Oracle Business Intelligence in Cloud

Oracle Business Intelligence in Cloud

Cloud based BI tools have become increasing popular in recent years especially among small and medium enterprises. The amount of data churns out from enterprises has overwhelmed in past decade or so, turning such swatches of data into useable information is pivotal for any enterprise. Many aspects of data recorded needed to be analysed, presented in visual appealing manner so enterprises can make decision in real time.

The number of enterprises turning to cloud computing has astonishingly increased in the last few years, as companies are starting to understand Cloud Computing is not just about saving cost, improving efficiencies and reducing waste; it’s about driving fundamental business model which could give enterprises a potential edge on their competitor and potential market place advantage.

Consider any technology today and you will likely to find a “Cloud” version of it. For the enterprises trying to find out which solution is best for their needs need to have a thorough look at the pros and cons in detail- this paper we will be exploring Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) integration options.

Oracle is one of the world’s leading Business Intelligence and analytic software companies, produces wide array of tools ranging from middleware (Oracle Fusion Middleware), Extract Transform Load (ETL), underlying Databases (10g/11g/12c) to Business Intelligence (like Business Intelligence Publisher and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 10g/11g/12c). Oracle Business Intelligence 11g/12c is based on web services oriented architecture, which enables Oracle BI to integrate with existing infrastructure and it also have all the relevant drivers to work on premise, cloud, heterogeneous underlying Databases or hybrid architecture.

 On Premise Solution:

These are traditional solutions, where hardware and software are acquired, installed are deployed on the enterprise’s data centre premises. These solutions exist within the enterprise own four walls, which means enterprise will own and maintain hardware & software.  You may virtualize the hardware, but still exist within the enterprise’s premise.

Enterprise could outsource the management services to third parties, but will still own the physical security, the electricity, licenses auditing and need to maintain asset’s balance sheet. Enterprise also needs to make sure they have right resource pool to deploy the hardware and software and initial cost could be sky-high in terms on hardware, software, and resources.

Hosted Solution:

Hosted Solution are those where enterprises can use data centre or other facilities e.g. Rackspace, Oracle On Demand but usually contracted for period of time but are customized for individual enterprise. Hosting Solution are high customized and it depends as part of whatever been agreed: if it is a data centre then they will prove physical security, electricity and up and running hardware.

 

Hosted Solution could provide web interface to manage OBIEE server administration e.g. Fusion Middleware console and Enterprise Manager (EM). Hosted Solution doesn’t require any hardware procurement or setup but it would still require correct Oracle Database and Business Intelligence (BI) licenses are procured depending on the hosted hardware. In terms of cost it would cost pretty much same or slightly higher than on premise solution but would tie enterprise into a contract.

Cloud Solution:

Cloud Computing is a general term used to deliver computer services over the web, as opposed to having hardware and software on enterprise’s premise.  Cloud Computing could range from as simple as MS office 365 service to a complex Cloud based Business Intelligence (BI) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution.

Cloud Solution provides substantial benefits like scalability, elasticity, improved efficiency and paid by its usage – services delivered via the web at the fraction of cost for On-Premise or hosted solution. OBIEE simplified web based architecture is perfectly adopted to be hosted and maintained in “the cloud”.

With Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud services – services are kept live, secure and update to date data with automatic patching, so the enterprises can focus on business operation through real time KPIs, scorecards etc. Oracle managed services can help to reduce Return On Investment (ROI) with dramatic reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The idea of this service is that enterprises will be able to access OBIEE running on oracle cloud services, so that enterprise can create dashboard, reports, KPIs without having the need of buying software perpetual licenses or setting-up a data centre.

Conceptually it is straight forward to run the OBIEE server application via the cloud based environment like Amazon EC2 or Business Intelligence Cloud Services (BICS) – in these cases OBIEE would run normal except instead of hosting from enterprise’s own premise, it will use public/private cloud.

 Oracle offers three types of cloud services model: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) – Oracle in 2014 unveiled new BI service as Oracle SaaS named as Business Intelligence Cloud Service (BICS) for its analytical services.

