OBIEE Performance Guidelines

The following guidelines are applicable for both OBIEE 11g and OBIEE 10g
 

Identify the BI Component( BI Server, Presentation Services or the database connectivity) that could have contributed to the issue.

• Check if physical Sql run by user contributed to the issue.
• If the sql runs quickly then Presentation Services might be taking more time to display the results. This will happen if you have a significant number of chart or pivot views for the reports. Check if changing the existing reports to table views improves performance.
• If the physical SQL is taking a long time, performance tuning needs to be done on the database. Most databases have many parameters and advanced features that will help run the queries efficiently. DBAs can help tune the database for these slow running queries. Oracle Database features like proper indexing, partitioning and Star Transformations can help performance to a great extent.
• Enable Usage Tracking and see what are the user actions performed and analyze what could have contributed to the issue.
• Caching can be very helpful in alleviating performance issues for complex queries that are used many times. iBots can be used to seed queries during off peak hours to achieve improved performance.
• Disable unused init blocks and consolidate the other init blocks. It is a good idea to create SQL in the init blocks to populate many variables instead of having many simple init blocks.
• Check how many rows are being retrieved. The OBIEE should not be used to display hundreds of thousands of rows, instead use reports that are filtered and aggregated by some attributes.
• Too many pivot and chart views on a dashboard page can make the UI very slow to display.  Check for hidden sections and guided navigations that always run.
• Guided Navigation when used we should realize that all the reports underlying in that section will be executed and only the report that satisfies the condition will be displayed. It is highly possible that in such cases report will run without any filters on it.
• Depending on the ability of the database to handle certain functions, the DB features tab should be set appropriately in the repository. From the physical layer click on Database to see the DB Features tab. If one of the database features is turned off, incorrect SQL might be generated by OBI. This might be expensive in terms of performance. Check if any features have been changed.
• The repository should be designed according to best practices. De-normalize dimensional objects, combine several dimensional attributes into one flat table. This will help reduce joins. Model your physical tables in a way that should help in creating simpler Business Models.
• Use Aggregate Tables when necessary to improve performance. Aggregate tables will need additional ETL, storage and complex mapping efforts.
• If you have complex logic that involves complex SQL, it is a good idea to consider pushing this logic to ETL rather than handling it in the repository.
• For a large number of concurrent users, use the following guideline for the maximum number of connections in a connection pool:

  20% of concurrent users * number of reports per dashboard

• Perfmon logs gather memory usage statistics. They are especially useful when the entire application becomes slow some time after start up. Check if the application responds quickly after restarting the services. If you start seeing issues after some time of using the application, this might indicate you have memory-related issues.

On Unix, use the following commands to gather performance statistics:

ps -ef|grep <obi process>
top

Types of views in OBIEE

Compound Layout	Use the compound layout view to assemble different views for display on a dashboard. On the Criteria tab, you can click the following button to access the compound layout view.
Title	Use the title view to add a title, a subtitle, a logo, a link to a custom online help page, and timestamps to the results.
Table	Use the table view to show results in a standard table. Users can navigate and drill down in the results. You can add totals, customize headings, and change the formula or aggregation rule for a column. You can also control the appearance of a column and its contents, and specify formatting to apply only if the contents of the column meet certain conditions. On the Criteria tab, you can click the following button to access the table view.
Chart	Use the chart view to drag and drop columns to a layout chart. You can customize the title, legend location, axis titles, and data labels. You can customize the size and scale of the chart, and control colors using a style sheet. Oracle BI Answers supports a variety of standard chart types, including bar charts, column charts, line charts, area charts, pie charts, and scatter charts. Custom chart subtypes include two-and-three-dimensional, absolute, clustered, stacked, combination, and custom. On the Criteria tab, you can click the following button to access the chart view.
Pivot Table	Use the pivot table view to take row, column, and section headings and swap them around to obtain different perspectives. You can drag and drop headings to pivot results, preview them, and apply the settings. Users can navigate through pivot tables and drill down into information. Users can create complex pivot tables that show aggregate and nonrelated totals next to the pivoted data, allowing for flexible analysis. For an interactive result set, elements can be placed in pages, allowing users to choose elements. On the Criteria tab, you can click the following button to access the pivot table view.
Gauge	Use the gauge view to show results as gauges, such as dial, bar, and bulb-style gauges.
Filters	Use the filters view to show the filters in effect for a request. Filters allow you to constrain a request to obtain results that answer a particular question.
Column Selector	Use the column selector view to permit users to dynamically change which columns appear in results. This allows users to analyze data along several dimensions. By changing the facts, users can dynamically alter the content of the results.
View Selector	Use the View Selector view to select a specific view of the results from among the saved views. When placed on a dashboard, the view selector appears as a drop-down list from which users can make a selection.
Legend	Use the Legend view to document the meaning of special formatting used in results, such as the meaning of custom colors applied to gauges.
Funnel Chart	Use the funnel chart view to show a three-dimensional chart that represents target and actual values using volume, level, and color. It is useful for depicting target values that decline over time, such as a sales pipeline.
Narrative	Use the narrative view to show the results as one or more paragraphs of text. You can type in a sentence with placeholders for each column in the results, and specify how rows should be separated.
Ticker	Use the ticker view to show the results of the request as a ticker or marquee, similar in style to the stock tickers that run across many financial and news sites on the Internet. You can control what information is presented and how it scrolls across the page.
Static Text	Use the static text view to include static text in the results. You can use HTML to add banners, tickers, ActiveX objects, Java applets, links, instructions, descriptions, graphics, and so on, in the results.
No Results	The no results view allows you to specify explanatory text to appear if the request does not return any results.
Logical SQL	Use the logical SQL view to show the SQL generated for the request. This view is useful for trainers and Oracle BI administrators, and is usually not included in results for typical users. You cannot modify this view, except to delete it.
Create Segment	The create segment view is for users of the Oracle's Siebel Marketing Version 7.7 (or higher) operational application. Use it to display a Create Segment link in the results. Users can click this link to create a segment in their Oracle Siebel Marketing operational application, based on the results data.
Create Target List	The create target list view is for users of Oracle's Siebel Life Sciences operational application integrated with Oracle's Siebel Life Sciences Analytics applications. Use it to create a Create Target List link in the results. Users can click this link to create a target list, based on the results data, in their Oracle Siebel operational application.

Dashboard Objects and Catalog

Over on the left side of the dashboard editor, you’ll see the “Dashboard Objects” and “Catalog” sections.

Dashboard objects are all of the things that you can put on your dashboard:

·Column – Defines columns within your dashboard page;

·Section – Defines a specific area on a dashboard page;

·Alert Section – Adds a section that displays alerts from software agents;

·Action Link – Runs an associated action, which can do things like allow enhanced navigation or start external processes;

·Action Link Menu – Adds a menu of action links from which the user can select;

·Link or Image – Adds text or image web links to a page;

·Embedded Content – Lets you display another web page inside your dashboard page;

·Text – Static text, HTML, or a mix of the two;

·Folder – Adds a folder in the OBIEE presentation catalog into your dashboard page, so that users could directly access saved queries, for instance;

The “Catalog” section gives you access to other saved dashboards (actually, the sections and contents of those dashboards), as well as all of the queries saved in your personal and the shared folders.  You can drag any of these onto your dashboard page.