The catalog is stored in the "backend" on the application server not in the database. Under the root folder there are 2 folders Users and Shared. The shared folder is the one you can see in the catalog. Under the users folder there is subfolder for each user with their username then at runtime that folder is shown as "My Folder" depending who has logged on. So yes anything a user has created exists as files inside the user folders. As you know in cloud you cannot connect to the application server nor use the catalog manager client tool to read the catalog like you can on premise.So on cloud you can perhaps use the web services to read the catalog (cloudurl/analytics/saw.dll?wsdl). There is a web services guide here Oracle® Fusion Middleware Integrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Release 1 (11.1.1) E16364-08 December 2014 https://docs.oracle.com/middleware/11119/biee/BIEIT/title.htm.