OBIEE -- Strange error & Interesting Solution "You cannot publish to the Apps Library because you do not have write permission on the /Apps folder in catalog."

Today, I m going to write about Oracle Business Intelligence, the thing that I used in my MBA project in 2011.

The thing that made me write this, is a case which was escalated to me by our OBIEE team.
The team was trying to publish Mobile Application reports during an OBIEE project implementation, but this error was the blocker.

Before giving you this strange error and its workaround/solution; first take a look at the mobile apps reports deployment process.

These kinds of deployments are done into the filesystem, into the location that is pointed by Apps folder.

So in order to be able to deploy, one needs to make this configuration first.

Without this configuration, you end up with the following;

As I mentioned, in order to publish mobile app reports in OBIEE, a configuration is required. If you attempt to publish without configuration, an error will be received.  -> "Apps Library is not configured correctly. Please make sure that you setup configuration file for Apps Library."

The steps for the required configuration are as follows:

cd $ORACLE_HOME/user_projects/domains/bi/bidata/components/bipublisher/repository/Admin/Configuration
vim xmlp-server-config.xml

The xml file is opened via the 'vim' command, and the following command is added to the file.
<property name="APPS_LIBRARY_FOLDER_LOCAL" value="/Apps"/>

Then the bimad and bipublisher components are restarted. A new folder named Apps is added under Shared folders in the Catalog.

Well.. After this configuration , you should be able to deploy your Mobile Application reports... 

Okay.. Now, let's take a look at the strange part :)

Although the above steps are completed correctly, you still may not able to deploy your Mobile Application reports due to the error ""You cannot publish to the Apps Library because you do not have write permission on the /Apps folder in catalog."

If the following error appears (after clicking Publish button), the permissions of the folder should be checked first. 

If folder permissions are okay, then this error should be caused by the URL that you reach the Mobile Apps deployment pages.

I mean, this problem may occur in the OBIEE environments which have a load balancer on front.

The problem is caused by the underlying security engine.. It just can't verify the rights when the url is different than the one it is expecting. (Load balancer url is always different than the actual url that the applications are operating) 

As you may guess, the workaround for this problem is to use the actual url. (in the form of "http://hostname:port/analytics" )

The fix would be defining a OBIEE-aware virtual host or having a OBIEE-aware & proper Load Balancer configuration.. Note that, I didn't implement this fix...

The workaround worked in our case.. Those deployment pages are only used by the OBIEE developers anyways.

I wanted to share this with you, because I checked Google, Oracle Support and Oracle Community but couldn't find any known solution or a workaround for this problem. (except this blog post :) )

GTECH -- Summer School 2019 -- Oracle Database & Cloud & Autonomous database & EBS for newly graduates

Once in a year, we as GTech provide training for newly graduated engineers.

In this training, we teach Sql, PL/SQL, Oracle Database & Cloud, EBS, OBIEE, BigData, ETL and more.

This year was the second time, that I was the lecturer for "Database and Cloud".

Actually, I extended the lessons a little bit by explaining the EBS System Administration Fundamentals, as well. :)

The students of the classes were so curios about databases and actually Oracle in general..

It was a honour for me to present "the introduction to Oracle Database", to explain the "Cloud terms" ( including Cloud-at-customer model) and to explain the "EBS architecture".

I tried to shed a light on the important topics like Oracle Database Server Architecture, Oracle Database Process Architecture,  background processes, High availability configurations and so on..

The list of topics covered in the training was as follows;

• Introduction to RDBMS
• Introduction to Oracle
• Architecture (Oracle)
• Installation (Oracle)
• DBA role & DBA tools
• Introduction to Cloud
• APPS DBA role & EBS System Administration (EBS 12.2)

This year, I have also given a presentation about Oracle Autonomous Database.

In order to make the newly graduates understand Oracle consultancy better, I have also explained how to complete a critical migration project successfully by going through a real life case.

While explaing these topics, I tried to share real life stories all the time..  Tried to teach them the basics of Oracle, but I also dived deep when required.

The participants asked lots of good technical questions and these made our lessons more entertaining :)

The training for Database & Cloud lasted 3 days.

While, preparing the slides for the presentations that I have used in the training, I also wrote an exam for the students..

At the end of the training, we also gave this written examination to the participiants. (this time 37 questions )

It was a pleasure for me to teach Oracle in GTech Academy ( GTech -- Oracle University Partner)

I hope, It was useful for these guys..
I also hope I will see them (at least some of them) as successful DBAs one day :)

Following is the picture of our class..  A good memory :)