Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition
Encyclopedia
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus, also known as OBI EE Plus, is Oracle
's set of business intelligence tools
consisting of former Siebel
business intelligence and Hyperion
business intelligence offerings.
The industry counter-part and main competitors of OBIEE are Microsoft BI, IBM
Cognos
, SAP
Business Objects
and SAS. The products currently leverage a common BI Server providing integration among the tools.
) is a complete, open, and architecturally unified business intelligence
solution for the enterprise that delivers capabilities for reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, OLAP
, dashboards, and scorecards. All enterprise data sources, as well as metrics, calculations, definitions, and hierarchies are managed in a Common Enterprise Information Model, providing users with accurate and consistent insight, regardless of where the information is consumed. Users can access and interact with information in multiple ways, including web-based interactive dashboards, collaboration workspaces, search bars, ERP
and CRM
applications, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office applications.
Sometimes OBIEE is used interchangeably with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (OBIA), which is a pre-built BI and data warehousing solution built on the OBIEE technology stack. The OBI EE Plus integrates the components of the toolset to include a service-oriented architecture
, data access
services, an analytic and calculation infrastructure, metadata
management services, a semantic business model
, a security model and user preferences, and administration tools.
: an analysis server providing a calculation and aggregation engine that integrates data from multiple relational, unstructured, OLAP, and other sources.
Oracle BI Admin Tool: an administrator tool used to construct repositories consisting of a Physical Layer, Business Model and Mapping Layer, and an abstracted end-user Presentation Layer subsequently visible in BI Answers.
Oracle BI Answers: an ad-hoc
query and analysis tool that processes the data from multiple data sources in a pure web environment. Users are isolated from data structure
complexity and they view and work with a logical view of the information. Users can create interactive charts, pivot table
s, reports, and dashboards. Analysis can be saved, shared, modified, formatted, or integrated in the user's dashboards.
Oracle BI Marketing: caters to marketing needs, known as Segmentation Server.
Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards: interactive web architecture dashboards that display required information to help users' decision making. Access to the information is interactive, based on the individual's role and identity. The end user works with live reports, charts, tables, prompts, pivot tables, and graphics and has full capability for modifying and interacting with results. Dashboards can aggregate content from other sources (e.g. the Internet, shared file servers, and document repositories).
Oracle BI Delivers: an alerting tool that provides monitoring of business activity. They are reached via multiple channels including email, dashboards, and mobile devices. It includes a web-based self-service portal where users can create and subscribe to alerts. Dashboard can initiate and pass contextual information to other alerts to execute multi-step, multi-person, and multi-application analytical workflow. It can determine recipients and personalize content to 'reach the right users at the right time with the right information'.
Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics: offers BI Answers and Dashboards to mobile professionals on computers disconnected from the network. It provides the same interface for users whether they are working in connected or disconnected mode.
Oracle BI Publisher
: a reporting engine capable of generating reports from multiple data sources in multiple formats via multiple channels.
Oracle BI Briefing Books: reports captured series of snapshots of Oracle BI Dashboards.
Oracle BI Office Plug-In: automatically synchronizes information from BI Answers to Microsoft Word
, Microsoft Excel
, and Microsoft PowerPoint
.
Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting: creates book quality financial reports
in a variety of formats (including XBRL) and supports a variety of sources including Oracle's Hyperion performance management
applications (EPM) and Oracle Essbase.
Hyperion Interactive Reporting: pulls data together from operational or analytic sources to create charts, privots, and reports and can access the Oracle BI Server semantic layer.
Hyperion SQR Production Reporting: provides cross functional reporting from a variety of relational database
s and data sources.
Hyperion Web Analysis: delivers out-of-the-box presentation and reporting for Oracle Essbase
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
's set of business intelligence tools
Business intelligence tools
Business intelligence tools are a type of application software designed to retrieve, analyze and report data. The tools generally read data that have been previously stored, often, though not necessarily, in a data warehouse or data mart....
consisting of former Siebel
Siebel Systems
Siebel CRM Systems, Inc. was a software company principally engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management applications. The company was founded by Thomas Siebel in 1993. At first known mainly for its sales force automation products, the company...
business intelligence and Hyperion
Hyperion Solutions
Hyperion Solutions Corporation was a business performance management software company, located in Santa Clara, California, USA, which was acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2007...
business intelligence offerings.
The industry counter-part and main competitors of OBIEE are Microsoft BI, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
Cognos
Cognos
Cognos was an Ottawa, Ontario-based company making business intelligence and performance management software. Founded in 1969, at its peak Cognos employed almost 3,500 people and served more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries.Originally Quasar Systems Limited, it adopted the Cognos...
, SAP
SAP AG
SAP AG is a German software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software...
Business Objects
Business Objects (company)
SAP Business Objects is a French enterprise software company, specializing in business intelligence . Since 2007, it has been a part of SAP AG. The company claimed more than 46,000 customers worldwide in its final earnings release...
and SAS. The products currently leverage a common BI Server providing integration among the tools.
Overview
Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite (OBIEE+ and EssbaseEssbase
Essbase is a multidimensional database management system that provides a multidimensional database platform upon which to build analytic applications. Essbase, whose name derives from "Extended Spread Sheet dataBASE", began as a product of Arbor Software, which merged with Hyperion Software in 1998...
) is a complete, open, and architecturally unified business intelligence
Business intelligence
Business intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
solution for the enterprise that delivers capabilities for reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, OLAP
OLAP
In computing, online analytical processing, or OLAP , is an approach to swiftly answer multi-dimensional analytical queries. OLAP is part of the broader category of business intelligence, which also encompasses relational reporting and data mining...
