Oracle Analytics Cloud - How to Setup and Configure the Oracle Analytics Cloud Environment on OCI

Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) is a single and complete platform that empowers your entire organisation to ask any question of any data—across any environment, on any device. It fits into your ecosystem, enabling analysis in the cloud while also providing easy access to any data source. The result? The best use of all your data—no matter where it is Oracle Analytics Cloud provides a variety of options for intelligent analysis without being overwhelming to deploy and manage, making it an effective way to engage more people in analysis and extend your organisation’s expertise.

To setup Oracle Analytics Cloud Infrastructure on OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure), these are five primary steps:

• Validate the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure network architecture for OAC

• Provisioning OAC instance

• Set up OAC private access channel

• Create users for OAC

• Make OAC connection with data source

 Validate the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure network architecture for OAC

There are two common architectures for Oracle Analytics Cloud. One is "OAC with public end point," which could be accessed through the public internet, and the other is "OAC with private end point," which could be accessed from a peered corporate network or using the OCI bastion service/jump host.

(Please note that based on your requirements, the network architecture could be different, for example, multiple VCNs or a greater or lesser number of subnets.)

Before provisioning an OAC instance, please ensure that all OCI components are in place.

• OCI compartment should exist where OAC would be provisioned.
• VCN and Subnets should be in place. In the case of OAC with a private end point, a private subnet should be created where OAC would be provisioned.
• In the case of OAC with a private endpoint, a bastion service or bastion host should be created to access the OAC Instance and data source (database). This will be useful for the maintenance team to access data Source or OAC as a backup in case of VPN failure.
• The data source(for e.g. Oracle Autonomus Database) should be provisioned. (If the data source is in OCI and not in your corporate network.

Provisioning OAC Instance

Once all required network components are in place then you can start provisioning the OAC instance, follow these steps to create OAC instance.

• Navigate to the home page and Menu > Analytics & AI > Analytics Cloud
• Select the required compartment and click Create Instance. 

• Fill the web form with the following information and click Create: • Name:<Instance_Name>
  • Description: < Analytics Instance >(Optional)
  • Choose the appropriate compartment
  • Choose the capacity Type: OCPU or Users
  • Capacity: OCPU and 1 - Non Production ( chosse ocpu count based on your requirement.) In choosing Number of OCPUs also consider your future scaling requirements. Please see this Scaling matrix for more details.
  • LicenseType:LicenseIncluded
  • FeatureSet:EnterpriseAnalytics

• If you want to create OAC with a private endpoint, then Click on "Show Advanced Options" and fill in the Network details.
  • Select the VCN from the drop-down menu.
  • Select the private subnet.
• Private OAC will be accessed through bastion host/Service or your corporate network, which is peered with OCI VCN.

Setup OAC Private Access Channel

OAC Private access channel is used to connect OAC with private data sources for e.g. Database hosted in private network such as OCI private subnet, on-premise corporate network and other Clouds. Please note that private access channel is only available for Oracle Analytics Cloud Enterprise Edition, you can not deploy this with OAC Professional Edition.

Just follow these instructions to deploy a private access channel.

• Navigate to your OAC Instance and click on "Private Access Channel"
• Click on "Configure Private Access Channel, and a new web page will open.
• Provide the name of the private access channel.
• Select your compartment by clicking "Change Compartment," and select your VCN and Subnet.
• PAC could be deployed in a new subnet or in the same subnet where your Data Source(for e.g. example, a database) exists; it could also be deployed in a subnet where an OAC instance exists in the case of an OAC with a private endpoint.
• Check "Virtual Cloud Network's domain name as DNS zone" if you want to use VCN's DNS otherwise, provide your DNS zone details.
• Click on "Configure". PAC will start provisioning, and the OAC instance will show the status as updating. It will take some time to complete this process.

• Once PAC deployment is complete, open the private access channel home page and note down the PAC egress IP Addresses.
• Put these IP addresses in the Ingress Rule of the Security List of Subnet where your data source (for example, a database) has been deployed so that PAC can access the data source.

You can refer to this Blog to get more details on the OAC Private Access Channel and various deployment scenarios.

Oracle Analytics Cloud — Private Access Channel

To get more help on network setup on OCI for Private Access Channel please refer this blog.

Oracle Analytics Private Endpoint Series

Create Users for Oracle Analytics Cloud

To access Oracle Analytics cloud instance users should be created in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). To create/manage users for Oracle Analytics Cloud (and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure), it depends on whether identity domains are available in your cloud account.

• Please follow this documentation to create/manage user in idenity domain.

           Use Identity Domains to Set Up Users and Groups for Oracle Analytics Cloud

• Please follow this documentation to create/manage user in oracle idenity cloud service.

           Manage Users and Groups in Oracle Identity Cloud Service 

• To assign an application role to a user, navigate to OAC "Console "---> "Users and Roles"
• Select the "Users" tab, select the user, and assign the required application role.
• Please follow this documentation to get more details on OAC security and application roles.

           Configure What Users Can See and Do on OAC

Make OAC Connection with Data Source

Now the final step is to make OAC conection with Data source. In this blog we are taking Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse(ADW) as an example.Please follow these steps to make OAC connection with ADW. 

• In the right-upper corner, click on “Create" button and select Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Cloud.
• Enter the details as shown in the example by filling the Connection name, your username, password and by uploading the ADW Wallet.zip file.
• Click Save.
• ( To download ADW wallet - 1. Navigate to Oracle Autonomous Database instance 2. click Database connection, 3. Under wallet type, make sure Instance Wallet is selected and then click Download wallet 4. Enter a wallet Password and click Download)

• Once the connection was saved, go back to Burger Menu, select Connections and select the connection that you created.You would be able to see all the schemas and tables from your database.
• Start dragging the tables to the canvas, to create a dataset.
• Once done creating the dataset, click on save button in the right- upper corner of your screen.
• Now you are fully ready for creating dashboards. Click on Create Workbook to proceed to a new window where you would be able to create visualizations and reports.

Want to know more about Oracle Analytics Cloud

To explore more on Oracle Analytics cloud please refer these Oracle Analytics cloud documentations and Product Videos library.

Oracle Analytics Cloud Documentations

Oracle Analytics Product Videos