Authors: Simon Miller, Director OBIA, Oracle Customer Engineering and Advocacy Lab (CEAL team) and Patrick Block, Principal, OBIA Development
In an earlier blog post 3 Modes for Moving Data to the BI Applications DW from a Source Application Database the available options for setting up data source connections was provided in detail, along with screenshots. It should be noted this information written for OBIA 11.1.1.7.1 is still applicable for 11.1.1.8.1. While not all customers will deploy the SDS (Source Dependent Store with GoldenGate), most customers should consider using the DB link option. The DB Link allows for direct Oracle database to Oracle database communication, and
the data won’t need to flow through your ODI Agent/WLS. The objective of this blog is to elaborate on the above mentioned post and add tips and troubleshooting guidance.
Firstly, the naming conventions required can be a bit tricky, and while it looks odd, it does work. When your DBLink is setup, you can test it like this:
In the above example, 310 is the DSN number defined in the BIACM and EBS11510 is the DSN Name.
This DBLink was setup with the following syntax:
CREATE DATABASE LINK "EBS11510.WORLD@DSN_310"
CONNECT TO "SDS_EBS11510_FULL" IDENTIFIED BY VALUES '054339818D629B44BA4880F2536FBAB4C0223F5FAC15FE03350F952A3FB376523F'
USING '(DESCRIPTION=
(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=slcae159.us.oracle.com)(PORT=1581))
(CONNECT_DATA= (SID=dev159a)))';
If you get an error when trying to create the db link then check to see if your GLOBAL_NAMES initialization parameter is set to TRUE. This requires the database link name to match the remote database's global name.
When FALSE you can name the database link whatever you want (what you’ll require), see:
Oracle Database 12.1 documentation, Names for Database Links
You can find the <DATASERVER_NAME> and <DSN_ID> from the BIACM or ODI Studio Client. In the BIACM the data server name is called ‘Oracle Data Integrator Server Name’ and DSN ID is called ‘Data Source Number’.
There are a couple of other gotchas you should be aware of to avoid other commonly seen errors. We are ultimately looking for a DB Link whose name corresponds to the Remote Object Mask below where %SCHEMA corresponds to the 'Instance / dblink' property, %OBJECT is the hardcoded value 'WORLD' and %DSERVER is derived based on the datasource num id. The screenshots below are for an EBS R12.1.3 source with DSN name EBSR1213_DEFAULT and DSN ID 335. Make sure the ‘Instance/dblink (Data Server)’ property matches the ‘Name’ property. The ‘Name’ corresponds to the ‘Oracle Data Integrator Data Server Name’ property as seen in the BIACM when editing your source.
While this should be set automatically when defining your data sources, you should verify the ‘default’ checkbox is checked in the physical schema (in ODI Studio Client) and the ‘Local Object Mask’ and ‘Remote Object Mask’ are configured correctly.
Finally, please continue to refer to the 3 Modes for Moving Data to the BI Applications DW from a Source Application Database post, which explains how to let the BIACM know to use the DBLink.