OBIEE - Standalone HTTP Server configuration with OBIEE + Compression + Caching the response data

We have seen a performance issue in an mission critical OBIEE 12C environment. This environment was configured to reach the ODV through links and the elapsed time during the initial load of the OBIEE pages was not acceptable. The issue was not related with the databases or Application Servers. So it was a pure web issue. During the web traces, we found lots of files were being downloaded to the client side when a client tried to reach an OBIEE page. This was a problem for the clients which have a limited network and that's why we thought that it is better to have a seperate Oracle HTTP Server (caching and compression enabled) in front of the OBIEE... This way, we could be able decrease the bytes that are normally downloaded to the client when the client reach an OBIEE web page.

Besides, we usually see a seperate HTTP Server in a several Oracle Applications. E-Business Suite for instance; have an Oracle HTTP server in front of its core services. So why not in OBIEE?

This OBIEE in question was 12C and it was configured to work with SSL/HTTPS. So, our HTTP Server should also have been configured with SSL/HTTPS.

The decision was made. The work was planned but not yet done..

Still, I m writing this to make you see the plan..

Anyways, following is the plan that we follow while implementing this kind of a configuration.

-Download and Install Oracle HTTP Server -- This is straight forward, so I move on.

-Configure SSL/HTTPS for the Oracle HTTP Server -- We can configure the wallet using the jks of the OBIEE/Weblogic --  This article seems okay to follow for this job -> https://oracle-base.com/articles/12c/oracle-http-server-ohs-configure-ssl

-Configure Oracle HTTP Server to work with OBIEE. -> How To Configure Standalone Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) With OBIEE (Doc ID 2308798.1)

-Enable compression on the Oracle HTTP Server -- This MOS note written for Webcenter should do the job -> How to Add Compression on the Oracle HTTP Server to Reduce the Download Size of Webcenter Spaces Deployment (Doc ID 1219013.1)

- Enable caching on the Oracle HTTP Server using mod_cache and mod_cache_disk modules. -> >http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_cache.html  .. Yes.. Oracle HTTP Server includes the Apache mod_cache and mod_cache_disk modules to cache response data.

That is it ! We hope that after taking these actions, clients will continue their business faster while browsing OBIEE pages..  Especially the clients with limited network connections .. After this action plan, they should continue on their way with more acceptable waits.( As long as  the SQLs on the DB side that work to fill the related pages keep up with this speed. :)

I will update this post, when we are done and everyting is as we expected :)

--Here is the update :) The configurationa above works like a charm. We have implemented it yesterday and it worked as  we expected.

I will update this blog post once again. - exactly after receiving the answer "yes now ODV and OBIEE pages are faster" from users :)