Metavero

If you have a travel budget or are in the Asia Pacific area, then mark March 21st and 22nd off on your calendar.

My good friend Cameron Lackpour is presenting at the BI/EPM Seriously Practical conference in Melbourne, Australia.   Richard Philipson from New Zealand who I also consider a friend will be there as well.  They both tend to have compelling and entertaining presentations–so pack your bags and check it out!   For those of you in the area this is a not to be missed event.

I would love to visit Australia again — with my recent job move I have too many things going on to contemplate and the budget may not be there just yet.

Happy New Year!

I wish everyone a great 2013, today I give you a walk through of my new test server build on YouTube.   I discuss the individual pieces of a server and build it in real-time in a 90 minute video.

After the build was completed I installed Windows Server 2012 as well as Oracle Enterprise Linux 6 Update 3.   I then installed Essbase 11.1.2.2 on both systems.  Although Essbase is not technically supported on Server 2012 it was a fairly painless process — NOTE: I did attempt to put a full EPM Suite on and there was some unhappiness with the WebLogic portions so I went ahead and only put Essbase on using my other test machine for the Web portion.

Enjoy!

I have just finished ordering the parts for my new test server at home.  It consists of: an Intel Server Chassis supporting dual six core Xeon processors, 128 GB of Ram, and four Corsair Force GS 180 GB solid state drives.

Presuming shipping goes as expected and it arrives by 12/27 I will begin a build before the weekend which I will capture and upload to YouTube.

I’m excited to do this build and hope it is indeed compatible with the LSI 9271-8iCC controller which has been giving me headaches in my ASUS server.

The old server was aggregating a test Essbase database to 86 page files in less than 30 minutes using solid state disks as the data store; the new server and LSI card should beat that handily.

The fun thing (or not so fun sometimes) about installing the Hyperion suite of products is the occasional quirk you run across.  Today’s post is about one of those.   This one less annoying than some and more than others.

In a new 11.1.2.2 environment one of my team was having difficulty getting Essbase Administration Services to deploy.

Google, forum searches, and My Oracle Support searches were not helpful.  I knew it was complicated enough I was not going to call Oracle Support and work through the typical process.  The thing about infrastructure compared to the functional side is we have to solve things in a matter of hours.  A few days delay and our schedule and work pipeline are potentially all out of whack.

The Problem

Essbase Administration Services which was on a separate server from the Weblogic Administration Server would not deploy properly.

The below error showed up in the EAS sysout log:

The error was Failed to create App/Comp mbeans for AppDeploymentMBean RAFRAMEWORK#11.1.2.0 Error – weblogic.management.DeploymentException: No META-INF/application.xml was found in the EAR RAFRAMEWORK#11.1.2.0

We immediately went to the Web server which had Foundation and Reporting and Analysis Services (this wasn’t our typical infrastructure however something we had to work with — not that this in itself would cause this problem).  Starting the RA Framework Web service also gave a similar error as above which narrowed the scope of the problem.

The Solution

I decided a partial re-install was necessary.  First we backed out 3 patches related to Reporting and Analysis framework.  Removal of one patch made light of a problem with the raframework.ear file which was staged in the installableApps folder.

On inspection it was clear the raframework.ear file was corrupt.  The file header looked proper however the file size was 116 bytes (obviously not how big it should be).

We continued removal of each patch and then did a re-installation of the Reporting and Analysis components.  Application of the patches then gave us a raframework.ear file which was in the acceptable range (just shy of 5 MB).

In my KSCOPE12 presentation,  Planning for and Managing Hyperion Infrastructure, I give a 100,000 foot view of monitoring.

In this article I bring monitoring down to a 20,000 foot view.

There are many products on the market to choose from for monitoring your Hyperion system(s).

In a nut shell you need a solution which has the below capabilities and characteristics:

• Little or no false alarms
• Ability to monitor: Database, Disk, Processor, Memory, and Network
• Ability to extend base product capabilities with custom monitoring
• Ability to test key parts of the system to prove it really is working

I narrow the field down to five that I believe have one or more of the following qualities: easy to implement, inexpensive, and/or purpose built for Hyperion.   You may note I have excluded solutions from: BMC, IBM, HP, and CA which have products not exhibiting the former qualities.

• Accelatis
• GROUNDWORK
• Nagios
• OPSVIEW
• Quest (Dell)  Big Brother

When implementing any new software you should go through an evaluation cycle to understand how one tool compares to another in terms of capabilities and price.

The Problem

You understand Perl scripting and want to deploy a quick solution to monitor which is free and has no real infrastructure needs and can be deployed in less than an hour.

