HFM Basics (1)

Oracle's Hyperion® Financial Management – System 9 is a comprehensive, Web-based application that delivers global collection, inancial consolidation, reporting, and analysis in one highly scalable sol!tion" Financial Management is designed to operate as a m!ltitier system" # Financial Management conig!ration contains three logical tiers$ a database tier, application%Web server tier &also reerred to as the middle tier, and client tier" ( )he database tier contains contains the relational database database and all Financial Management data and metadata" S!pported databases incl!de Oracle, Microsot S*+ Server, and M ./"  )he application%Web application%Web server tier, or middle tier, contains contains the domain intelligence and connections to the relational database, application server, and Web server" 0o! access the Web-enabled portions in this tier" (

 )he client tier provides the !ser interace and the ability ability to comm!nicate 1ith the application tier" 0o! can display data and metadata and enter data" Financial Management has a thin Web-client architect!re so that basic !sers re2!ire only a s!pported bro1ser on a client comp!ter" 3o processing or b!siness r!les occ!r on the client" )he client is oered thro!gh Web servers or thro!gh a Windo1s client installed on the local comp!ter" (

Financial Management Configurat Configurations ions  0o! can install Financial Management to one or more Financial Financial Management application servers, and install Financial Management Web server components to one or more Financial Management Web servers"

Using Application Server Clusters Financial Management !ses 3-)ier architect!re to deploy mission critical consolidations and reporting applications to h!ndreds and even tho!sands o !sers" +oad balancing is !sed to s!pport large n!mbers o conc!rrent !sers" n general, load balancing is a 1ay o dividing conc!rrent !sage as e2!ally as possible across a cl!ster o machines" )o end !sers, the machines

in a cl!ster seem to be one machine b!t, behind the scenes, the system assigns !sers to vario!s servers to help distrib!te the load"  )here are t1o types o a!tomatic load balancing$ session level and re2!est level" With session level load balancing, the !ser perorms all operations rom logon to logo on one application server, b!t may perorm the operations o another session on another machine" 4s!ally, this type o load balancing is !sed or applications that m!st maintain state thro!gho!t a !ser5s session" Financial Management alls into this classiication" +oad balancing can be achieved thro!gh the cl!stering eat!re" )he administrator conig!res a cl!ster to incl!de Financial Management application servers" .!ring logon, the !ser selects the cl!ster name" 4sing a random approach, Financial Management logs !sers on the application servers deined in the cl!ster, thereby spreading the !sers across the available servers" Financial Management generates a random n!mber by !sing time &milliseconds as a parameter and logs each !ser on the appropriate server" 4sing milliseconds helps g!arantee random assignments i  !sers log on at the same time"  any server ails, the cl!ster is a!tomatically notiied and the ailed server is removed rom the list o available servers" #ny !sers logged on to the ailed server m!st log on again, !sing the cl!ster" 4sers are a!tomatically assigned to available servers" t is possible to have a server that is not part o the cl!ster b!t is synchroni6ed 1ith the other application servers in the cl!ster"  )h!s a dedicated reports or consolidation server can be !sed 1ith servers that are part o the cl!ster" 7l!stering applies only to the Financial Management application server and does not apply to the Web server or .atabase server tiers" 8nd-!ser load balancing is a 1ay o distrib!ting conc!rrent !sage as evenly as possible across m!ltiple servers"  yo! !se m!ltiple application servers, yo! can speciy a cl!ster o application servers thro!gh 1hich to distrib!te the !ser load" For eample, yo! can create an application server cl!ster named Mar:eting;Servers and add application servers M:t to the cl!ster" 0o! can add or remove servers rom an application server cl!ster as needed" n random load balancing, re2!ests are randomly ro!ted to servers" ?andom load balancing is

commonly !sed or homogeneo!s cl!ster deployments s!ch as Financial Management" n random load balancing, !sers are distrib!ted evenly, th!s all servers in a cl!ster sho!ld have similar conig!rations to prevent !npredictable perormance"  one machine in a cl!ster has signiicantly less processing po1er than other machines in the cl!ster, random load balancing gives the less po1er!l machine as many re2!ests as it gives more po1er!l machines"  )he client comp!ter stores a list o the available servers in the local registry" 4pon logon, the comp!ter randomly selects a server and attempts to log on"  the selected server has a problem, it is removed rom the local list, and the client comp!ter randomly pic:s another server" #ter the client comp!ter connects to a server, it as:s the server to 1hich it is connected or an !pdated list o servers" )he client comp!ter !pdates its local registry 1ith the ne1 list in preparation or the net logon re2!est" Web-based operations occ!r similarly, ecept that the registry is maintained on the Web server and !pdated ater each !ser logon" y !sing the registry to store available server inormation, the Web server avoids relying on a central server to process all logons"  0o! set !p application server cl!sters !sing the conig!ration !tility"

Financial Management Features Oracle's Hyperion® Financial Management – System 9 s!pports these eat!res$ ( # single, !niied vie1 o enterprise inancial inormation consolidates :ey perormance and operating metrics rom global so!rces in a scalable, Web-based application" ( @Airt!al closeB eat!res trim days and 1ee:s o yo!r close cycle !sing Webbased intercompany reconciliations and a consistent set o data and b!siness meas!res" ( Co1er!l m!ltidimensional analysis identiies and reports ne1 so!rces o proitability and cash lo1 at corporate, cost center, prod!ct, brand, c!stomer, and channel levels" ( Fleible @1hat iB scenario management eat!re dynamically consolidates and reports all inancial b!dgets, orecasts and plans, prod!cing ne1 statements as ass!mptions and acts change"

High-vol!me, preormatted reports deliver timely, acc!rate inancial inormation or internal management as 1ell as or eternal reg!latory and government bodies, rom the same application" ( Crepac:aged eat!res are deployed o!t-o-the-bo, 2!ic:ly and costeectively, incl!ding eat!res s!ch as 1orld-class allocations, m!ltic!rrency translations, and rob!st data integration 1ith legacy applications, 8?C, and 7?M systems" ( 7!stomi6able and etensible application solves yo!r speciic iss!es 2!ic:ly and costeectively, !sing ind!stry standard tools" ( #rchitected or the Web so !sers can easily and sec!rely access global inancial inormation rom any location, !sing a standard Web bro1ser" ?elational data storage ens!res mission critical data is available to !sers />D=E" (

Financial Management Feat!res 15

Architecture Financial Management is designed to operate as a m!ltitier system" ( )he client tier contains the !ser interace and the ability to comm!nicate 1ith the application tier" 0o! can display data and metadata, enter data, and maintain metadata in this tier" ( On the Web server tier, yo! access the Web-enabled portions o Financial Management" ( )he middle tier contains the domain intelligence and connections to the relational database" ( )he data tier contains the relational database and all Financial Management data and metadata"