Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Interview Questions
Q. WHAT IS OBIEE? OBIEE stands for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. The current version is 11g and immediate previous version is 10.1.3 OBIEE is Analytical (Reporting/Publishing ) Software Engine which facilitates data analysis, mining and publishing capabilities on top of physical data ware house. The base product of OBIEE is Siebel Analytics which was a product of Siebel Corporation and later this was taken over by Oracle Corporation and re-named as OBIEE.
Q. WHAT ARE BI APPLICATION? OBIEE Analytic engine provides core Business Intelligence and Analytical capabilities on any DW application. This product allows to create a framework / model manually on any type of dataware house. We can logically convert relational schema to dimensional schema. Supports Reporting, Dashboard and publishing functionality Provides all features which analytic perform does including following below.. Apps for common industry analytical processing snow as service Analytics, Sales Analytics , Pharma Analytics, Finance HR etc. Prebuilt Dashboard and Reports on business specific application.
Q. DEFINE REPOSITORY IN TERMS OF OBIEE? Repository stores the Meta data information. The extension of the repository file is “.rpd”. With OBIEE Server, all the rules needed for security, data modeling, aggregate navigation, caching, and connectivity is stored in metadata repositories. Each metadata repository can store multiple business models. OBIEE Server can access multiple repositories Repository is divided into three layer, 1. Physical – Represents the data Sources 2. Business – model the Data sources into Facts and
Dimension and apply business logic 3. Presentation – Specifies the user’s view of the data rendered in OBIEE answers client
Q. WHAT IS THE END TO END LIFE CYCLE OF OBIEE? 
OBIEE life cycle: 1. Gather Business Requirements 2. Identify source systems 3. Design ETL to load data to the Data Warehouse 4. Build a repository 5. Build dashboards and reports 6. Define security (LDAP or External table) 7. Based on performance, decide on aggregationsand/or caching mechanism. 8. Testing and QA.
Q. EXPLAIN OBIEE ARCHITECTURE? OBIEE Architecture and how it works for easy understanding For Beginners this would give you a clear idea how OBIEE works A request is made by the Users through Answers and sent to the Presentation server. The Presentation Server converts the request into logical SQL and sent to the BI server. The BI server converts logical SQL into physical SQL and sent it to the database. The result get back to the user through the same path
Q. WHAT IS ODBC AND OCI? ODBC stands for Open Database Connectivity and is also known as Universal Data Connector. ODBC can be used to connect to any type of data source OCI stands for Oracle Call Interface and is used to connect only to Oracle data source
Q. WHAT IS DATA WAREHOUSING?
A data warehouse is the main repository of an organization’s historical data, it is corporate memory. It contains the raw material for management’s decision support system. The critical factor leading to the use of a data warehouse is that a data analyst can perform complex queries and analysis, such as data mining, on the information without slowing down the operational systems. Data warehousing collection of data designed to support management decision making. Data warehouses contain a wide variety of data that present a coherent picture of business conditions at a single point in time. It is a repository of integrated information, available for queries and analysis.
Q. WHAT IS SINGLE LTS AND MULTIPLE LTS? 
The logical table created at the BMM layer can be based on the data from a single physical layer table, when it is called single Logical Table source. When the specific logical layer table is dependent on the columns of different physical layer tables, it is called Multiple LTS. Most of the time we will be dealing with Multiple LTS.
Q. WHAT ARE OPAQUE VIEWS IN DATABASE? WHEN IS IT ADVISABLE TO CREATE ONE?
The opaque views are tables that are created with join or other query data that contain “SELECT” query output. The opaque views make the logical understanding simple for implementation but there are heavy performance constraints. They are only used when there is no other way to get to the final solution.
Q. HOW IS THE QUERY REPOSITORY TOOL USED? The Query repository tool gives the option to search and analyse the data from the database according to the name, type and other attributes that are describing the database.  The relationship between the different view layer data and the corresponding the physical layer columns. 
Q. WHAT IS AN IMPLICIT FACT COLUMN? 
The implicit fact column is the one that is created due to the join, combinations from the different data or columns from the different tables. There may not be the exact data in form of the column in the result or even in the physical layer of database. These are implied from different data and can just be a temporary layer which help us in getting the required result.