BICS comprises of three main components: BI server services, single oracle schema database and integrated identity management – offers a highly scalable, multi tenants environment integrated with oracle cloud store. BICS also provides wide range of data upload/integration features: DBCS REST Services, SQL Developer, BICS REST Services, BICS Data Loader.

When Enterprise joins BICS, Oracle provides integration of BI services with public cloud database, which is built around Oracle identity management (LDAP and SSO). Simple BICS Architecture looks like below screenshot

Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Services enables service’s administrators to provision identity domain users to use specific functionality in their Oracle BI Cloud Service instance by assigning application roles. An application role controls access to functionality available in Oracle BI Cloud Service.

BICS interface and development/RPD resembles with on premise OBIEE, which makes easy to migrate from on premise to Business Intelligence Cloud Services – below screenshot show sample app front screen in BICS.

Hybrid Solution:

 There is no harm in exploring mix mash of both “cloud” and “on premise”, where an enterprise could use existing infrastructure but for all future BI demand is cater through Oracle cloud – a simplest architecture of hybrid approach will look like below screenshot.

 

Other Scenario could be enterprises want to keep production on premise but Dev on the cloud for the remote development but it has more disadvantages in terms of high cost, and administration overheads, keeping local data centre and keeping cloud and on premise in constant sync.

Conclusion:

 With all the information and comparison in hand, what are the conclusions. There a are more options for enterprises, when it comes to choosing BI Solution – with advent of BICS, it allows enterprises to have full blown BI in cloud without need of on premise database, integration tool or BI with the option of pay as you go or monthly subscription.

There are some concerns around cloud solution such as limited customisation, security, data integration and data security.

Conversely on premise offer more customisation, security but require more upfront investment, resources and could take longer period of time to have BI up and running.

 Here is a breakdown of pros and cons of Cloud and on premise:

Feature/Solution	On Premise	Cloud/BICS	Advantage
Instances	No Limit	Two Environments/Instance i.e. Dev and Production	On Premise
Scalability	Scalability requires adding new hardware and procuring extra licenses	Easy to perform horizontal and vertical scaling.	On Premise/Cloud
Security	Enterprise will have to place security measure in place to secure the data.	Oracle manages Patching and/or performance issues	On Premise
Patching /Upgrade	Middleware, DBA and Oracle SME require to perform patching	Oracle manages Patching and/or performance issues	Cloud
Cost	High Very due to hardware and perpetual licenses	Cost will lower: monthly subscription or pay as you use.	Cloud
Simplicity	Requires working with LDAP and VM to create correct LDAP groups and user classification.	Easy to add new roles/user through OIM.	Cloud
High Availability
Licensing /Auditing	Correct License and Auditing would be owned by the enterprise.	Oracle manages	Cloud
Administration	Enterprise manages all admin overhead in terms or backups, log archive etc	Oracle manages all admin overhead in terms or backups, log archive etc	Cloud
Integration	-Full Access to RPD -Integration with heterogeneous data source	-2x REST Services -SQL Developer -APEX on Database Schema -No RPD access for data import	On Premise
Customisation	Enterprise can customize deployment, plugins, integration between system	Cloud offer high customization still going to have some limitation compare to on premise	On Premise
Expertise	Enterprise need to make sure for resources are available to keep the core system up and running	Oracle maintain through correct pool	Cloud
Others	-No Limit to edit RPD -Catalogues can be imported and exported -Java Script/HMLT in the analysis is available -Usage Tracking	-Update RPD cannot be further edited. -Catalogues cannot be uploaded -No Java Script/HMLT in the analysis is available – Usage Tracking not available	On Premise

  About Author:

I have more than 10 years’ experience of Business Intelligence (BI) in two leading BI stacks (Oracle and Microsoft), cross platform data migration and integration. I always explore possibilities of integrating cross platform BI technologies for clients to stitch heterogeneous systems to save cost, cut waste and improve efficiencies.