Oracle Warehouse Builder OWB 11g New Features!

OWB 11g has a myriad of new features that make this tool more and more accessible to new ETL technicians. The differences in installation and repository structure in the 10gR2 release were significant enough to make the 'understanding' of the architecture easier. Well now OWB 11g has taken this to another level. Not only that but the new features or enhanced architectural features make this product very attractive. Over the next few weeks I will be blogging a bit about the new features and enhancements. (due credit to Oracle Corp for providing some of this information and diagrams).
This is part1. My blog also has a part 2,3,4,5 as well as 6.

The first thing to mention is what Oracle felt were the goals for OWB11g. Why have a new release?
A few reasons:

• Better integration with the Database
• Easier installation because OWB is a database option.
• The SYSDBA requirement removed in a repository installation (very nice IMO)
• Reduced need for DBA credentials
• Database 11g as a source AND target.

Packaging remains the same basically as 10gR2 (core features and options).

• Siebel ERP/CRM connector is new though!
  

Repository Structure has changed from 10gR2 to 11g:

• The illustration below represents the OWB architecture prior to OWB 11g.

• OWB 10g requires one OWB schema per OWB repository. Multiple OWB repositories on an Oracle Database instance require maintaining multiple OWB schemas for multiple OWB repositories on that instance.
• Furthermore, OWB 10g requires one Control Center Service per OWB repository (This means multiple control Center Services).
• OWB 10g Does Not Install to the Database Oracle Home
• OWB 10g and earlier releases cannot install to the Database Oracle home; these versions of OWB require their own Oracle home. Because OWB 11g is integrated as an option in the Oracle database, the default OWB 11g installation is to the database Oracle home. OWB 11g architecture resembles the following:
• A major feature of the new OWB 11g architecture is the single unified repository (above) for each database instance, with a single Control Center Service.
• The single repository owner for OWB 11g is named OWBSYS, which owns the actual repository. This user does not functionally own objects but owns them physically from a schema perspective. The single unified repository enables maintaining a single copy of OWB database objects in OWBSYS (tables, views, PL/SQL packages, and so on...

Next time I'll explore more about repositories, workspaces, and the OWBSYS user, and Control Center Services.