The Solution

The below Perl code was a weekend project several months back.  It does have a feature (testing of Smart View logins)  you may wish to integrate with a more formal monitoring solution.

It is easy to implement and can run from your existing Hyperion deployment with no other software.  It relies on Perl and will work with the versions available on the 11.1.2 Hyperion line.

Modify the configuration file to suite your environment.   This means changing the server names to correspond to those which are applicable to your environment, adding or removing services, adding or removing log and keywords, setting your system outage times, and finally scheduling the script to run on an interval (usually every 5 minutes).

NOTE: The mail server configuration is hard-coded in the script so be sure to update that.

Sample config file:

#Current code has some windows specifics e.g. the \\ notation.
#UPDATE BELOW SAMPLE and change JAVA_APP_01 to your main java application server
#UPDATE BELOW SAMPLE and change ESS_APP_01 to be your Essbase
#TYPE,ID,TYPE_ATTRIB
#Down time cannot cross days.
down_time,ALL,SAT_2100_2330
down_time,ESB,ALL_0300_0430
credentials,user,password
email,OPS,notify1@myco.com
email,OPS,notify2@myco.com
#We can clean this up as we know which java.lang we really care about.
#You will probably ignore all java exceptions as there are a lot of "normal" ones
error_action,java.lang,notify
#ORA-01033: ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress
#error_action,ORA-01033,notify
log,APSWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9aps-sysout.log
log,CALCWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9CALC-sysout.log
log,EASWEBB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9eas-sysout.log
log,SSWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9FoundationServices-sysout.log
log,FRWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9FRReports-sysout.log
log,PLNWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9Planning-sysout.log
log,RAFWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9RaFramework-sysout.log
log,RAFAGENT,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9RaFrameworkAgentOut.log
log,WAWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9WebAnalysis-sysout.log
log,APSWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9aps-sysout.log
log,CALCWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9CALC-sysout.log
log,EASWEBB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9eas-sysout.log
log,SSWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9FoundationServices-sysout.log
log,FRWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9FRReports-sysout.log
log,PLNWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9Planning-sysout.log
log,RAFWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9RaFramework-sysout.log
log,RAFAGENT,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9RaFrameworkAgentOut.log
log,WAWEB,\\JAVA_APP_01\c$\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\logs\services\HyS9WebAnalysis-sysout.log
service,APSWEB,HyS9aps
service,CALCWEB,HyS9CALC
service,EASWEB,HyS9eas
service,EPMADS,HyS9EPMADataSynchronizer
service,EPMAWEB,HyS9EPMAWebTier
service,SSWEB,HyS9FoundationServices
service,ESB,opmn_EPM_epmsystem1
service,FRWEB,HyS9FRReports
service,PLNWEB,HyS9Planning
service,RAFWEB,HyS9RaFramework
service,RAFAGENT,HyS9RaFrameworkAgent
service,WAWEB,HyS9WebAnalysis
service,RMIREG,Hyperion RMI Registry
machine,ESB,ESS_APP01
machine,RAFAGENT,JAVA_APP_01
machine,FRWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,PLNWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,EASWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,RMIREG,JAVA_APP_01
machine,APSWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,WAWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,SSWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,RAFWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,RAFAGENT,JAVA_APP_01
machine,FRWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,PLNWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,EASWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,RMIREG,JAVA_APP_01
machine,APSWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,WAWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,SSWEB,JAVA_APP_01
machine,RAFWEB,JAVA_APP_01
port,ESB,1423
port,EPMADIM,5251
port,EPMAJNI,5255
port,RAFAGENT,6860
port,FRWEB,8200
port,PLNWEB,8300
port,CALCWEB,8500
port,EASWEB,10080
port,RMIREG,11333
port,APSWEB,13080
port,WAWEB,16000
port,EPMADS,19101
port,EPMAWEB,19091
port,SSWEB,28080
port,RAFWEB,45000
appcheck,RAFAGENT,port
appcheck,ESB,port
appcheck,RAFWEB,loginwks
appcheck,FRWEB,port
appcheck,PLNWEB,port
appcheck,CALCWEB,port
appcheck,EASWEB,port
appcheck,RMIREG,port
appcheck,APSWEB,port
appcheck,WAWEB,port
appcheck,EPMADS,port
appcheck,EPMAWEB,port
appcheck,SSWEB,port

