Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

About Merging External Applications

If you’ve an external semantic model such as an Oracle Analytics Cloud instance other than the Oracle Analytics Cloud instance associated with your Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse instance, then you can merge it with the semantic model of Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse only in your non-production instance.

You can also merge your existing catalogs in the external Oracle Analytics Cloud with those in the Oracle Analytics Cloud instance associated with your Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse instance.

Merging external semantic models may require you to scale up your Oracle Analytics Cloud compute resources to ensure better performance. In particular, if you're merging a semantic model that was in use on a live Oracle Analytics Cloud instance, then Oracle recommends scaling up Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse's Oracle Analytics Cloud compute resources by the same number of CPUs as the instance the semantic model is merged from.

To conform common dimensions between Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse and your other Oracle Analytics Cloud, ensure that the:
  • Data types of the conforming columns are matching, else you can't merge.
  • Data for the mapped columns match, else queries don't fetch correct results.
  • The level of details at which data is stored in the dimensions match, else queries return incorrect results.
  • The external semantic model is up to 25MB in size.
  • Catalog objects are in folder names that don't conflict with the ready-to-use folders of Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse and in /Shared/Custom/ folder.

The external semantic model connects only to the Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse associated with Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse. After enabling the external application merge functionality, if you make semantic model changes with data augmentation, then it'll result in unexpected errors. If such changes exist, then you must update the data augmentations to remove the semantic model changes. Ensure that you make the semantic model changes in the external semantic model.

Prior to merging the external semantic model, ensure that you:
  • Import or migrate your external warehouse data to the Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse associated with Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse using the Oracle database utilities or any ETL tool.
  • Download and save a copy of the external semantic model on your local machine using the Download Imported Semantic Model option in Actions on the External Application page, if you have imported it earlier.
  • Download the template semantic model using the Export Semantic Model Template option in Actions on the External Application page.
  • Use the Model Administration Tool that is a part of the Oracle Analytics Client Tools to:

    To move the merged semantic model from your non-production instance to your production instance, perform the test to production process using the Promote Objects tile or use the Bundles functionality. See Promote Your Customizations to the Production Environment and Bundle Your Application Artifacts.

Set up Metadata Import in the Repository File

Set up how to import the metadata of an external application such as another Oracle Analytics Cloud instance into the repository file of Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse to enable merging of the external semantic model with the semantic model of Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse.

Perform this one-time setup while installing the Model Administration Tool. Ensure that you redo this setup if you plan to install a new version of the Model Administration Tool. See Download and Install Oracle Analytics ClientTools to download the tool.

  1. Sign in to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console, download the wallet for your autonomous data warehouse, and unzip the wallet to a folder on your local machine.
  2. Place the cwallet.sso file into a specific folder on the local machine where you have installed the Model Administration Tool.
  3. Place the sqlnet.ora file and replace (if existing) the file in the $OBIEE12c\domains\bi\config\fmwconfig\bienv\core location where you have installed the Model Administration Tool.
  4. Navigate to $OBIEE12c\domains\bi\config\fmwconfig\bienv\core and edit the sqlnet.ora file to point the WALLET_LOCATION variable to the folder which has the cwallet.sso file that you had previously downloaded.
    Ensure that the location points to the folder that has the wallet file. For example, WALLET_LOCATION = (SOURCE = (METHOD = file) (METHOD_DATA = (DIRECTORY="D:\test")))SSL_SERVER_DN_MATCH=yes.
  5. Save your changes to the sqlnet.ora file.

Set Up Table Import in the Repository File

Set up how to import the tables of an external application such as another Oracle Analytics Cloud instance into the repository file of Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse to enable merging of the external semantic model with the semantic model of Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse.

Ensure that your corporate virtual private network (VPN) allows connectivity to your autonomous data warehouse. You can use the transparent network substrate (TNS) entry of the low offering of your autonomous data warehouse to import the tables. For example, (description= (retry_count=20)(retry_delay=3)(address=(protocol=tcps)(port=<>)(host=<>))(connect_data=(service_name=<>))(security=(ssl_server_cert_dn="CN=my domain.com,OU=my organization,O=organization,L=my location,ST=my state,C=my country")))

The table import process creates the tables in a separate physical schema called OAX_USER. After you have imported the tables and tested, revert the settings back to the old state.

Note

Ensure that you don't remove the externalize connection setting in the connection pool when you upload the repository file back into Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse.
  1. In Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse Console, click Semantic Model Extensions under Application Administration.
  2. On the Semantic Model Extensions page, in the External Application region, click Actions, and then click Export Semantic Model Template to download the template semantic model.
  3. Sign in to the Model Administration Tool that is a part of the Oracle Analytics Client Tools.
  4. In the Model Administration Tool, open the downloaded semantic model, navigate to Oracle_Data_Warehouse, and edit Oracle_Data_Warehouse_Connection_Pool.
  5. Provide the TNS entry of your autonomous data warehouse and enter the username and password of the OAX_USER credentials.
  6. Save your changes to the connection pool.

Merge External Applications

As a modeler, modeler administrator, and security administrator, you can merge the semantic model of an external application such as another Oracle Analytics Cloud instance with Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse. You can also merge your existing catalogs in the external Oracle Analytics Cloud with those in the Oracle Analytics Cloud instance associated with your Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse instance.

The merge enables you to join the external semantic model with the conformed dimensions of Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse to create connected analytics across the enterprise for cross-functional insights.

  1. Sign in to your service.
  2. In Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse Console, click Semantic Model Extensions under Application Administration.
  3. In the External Application region, click Actions, and then click Import Application to import the external semantic model.
  4. In Select Application and Content to Merge, enter a name for your application in External Application Description, select Semantic Model Import, and click Select Semantic Model to import the applicable Oracle Analytics Cloud semantic model from your local machine, and enter the password that you use to encrypt the semantic model file.

    Select Application and Content to Merge dialog

  5. In Resolve imported content conflicts, choose the option to rename the imported objects with either a prefix or suffix when a conflict occurs.
  6. Select Expose custom columns in out of the box subject areas to expose columns added to the conformed dimensions in all the applicable subject areas.
  7. Click Import.
  8. In the External Application region, verify that the import process has completed and then click Publish Model. In the Publish Model dialog, select the values and click Publish.

    Publish Model dialog

  9. In the External Application region, click Actions, and then click Import Application to import the external BAR file.
  10. In Select Application and Content to Merge, enter a name for your application in External Application Description, click Application Import, and click Select Bar File to import the applicable Oracle Analytics Cloud bar file from your local machine, and enter the password that you use to encrypt the bar file.
    You can select the external bar file only after importing the external semantic model. The bar file imports the JAZN file and the catalogs.
    Import Bar file

  11. Click Import.
  12. In the External Application region, click the Activity tab to verify that the import process has completed.
  13. Navigate to the Security pages and assign applicable groups to users to provide access to the merged external catalogs.