Ports that come in handy in the Hyperion ecosystem

Ports are very important in the use of any application, especially the complex systems such as the EPM System. For example, if you had to type in the URL to access a Workspace, you are typing in the Port as well apart from the Server where the Workspace resides. The concept of Port is even more important if you are doing an EPM installation/configuration. Because we use several different Ports during EPM deployment, knowledge about what Port the different products in the EPM family use becomes very handy.

I have provided the following information regarding the Ports in accordance to system 11.1.2.1. Even though it may hold true to other versions as well, please do refer to manuals as per the version you are using for accuracy.

WebLogic Administration Server Port     7001

Foundation Services

1. Listen Port                                  28080

1. SSL Listen Port                          28443

Web Server Ports

1. Oracle HTTP Server                  19000

1. IIS                                              80

Performance Management Architecture Web Application

1. Listen Port                 19091

1. SSL Listen Port         19047

Performance Management Architecture Server         5251
Default Web Server Port           80 (HTTP) or 443 (IIS)
Essbase Ports

1. Essbase Agent                                                 1423

1. Essbase Server Applications                            32768 - 33768

1. Essbase SSL Agent                                         6423

1. Oracle Essbase Integration Services Server      3388

Administration Services Web Application

1. Listen Port               10080

1. SSL Listen Port       10083

Provider Services

1. Listen Port              13080

1. SSL Listen Port      13083

Essbase Studio Ports

1. Listen                     5300

1. HTTP Listen Port   9080

Reporting and Analysis Framework Web Application Ports

1. Listen Port              4500

1. SSL Listen Port      4504

Reporting and Analysis Framework Agent             6860
Reporting and Analysis Framework Services         6800-6805
Financial Reporting Ports

1. Listen Port               8200

1. SSL Listen Port       8243

Financial Reporting Print Service                 8297
Financial Reporting Scheduler Service          8299
Web Analysis Ports

1. Listen Port                     16000

1. SSL Listen Port             16045

Planning Ports

1. Listen Port                   8300

1. SSL Listen Port           8343

When an application is accessible via a network it means that it is using a TCP/IP port. When a port is used by an application, it cannot be used by another one. Even during installation/deployment, we will get an error message stating that a particular port is being used by another application. Therefore, the skill to find out what port is being used by what application comes in very handy.
If you want to find out what is using a specific Port, you can open the COMMAND PROPMT and type in

"netstat -aon | more"

or if you know the Port number, you can type in something liek "netstat -aon findstr "6800""

This way you will be able to find out what is being used, whether a particular port is listening, etc. 

Heap Size: Increase it sparingly

I had a pretty interesting encounter with the HEAP size which is why I am writing this. It may or may not hold 100 percent true, however, reading someone else always gives us perspective which is why I am writing this. Please do comment what you have experienced or if you agree or disagree. And you can even play withe the heap size to see how it affects your performance. 

Because the Financial reports started crashing more frequently than usual while users tried to pull reports, we thought about increasing the heap size and do some other enhancements in order to make our EPM system work more efficiently and more accurately.

1.       First we rebooted the Servers as they had not been turned off for a while which is why we thought the system was lagging. 

2.       The other step we took was increase the Java heap size for all the EPM products, such as Planning, Financial Reports, WebAnalysis, EAS, et, al. – There are two ways (that I know of) that we can increase the Java heap size.

As per Oracle’s technical documentation regarding increasing heap size, titled INCREASING THE JVM MEMORY ALLOCATION (source: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/epm_install_11121/frameset.htm?ch07s01s01.html) there are two different methods:

a.       Using the Registry Editor: Command line > regedit

b.      Editing the product’s custom start script to specify the desired heap sizes. Example, EPM_INSTANCE/bin/deploymentscripts/ path and the .bat or .sh file and modify Xms and Xmx (128, 1024 etc)

The instruction also suggests restarting Windows service or rerunning the script to see the change.

