How To Enable Administration Server High Availability When You Have An OBIEE 11g|12c Horizontal Scale-Out On Local Storage (Doc ID 1927316.1)

Last updated on MAY 04, 2021

Applies to:

Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition - Version 11.1.1.7.0 and later
Business Intelligence Server Enterprise Edition - Version 11.1.1.7.0 and later
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

Note: For OBIEE 12c, the supported method is to follow the Enterprise Deployment Guide exactly.

Similar information is included in:
Fusion Middleware High Availability Guide
9 Administration Server High Availability

OBIEE 11g has several types or methods of installations that can be considered “High Availability”. The reference architecture or “gold standard” is documented in the Oracle® Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence 11g Release 1 (11.1.1) -- Part Number E15722-06, chapter 8. In the Enterprise Deployment Guide, the solution entails installing the domain on shared storage. Failing over the AdminServer is documented from that perspective. In some cases, you may have a horizontal scale-out that is installed on local disk. This document is written from the perspective of a local disk installation and walks through the process of failing over the AdminServer from Node1 (APPHOST1) to Node2 (APPHOST2) as it is not a well-covered / documented scenario.

The Oracle Weblogic Administration Server is a singleton application, so it cannot be deployed in an active-active configuration. By default, the Administration Server is only available on the first installed node, and for an OBIEE horizontal scale-out on local storage, it is available only on apphost1.<domain>. If this node became unavailable, then the Administration Server console and the Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control would also be unavailable. This is an undesirable scenario. To avoid this scenario, the Administration Server and the applications deployed to it must be enabled for high availability.

Note:

11g: If you have installed on local storage and If you are using and have configured and external LDAP with Fusion Middleware Security and if you have configured the internal system users (BISystemUser and OracleSystemUser) and the business users in the external LDAP, then there should be no loss of service (OBIEE authentication / operation) if the AdminServer fails. In this use case you will not have access to Weblogic console or Enterprise Manager 11g Fusion Middleware Control until AdminServer is restored and started.
11g: This does not apply to a Simple Install.
This document assumes that the node 1 machine operating system is accessible. It is Best Practice to use shared storage (as in the Enterprise Deployment Guide) or have a copy of the AdminServer files and Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control application backed up to shared storage or an available server. Additionally, you may want to enable these steps immediately after installation and a full offline backup.

This describes how to enable high availability for the Oracle WebLogic Administration Server on APPHOST2.

Scope

This document is for OBIEE 11g administrators and architects with a good understanding of the OBIEE 11g high availability, clustering, horizontal scale-out architecture documentation.

This document will use the following nominclature:

APPHOST1 / APPHOST1.domain = The hostname or fully qualified domain name for node 1 / primary node
APPHOST2 / APPHOST2.domain = The hostname or fully qualified domain name for node 2 / secondary node
Note: This is also applicable to APPHOST3,4,n, that you chose to use as a failover node for the AdminServer
APPHOST-VIP = Virtual IP Address
APPHOST-VHN / APPHOST-VHN.domain - The virtual hostname or fully qualified domain name used.
WEBHOST1 = HTTP Server Host (if used)
WEBHOST2 = HTTP Server Host (if used)

This document includes the following topics:

1.1, "Configuring High Availability for Oracle WebLogic Administration Server"
1.2, "Provisioning the Administration Server and Fusion Middleware Control on APPHOST2"
1.3, "Validating Administration Server and Oracle Fusion Middleware Control Failover on APPHOST2"