Perl script:

use strict;
use Switch;
use File::stat;
use IO::Socket;
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request::Common;
use HTTP::Cookies;
use URI::Escape;
use Net::SMTP;

my $user_id;
my $password;
my @Machines=();
my @OPSEmailNotify=();
my %LoggedErrors;
my %ApplicationCheck;
my %Downtime;
my %ErrorAction;
my %Logs;
my %Ports;
my %Service;

#DB Outage window Saturdays from 9:00 PM - 11:30

my $service_message="";
my $service_timestamp="";
my %day_hash = ('SUN',0,'MON',1,'TUE',2,'WED',3,'THU',4,'FRI',5,'SAT',6);

my($filepath,$junk) = split(/\./,$0);
#Name the configuration file with same name as script. e.g. system_mon.pl and system_mon.cfg or mon.pl and mon.cfg
my $config_file=$filepath.".cfg";
print "Reading $config_file\n";
open (CONFIG_FILE,$config_file) || die "cannot open file $config_file\n";

my @lines = <CONFIG_FILE>;
close(CONFIG_FILE);

my $index;
my $type;
my $id;
my $type_attrib;
my $count = @lines;
print "Found $count lines in ".$config_file."\n";
for ($index = 0;$index< $count;$index++) {
if (!($lines[$index] =~m/^\#/)) {
($type,$id,$type_attrib)=split(/,/,$lines[$index]);
chomp $type_attrib;

switch ($type) {
 case "error_action" {$ErrorAction{ $id } = $type_attrib;}
 case "down_time" {$Downtime{ $id } = $type_attrib;}
 case "log" {$Logs{ $id } = $type_attrib;}
 case "service" {$Service{ $id } = $type_attrib;}
 case "port" {$Ports{ $id } = $type_attrib;}
 case "appcheck" {$ApplicationCheck{ $id } = $type_attrib;}
 case "machine" {push(@Machines,"$id,$type_attrib");}
 case "email" {if ($id eq "OPS") {push(@OPSEmailNotify,"$type_attrib");}}
 case "credentials" { $user_id = $id; $password = $type_attrib; }
 else { print "unknown type $type, ignoring\n"};

 }
 }
}

my $ERROR_FH;
my $error_file=$filepath.".err";

if (-f $error_file) {
 open ($ERROR_FH,"<", $error_file) || die "cannot open file $error_file\n";
 while (<$ERROR_FH>) {
 chomp $_;
 my($ts,$app,$log)=split(/_/);
 $LoggedErrors{ $app.$ts } = $log;
 }
 close $ERROR_FH;
}

open ($ERROR_FH,">", $error_file) || die "cannot open file $error_file\n";

#Loop through down-time and perform checks if we are not in down_time window
if (downtime_check("ALL")) { print("Down time window, no system checks shall be ran.\n"); }
else {
 application_check($ERROR_FH);
 monitor_logs($ERROR_FH);
}

close $ERROR_FH;

sub application_check() {
my $FH = shift @_;
my $error_message="";
my $ts=localtime;
foreach (@Machines) {
my($service_id,$machine_name)=split(/,/);
if (downtime_check($service_id)==0) {
 switch ($ApplicationCheck{$service_id}) {
 case "port" { if (port_check($machine_name,$service_id)) {printf $FH "%s_%s_%s\n",$machine_name,$Ports{$service_id},$ts;
 if (!exists($LoggedErrors{$Ports{$service_id}.$machine_name})) { $error_message=$error_message."Machine Name: $machine_name Service:$Service{$service_id} Port:$Ports{$service_id} not available\n"}} }
 case "loginwks" {
 switch (logon_raf_smartview($machine_name,"IIS",$user_id,$password)) {
 case "1" { printf $FH "%s_%s_%s\n",$machine_name,"loginwks",$ts; if (!exists($LoggedErrors{"loginwks".$machine_name})) {$error_message=$error_message."logon_raf_smartview: $machine_name Invalid User or Password passed to login_raf_smartview!"; }}
 case "2" { printf $FH "%s_%s_%s\n",$machine_name,"loginwks",$ts; if (!exists($LoggedErrors{"loginwks".$machine_name})) {$error_message=$error_message."logon_raf_smartview: $machine_name Service:".$Service{'SSWEB'}." FAILED\n";}}
 case "3" { printf $FH "%s_%s_%s\n",$machine_name,"loginwks",$ts; if (!exists($LoggedErrors{"loginwks".$machine_name})) {$error_message=$error_message."logon_raf_smartview: $machine_name Service:".$Service{'RAFWEB'}." FAILED\n";}}
 case "4" { printf $FH "%s_%s_%s\n",$machine_name,"loginwks",$ts; if (!exists($LoggedErrors{"loginwks".$machine_name})) {$error_message=$error_message."logon_raf_smartview: $machine_name Service:".$Service{'RAFAGENT'}." FAILED\n";}}
 else {}
 }
 }
 else { print "No application check found for type $service_id\n"};
 }

