EPM 11.1.2.3 Rapid Deployment

While I was busy celebrating May 1st with my family some people have already studied the new EPM release. Therefore I will not reinvent the wheel by posting another "what's new" update and instead will link to these fine blog posts for those who are thirsty for more information:

• EPM 11.1.2.3 Installation and configuration changes by John Goodwin
• All the Cool New Features in Oracle EPM 11.1.2.3 by Edward Roske (an overview of new product features based on EPM readme files)

One nice addition that hasn't been discussed much yet is the enhanced rapid deployment installation option which allows you to deploy a single Windows server installation of HFM, Planning or Essbase. The Repaid Deployment Wizard requires minimal interaction and produces a fully configured and tested EPM setup complete with an Oracle database.

The steps required to carry out the rapid deployment configuration are described in separate PDF documents per product (see the Deployment section in the EPM 11.1.2.3 Documentation Library). In addition to downloading the EPM installation media you also have to get the Oracle Database installation files from their own Media Pack on Oracle eDelivery.

EPM 11.1.2.3 media

Oracle database media

The EPM installation media (including client installers) and the Oracle Database installer should all be unpacked into the same directory. I recommend getting the Database installation files from the eDelivery site so you can be sure to have the directory structure the deployment wizard expects to find. Here, in addition to the familiar installTool script, you will find the new wizard.cmd batch file:

After launching wizard.cmd you will be presented with a choice for the product suite you want to install (Essbase, HFM or Planning).

All rapid deployment bundles include EPM Foundation and Oracle database and client as mandatory components. The products installed and configured with each option are:

• Rapid Essbase deployment:
• Essbase Server
• Essbase Administration Services web application and console
• Provider Services
• Essbase Studio service and client
• Optional: Smart View (requires MS Office 2010 to be installed)
• Rapid Financial Management deployment:
• HFM application server components
• HFM IIS web applications
• HFM ADF web application
• Reporting And Analysis Framework
• Financial Reporting service and Studio client
• Optional: Smart View (requires MS Office 2010 to be installed)
• Rapid Planning deployment:
• Planning web application
• Essbase Server
• Essbase Administration Services web application and console
• Provider Services
• Reporting And Analysis Framework
• Financial Reporting service and Studio client
• Calculation Manager
• Essbase Studio service and client
• Optional: Smart View (requires MS Office 2010 to be installed)

Next configuration panel shows the only settings you need to set during the process: the installation path, deployment password and for HFM the credentials for the DCOM account. The deployment password will be assigned to native HSS admin user and also for the Oracle database users "sys" and "admin".

The wizard checks the installation prerequisites for the chosen product. Note that you only need to have Office and .Net Framework 4 installed in case you want to include Smart View in the installation. Note that you need to unpack the EPM System Release 11.1.2.3.0 Client Installers package into the same directory with the EPM installation media so the Product Zip Check can succeed.

After checking the installation parameters in the Summary panel you can click next to start the deployment process. On my laptop with 8 CPU cores and 8 gigs of RAM it took around an hour to complete the installation, configuration and validations steps so you have to be patient here...

You can verify the status of each installed component in the deployment wizard log file (in my case Z:\Media\EPM-11.1.2.3-winx64\unpacked\diagnostics\logs\deploymentwizard\deploymentwizard_summary_Wed-05.01.2013-19.10.01.log):

(May 01, 2013 07.15.31 PM): Pass [000 min 00 sec] EPM Product Zips Check
(May 01, 2013 07.15.31 PM): Pass [000 min 00 sec] Oracle Database 11g R2 installer Check
(May 01, 2013 07.15.31 PM): Fail [000 min 00 sec] Microsoft Office 2010 Check
(May 01, 2013 07.15.31 PM): Fail [000 min 00 sec] .NET Framework 4 Check
(May 01, 2013 07.15.37 PM): Pass [000 min 00 sec] Prepare Deployment
(May 01, 2013 07.15.38 PM): Pass [056 min 36 sec] Deploy Financial Management Rapid
(May 01, 2013 07.15.38 PM): Pass [014 min 17 sec] Set up Oracle Database
(May 01, 2013 07.29.56 PM): Pass [016 min 43 sec] Install Financial Management Domain
(May 01, 2013 07.46.39 PM): Pass [019 min 45 sec] Config Financial Management Domain
(May 01, 2013 08.06.25 PM): Pass [000 min 36 sec] Install Financial Reporting Studio
(May 01, 2013 08.07.02 PM): Pass [000 min 37 sec] Install Oracle Financial Management Client 64 bit
(May 01, 2013 07.15.35 PM): Skip [000 min 00 sec] Install Oracle Smart View for Office
(May 01, 2013 08.07.39 PM): Pass [004 min 34 sec] Start EPM System
(May 01, 2013 08.12.14 PM): Pass [003 min 26 sec] Validate Deployment
(May 01, 2013 08.12.14 PM): Pass [003 min 04 sec] Generate EPM Diagnostic Report
(May 01, 2013 08.15.18 PM): Pass [000 min 09 sec] Generate Registry Report
(May 01, 2013 08.15.27 PM): Pass [000 min 12 sec] Generate Deployment Report
(May 01, 2013 08.15.41 PM): Pass [060 min 03 sec] Total summary


If you take a look at the installed services you see that the names now follow a more uniform naming convention:

Oracle Database is installed and configured under D:\Oracle\OracleDB:

An Oracle instance called ADMIN is created during the deployment process. All EPM tables, views etc. are created in a single database schema called "admin":

Compact deployment uses the web server functionality built into WebLogic Server. Therefore you need to use port 9000 to access the web applications (on my VM the URL for Workspace is http://hvtest2.local:9000/workspace/ ).

Workspace login page

Workspace home page

All in all, the Rapid Deployment Wizard makes it easy to set up a small test or demo installation of Essbase, HFM or Planning. The process couldn't be much easier to follow after you have installation media and other prerequisites figured out (and the prereqs are explained step-by-step in the Rapid Deployment Guide for each product). The hardware requirements described in the guide (quad core, 16 GB RAM) are a bit excessive but the web applications are of course hungry for memory nowadays. With minimum Oracle and EPM services running I can barely run everything required by HFM on a virtual server with just 4 GB of RAM but you will need probably need more if you also use Smart View in MS Office.

Another thing you should be aware of is that the installation process does not seem to cope well with bits and pieces left over from previous EPM or Oracle database installations. Therefore I recommend using a clean Windows Server image as a basis to keep the installation .