March 2022 is shaping up to be an interesting month, and the show isn't over yet!
One customer went live a few weeks ago on Hyperion / Oracle EPM 11.2.7. It was a complex upgrade from EPM 11.1.2.4 but we got it done on time.
This week I upgraded another customer's EPM from 11.2.3 to 11.2.8. The in-place upgrade wasn't easy and posed challenges... mostly due to many references on the back-end to jdk1.8_181, which no longer exists as a folder starting in 11.2.5. Now it is simply Oracle\Middleware\jdk\. Some of my NTT colleagues have hit similar issues, so I'm helping them troubleshoot.
A very fun little project was helping one of the co-founders of EPMware by installing Essbase 21.3 on one of his AWS images. He wants to test if his software works against the Essbase 21c Java APIs. He gave me full admin access and I turned it around in 1 day because he didn't need to integrate it with EPM, so it was a very simple install. I'm anxious to hear the results of his testing!
I've been working on my own sandbox and am attempting to integrate Essbase 21.3 with EPM 11.2.8. The 11.2.8 README says this type of configuration is certified now. So far I've managed to get Planning to talk to Essbase 21c and successfully deploy the sample "Vision" application.
When integrated with EPM's 11.2.8 Shared Services, Essbase 21.3 registers itself smoothly so we have a familiar interface to provision users and groups to it. The problem is you can't use LCM in EPM to work with Essbase 21.3 applications... you have to use the Essbase 21c migration tools instead. One caveat is if you want to migrate a pre-existing Essbase 11.1.2.4 / 11.2.x app into 21c, it must come over as Unicode. So some folks who want to attempt this may have some conversions to do.
Another weird thing I'm seeing in 21c is I can create Essbase apps just fine in the 21c EAS Console (it is the thin web client), but you cannot see the Planning apps in it! I'm rebuilding my sandbox a slightly different way to see if I can figure it out.... the 21c online guides on Oracle's documentation site don't really address this topic.
Finally, I've got an upcoming project on my calendar to move a customer from OBIEE 11.1.1.9 to OBIEE 12.2.1.4. This version of OBIEE isn't available on eDelivery when I last checked (Oracle says they're working on tightening up a few things), and I believe know why. It is possible to get it, though. Just do a web search for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. With a bit of clicking, you can make your way to the OBIEE 12.2.1.4 download page.
One thing I'm unhappy about is OBIEE 12.2.1.4 requires an out-of-date Fusion Middleware Infrastructure: FMW 12.2.1.3 instead of 12.2.1.4. I hope this gets fixed soon.
My head is spinning! Be well,
Dave
