Oracle Reports Services 11g - Overview

Oracle Reports Services

Oracle Reports Services is the reports publishing component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. It is an enterprise reporting service for producing high quality production reports that dynamically retrieve, format, and distribute any data, in any format, anywhere. You can use Oracle Reports Services to publish in both Web-based and non-Web-based environments.

Read this section to learn more about Oracle Reports Services:

• Section 2.3.1, "Overview"
• Section 2.3.2, "Oracle Reports Services Components"
• Section 2.3.3, "Oracle Reports Services Runtime Process"
• Section 2.3.4, "Oracle Reports Services Communication Architecture"

2.3.1 Overview

Oracle Reports Services provides a scalable, flexible architecture for the distribution and automated management of report generation engines on the same server and across multiple servers. Additionally, it caches report output for reuse on similar requests. It integrates into standard Web environments with JSPs, Java servlets, and Web Services. It enables you to run reports on both local and remote application servers and to implement a multitiered architecture for running your reports.
When used in conjunction with JSPs, Java servlets, or Web Services, Oracle Reports Services enables you to run reports on any platform from a Web browser using a standard URL syntax. For Oracle Reports Servlet (rwservlet) implementations, the in-process Reports Server is available for faster response and easier administration. The in-process Reports Server cuts down on the communication expense between processes and consequently shortens response times.
Oracle Reports Services handles client requests to run reports by entering all requests into a job queue. When one of the server's engines becomes available, the next job in the queue is dispatched to run. As the number of jobs in the queue increases, the server can start more engines until it reaches the maximum limit specified in your server configuration. Similarly, engines are shut down automatically after having been idle for a period of time that you specify (see Chapter 8, "Configuring Oracle Reports Services").
Oracle Reports Services keeps track of all jobs submitted to the server, including jobs that are running, scheduled to run, finished, or failed. The showjobs Web command (through rwservlet), the Web Services interface, the Oracle Reports Services pages in Oracle Enterprise Manager, the Reports Queue Manager (Windows), and theReports Queue Viewer (UNIX) enable you to view information on when jobs are scheduled, queued, started, finished, and failed, as well as the job output and the final status of the report.
With Oracle Reports Services, job information is persistent. This means that if the Reports Server is shut down then restarted, all jobs are recovered,^Foot 1  not just scheduled jobs.
When used in a Web environment, the Oracle Reports Services architecture consists of four tiers:

Note:

The term tier refers to the logical location of the components that comprise the Oracle Reports Services architecture. Each of the tiers, though, can reside on the same machine or on different machines.

• The client tier (a Web browser)
• The Web server tier
• The Oracle Reports Services tier
• The data tier, including databases and all other data sources

When used in a non-Web environment, there are three tiers (a Web server being unnecessary):

• The client tier
• Oracle Reports Services tier
• The data tier, including databases and pluggable data sources

The client software could be:

• A rwclient
• A browser

The way you set up the tiers can range from having all of them on one machine to having each of them on a separate machine. Additionally, you can have multiple Web servers on multiple machines as well as multiple application servers on multiple machines. Refer to the Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Planning Guide for more information on sample topologies.
If you choose to have your Web server on multiple machines, you can cluster and load balance multiple Oracle Fusion Middleware instances for a highly available, fail-safe environment.

Note:

Do not use "server=clustername" statements while calling jobs from an HA Reports Sever. For calling jobs from an HA Reports server, you must use a load balancer.Refer to the Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Planning Guide for information on load balancing. Refer to the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Java EE and Oracle Fusion Middleware High Availability Guide for information on enterprise deployment architectures and high availability.

Oracle Reports Services provides event-based reporting. This uses database events to trigger the generation of a report. For example, you can define an event that signals a change in revenue levels above or below a particular watermark. If the change occurs in the database (the event), a report is automatically generated. This feature is discussed in detail in Chapter 21, "Using Event-Driven Publishing".
Oracle Reports Services includes a distribution module that uses XML to define unique configurations for the distribution of reports. Call the desired XML file from the runtime command line or URL to generate one report, and let the server handle diverse outputs and destinations. Processing time is significantly reduced and configuration changes can all be handled within the XML file. This feature is discussed in detail in Chapter 20, "Creating Advanced Distributions".