Building an OBIEE Test Lab

About 1.5 years ago I bought myself a nice little desktop. The only issues I've had with this computer over that time are the OS upgrades (Ubuntu). It has been an outstanding machine. I currently have 3 "computers" running, 2 Windows VMs and the host machine. I've had upwards of 5 running at once. That's with only 24 GB of RAM. I plan on upgrading to 48 in the near future (max of 96).

One of the motivators for buying the machine was the recent (at the time) release of OBIEE 11g, which required significantly more power. I've installed OBIEE 11g a number of times in virtual machines, but usually just put everything on a single machine (Oracle Enterprise Linux).

Now, I'd like to build out a machine for each component. Why? I have no earthly idea. Fun perhaps?

So here's my starting point:



There are no lines or anything yet, I'm just trying to get it down on paper before I start.

There are 4 distinct sets of software there:

• Oracle Database 11.2.0.2 - This will serve as the repository for OBIEE and most likely OVD/OAM (I don't know that software well enough yet).
• OBIEE 11.1.1.6
• Oracle Identity Management
• Oracle Web Tier - This is the Oracle HTTP Server and Oracle WebCache. You can find it on e-delivery

That means you can ignore the "Oracle LDAP" and replace it with Oracle Identity Management. I'll figure out later what all the components will be.

Also, you could split that up into 5 software components. You can install WebLogic by itself and then install (software only) OBIEE on top of that. Doubt I'll go that route for this first go, but we'll see. None of this includes source systems either. Somewhere around here I have a fresh install of EBS. Then I would have to install Informatica and the DAC. I'm sure I could get this up to 10 machines. I must watch out for scope creep. Bah, who am I kidding?

As I update my Visio doc I'll update the blog as well and share the progress with you.

I'll start by creating a snapshot of Oracle Enterprise Linux (5.7 I believe is the latest compatible release with OBIEE) and then use that as the base for everything else (database, web tier, etc). If I'm missing something or you think I should add something, leave a comment.

SOUG: That Developer Guy

Not sure if you've heard of this guy. I've written about his tool, err...I mean his former tool...gah, I mean his former IDE before.

Jeff Smith left the dark side to join the mothership, Oracle, late last year. Last night, he visited us down here in Tampa.

He was here once before, when he worked from that other company. You can read about that visit here.

For those who have come to our user group, it's heavy on the DBA side. Not may developers. Not sure what that really has to do with anything, just thought I'd mention it.

You can find him on Twitter and his blog. If you don't know who he is, then you've probably never 1, used Toad, 2, used SQL Developer or SQL Developer Data Modeler C, you don't drink beer and F, you're not from West Virginia. You might count yourself lucky on that last point.

In a surprise twist, for me anyway, I'm not the first to write about Jeff's visit to Tampa. Jon Bloom from Bloom Consulting BI beat me to the punch. I concur with everything that Jon says.

Jeff was his usual self, maybe a Stephen Wright of Presenting. Dry and always funny with great audience interaction. I'm hoping my presence helped as he picked on me quite a bit, but I'm sure he'd have found someone if I wasn't there. I picked up a few cool new tricks. We talked about Twitter (naturally), had debates about the cloud (seriously derailed there) and whether or not you should write code (procedures, functions, packages) directly in the database. Good times.

Jeff is a must see.

Of course there was an after party. I had planned on spending some more time with Jeff than I did, but I had production issues to take care of. Besides, I think he was busy napping. Anyway, Troy (SOUG President), the aforementioned Dan McGhan, Michael (I'm not allowed to print his real name, this is a family blog), myself and Jeff headed over to Ybor city. Jeff wanted a cigar and while in Rome...We sat outside of King Corona for an hour or two and chatted about lots of things. Jeff told us all the cool new features coming out in 12c (OK, I lied...we tried to ply him with beer but he wouldn't divulge any secrets).

No pictures for you today. I wasn't in a picture taking mode. I did try to take a panoramic of the presentation, but my phone/camera borked.

Oh yeah, Jeff yelled at me for replacing his kid's picture...so I put it back up (for at least a day).