Q. HOW CAN YOU MIGRATE THE PRESENTATION LAYERS ACROSS TO DIFFERENT SERVERS? 
The presentation layer is dependent on the database that is underlying in the each server. Therefore the presentation layer alone cannot be migrated as a stand-alone aspect of the database. What we can do instead is have a ODBC or similar database connection established across from the different servers to the particular main system and then carry over the presentation semantics from the other server with that database oriented changes in the logic layer.
Q. HOW WILL YOU IMPOSE ACCESS LIMITATION TO THE DATABASE ACCORDING TO THE REGION OF ACCESS?
1. The Data level security imposed according to data in certain column can be used to limit access depending on the regions.
2. The Siebel Analytics admin tool will give you the control over user access to the different data according to conditions supplied by you.
Q. WHAT KIND OF SOURCES CAN BE CONNECTED TO OBIEE? Obiee
can be plugged on Relational Databases, Cubes or Flat files, with the following constraints : The sources must be modeled as star schemas or snowflakes schemas in order to have an efficient and safe behavior. In case of multiple sources directly in Obiee used together, be aware that Obiee will conduct the needed joins itself, and OBIEE is not a database.
Q. IS IT POSSIBLE TO CREATE A REPORT BASED ON TWO SUBJECT AREAS (EXAMPLE : SALES AND SUPPLY CHAIN)? Theoretically,
yes. In practice, the two subject area must come from the same business model in the repository, which is quite useless. Then, we can consider the two following alternatives : Create an analysis with “combine request”: one subrequest by subject area. Note that it’s tricky to implement for standard users. Set up a transverse subject area, that will gather tables from both business topics.
Q. HOW TO GET REAL PHYSICAL SQL SENT BY OBIEE TO THE DATABASE First of all, check the value of your session variable LOGLEVEL. 5 is fine. Then, go into Administration -> Manage sessions. Find your query (at the bottom of the list), and click on “View log”. If you hit the cache, you will see “cache hit on query”. Otherwise, you will see the physical SQL below the logical SQL.
Q. IN A TROUBLESHOOTING PERSPECTIVE, HOW CAN I SEE LOG FILES?
Old method in 10g version consisted in opening log files on the server. Now, in 11g, log information is consultable in Enterprise Manager.
Q. WHAT IS QUERY REPOSITORY TOOL? It is utility of Seibel/OBIEE Admin tool Allows you to examine the repository metadata tool For example: search for objects based on name, type. Examine relationship between metadata objects like which column in the presentation layer maps to which table in physical layer
Q. WHAT IS JDK AND WHY DO WE NEED IT? Java Development Kit (JDK), A software package that contains the minimal set of tools needed to write, compile, debug, and run Java applets. Oracle doesn’t recommend Opaque Views because of performance considerations, so why/when do we use them? An opaque view is a physical layer table that consists of select statement. an opaque view should be used only if there is no other solution.
Q. WHAT IS VARIABLE IN OBIEE? 
You can use variables in a repository to streamline administrative tasks and modify metadata content dynamically to adjust to a changing data environment. The Administration Tool includes a Variable Manager for defining variables
 Authentication
is the process, by which a system verifies, through the use of a user ID and password, that a user has the necessary permissions and authorizations to log in and access data. The Siebel Analytics Server authenticates each connection request it receives. 1. Operating system authentication 2. External table authentication 3. Database authentication 4. LDAP authentication
Q. WHA T IS SYSTEM VARIABLE AND NON-SYSTEM VAR IABLE?
Q. WHAT IS OBJECT LEVEL SECURITY? There are two types of object level security: 1. Report Level 2. Web Level Repository level: In presentation layer we can set Repository level security by giving permission or deny permission to users/groups to see particular table or column. Web level: this provides security for objects stored in the OBIEE web catalog, such as dashboards, dashboards pages, folder, and reports you can only view the objects for which you are authorized. For example, a mid-level manager may not be granted access to a dashboard containing summary information for an entire department.
Q. WHAT IS DATA LEVEL SECURITY? 
This controls the type an amount of data that you can see in a report. When multiple users run the same report the results that are returned to each depend on their access rights and roles in the organization. For example a sales vice president sees results for all regions, while a sales representative for a particular region sees only data for that region.
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