OBIEE 12C - Upload Repository Commands - downloadrpd & uploadrpd
As we all know there are so many changes that come with OBIEE 12C bundle
package. One of them is uploading a repository to the server and making
it available to the queries.
Again, Windows only utility "The Administrator tool" lets edit the data model in "on-line" or "off-line" mode.
Online mode is strongly recommended when all changes that we make,
immediately get saved to the uploaded RPD file and are available to
users after a metadata refresh within OBIEE.
As far as, so much so same.
Unlike, in off-line mode we can edit an RPD file downloaded from the
OBIEE server and the changes are not available in OBIEE until we
re-upload the RPD file. This is where OBIEE 12c is very different from
11g in downloading and uploading a repository from/to the server resp.
In 11g we can just Copy/FTP the current RPD file down from the server,
make changes and then using EM we would upload the same to the server.
After a while (Activate Changes and all), we need to restart few OBIEE
system components which we called OPMN.
But from 12c, we simply cannot Copy/FTP the current/online RPD down from
the server and use it to further modification. The major change is, the
Enterprise Manager no longer contains a deployment tab to upload a
repository. Here, everything is moved to one command-line utility,
data-model-cmd.sh
With this, Oracle provides the downloadrpd and uploadrpd commands for offline repository diagnostic and development purposes.
uploadrpd:
We use this command to upload the Oracle BI Repository in RPD format.
Note that, we cannot use this command to upload a repository composed of MDS XML documents.
downloadrpd:
To download an uploaded RPD file for editing, we use downloadrpd command.
We execute the utilities through a launcher script,
data-model-cmd.sh on UNIX and
data-model-cmd.cmd on Windows. We can find the launcher script at the following location:
Oracle_Home/user_projects/domains/bi/bitools/bin
Syntax:
downloadrpd -O <RPDname> [-W <RPDpwd>] -SI
<service_instance> -U <cred_username> [-P
<cred_password>] [-S <hostname>] [-N <port_number>]
[-SSL] [-H]
Where,
O specifies the name of the repository that we want to download.
W is the repository's password. If we do not supply the password, then
we will be prompted for the password when the command is run. For
security purposes, Oracle recommends that we include a password in the
command only if we are using automated scripting to run the command.
SI specifies the name of the service instance.
U specifies a valid user's name to be used for Oracle BI EE authentication.
P specifies the password corresponding to the user's name that we
specified for U. If we do not supply the password, then we will be
prompted for the password when the command is run. For security
purposes, Oracle recommends that we include a password in the command
only if we are using automated scripting to run the command.
S specifies the Oracle BI EE host name. Only include this option when we are running the command from a client installation.
N specifies the Oracle BI EE port number. Only include this option when we are running the command from a client installation.
SSL specifies to use SSL to connect to the WebLogic Server to run the
command. Only include this option when we are running the command from a
client installation.
H displays the usage information and exits the command.
To download a repository:
./data-model-cmd.sh downloadrpd -O /home/oracle/share/obieerpd.rpd -SI ssi -U weblogic -P Welcome1
Upon running, it prompts to enter a password for this RPD file.
It doesn’t ask to confirm this, so make sure we know what we entered or
else you’ll need to re- run the command to download it again!
Now we can FTP this (newly created file) to local system and open it in
the Administrator tool. Once done with the changes we want, we can
upload it using the below command line utility.
./data-model-cmd.sh uploadrpd -I /home/oracle/share/obieerpd_modified.rpd -SI ssi -U weblogic -P Welcome1
Where,
I - specifies the name of the repository that we want to upload.
Here, are prompted to enter the RPD password, the same one we entered when we downloaded it.
Now we get to know that we have saved our valuable (!) time in “Activating the Changes” and restarting our favorite (!!) OPMN.
Here with 12C, we can directly use the newly uploaded repository without
restart of any services. Happy enough?? Wait, there's something waiting
for you. Somewhat new you can say.
Before trying all this on your own, let me tell you that we can’t FTP
the uploaded RPD file from server or the default repository location and
open it in the Administrator tool thinking that you now know the
password..
Obviously we know it, we entered it when uploading it, right? No, it's wrong;
it changes the password during the upload. This is Oracle’s Intelligence. ;-)
So, it was the quick overview of how to download/upload the repository
in OBIEE 12C. It might seem a little complex to start with, but once you
know the data-model-cmd.sh command (and scripted it for your
environment, which I will certainly do!), it’s a big improvement over
the 11g method of deployment RPD files.