}
}
if (length($error_message)>0) { email_alert("Hyperion Log Alert",$error_message,\@OPSEmailNotify);}
}

sub restart_service {
my $computer_name=shift @_;
my $service_name=shift @_;
system("sc stop $service_name");
sleep(30);
system("sc start $service_name");
}

sub port_check () {
my $machine_name=shift @_;
my $service_id=shift @_;
my $sock = new IO::Socket::INET (
 PeerAddr => $machine_name,
 PeerPort => $Ports{$service_id},
 Proto => 'tcp',
 Timeout => '2',
 );
if ($sock) { close($sock); return 0; }
else { return 1;}
}

sub monitor_logs {
my $FH = shift @_;
my $ts;
my $error_message="";

print "Monitor Logs\n";

while ( my ($app_id, $log_path) = each(%Logs) ) {
if (-f $log_path) {
 open (FILE, "< $log_path") or die("Cannot open input file $log_path\n");
 while () {
 if (substr($_, 0, 1) eq "<") { $service_message=$_; my $junk; ($ts,$junk)=split(/\>/);
 ($junk,$ts)=split(/\0) { email_alert("Hyperion Log Alert",$error_message,\@OPSEmailNotify);}
}

sub logon_raf_smartview() {
my $SERVER=shift;
my $WEBSERVER=shift;
my $USER=shift;
my $PASSWORD=shift;
my $CLIENT_VERSION="4.2.0.0.0";
my $SERVER_PORT;

if ($WEBSERVER !~ m/IIS/) { $SERVER_PORT=$SERVER.":19000"; }
else {$SERVER_PORT=$SERVER;}

my $userAgent = LWP::UserAgent->new(agent => 'HttpApp/1.0');

# Store Cookies
$userAgent->cookie_jar(
 HTTP::Cookies->new(
 file => 'mycookies.txt',
 autosave => 1
 )
 );

my $message = "<req_ConnectToProvider>".$CLIENT_VERSION."en_US";
my $response = $userAgent->request(POST 'http://'.$SERVER_PORT.'/workspace/SmartViewProviders',
Content_Type => 'text/xml',
Content => $message);

if (!$response->is_success || $response->as_string !~ m/Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Workspace/) {
print("login_raf_smartview: Failed to receive workspace response from $SERVER_PORT, check Hyperion Foundation Services - Managed Server\n");
return 2;
}

my $message = "<req_GetProvisionedDataSources>";
my $response = $userAgent->request(POST 'http://'.$SERVER_PORT.'/workspace/SmartViewProviders',
Content_Type => 'text/xml',
Content => $message);

if (!$response->is_success || $response->as_string !~ m/User authentication needed/) {
print("login_raf_smartview: Failed to receive workspace authentication challenge from $SERVER_PORT, check Hyperion Foundation Services - Managed Server\n");
return 2;
}

my $message = "<req_GetProvisionedDataSources>".$USER."".$PASSWORD."";
my $response = $userAgent->request(POST 'http://'.$SERVER_PORT.'/workspace/SmartViewProviders',
Content_Type => 'text/xml',
Content => $message);

if ($response->is_success && $response->as_string =~ m/Invalid login/) {
print("login_raf_smartview: Invalid username or password passed to login_raf_smartview function in monitoring script\n");
return 1;
}

if (!$response->is_success || $response->as_string !~ m/\<sso\>/) {
print("login_raf_smartview: Failed to receive sso token from $SERVER_PORT, check Hyperion Foundation Services - Managed Server\n");
return 2;
}

my $sso_token = substr($response->as_string,index($response->as_string,"")+5,index($response->as_string,"")-index($response->as_string,"")-5);

