Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Reports
EM12c provides two reporting mechanisms:
Information Publisher
: This is the same mechanism that existed in Grid Control 10g/11g
versions, which had the Information Publisher PL/SQL API and used to require reports
definitions to be created using PL/SQL. EM12c has now XML-based Information Publisher
report definitions and the ability to design reports by using the EM12c console and export
them by using EMCLI. To have similar capabilities in 10g/11g, I had to create a custom
extractor that produced PL/SQL API-based definitions from the reports developed using
the console UI. EM12c will still transform XML into PL/SQL calls behind the scenes, but the
convenience of XML definitions is huge, compared to long cumbersome PL/SQL definitions
that were virtually impossible to validate syntactically without trying to execute them.
See Chapter 4 of the
Extensibility Programmer's Reference
for detailed documentation on
creating and customizing Information Publisher reports, including details of XML elements.
BI Publisher
: EM12c can integrate with Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher for
more-advanced reporting capabilities. However, integration with BI Publisher might require
licensing Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher, which is holding back the adoption of BI
Publisher with EM12c, based on my observation. If you are developing plug-ins for external
users and not just for your organization, you probably shouldn't rely on the availability of
BI Publisher in the target EM12c environments, so be sure to provide comparable reports by
using Information Publisher. Chapter 5 of the
Extensibility Programmer's Reference
provides
very brief instructions on creating the BI Publisher reports, but this documentation quality
and depth is nowhere close to the documentation ofInformation Publisher API. It also relies
on prior knowledge of the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher product.
Although Chapter 4 of the
Extensibility Programmer's Reference
notes that Information Publisher is deprecated,
the reality is that so many existing reports and customers are relying on it, that it will not go anywhere in EM12c or
probably the next versions unless Oracle packages BI Publisher with EM12c by default. My personal recommendation
for plug-in development is to stick with Information Publisher at the moment, until Oracle provides reporting
capabilities that don't require integration with additional products (and licenses). This also ensures that your plug-ins
will work with any EM12c installation, whether it's integrated with BI Publisher or not. This section covers only
Information Publisher reports. Although Chapter 5 of the
Extensibility Programmer's Reference
covers deploying
BI Publisher reports, there are no instructions on how to package them with the plug-in archive.
Creating Information Publisher reports is fairly simple in EM12c. You can study examples of a report packaged
with the
sample_host1
target within the
oracle.samples.xsh1
plug-in. Follow these steps to create a new report
definition using Information Publisher API and package with your plug-in:
1.
When the first version of the plug-in (still without reports) and target type is developed
and deployed, create report definitions by using the EM12c console reports wizard.
This will require creating SQL and/or PL/SQL to query the repository views and extract
information (such as the target's metrics, configuration, and so forth) in the format
required by reporting components such as charts, text labels, links, and tables. At this
stage, you will get as close as possible to the desired report, iteratively improving your
report. You can find documentation about the available repository views in Chapter 18 of
the
Extensibility Programmer's Reference
.
Use the EMCLI command
emcli export_report
to extract the XML definition of the
designed report.
2.
