Business Intelligence is becoming more important for both Government and Commercial Enterprises as a result of the increased focus on operational efficiency in a less buoyant marketplace. We have all known for a while that Discoverer was no longer a strategic BI product for Oracle. The question now is where do we go next? This presentation will consider the advantages and disadvantages of a number of options including Oracle BI Enterprise Edition, Application Express, and other non Oracle offerings such as Jasper Reports. We will also look at various approaches for moving to these alternatives.

1. www.sagecomputing.com.au
penny@sagecomputing.com.au
Discoverer is dead – Where to next
Penny Cookson
SAGE Computing Services
SAGE Computing Services
Customised Oracle Training Workshops and Consulting

2. SAGE Computing Services
Customised Oracle Training Workshops and Consulting
Penny Cookson
Managing Director and Principal Consultant
Working with Oracle products since 1987
Oracle Magazine Educator of the Year 2004
www.sagecomputing.com.au
penny@sagecomputing.com.au

6. (No parrots were harmed in the making of this presentation)

12. Options?
Do nothing
Apex Oracle BI
Product evaluation
Full evaluation
Migrate? Rebuild?

13. Do Nothing
Forms and Reports moved on to 11gR2…12 etc
You need to keep an 11gR1 environment

14. Migrate / Rebuild
in something else

15. Press here to
migrate for free

16. Spend money on
People Software ?

17. How much money do you have?
How important is BI to you?
How complex is your requirement?
How diverse are your data sources?
What is the scope of your BI requirement?
Lots Some Colin Barnett
is taking most
of it away
Critical It helps
a bit
My manager
likes pretty
pictures
Very Not
very
I think so but
I really just
need a few
graphs
Very Oracle
+ a bit
What is a data
source? I have
2 Oracle
databases
Enterprise Dept Me, Steve
and our
manager

18. Evaluate other products

20. OLAP capability
Easy to use
End User’s can create analyses
Good use of Oracle
calculations / analytics
EUL for meta data

Easy to support
Cost of Licences
No alerts
Oracle database centric
EUL in one database
Oracle Discoverer
Dashboards only
using Portlets
Not easy to tune SQL
Role based security model No distribute / subscribe
Java applet

21. You have the database
 You have Apex
Low cost
Relatively easy to learn / build
Simplicity
Easy to use

Easy to support (Cloud)
Limited functionality
No central repository
for meta data
Oracle database
centric
Analyses built by
Developers not Users
Mobility

23. “Application Express can easily be used by citizen developers” (Oracle)
“From each according to his ability – to each according to his need” (Marx)
"De chacun selon ses facultés, à chacun selon ses besoins" (Louis Blanc 1839)

24. Charts
Interactive Reports

32. Hand crafted SQL

Hand crafted SQL

37. Rebuild your BI requirement in Apex
Analyse your requirements
Build generic Interactive Reports and Charts
Build sets of alternatives
Build dashboards
Build drill downs

53. All of that could be built in Apex

73. Its all about the meta
data repository

74. Three layers
Managed with Client
Administration tool

75. Define hierarchies for drill down

76. Define calculations

77. This is where the effort goes

78. Common Enterprise
Repository for Meta Data
User driven analyses
High level of functionality
Dashboards

Distribution (Scheduler)
Scalable
Multiple data sources
Use with SOA and Web
Services
Built in WLS
Mobility
Oracle BI
Alerts
BI Apps for EBS
Highly interactive user experience
Standards (JEE) based

79. 
High cost (compared to Apex)
Multi layered repository
Complex
Oracle BI
Data model is critical
Complex underlying
SQL code
Standards (JEE) based
Uses its own weird
pseudo SQL
Learning curve for BI
developers
Inbuilt WLS

80. APEX Security
Authentication: LDAP, Oracle SSO, DB, Custom
Authorisation: Role based - LDAP groups, Custom (DB tables)
Row level: Virtual private database, Views

81. OBIEE Security
Authentication: WLS Authenticators - LDAP, Oracle SSO, DB, Custom
Authorisation: Role based - LDAP groups, Custom (DB tables)
Row level: Virtual private database, Views

83. Build an application that satisfies most of your BI requirements
Build a common repository, some analyses and let your users
generate what they need

84. Approach
(Whichever tool you choose)

85. Migrate / Convert?
What are your real BI requirements now?
Does your current BI
satisfy them?
How much of your
current BI is not
used?
Why restrict your new tool
to doing what your old
one does?

86. Migrate

89. Redesign / Rebuild
Rethink
Rationalise
Determine your
real requirements
Design and
document common
model
Design strategy /
procedures / governance Small Information
requirements
projects

90. Move from Oracle
Reports to
BI Publisher?

92. How much money do you have?
How important is BI to you?
How complex is your requirement?
How diverse are your data sources?
What is the scope of your BI requirement?
Lots Some Colin Barnett
is taking most
of it away
Critical It helps
a bit
My manager
likes pretty
pictures
Very Not
very
I think so but
I really just
need a few
graphs
Very Oracle
+ a bit
What is a data
source? I have
2 Oracle
databases
Enterprise Dept Me, Steve
and our
manager
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Apex

93. How much money do you have?
How important is BI to you?
How complex is your requirement?
How diverse are your data sources?
What is the scope of your BI requirement?
Lots Some Colin Barnett
is taking most
of it away
Critical It helps
a bit
My manager
likes pretty
pictures
Very Not
very
I think so but
I really just
need a few
graphs
Very Oracle
+ a bit
What is a data
source? I have
2 Oracle
databases
Enterprise Dept Me, Steve
and our
manager
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
OBIEE

94. www.sagecomputing.com.au
penny@sagecomputing.com.au
Questions
Penny Cookson
SAGE Computing Services
SAGE Computing Services
Customised Oracle Training Workshops and Consulting