Oracle Reports Process Flow

14-12 Oracle Fusion Middleware High Availability Guide

14.3.1.4 Oracle Reports Connection Retry

This section describes the following connection retries: ■ Oracle Portal Database Connection Retry: If the connection from the Reports Server to the Oracle Portal database schema is dropped, the Reports Server tries to reestablish the connection before generating an error. If reconnection is successful, there is no need to restart the Reports Server. ■ Oracle Internet Directory Connection Retry: If the Oracle Internet Directory connection becomes stale, the Reports servlet and the Reports Server try to reestablish the connection before generating errors. If reconnection is successful, there is no need to restart the Reports Server. ■ Oracle Metadata Repository and Oracle Identity Management Outage: The outage of the Oracle Metadata Repository which stores security metadata does not bring down the Reports Server. If the Oracle Metadata Repository is unavailable, the Reports Server rejects new requests as a result of the component being unavailable. When the Oracle Metadata Repository is brought back on-line, the Reports Server recovers itself and begins to receive and process new requests. If Oracle Identity Management components become unavailable, the Reports Server also reject new requests, much like the outage of the Oracle Metadata Repository. ■ Reports Server Timeout: The Reports Server has a configurable timeout for waiting for requests to be returned from the database. This timeout must be set to a high enough value to allow valid reports to run but not so high as to cause excessively long waits.

14.3.1.5 Oracle Reports Process Flow

The various components of Oracle Reports Services contribute to the process of running a report as follows: 1. The client requests a report by contacting a server through a URL Web 2. The Reports Server processes the request as follows: If the request includes a TOLERANCE option, the Reports Server checks its cache to determine whether it already has output that satisfies the request. If it finds acceptable output in its cache, then it immediately returns that output rather than rerunning the report. If the request is the same as a currently running job, it reuses the output from the current job rather than rerunning the report. If neither of these conditions is met: ■ If Oracle Reports Servlet rwservlet is SSO-enabled, it checks for authentication. A secure Reports Server then authorizes the user using Oracle Internet Directory. If Oracle Reports Servlet rwservlet is not SSO-enabled, a secure Reports Server authorizes and authenticates the user. ■ If the report is scheduled, the Reports Server stores the request in the scheduled job queue, and the report is run according to schedule. If the report is not scheduled, it is queued in the current job queue for execution when a Reports Engine becomes available. 3. At runtime, the Reports Server spawns a Reports Engine and sends the request to that engine to be run. Configuring High Availability for Oracle Portal, Forms, Reports, and Discoverer 14-13 4. The Reports Engine retrieves and formats the data. 5. The Reports Engine populates the Reports Server cache. 6. The Reports Engine notifies the Reports Server that the report is ready. 7. The Reports Server accesses the cache and sends the report to output according to the runtime parameters specified in either the URL, the command line, or the keyword section in the cgicmd.dat file URL requests only. If a report server dies while running a request the request must be resubmitted. Once resubmitted, one of the surviving reports servers processes the request.

14.3.1.6 Oracle Reports Log Files