randomly generated by the Configuration Assistant. Oracle BI components continue to use this
credential for internal communication, backed by Oracle BI Security. The application role
BISystem is also no longer present in the Policy Store, and will be removed from any upgraded
11g environment.
User GUIDs Removed: to simplify user administration, GUIDs have been replaced with user
names.
Database Security Store:Security Store (Policy and Credential Stores) is configured in a
relational database rather than in a file adding robustness; this file was prone to corruption.
Easier SSL Configuration: End to end SSL configuration has been simplified.
Migrating Catalog Groups to Application Roles: Introduction of a new process enables you to
migrate Catalog groups to application roles

BI Presentation Services
Enhancements to Graphs: Ability to sort graph views by using a context menu (right-click).
Enhancements to Views: Introduction of a new type of view (heat matrix), ability to sort graph,
heat matrix, pivot table, table, tree map, and trellis views by using a context menu
Enhancements to Analyses: specify whether to multiply data by a 100 to display it as a
percentage when setting the properties of a column a long overdue feature
Overall the In Release 12c (12.2.1) the look and feel of the user interface has been refreshed and
cleaned up.

OBIEE New & Deprecated Terminology and architecture

12.2.1.0.0 (12c)
Posted on November 15, 2015 by Kishore & Naresh
Standard

Dear all,
from oracle documentation, here is high level architecture diagram for OBIEE 12c 12.2.1.0 and
terminology difference between 11g & 12c

Terminology difference.
Terminology Used in 11g

Terminology Used in 12c

Middleware home

Oracle home

MW_HOME

ORACLE_HOME

In 11g the Middleware home is a container

for the Oracle WebLogic Server home, and,
optionally, one Oracle Common home and
one or more Oracle homes.

The Oracle home that is created for all the Oracle

Fusion Middleware products on a host computer. It
includes binary and library files, the Oracle
common directory and the individual product
directories for each Oracle Fusion Middleware
product you install.

This term is eliminated in 12c.

Product directory

PRODUCT_DIR

Oracle home

PRODUCT_ORACLE_HOME

Oracle instance

This term is eliminated in 12c.

Oracle Fusion Middleware farm

This term is eliminated in 12c.

The product directories within the Middleware

home are no longer Oracle homes. They are simply
directories within the Oracle home that are created
for all the Oracle Fusion Middleware products.
Most Oracle Fusion Middleware components
should be installed in the same Oracle home. The
names of the product homes are predefined and
can no longer be modified by the user during the
installation.
The installer will no longer create a separate
instance directory for system components,
such as Oracle HTTP Server. Instead, you
can use the Fusion Middleware
Configuration Wizard to configure your
system components, just as you do for Java
components. Instance information about
each system component will be stored in
the domain home.
The term farm is no longer necessary for
12c. It was used in 11g to refer to a
container for a WLS domain and its
associated system component instances
when presented in Fusion Middleware
Control.

1. OBIEE 12c Overview and New Features

 Product Overview
Key Components
Product Demo
Dataset Overview
Agenda
2. OBIEE 12c Creating Analyses
Dashboard Overview
Web Catalog
Creating Analyses using Answers
Create Reusable Calculations in Answers
Global Variables
Analysis Prompts
Filtering Data
Hierarchical Columns
Choosing the Right Visualization
Conditional Formatting
3. OBIEE 12c Creating Dashboards
Create Dashboards
Dashboard Prompts
Dashboards and Analyses Interaction
Presentation Variables
4. OBIEE 12c Actionable Intelligence
What is Actionable Intelligence
Type of Actions
Navigation Actions
Action Links
Agents and Alerts
Conditions
5. OBIEE 12c Visual Analyzer Option
Visual Analyzer

 BI Ask
Data Mashups
6. Introduction to RPD Modelling
Physical Layer
Aliases
Business Layer
Facts and Dimensions
Logical Table Source
Hierarchies (including Parent-Child , Ragged and Skip-level hierarchies)
Basic Calculations
Presentation Layer
Offline/Online Development
7. Advanced RPD Modelling
Time-series calculations
Horizontal & Vertical Federation
Fragmentation
Server Variables
Row-Level Security
8. Architecture and Installation (including upgrades)
Architecture
Changes in the Architecture and Directory Structure
Installation Process
Upgrading from 11g
9. Security
WebLogic users and groups
WebLogic Providers
OEM Roles and Policies
Presentation Services Administration
Catalog Security
Presentation Layer Security

10. Systems Management

Overview of System Administration
Starting/Stopping Services
Deployments and Environment Migration
Baseline Validation Tool
Basic Monitoring
Usage Tracking
Query Caching