Thursday, May 23, 2024

OAS 2024 Recommended Patches

Oracle Analytics Server 2024 (OAS 2024), sometimes name OAS 7.6 is available since March. 

Oracle published Critical Patch Update (CPU) Advisor For Oracle Analytics Server and Oracle Business Intelligence - Updated for April 2024 (Doc ID 2832967.2).

 

UPDATE

 In the above described link there is a bundle patch available (currently, at Aug-2024, it's: Patch 36823847 July 2024 - "OAS Stack Patch Bundle 7.6.0.0.240710, or later" + a Java patch). Use the last bundle patch and not the ones described bellow. The remarks at the end of the post are still relevant.





This list is expected to be updated regularly.

Right now there 2 major parts there: OAS Weblogic & OAS FMw Infrastructure. The first OAS 2024 bundle patch is not available yet.

Under Weblogic we see 

  • Database recommendation for July 2021 PSU or later and Native Network Encryption (NNE) recommendation for the DB.
  • Upgrade Java SE (JDK/JRE) (Patch 18143322 & Note 3012587.1, About Updating the JDK Location After Installing Oracle Analytics Server).
  • Patch 36485713 for Weblogic.

 


Under  FMw Infrastructure we see the following list of patches:

  •  Patch 36402397
  • Patch 36348444+Patch 34809489  or  Patch 36074941+Patch 34809489
  • Patch 36349529  or  Patch 35751917
  • Patch 34542329
  • Patch 36316422  or  Patch 32784652



Few extra remarks:

In OAS 2024 there is a new option of Workbook export to Excel (on Tables and Pivots). To make it work you need to follow Installation Guide and install the NodeJS. 

In OAS 2024 you can use the classic data modeler client for RPD or use the new Semantic Model web interface with similar functionality. If the Semantic Model is missing from the Menu after upgrade from previous versions, you have to grant missing permissions that might have been replaced by the import.  See "After Importing A Snapshot into Oracle Analytics Server (OAS), The Semantic Modeler Feature Is No Longer Available (Doc ID 3011914.1)": Use Grant Permission Assignment and grant 'semanticmodeler.author' permission to your administrator role.


Thank You Itsik Hadar for finding the last 2 bullets.



Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Adding AI - Vision Service, Object Detection to APEX

There is a great site of labs by Oracle - LiveLabs. They are using OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure).  One of the labs, named "Build AI-Powered Image Search into your Oracle APEX App" is combining APEX with  AI - Vision Service and uses the IMAGE_CLASSIFICATION option of the service.

I already wrote a post about replacing the default Image Classification option of the Vision service with Text Detection here (and did a little journey to understand better the Lab.)

This time I needed to use the Object Detection option of Vision Service. 

So I will explain the small changes needed to be done in the original Lab and next talk a bit about the difference between Object Detection and Image Classification.

In the picture there are the various options of AI - Vision Service:


All we have to do are 2 small changes:

In LAB 3, Task 2 - Invoke the OCI Vision REST Data Source through a Page Process, step 10  change to:

Click FEATURE_TYPE and enter the following (we replace the IMAGE_CLASSIFICATION value):

Under Value :

  • Type: Static Value

  • Value: OBJECT_DETECTION

 



In LAB 3, Task 2 - Invoke the OCI Vision REST Data Source through a Page Process, step 14 change the PL/SQL Code to (in the "Parse the Response" part):

UPDATE SM_POSTS
SET
AI_OUTPUT = (
    SELECT
        LISTAGG(obj_name, ',') WITHIN GROUP(
        ORDER BY
            obj_name
        )
    FROM
        JSON_TABLE ( :P1_RESPONSE, '$.imageObjects[*]'
            COLUMNS
                obj_name VARCHAR2 ( 100 ) PATH '$.name[*]'
        )
  )
 WHERE
 ID = :P1_ID;

 

Instead of the original:

UPDATE SM_POSTS
SET
AI_OUTPUT = (
    SELECT
        LISTAGG(obj_name, ',') WITHIN GROUP(
        ORDER BY
            obj_name
        )
    FROM
        JSON_TABLE ( :P1_RESPONSE, '$.labels[*]'
            COLUMNS
                obj_name VARCHAR2 ( 100 ) PATH '$.name[*]'
        )
  )
 WHERE
 ID = :P1_ID;

 

What is the difference?

The original feature of the lab -Image Classification,  Assigns classes and confidence scores based on the scene and contents of an image.

This post option - Object Detection, Identifies objects and their location within an image along with a confidence score.

