Running EAS web console using different Java versions

Recently there was an OTN thread about invoking the EAS web console using different Java versions and it is a question that crops up time and time again.

Tim German wrote an excellent blog outlining the problem and a possible workaround, now I don’t want to discredit the method that Tim proposed in any way as it perfectly fine but I use a different technique and wanted to share as the way I see it the more options available the better.

For many different reasons it is possible that multiple versions of a JRE are installed on a client machine and probably the main reason is various software applications support different versions of Java.

It is possible to run multiple versions of Java without any issues but when using the EAS web console the user is usually forced down the route of the latest installed Java version being automatically invoked, yes it is possible to enable and disable the versions but sometimes this can be a pain when running multiple applications and in some cases an internal IT group policy will stop any changes being made in the Java control panel.

For example if I access the EAS web console then Java 8 which is not currently supported is automatically used as this is the latest version installed on my machine.

In theory you might think that starting up EAS by specifying the version of Java first would help but when accessed the JNLP file controls which version of Java will be invoked.

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaws.exe" http://fusion11:10080/easconsole/easconsole.jnlp

In the above example Java 6 web start is used and the EAS JNLP is called, you will see the Java 6 flash screen appear but then the version of Java which will be used to start the console is defined by the contents of the JNLP which I will get onto shortly

 

So in my case Java 8 is invoked for running the EAS web console.

To get around this I use the following method which seems to work well for me.

First I want to download the JNLP to my machine instead of calling it each time from the EAS server where you have no control over it.

I create a test file with a jnlp extension and if you take a look at the properties you will notice by default it will open using Java Web Start Launcher.

I updated the property so it opens using notepad.

Now when I access the EAS web console the JNLP file is downloaded and I can it to my desktop.

If the easconole.jnlp file is edited you will see the following line in the xml code:

      <j2se initial-heap-size="32m" max-heap-size="256m" version="1.6+"/>

This basically means that the version of Java that will be invoked will be the latest version available that is greater or equal to 6 so in my case the web console will be run using Java 8

Once the jnlp file has been downloaded the property can be set back to opening with Java Web Start Launcher.

So to be able to run EAS using Java 6 I copied the jnlp file and edited to set the version to 1.6 instead of 1.6+

Then to start EAS I used the following syntax which runs Java Web Start 6 and also calls the updated JNLP file.

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaws.exe" C:\EASConsoleTesting\easconsole16.jnlp

Taking a look at the Java Console and the properties of the Java process which EAS is running against it clearly indicates that Java 6 is correctly being used.

To use Java 7 it is a simple as copying and creating a new JNLP file then updating the version to 1.7

The syntax is the same but this time calling Java Web Start 7

Once again looking at the properties confirms the correct version of Java is being used.

It is also possible to target an exact update version so in my case I have both Java 7 update 45 and 55 installed but I want to open EAS using update 45.

This time in the JNLP file the version is set as “1.7.0_45” though to get it work I also had to add:

href=”http://java.sun.com/products/autodl/j2se”

 

The command to run is exactly using the same format.

The correct version of Java being run is confirmed.

So that is my take on running EAS web console using different Java versions, enjoy!

11.1.2.3.500 Sample Planning application and more

I have always found the sample application that comes with planning to be a bit of a disappointment and it does not really showcase planning functionality very well, there is not much information on what it is about and it has not been updated since the early days of version 9 plus you have to go through the cumbersome process of creating, initialising and then loading the data.

If you are looking to learn planning it does not really give you much to go on and personally I have only really used the application to prove Planning and Essbase are working as they should.

With the release of Oracle’s Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) I think they must have looked at the sample application and thought that is just not good enough so have invested time in giving the application an overhaul.

It seems to be Oracle’s strategy is to preview in the cloud and then release to the on-premise world and this looks like what has happened with the 11.1.2.3.500 release.

If you have applied the latest patch set update and create a sample application you will instantly notice something has changed.

First of all it is not possible to name the sample application anymore and it is set as Vision.

When creating the application you will see that it is automatically initialising and creating the dimensionality and loading data, so already a much simpler process than what has come before.

When you open the application you will find that it blows the old sample application out of the water and actually uses lots of the functionality that is now available.