As per the instruction, we changed the heap size and ran the .bat file, however, we could not verify the change. Because there are so many products installed and the paths are not very clear, we were not being able to check and see if the changes took effect.

3.       In order to make sure we are changing the Heap size in the right manner, I called Oracle for their support So, we created an SR, explained the issue and Oracle, and Oracle got someone to help us out. 

           Oracle suggested us change/increase the HEAP size by using the Registry Editor (change the values and then restart he service). For example, in order to change the Heap Size for the Financial Reporting. The following would be the process (if you are not aware about the HEAP size or if you have not changed the HEAP size yet, this is a good example, for those who are experts, please do comment)

                                                                          i.      Regedit on the command prompt.

                                                                        ii.      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Hyperion Solutions -> FinancialReporting0 -> HyS9FRReports

                                                                      iii.      On the right, check for JVMOption name that corresponds to Xmx (Xms is the minimum heap size). You will see something like JVMOption4 for example. The number can be whatever.          

                                                                        iv.      Right-click and MODIFY

                                                                        v.      Change the number to whatever you want to increase to. In this case we have changed from 512 to 1024.

                                                                      vi.      Restart Financial Reporting for the changes to take effect.

We can change HEAP size for any of the products. The following is a list that I have, however, it is environment or system-specific. It all depends on what you are doing, what kind of environment you have, how big the system you have, etc. So, these numbers are just for example. 

Provider services 512/1024

EAS 512/1024

FRPrint na/1024

FReporting 512/1024

Foundation 1024/1024 as is

HReports 1024

Planning 1024/1024 as is

RA Framework 1024/1024 as is

RA Framework Agent 512/1024

WebAnalysis 512/1024

etc. 

After changing the heap size on all the different products, I checked to see if everything was working and the Financial Reporting print servers did not seem to work after the size was increased. In fact, when I checked it, the PDF files did not work.

Later on, I changed the size back to the original size just for the HR Reports and the PDF worked fine after restarting the print servers.

What I have learned from this experience is that even though the HEAP size increase helps in most cases, it may, at times, effect adversely.

Hyperion Business Rules Migration

Hyperion Business Rules Migration can be tricky. Even though, the Life Cycle Management (LCM) is considered the official migration tool in the EPM environment, migration of Business Rules has been an exception as far as version 11.1.2.1 is concerned.

However, Hyperion Business Rules can be migrated from one environment to another using the Essbase Administration Services (EAS) console. These are the steps you can follow in order to migrate Hyperion Business rules.

Log in to Essbase Administration Console (in the source environment)

In the Navigation window on the left, right-click Business Rules -> Export Business Rules.

Select the Business Rules that you want to export in this step. If exporting all the business rules, Select ALL.

After selecting the Business Rules, the DEPENDANTS tab becomes active. Click the Dependants tab if you want to export the dependants. In case it is the Calculation Manager Environment, check the "FOR CALC MGR" check box. Make sure the Variables are checked too as they need to be migrated as well. 

Click Export and you will be prompted for a file name and location where you can save the file. Business rules that we export are saved as .XML file.

So far, we have exported Business Rules from the target environment. Now we need to move the XML file that we have just created (saved during Business Rule export) to a folder of choice in the target environment.

If you are using EAS desktop or Web client from your workstation, you can simply save the exported XML file in your computer. Make sure you follow specific file naming convention to ensure what you are doing.

Important

One very important thing that we need to remember at this point of Business Rules Migration is that the exported XML file contains hard-coded names that point to the source environment. For example, if your target environment server name is KHOONKS, you will find this name hard-coded in the XML file. So, before you start importing the XML in the target environment, open the XML file with an editor and replace all the instances or names that point to the source with the ones that you have for target. It is a very important point. 

After you are sure that you have nothing pointing to the source environment, you can log on to EAS in the target environment. 

On the left in the navigation window, right-click Business Rules -> Import Business Rules

Here we will get the prompt to choose the XML file that we can import to the target environment. We can choose the name of the BR file and then hit OPEN.

On the next screen, we can hit OK to import the Business Rules.