, dashboards, and scorecards. All enterprise data sources, as well as metrics, calculations, definitions, and hierarchies are managed in a Common Enterprise Information Model, providing users with accurate and consistent insight, regardless of where the information is consumed. Users can access and interact with information in multiple ways, including web-based interactive dashboards, collaboration workspaces, search bars, ERP
ERP
- Economics :* Economic Report of the President, published annually by the United States President's Council of Economic Advisors on recent economic activity and future policies and predictions...
and CRM
Customer relationship management
Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
applications, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office applications.
Sometimes OBIEE is used interchangeably with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (OBIA), which is a pre-built BI and data warehousing solution built on the OBIEE technology stack. The OBI EE Plus integrates the components of the toolset to include a service-oriented architecture
Service-oriented architecture
In software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
, data access
Data access
Data access typically refers to software and activities related to storing, retrieving, or acting on data housed in a database or other repository...
services, an analytic and calculation infrastructure, metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
management services, a semantic business model
Business model
A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value...
, a security model and user preferences, and administration tools.
Components
Oracle BI serverOracle BI server
-Component of OBIEE in detail:As it was written above the OBIEE consists of 8 interdependent components. Each of them is described in detail below:Oracle BI Server is a high-impact query, reporting and analysis server that...
: an analysis server providing a calculation and aggregation engine that integrates data from multiple relational, unstructured, OLAP, and other sources.
Oracle BI Admin Tool: an administrator tool used to construct repositories consisting of a Physical Layer, Business Model and Mapping Layer, and an abstracted end-user Presentation Layer subsequently visible in BI Answers.
Oracle BI Answers: an ad-hoc
Ad hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning "for this". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. Compare A priori....
query and analysis tool that processes the data from multiple data sources in a pure web environment. Users are isolated from data structure
Data structure
In computer science, a data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently.Different kinds of data structures are suited to different kinds of applications, and some are highly specialized to specific tasks...
complexity and they view and work with a logical view of the information. Users can create interactive charts, pivot table
Pivot table
In data processing, a pivot table is a data summarization tool found in data visualization programs such as spreadsheets or business intelligence software. Among other functions, pivot-table tools can automatically sort, count, total or give the average of the data stored in one table or spreadsheet...
s, reports, and dashboards. Analysis can be saved, shared, modified, formatted, or integrated in the user's dashboards.
Oracle BI Marketing: caters to marketing needs, known as Segmentation Server.
Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards: interactive web architecture dashboards that display required information to help users' decision making. Access to the information is interactive, based on the individual's role and identity. The end user works with live reports, charts, tables, prompts, pivot tables, and graphics and has full capability for modifying and interacting with results. Dashboards can aggregate content from other sources (e.g. the Internet, shared file servers, and document repositories).
Oracle BI Delivers: an alerting tool that provides monitoring of business activity. They are reached via multiple channels including email, dashboards, and mobile devices. It includes a web-based self-service portal where users can create and subscribe to alerts. Dashboard can initiate and pass contextual information to other alerts to execute multi-step, multi-person, and multi-application analytical workflow. It can determine recipients and personalize content to 'reach the right users at the right time with the right information'.
Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics: offers BI Answers and Dashboards to mobile professionals on computers disconnected from the network. It provides the same interface for users whether they are working in connected or disconnected mode.
Oracle BI Publisher
Oracle BI Publisher
Oracle XML Publisher is Oracle Corporation's new reporting technology. It was originally developed to solve the reporting problems faced by Oracle Applications. It was first released with Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 in 2003...
: a reporting engine capable of generating reports from multiple data sources in multiple formats via multiple channels.
Oracle BI Briefing Books: reports captured series of snapshots of Oracle BI Dashboards.
Oracle BI Office Plug-In: automatically synchronizes information from BI Answers to Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
, and Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
.
Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting: creates book quality financial reports
Financial statements
A financial statement is a formal record of the financial activities of a business, person, or other entity. In British English—including United Kingdom company law—a financial statement is often referred to as an account, although the term financial statement is also used, particularly by...
in a variety of formats (including XBRL) and supports a variety of sources including Oracle's Hyperion performance management
Performance management
Performance management includes activities that ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on the performance of an organization, a department, employee, or even the processes to build a product or service, as well as many...
applications (EPM) and Oracle Essbase.
Hyperion Interactive Reporting: pulls data together from operational or analytic sources to create charts, privots, and reports and can access the Oracle BI Server semantic layer.
Hyperion SQR Production Reporting: provides cross functional reporting from a variety of relational database
Relational database
A relational database is a database that conforms to relational model theory. The software used in a relational database is called a relational database management system . Colloquial use of the term "relational database" may refer to the RDBMS software, or the relational database itself...
s and data sources.
Hyperion Web Analysis: delivers out-of-the-box presentation and reporting for Oracle Essbase
Extensions
- Oracle Scorecard: an implementation of balanced-scorecardBalanced scorecardThe Balanced Scorecard is a strategic performance management tool - a semi-standard structured report, supported by proven design methods and automation tools, that can be used by managers to keep track of the execution of activities by the staff within their control and to monitor the...
reporting.
History
- 2000: nQuire formed: Larry Barbetta CEO
- 2001: nQuire courted by Siebel
- 2002: Siebel purchases nQuire
- 2005: Oracle purchases Siebel
- 2007: Hyperion Integration
External links
- Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation
- OBIEE Documentation Library
- OBIEE Blogs
- "Siebel Acquires nQuire Software"
- Oracle Business Intelligence: tools overview and resources
- BI Tool Survey - Oracle OBIEE included
- OBIEE Resource: how to build report and dashboard