Upgrading OBIEE 7.9.2 to 7.9.6.1

Upgrading BI apps version is a big process. Following steps were taken while upgrading in our environment:

1 . We will need three repositories to begin with, 7.9.2 original rpd , 7.9.2 customized rpd and 7.9.61 rpd. Its important than in 7.9.6.1 all OOTB modules from 7.9.2 should also be installed in addition to new SAs.

2. Equalize repositories - when installing OBI apps, oracle ships with map files that are requried to equialize the rpds. These have two steps:

StepA: Equalize 7961 to 792, command for this is :

equalizerpds -A Administrator -B SADMIN -C OracleBIAnalyticsApps792.rpd -D Administrator -E SADMIN -F OracleBIAnalyticsApps7961.rpd -J rename792796new.map -O oracleBIAnalyticsApps.rpd

StepB: Equalize CustomRPD to 792

equalizerpds -A Administrator -B SADMIN -C OracleBIAnalyticsApps792.rpd -D Administrator -E custompwd -F OracleBIAnalyticsAppscustom.rpd -J rename792796new.map -O customoracleBIAnalyticsApps.rpd

3. Next step is to use three way merge and create a new RPD. AdminTool has inbuilt merge option which will need to be used. Details of merge and other steps are available in "OBI Apps Upgrade.pdf" page 6-37 to page 6-44.

We had multiple errors during merge process. The goal here is to minimize this so that least manual work is required later. Way to do this is notice pattern of error and then change the custom rpd (equalized custom rpd) before merging and making the objects same as in 7.9.6.1 rpd, so that the algorithm treats the object as equal.

4. After rpds are successfull merged, consistency check needs to be performed. Here again there will be patterns of error, some can be fixed by making changed to rpd before merging and then merging again, others will need to be fixed manually.

We faced an unusuall error that read : "[nQSError: 42001] Missing repository object with ID=3003:338714". This error completely halted the process as we could not fix the error without knowing where the error is comming from. To fix this issue we followed three step process:

StepA: export merged rpd to udml using following syntax:

nqudmlgen.exe -u Administrator -p custompwd-r C:\OracleBI\Upgrade\04AfterManualWork\ManualoracleBIAnalyticsApps.rpd -o
C:\OracleBI\Upgrade\04AfterManualWork\merged.udml

StepB: convert udml file back to rpd file using following command:

nQUDMLExec -u Administrator -p customrpd -i C:\OracleBI\Upgrade\04AfterManualWork\merged.udml -o
C:\OracleBI\Upgrade\04AfterManualWork\ManualoracleBIAnalyticsApps1.rpd

This will create the rpd back , except that it will not bring in objects that was causing unusual errors.

StepC: Compare the new rpd with rpd that was give unusual error. This should be able to point all object which need to be fixed in order to proceed.

5. Once all errors and warningd are resolved, rpd is ready for regression testing. Any errors there after will need to be manually fixed.