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OBIEE 12.2.1 External Subject Area Cache Configuration

Customer Engineering & Advocacy Lab
December 2015

External Subject Area Cache: What is it?

Data Blending is a new Concept in OBIEE 12c where you can blend
your own data with corporate data
External Subject Area Cache aka XSA Cache: New Mechanism for
caching Excel Files for Data Mash ups in Databases.
Enabling XSA Cache will help improving the performance of
uploaded content.

External Subject Area Cache: Configuration

Steps

Creation of a Schema owner with table space in supported Oracle

11g or 12c Databases
Adding the Physical Data source along with connection pool in
Live Repository online or offline.
Enabling XSA Cache in NQSConfig.ini
Re-start of Oracle BI Server aka NQ Server
Validating of XSA Cache Configuration.

External Subject Area: Configuration Steps

Creation of XSA Cache Schema
Create the XSA Cache Schema in a DB: connect to supported Oracle 11g or 12c
databases using SQL Developer or SQLPlus etc.
Create a schema owner:
Example: CREATE USER XSA_CACHE IDENTIFIED BY welcome1;
Grant Session and Create Table privileges to Schema owner:
Example: GRANT CREATE SESSION TO XSA_CACHE;
Example: GRANT CREATE TABLE TO XSA_CACHE;
Create a table space, make sure the note down the correct data file path:
Example: CREATE TABLESPACE XSA_CACHE_TABLESPACE DATAFILE '/
scratch/app/12c/oradata/CEAL/datafile/xsa_cache_tablespace.dbf' SIZE 5G
LOGGING EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT
AUTO;
Alter the schema owner to use the table space created above:
Example: ALTER USER XSA_CACHE DEFAULT TABLESPACE
XSA_CACHE_TABLESPACE;
Example: ALTER USER XSA_CACHE QUOTA UNLIMITED ON
XSA_CACHE_TABLESPACE;

External Subject Area: Configuration Steps

Preparing Live Repository
Open up Live repository in online mode using OBIEE 12.2.1 Administration Tool on
Windows 2012 R2.You can execute this step in offline mode as well.
Create a Physcial Data Source
Example: XSACache
Create a Physical Schema under Physical Data Source created in pervious step
Example: XSA_CACHE
Create a Connection Pool for this Physical Data Source.
Example: CP
Add Connect String, User Name, Password for the Schema that you created in Previous
Slide.
Example: Connect String = DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)
(HOST=hostname)(PORT=xxxx))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)(SID
= xxxx)))
Example: User Name = XSA_CACHE
Example: Password = welcome1
Check in the online changes and save the online repository. Or do save the offline
repository. Dont do the consistency check.

External Subject Area: Configuration Steps

Update the NQSConfig.ini File
Go to your server box, and go to your ORACLE_HOME
Browse to BIConfig Folder @ <ORACLE_HOME>/user_projects/domains/bi/config/
fmwconfig/biconfig/OBIS
Open NQSConfig.INI using any editor.
Edit the following content to the changes that you made to repository online or offline in
the previous slide.
##################################################################
# External Subject Area Cache Section
##################################################################
[ XSA_CACHE ]
ENABLE = YES;
PHYSICAL_SCHEMA = "XSACache"."XSA_CACHE";
CONNECTION_POOL = "XSACache"."CP";
MAX_TOTAL_SPACE = 5 GB; # Match this with your tablespace size
MAX_CACHE_ENTRY_SIZE = 100 MB;
DESCRIPTOR_STORAGE_PATH = "xsacache";
CACHE_SEED_THREAD_RANGE = 0-40;
CACHE_SEED_THREAD_STACK_SIZE = 0;
Stop the NQS Server using <ORACLE_HOME>/user_projects/domains/bi/bitool/bin/stop.sh I obis1

Start the NQS Server using <ORACLE_HOME>/user_projects/domains/bi/bitools/bin/start.sh I obis1

