Oracle Warehouse Builder OWB 11g New Features Part 5!

This is a continuation from part 4. In part 5, we will discuss a bit about the installation of OWB 11g, and how it is easier and differs from the previous counterparts. Again, thanks to Oracle for providing some of this information to make my posting easier!

Overall, the installation of OWB 11g is greatly simplified in an Oracle Database 11g environment. When you install the core Oracle Database 11g, you get the OWB back end: a pre-seeded repository schema and workflow.

Without the requirement of SYSDBA privileges (as we previously mentioned in other postings), you can make a sandbox repository and start exploring the OWB tool immediately! This was not necessarily so in the 10g versions!

Three types of OWB 11g installation possibilities can be:

• Server installation as part of the Oracle Database 11g installation
• Stand-alone installation using the stand-alone DVD bundled with the 11g database pack
• Stand-alone installation for Oracle Database 10g R2 using special scripts
• Note: Installing to Oracle Database 10g R2 requires running two special SQL scripts and a few extra steps

OWBSYS Is Part of Database 11g Installation

As part of the database installation scripting, the OWBSYS schema is seeded as part of these starter databases:

• General Purpose
• Transaction Processing
• Data Warehouse

During installation, all of the necessary system privileges, object privileges, and roles are granted to the OWBSYS schema. The script that creates OWBSYS is located at: ../owb/UnifiedRepos/cat_owb.sql

Why?

So after database installation, OWB is ready to use. Because the necessary privileges and roles are granted, no DBA or SYSDBA credentials are required when creating workspaces.

Note: The schema does not hold a complete repository/workspace in its pre-seeded form. You must still define your workspaces, workspace owners, and users. Also, OWBSYS is locked by default. As will be explained later, you must unlock it if you are using OWB 11g with Oracle Database 10g R2.

OWB as a Custom Database Option

For custom databases, OWB is an option in the Database Configuration Assistant user interface. With the OWB option selected, these database options are enabled:

• Oracle OLAP
• Oracle JVM
• Oracle XML DB
• Oracle Intermedia
• Oracle Enterprise Manager Repository

Now that we have a brief overview of the install options, next time we will look more in depth at the OWB 11g server install, the OWB 11g standalone install, and if the post doesn't get TOO long, we'll also discuss using OWB 11g on a 10gR2 Oracle Database and all the gotchas that come with that! I know that will be heavily requested just simply because some people want to use OWB 11g but don't want to upgrade their database just yet from 10gR2 to 11g! Until next time....