ORACLE® HYPERION ENTERPRISE

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

RELEASE 11.1.2

TIPS AND TRICKS FROM

INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT:
ISSUE 53, AUGUST 2010

CONTENTS IN BRIEF

What is the solution for Essbase Server failover in 11.1.2? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

What are the specific hardware and software requirements needed to configure Essbase
Server for failover in 11.1.2? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
What value does OPMN bring to Essbase Server in 11.1.2? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
In 11.1.2, can I start Essbase Server directly from the command line without using
OPMN? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
In 11.1.2 on Windows 64-bit, why do I not see the OPMN service? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
What are the steps needed to configure Essbase Server for failover in 11.1.2? . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Why is Essbase Server not failing over when first node goes down? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
In 11.1.2, why does Essbase start fine in the foreground but won’t start via the OPMN startup
script? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
CORRECTION: In EPM System release 11.1.2, services were running fine; then a user logged
off and now Web applications are not accessible. I receive a 404 error when accessing any
of the Web applications. What could be causing this issue? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
What is the solution for Essbase Server failover in
11.1.2?
Essbase failover consists of setting up an active/passive deployment on two physical machines
where the data between the two Essbase instances is common and is located on a shared disk.
At any given time, only one of the instances is active and the other is passive. Data corresponds
to everything under the ARBORPATH directory.
When a systemic failure occurs, such as a process crash, network down/partition, or disk failure,
the Essbase Server on the current node fails over to the standby node, which then becomes the
new active node.
Essbase clustering is achieved using a Fusion Middleware component called OPMN (Oracle
Process Manager and Notification server). This provides the capability to group multiple Essbase
instances together (limited to two in 11.1.2) and create a failover cluster using a feature called
“Service Failover”.
For an overview of installing, configuring, and managing Essbase with OPMN, see “About
Essbase and Oracle Process Manager and Notification (OPMN) Server” in the Installation and
Configuration Guide.

What are the specific hardware and software

requirements needed to configure Essbase Server for
failover in 11.1.2?
Both Essbase instances that are part of a cluster need to share a common ARBORPATH on a shared
disk.
● Storage Requirement: The following kinds of shared drives are supported:
❍ Any SAN storage device with a shared disk file system on the installation platform (e.g.,
OCFS, VCFS, GPFS, etc)
❍ Any NAS device over a supported network protocol (e.g., NFS, CIFS, AFS, etc)
The recommendation would be SAN or enterprise-class NAS device because of lower I/
O latency.
● Hardware Requirement: Any two server grade machines of the same platform and running
the same OS.

What value does OPMN bring to Essbase Server in

11.1.2?
OPMN provides functionality to do process administration and monitoring for non-native
services. It has long been used in the Oracle Fusion Middleware product family and has become
the standard management application for many Oracle products.

2 Tips and Tricks from Infrastructure Development: Issue 53, August 2010
From EPM System Release 11.1.2 onwards, OPMN has also started managing Essbase Server.
OPMN offers the following benefits for Essbase:
● Essbase failover is implemented using an OPMN feature called “Service Failover”.
● In a non-failover configuration, OPMN can be used to restart Essbase automatically on the
local machine, if it crashes.
● In the future, OPMN can be used to monitor the health of Essbase and provide corrective
action, such as process restart, when Essbase is found to be in an unhealthy state. To achieve
this type of monitoring, Essbase will send periodic health information back to OPMN that
can be acted upon either by an administrator or, intrinsically, by OPMN..

In 11.1.2, can I start Essbase Server directly from the

command line without using OPMN?
The Essbase start/stop scripts under $ARBORPATH/bin are still supported; however, you are
strongly encouraged to use OPMN for managing Essbase.. The Windows service for OPMN for
Essbase is called opmn_instanceName. This OPMN service brings up Essbase in background
mode, when the service is started.
One key difference is that when using the $ARBORPATH/bin/startEssbase.bat script to start
Essbase on Windows, it isn’t started as a Windows service. Therefore, Essbase starts up as a
console application that shuts down when the console user logs off.
From EPM System Release 11.1.2.1 on, the Essbase Windows service will no longer be installed.
See “Starting and Stopping EPM System Products” in the Installation and Configuration
Guide. The Essbase Server section lists the start and stop scripts and service names for the OPMN
and the non-OPMN methods of starting Essbase.

In 11.1.2 on Windows 64-bit, why do I not see the OPMN

service?
In 11.1.2, the OPMN service is erroneously not installed on the Windows 64-bit platform.

➤ To change the startup type to a Windows service, follow these steps:

1 Back up or delete the $EPM_ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/starter/
Essbase.properties file.
2 Update or create $EPM_ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/starter/Essbase.properties so
that it only contains the following lines:
type=service
name=opmn_EPM_epmsystem1

Now using the single start script $EPM_ORACLE_INSTANCE/bin/start.bat will start OPMN
as a Windows service and will remain running after the user logs off.