 

Let's see an example. For the following, very simple picture we will get 2 responses:




Image Classification returns: Human arm,Human face,Human hand,Human head,Human nose

Object Detection returns: Helmet,Human face,Person


Here are the 2 JSON files returned:

Image Classification:

 {
  "labels": [
    {
      "name": "Human head",
      "confidence": 0.9931826
    },
    {
      "name": "Human hand",
      "confidence": 0.99312717
    },
    {
      "name": "Human arm",
      "confidence": 0.9930545
    },
    {
      "name": "Human nose",
      "confidence": 0.99297017
    },
    {
      "name": "Human face",
      "confidence": 0.9926239
    }
  ],
  "ontologyClasses": [
    {
      "name": "Human head",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    },
    {
      "name": "Human nose",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    },
    {
      "name": "Human hand",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    },
    {
      "name": "Human face",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    },
    {
      "name": "Human arm",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    }
  ],
  "imageClassificationModelVersion": "1.5.97",
  "errors": []
}



Object Detection:

{
  "imageObjects": [
    {
      "name": "Helmet",
      "confidence": 0.9530024,
      "boundingPolygon": {
        "normalizedVertices": [
          {
            "x": 0.332,
            "y": 0.1619190404797601
          },
          {
            "x": 0.531,
            "y": 0.1619190404797601
          },
          {
            "x": 0.531,
            "y": 0.39580209895052476
          },
          {
            "x": 0.332,
            "y": 0.39580209895052476
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "Person",
      "confidence": 0.8978557,
      "boundingPolygon": {
        "normalizedVertices": [
          {
            "x": 0.169,
            "y": 0.17541229385307347
          },
          {
            "x": 0.742,
            "y": 0.17541229385307347
          },
          {
            "x": 0.742,
            "y": 0.9940029985007496
          },
          {
            "x": 0.169,
            "y": 0.9940029985007496
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "Human face",
      "confidence": 0.8083062,
      "boundingPolygon": {
        "normalizedVertices": [
          {
            "x": 0.363,
            "y": 0.34182908545727136
          },
          {
            "x": 0.507,
            "y": 0.34182908545727136
          },
          {
            "x": 0.507,
            "y": 0.5847076461769115
          },
          {
            "x": 0.363,
            "y": 0.5847076461769115
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ],
  "ontologyClasses": [
    {
      "name": "Human face",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    },
    {
      "name": "Helmet",
      "parentNames": [
        "Sports equipment",
        "Clothing"
      ],
      "synonymNames": []
    },
    {
      "name": "Person",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    },
    {
      "name": "Sports equipment",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    },
    {
      "name": "Clothing",
      "parentNames": [],
      "synonymNames": []
    }
  ],
  "objectDetectionModelVersion": "1.3.557",
  "errors": []
}

 

 

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Oracle Function Exception - No_DATA_FOUND

 I wanted to write a function that accepts 2 parameters. An Item_ID and Manufacturer and returns the support time.

In most cases the first parameter (Item_ID) is sufficient. There are few cases we need the Manufacturer as well.

Unfortunately sometimes customers don't enter the second parameter correctly or I get a NULL there instead of the Manufacturer. In those cases I still want to return a value based on the first parameter (Item_ID) only.

At first I tried using few selects into variables in the function and doing if then else on the result... But it broke each time I didn't have value for the second parameter. I could write a second function with exception and call it from the main function. I preferred this solution, though there are some extreme cases it might not cover.

So I used the Exception option in the function code here:


create or replace function f_SUPPORT (P_ITEM IN NUMBER, P_MANUFACTURER IN VARCHAR2)
RETURN NUMBER is SUP NUMBER;
BEGIN
select Support_mnth into SUP from warranty where item=p_item and MANUFACTURER=P_MANUFACTURER;
return(SUP);
EXCEPTION
   WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND THEN  
select Support_mnth into SUP from warranty where item=p_item;
return(SUP);
end;
/



Monday, March 18, 2024

Oracle Analytic Server 2024 is Available

Oracle Analytic Server new release is available. The internal name is OAS 7.6 and the formal is OAS 2024. 

If you are OBIEE or OAS owner, allow me to recommend you one thing (accept the Sunscreen part); Consider upgrading to this version. I didn't recommend anything of the kind in previous releases. This release is expected to have a mature version data visualization, beyond the classic BI.

It is available on https://edelivery.oracle.com/ as OAS 7.6 for Linux and Windows:

 

See the Oracle Blog here: https://blogs.oracle.com/analytics/post/announcing-the-general-availability-of-oracle-analytics-server-2024

The documentation here: https://docs.oracle.com/en/middleware/bi/analytics-server/books.html

And the What's new section is here.


Since the OAS release is usually mostly catching up of the OAC yearly changes, the OAC updates videos from last year might be a good resource as well: https://www.youtube.com/@OracleAnalytics/playlists.

In the Oracle blog there are links to few OAS specific YouTube playlists:

Data Visualization

Connect, model and data preparation

AI & ML


P.S. 

Gianni Ceresa created a Docker image for this version as well: https://github.com/gianniceresa/docker-images/tree/master/OracleAnalyticsServer  

Hope to see updates here as well: https://github.com/oracle/docker-images 


It seems that Gianni's installation guides for 2023 release on Linux are still relevant for the new 2024 release, with the proper file update:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3


As well as my old Installing Windows OAS 5.5 post.


Or you can read the Oracle installation and Configuration Guide.