The application includes:

• Three plan types
• Four task lists
• Over thirty forms including composite and charts
• Calculation Manager rules and rule sets.
• Two planning unit hierarchies
• Provisioning applied using two groups.

Now if you are thinking that is all well and good but what is the all about well there is a video available going through the Vision application which was originally created for PBCS but there is nothing stopping you watching and learning if you are starting out with planning, the video can found here.

If you look into how the sample is initialised then you will find out there is a lot more than just the planning application.

After the application has been created if you take a look a migration status report in Shared Services the clue is there that Lifecycle Management has been used.

The report indicates not only is there the Vision planning application but artifacts loaded for Shared Services provisioning, Reporting and Analysis, Calculation Manager and FDMEE.

The status of the LCM import displays as failed and this is because that four users are provisioned against two planning application groups but the users are not the import LCM files.

 These users can be easily added and provisioned.

Depending on what products have been installed the import could fail for other reasons so instance say FDMEE has not installed then the import will fail, though it is worth pointing out this does not stop the other LCM artifacts from being loaded which means the planning application should be created successfully.

I had a search around to see if the LCM import files are available and the answer is yes they can be found in:
<MIDDLEWARE_HOME>\products\Planning\config\DemoApp

This means the zip file can be simply copied over to the LCM import/export folder and then will be accessible from Shared Services.

So basically it is possible to create the sample planning application directly using LCM or import any of the available artifacts in again.

Much more impressive than what has previously been available.

If Financial Reporting has been installed and the planning sample application created then financial reports and books should be available from Workspace in the Vision folder.

The reports are all using a planning connection to the vision application.

All the rules that are part of the sample application can be easily accessed through Calculation Manager.

You will also see a piece of functionality that is now available in Calculation Manager that has been passed down from the Oracle cloud offering.

As there is no EAS available in the cloud there needed to be a way to manage some aspect of the Essbase databases like caches, dense/sparse settings so these were built into Calculation Manager.

If FDMEE has been installed then the sample planning application also comes preconfigured and with a file data load set up.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a load file but it only took a few minutes to create one and then load to FDMEE and push into the planning application.

I created a quick planning data form to test the drill-through functionality.

Now it is possible to drill-through from planning to FDMEE and view the data that was loaded.

It is also possible to take advantage of the new tablet functionality in planning if you have one following:

• iOS7, tablet only, Safari and Chrome browsers
• Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, tablet only, Chrome browser
• Windows 8 Standard, Pro and Enterprise Editions, tablet, Chrome and Internet Explorer 10 browsers

Within the planning application all you need to do is go to Administration > Manage > Tablet Access

Add the forms/tasks/rules you want to be accessible from tablets.

Point the tablet web browser to:
http://<web_server>:<port>/HyperionPlanning

The Forms, Task Lists and Rules that were enabled in the planning should now be available.

To access Financial Reports snapshot reports have to be created first if you want to view them through the tablet.

I must admit the charts do look quite impressive on an iPad.

I am not sure if I would want to go through the pain of entering data through a tablet but I am sure it will impress lots of people.

It doesn’t look like drill-through to FDMEE is possible yet from a tablet.

Now you are able to run rules while on the move, is life complete ;)

If you want to test out the approval and workflow functionality using the new EPM mobile app then just head off to the either the Apple app store or Google Play store and download.

The EPM mobile app is currently supported on:

• iOS7, phone and tablet
• Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 phone and tablet

So lots of reasons to move to 11.1.2.3.500 and for me personally makes life much easier for testing out functionality is working as expected and integration between products is in order.

Also if you are new to the EPM world and are looking to learn then now is the perfect opportunity.

Enjoy!

EPM patch 11.1.2.3.500 has landed

Finally after a long wait EPM 11.1.2.3.500 has arrived and the patch comes in a bundled 1.8GB download or as Oracle likes to call it a superpatch.

There are a few exceptions as the .500 Essbase related products were released last week and are separate downloads, I believe this also applies to DRM.