Tips and Tricks from Infrastructure Development: Issue 53, August 2010 3
What are the steps needed to configure Essbase Server
for failover in 11.1.2?
These steps are documented in the Installation and Configuration Guide, in the chapter
“Configuring EPM System Products” in the section “Setting Up Essbase Clusters”.

Why is Essbase Server not failing over when first node

goes down?
Ensure that OPMN is running on both the active Essbase node as well as the passive node. OPMN
is co-located with Essbase on each cluster node. To ensure that each OPMN is aware of all its
peers, start both OPMN servers and put each in their own service group by setting the topology
configuration in the opmn.xml file as:
<topology>
<nodes list="host1:6000,host2:6000"/>
</topology>

Once this is configured, if Essbase on node1 dies and the node itself goes down, OPMN on node2
will detect that node1 is no longer reachable and will start an Essbase instance on node2.
See “Setting Up Active-Passive Essbase Clusters” in the Installation and Configuration Guide
for details.

In 11.1.2, why does Essbase start fine in the foreground

but won’t start via the OPMN startup script?
Ensure that the correct OPMN is used to start Essbase. Use this start script:
MIDDLEWARE_HOME/user_projects/epmsystem1/bin/startEssbase.bat

Instead of this one:

MIDDLEWARE_HOME/user_projects/epmsystem1/EssbaseServer/essbaseserver1/bin

If OPMN itself doesn’t start, check the OPMN startup error indicated in this file:
MIDDLEWARE_HOME/user_projects/epmsystem1/diagnostics/logs/OPMN/opmn/
opmn.log.

4 Tips and Tricks from Infrastructure Development: Issue 53, August 2010
CORRECTION: In EPM System release 11.1.2, services
were running fine; then a user logged off and now Web
applications are not accessible. I receive a 404 error
when accessing any of the Web applications. What
could be causing this issue?
This is a correction to this tip from a previous issue. A procedure to change the terminal services
configuration has been added.
This problem can occur because sometimes Windows cleans out a user's temp directory when
the user logs off from a remote session. Therefore, if the user who installed EPM System products
and is running the services logs in to a remote session of EPM System and then logs out of the
remote session, upon logout, Windows sometimes cleans out the temp files associated with this
user. Since these temp files are in use by WebLogic, deleting them causes WebLogic to stop
functioning.

➤ If you are able to change the configuration of terminal services, do the following:
1 Stop all EPM System services.
2 Go to Terminal Services Configuration
3 In the Edit settings area, deselect the option for “Delete temporary folders on exit” so that it changes
to No.
4 Start EPM System services.
5 Log off and test.

If you cannot change the configuration of terminal services, change the temp location for the
services.

➤ To change the temp location for the services:

1 Create this folder: MIDDLEWARE_HOME/user_projects/epmsystem1/tmp
2 Use the Windows regedit tool, navigate to HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/ to find the
service entries in the registry:
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/AnalyticProviderServices0/HyS9aps
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/CalcMgr0/HyS9CALC
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/EpmaDataSync0/HyS9EPMADataSynchronizer
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/EpmaWebReports0/HyS9EPMAWebTier
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/EssbaseAdminServices0/HyS9eas
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/FinancialReporting0/HyS9FRReports
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/FMWebServices0/HyS9FinancialManagementWebSvcs
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/FoundationServices0/HyS9FoundationServices
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/HpsAlerter0/HyS9HPSAlerter
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/HpsWebReports0/HyS9HPSWebReports
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/Planning0/HyS9Planning
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/RaFramework0/HyS9RaFramework
HKLM/Software/Hyperion Solutions/WebAnalysis0/HyS9WebAnalysis

Tips and Tricks from Infrastructure Development: Issue 53, August 2010 5
3 Modify the following:

Set the value for the JVM option entries for “-Djava.io.tmpdir=” to the newly created
temp directory (for example, MIDDLEWARE_HOME/user_projects/epmsystem1/tmp).
Set the value for the JVM option entries for “-
Dweblogic.j2ee.application.tmpDir=” to MIDDLEWARE_HOME/user_projects/
domains/servers/EPMSystem/servers/<serverName>/tmp). Substitute
<serverName> for the actual deployed server name such as CalcMgr0, EpmaDataSync0,
FoundationServices0, etc.

We also recommend that you add an “-Xrs” option to the JVM setting. This option ensures
that the services won’t shut down when users log out of Remote Desktop.
To do this, select New -> String Value with the name JVMOption<X>, where X is the
JVMOptionCount+1 and set its value data to “-Xrs”

6 Tips and Tricks from Infrastructure Development: Issue 53, August 2010
Edit JVMOptionCount value and increase it by 1:

Tips and Tricks from Infrastructure Development: Issue 53, August 2010 7
 COPYRIGHT NOTICE

EPM System Tips and Tricks from Infrastructure Development: Issue 53, August 2010, 11.1.2
Copyright © 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Authors: EPM Information Development Team
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