$message="<req_GetProvisionedDataSources>".$sso_token."";
my $response = $userAgent->request(POST 'http://'.$SERVER_PORT.'/workspace/SmartViewProviders',
Content_Type => 'text/xml',
Content => $message);

if (!$response->is_success || $response->as_string !~ m/res_GetProvisionedDataSources/) {
print("login_raf_smartview: Failed to receive response to GetProvisionedDataSources request from $SERVER_PORT, check Hyperion Foundation Services - Managed Server\n");
return 2;
}

my $message = "rcp_version=1.4&sso_token=".uri_escape($sso_token)."&applicationtype=officeAddin&applicationversion=1.0.0&format=excel.2003&hycmnaddin18467=41&action=server";
my $response = $userAgent->request(POST 'http://'.$SERVER_PORT.'/raframework/browse/listXML',
Content_Type => 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8',
Content => $message);

if (!$response->is_success && $response->as_string =~ m/Service Unavailable/) {
print("login_raf_smartview: Failed to conect to $SERVER_PORT. Check Hyperion Reporting and Analysis Framework Web Application\n");
return 3;
}

if ($response->is_success && $response->as_string =~ m/port 6800/) {
print("login_raf_smartview: Failed to conect. Server cannot connect to port 6800, check Hyperion Reporting Analysis Framework\n");
return 4;
}

print("login_raf_smartview: passed for $SERVER_PORT\n");
return 0;
}

sub downtime_check() {
my $service_id=shift @_;

my $system_downtime=0;
my ($seconds,$minute,$hour,$day,$month,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst)=localtime(time);
my $hourmin=$hour*100 + $minute;

if (exists($Downtime{$service_id})) {
 my($dow,$start_time,$end_time)=split(/_/,$Downtime{$service_id});
 if ( (uc($dow) eq "ALL" || $day_hash{uc($dow)} == $wday)&& $hourmin>=$start_time && $hourmin<=$end_time) { return 1;} }
return 0; }

sub email_alert {
my $SUBJ=shift;
my $MESSAGE=shift;
my $NOTIFY_USER_ARRAY=shift;
my $MAIL_SERVER='smtpl.myco.com';
my $BATCH_USER='Hyperion_Mon@myco.com';
my $mailto;
my $smtp = Net::SMTP->new($MAIL_SERVER);
print $smtp->banner();
$smtp->mail($BATCH_USER);

print $smtp->code();
print $smtp->message();

$smtp->recipient(@$NOTIFY_USER_ARRAY);

print $smtp->code();
print $smtp->message();

$smtp->data();
foreach $mailto (@$NOTIFY_USER_ARRAY) {
print "Notifying $mailto \n";
$smtp->datasend("To: $mailto\n");
}
$smtp->datasend("Subject: $ENV{COMPUTERNAME} - $SUBJ\n\n");
$smtp->datasend("\n");
$smtp->datasend("$MESSAGE\n");
$smtp->dataend();

print $smtp->code();
print $smtp->message();

$smtp->quit;
}

NOTE:  Oracle released patches since this original article was published in July of 2009.   Please review my post on Patches and Hyperion compatibility.  I have had contacts about the article for those who wanted to change a couple of lines rather than apply complete patches; while I don’t recommend this approach I do respect the need  for work-arounds.

With Microsoft is becoming more aggressive with making IE8 the default Internet Explorer browser on windows platforms we are seeing more and more customers having issues with the Oracle | Hyperion 11.x platform and IE8.

The last few days I spent a little tracking down the compatibility issue.

When using IE8 with the 11.1 Suite you would encounter the below issues:

1. If you log into Workspace and then run Planning or HFM and then log out of those you would get an error regarding a null object.
2. I’ve also had reports of users logging into HFM and it just hanging although have not seen this behavior.
3. Library job console links would not work properly when loading dimensions in EPMA or deploying apps in EPMA.

The Problem

The Hyperion platform makes use of a third party Ajax framework made by http://www.bindows.com

They key conflict with IE8 is due to the versions 3.0 / 1.5 of Bindows attempting to use a null value for a zIndex property.  This property controls which objects show in front of other objects.

Microsoft documents the zIndex property at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms531188%28VS.85%29.aspx

The Solution

The files that need updated are named (11.x) core.ie.js and (11.x/9.3x) core.js and there will be multiple copies on each application server.

OLD CODE:

• _p.setZIndex=function(nZIndex){this.setStyleProperty(“zIndex”,nZIndex);}

NEW Code:

• _p.setZIndex=function(nZIndex){if (nZIndex==null) this.setStyleProperty(“zIndex”,0); else this.setStyleProperty(“zIndex”,nZIndex);}

TIP

As always with IE you should setup your Hyperion Web Servers as Trusted Sites.

For IE7/IE8 to make menus work properly you need to ensure the below setting is enabled:

• Navigate to Tools / Internet Options / Security / Trusted Sites / Custom level / Misc
• Enable ‘Allow script-initiated windows without size or position constraint’

Web Analysis is not compatible with Java 6 — for Web Analysis to work properly you will need to use Java 5 Update 22.

See: http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/5u22/jre