Patch 17529887: Patch Set Update: 11.1.2.3.500 for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System

The clients for EPMA, HSF, Crystal Ball, Predictive Planning and the Smart View Planning extension can be found under:

Patch 18383790: PATCH BUG FOR 11.1.2.3.500 CLIENT INSTALLERS PSE ON WINDOWS

It is amusing that the patch is under what is now known as Hyperion HUB in Oracle Support, if anybody can remember HUB it was the original name many moons ago before changing to Shared Services, everything seems to go in a full circle.

From my perspective these are the key updates:

New Database Certification:

• Oracle Database 12c release 12.1.0.1+

New Client Certifications:

• Windows 8
• Internet Explorer 10
• Firefox 24 ESR

Note: Support for Firefox 17 ESR is deprecated with this release.

• Microsoft Office 2013

New Server Virtualization Certifications:

• Microsoft Hyper-V (Virtualization Windows Server 2008 and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) for Windows)

Mobile Certifications:

EPM Mobile App:

• iOS7, phone and tablet
• Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 phone and tablet

Tablet-Friendly Planning User Interface:

• iOS7, tablet only, Safari and Chrome browsers
• Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, tablet only, Chrome browser
• Windows 8 Standard, Pro and Enterprise Editions, tablet, Chrome and Internet Explorer 10 browsers

Financial Reporting:

• iOS7, phone and tablet, Safari browser
• Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, phone and tablet, Firefox 26+ browser

I know some will look at that list and ask where IE11 support is or windows 2012 server, well they are not there and considering how long it has taken for .500 to be released and how far 11.1.2.4 looks off you may be in for a long wait.

Also if you are using planning in non ADF mode then IE10 is not supported.

Besides some new additional functionality to various products I think the main talking point will be the EPM mobile app.

• Provides users with easy access to key business information, for faster decision making and improved process flow
• Enables on-the-go review and approval by managers and executives
• Allows approvals and workflow across Planning, Financial Management, and Tax Provision
• Offers a consistent user experience across EPM products by leveraging Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) mobile technology
• Is available for Apple and Android phones from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store

EPM Mobile is available for these EPM products:

• Planning
• Financial Management
• Tax Provision

A very interesting update for planning besides the new mobile functionality is the performance enhancement claims which seem to be suggesting a massive improvement in response times and memory and CPU usage.

• Response times were reduced by up to 98% comparing to earlier PS3 releases.  The improvements are greater with larger loads and with actions involving large forms, but even single user response times for actions such as scrolling through forms were 10-20% faster. 
  Memory and CPU usage were reduced resulting in more than a 50% increase in Planning server capacity. 
  
  These results are based on testing of an actual customer application with Hyperion Planning running on a Windows 2008 server with 12 physical cores.  The server had 144 GB RAM but the Planning heap size was limited to 4 GB.  Actual performance may vary based on application design and hardware specifications.

Unfortunately I don’t see the same sort of improvements mentioned for Financial Management.

Another noticeable configuration option is for Calculation manager which allows change from ADF to Bindows if performance issues are being experienced, is this Oracle agreeing there are performance related issues around ADF.

The readme for the patch is huge so it will take a while to digest as there are not only a large number fixes but at the same time a raft of known issues.

The patch in the main looks to be applied with just Opatch but depending on the product set being applied to there are quite a few additional steps to follow so make sure to read through thoroughly.

One thing is nice is that applying the patch looks to automatically install the required ADF patches in to oracle_common home.

Enjoy!

EPM 11.1.2.3 – Purging LCM migration status report

Prior to 11.1.2.3 it was possible to purge migration status reports from within Shared Services.

In 11.1.2.3 for some reason the option has disappeared even though the documentation states it should be possible.

I am not sure if it was mistakenly removed with the change of Shared Services being embedded into workspace and if so then maybe it will return, delving into the underlying code the java server page that used to be called purgeMSR.jsp still exists and so do the Java classes surrounding it.

So what are the options to purge the data, well in 11.1.2.3 a new Shared Services registry setting was introduced which defines after how many days the data will automatically be purged, maybe this is the reason why the option was removed form Shared Services? It would nice to have both options if that was the case.

If a registry report is run then under Shared Services Product you will see the new property MSR.PURGE.EARLIER.TO.DAYS which has a default value of 30.

 

Analysing the Shared Services logs highlights the purge property being read from the registry and then being executed.

Please note the checking and purging of the migration status data is automatically run every 24 hours.