External Subject Area: Configuration Steps

Validating XSA Cache Setup
Open up obis1-diagnostic.log file located at @ <ORACLE_HOME>/user_projects/
domains/bi/server/obis1/logs
Search for External Subject Area Cache key word. If configured correctly, you should
see following lines:
[2015-12-09T12:30:39.123-08:00] [OBIS] [NOTIFICATION:1] [] [] [ecid: ] [sik: ssi] [tid: 69cc1720] [101001]
External Subject Area cache is started successfully using configuration from the repository with the logical
name ssi.
[2015-12-09T12:30:39.123-08:00] [OBIS] [NOTIFICATION:1] [] [] [ecid: ] [sik: ssi] [tid: 69cc1720] [101017]
External Subject Area cache has been initialized. Total number of entries: 0 Used space: 0 bytes Maximum
space: 107374182400 bytes Remaining space: 107374182400 bytes. Cache table name prefix is
XC3561241260.

Done

How to Increase the Upload File Size Limit?

How to Increase the Upload File Size Limit?

The Default Upload File Size limit is 100 MB
We can increase it to higher value and this value will depend on your use case, what makes
sense for your companys policies.
This is configured via Enterprise Manager, using System Mbeans.
Login to OBIEE 12.2.1 EM console using admin username & password.
Go to BI Weblogic Domain System Mbean Browser (you need to right click on
Weblogic Domain properties
Search for oracle.dss under Application Defined Mbeans
Go to your serviced instance, in my example, my serviced instance is ssi

oracle.dss Server:bi_server1 Limits ssi

Look for FileUploadLimit and change the default value to your business agreed upon value.
Click Apply.
Done. The new value persists as soon as you are done applying.
Open up a new project and relogging to VA is recommended for picking up this new changed
limit.

Using RAMDISK for Storing XSA Cache

Metadata
Once you enable XSA Cache in NQSConfig.ini file, it will store the data for
uploaded Excel files in XSA Cache Databases, but will store the metadata on the
local file system.
For performance improvements, we recommend that you should put your XSA
Cache Metadata Files on RAMDISK (we are using Linux 64 as our OS in all the
examples)
Ensure to sufficient RAMDISK
Create folder on the RAMDISK.

Example: mkdir /dev/shm/xsacache

Go to <ORACLE_HOME>/user_projects/domains/bi/servers/obis1
Backup existing xsacache folder

Example: mv xsacache xscache_orig

Create a Soft link here pointing to RAMDISK XSA Cache folder with same name.

Example: ln -s /dev/shm/xsacache xsacache

Restart the NQ Server process using ./stop.sh and ./start.sh commands available
under bitools folder.

Using RAMDISK for Storing Managed Server

Temp Files
Since VA and Other BI Applications are running inside the managed server, you can put
managed server temp files also on RAMDISK to gain little more performance boost.
Ensure to sufficient RAMDISK
Create one more RAMDISK folder for Managed Server Temp Files.

Example: mkdir /dev/shm/biserver1_tmp

Now browse to <Oracle_Home>/user_projects/domains/bi/bin and backup

setStartupEnv.sh
Edit setStartupEnv.sh and add -Djava.io.tmpdir=/dev/shm/biserver1_tmp to the
following lines inside "${STARTUP_GROUP}" = "BISUITE-MAN-SVR section:
# 64 bit JVM memory settings
SERVER_MEM_ARGS_64="-Xms256m -Xmx2048m -Djava.io.tmpdir=/dev/shm/biserver1_tmp"
export SERVER_MEM_ARGS_64
SERVER_MEM_ARGS_64HotSpot="-Xms256m -Xmx2048m -Djava.io.tmpdir=/dev/shm/biserver1_tmp"
export SERVER_MEM_ARGS_64HotSpot
SERVER_MEM_ARGS_64JRockit="-Xms256m -Xmx2048m -Djava.io.tmpdir=/dev/shm/biserver1_tmp"
export SERVER_MEM_ARGS_64JRockit

Restart the complete Instance. (./stop.sh and then ./start.sh)