OBIEE- Maintenance Mode

OBIEE Interview Question: What is Maintenance Mode? When and how it is used? Will users be able to save reports when it is ON?

Maintenance Mode is used for administration of Presentation Services. When Maintenance Mode is turned ON, users will not be able to save changes in Presentation Catalog- it goes in to a read-only mode at this point. This will make sure that webcat is consistent and no one is making changes to reports or saving new ones while you do your maintenance activities.  

When you as an Administrator/Developer are making changes (updating or migrating reports or archiving (taking backups)) in the Presentation Catalog in online mode, you should turn Maintenance Mode ON.

Maintenance Mode can be toggled/changed/switched from Answers/Analyses Administration page. You should be logged in as an Administrator to toggle Maintenance Mode. Click on Administration from Header Menu:

You can also go to http://{server}:{port}/analytics/saw.dll?Admin

Here on bottom left you will find a section for Maintenance and Troubleshooting. This is where you have Toggle Maintenance Mode link. Just click on this link to turn it ON or OFF.

If a user tries to make changes while Maintenance Mode is ON, she will receive the following error:

"Unable to change edit/view mode: System is in Maintenance Mode. Please try again later."

Note: In clustered mode make sure to Toggle Maintenance Mode in Presentation Services of each computer.

Hope it helps!

Cheers!

Deepak

OBIEE 10g Migration Steps- Linux

I recently end up going back to 10g version and the following script helped me a lot during migration process between DEV/QA/PROD. Let’s assume we are migrating from QA to PROD for this post. I usually use putty to perform these steps. Following steps can be a good guideline.

1.  Start Putty and point to QA box. Shutdown OBIEE services on QA box.

./run-sa.sh stop

./run-saw.sh stop

2.  Make a new deployment directory (mmddyyyy is date of deployment this gives a versioning technique/ trackback control on deployment)

mkdir rpdcatmmddyyyy

3.  Copy Catalog & RPD into deployment directory

Change directory to the new deployment folder you created.

cd rpdcatmmddyyyy

-Copy rpd and catalog to this directory

cp -R /u01/app/obiee/OracleBIData/web/catalog/SalesCatalog .

cp /u01/app/obiee/OracleBI/server/Repository/salesrepository.rpd .

If you have made changes to configuration files, copy them over to this deployment folder as well e.g. I created a new xml file for writeback

cp /u01/app/obiee/OracleBI/web/msgdb/customMessages/writeback.xml .

4.  SCP the deployment directory to PROD box

Go back to home directory by issuing cd command and then use SCP as below

cd

scp -r rpdcatmmddyyyy obieeprod@prodboxname:/home/obieeprod

5.  Start another session of putty pointing to PROD box. Archive Catalog & RPD in target platform.

Stop BI Services in PROD box

 ./run-sa.sh stop

./run-saw.sh stop

cd /u01/app/obiee/OracleBIData/web/catalog/

mv SalesCatalog SalesCatalog.mmddyyyy

cd /u01/app/obiee/OracleBI/server/Repository/

mv SalesRepository.rpd SalesRepository.rpd.mmddyyyy                                

6.  Move Catalog & RPD to proper directories from the deployment directory you moved to PROD box

cd /u01/app/obiee/OracleBI/server/Repository/

cp /home/obieeprd/rpdcatmmddyyyy/salesrepository.rpd .

cd /u01/app/obiee/OracleBIData/web/catalog/

cp -R /home/obieeprd/rpdcatmmddyyyy/SalesCatalog .

cd /u01/app/obiee/OracleBI/web/msgdb/customMessages/

cp /home/obieeqa/rpdcatmmddyyyy/writeback.xml .

7.  Start OBIEE in QA and POD

./run-sa.sh start

./run-saw.sh start

8. If you have not pointed PROD rpd to PROD DB then do it in online mode now.

Hope someone working on OBIEE 10g will benefit from this post.

Cheers!

Deepak