Changing the number of days to purge value can be achieved by a through a few different ways.

A properties file can be exported from directly from the registry through Shared Services:

The properties file can then be edited and updated with the new required property value.

Once updated use the “Import after Edit” option to load the new value back into the Shared Services registry.

The value can also be viewed and updated using the epmsys_registry command line tool.

To view the current value use:

epmsys_registry.bat view SHARED_SERVICES_PRODUCT/@MSR.PURGE.EARLIERTO.DAYS

To update the value use:

epmsys_registry.bat updateproperty SHARED_SERVICES_PRODUCT/@MSR.PURGE.EARLIERTO.DAYS <newvalue>

If you are happy with just using this method then that’s good but I wanted to look further into what was being run behind the scenes.

After spending time researching I managed to track down the code that the purge runs though I think it is first worth pointing out how the LCM migration data is stored.

In the Shared Services relational database/schema there are three tables which store all the migration information.

LCM_MIGRATION

This table is used for inserting the information related to migration. Whenever a migration is requested from LCM Command utility or LCM UI this table is updated first with the migration specific information

LCM_MIGRATION_TASK

This table contains details of the all the tasks in a single migration. A single migration can contain multiple tasks

LCM_MIGRATION_TASK_DETAILS

Detailed failure information for each of the tasks in a migration. This table is used for populating the MSR details page in the UI for failed migrations

If you are interested in understanding the details of each of the fields in the tables then I recommend checking the Relational Data Models document.

When a purge is run the following SQL statements are run against the LCM migration tables.

DELETE FROM LCM_MIGRATION_TASK_DETAILS WHERE MIGRATION_ID IN ( SELECT MIGRATION_ID FROM LCM_MIGRATION WHERE PKG_STATUS IN ('F', 'S','W') AND START_TIME <= ?)

DELETE FROM LCM_MIGRATION_TASK WHERE MIGRATION_ID IN ( SELECT MIGRATION_ID FROM LCM_MIGRATION WHERE PKG_STATUS IN ('F', 'S','W') AND START_TIME <= ?)

SELECT LOG_FILE, PCKGFILE_NAME FROM LCM_MIGRATION WHERE MIGRATION_ID IN (SELECT MIGRATION_ID FROM LCM_MIGRATION WHERE PKG_STATUS IN ('F', 'S','W') AND START_TIME <= ?)

DELETE FROM LCM_MIGRATION WHERE MIGRATION_ID IN ( SELECT MIGRATION_ID FROM LCM_MIGRATION WHERE PKG_STATUS IN ('F', 'S','W') AND START_TIME <= ?)

In each of the statements the question mark holds the time to purge from and any data older than the value passed in will be removed.

The “F”,”S” and “W” status values stand for “Failed”, “Successful” and “Warning”.

Even though the Migration Status Report displays the full date and time this is not the way it is stored in the relational tables.

The date in the tables is stored in Unix time which basically means the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 January 1st 1970 not including leap seconds.

So if you are planning to run the SQL then you will also need to calculate the time which can be done by many different ways including SQL or there is even a website which will convert a date for you.

One of the SQL statements also selects the log files and package name files.

This is because each time a LCM migration is run a package xml file is generated which is basically the same as the migration definition file and if the migration is run by the command line utility a log file is created.

When a purge is run these files are also automatically deleted so if you are going to be running the above SQL then it is worth considering building into the process the removal of these files.

So there we go a couple of options to purge LCM migration data but I didn’t want to stop there and looked at tapping into the Java classes that are available.

The classes that are used by the purge routines can be found in lcmWeb.jar which can be extracted from the Shared Services web application.

The jar can be extracted from the interop.ear file or the foundation managed server temporary directory.

I created a very simple Java class which the value for the number of days to purge from can be passed in and the data is then automatically purged.

The value to be passed in:

• -1 - Deletes all migration data
• 0 - Deletes all migration data performed prior to today
• N - Deletes all migration data before a specified number of days from today

The class was then compiled.

I created a batch script to include the classpath to the necessary jar files and the EPM oracle instance variable which is required otherwise the Java code will not run successfully.

And that is all there is to it so now the LCM migration data can easily be purged from command line by calling the script passing in the purge value.