BI4.1 and Beyond

Carefully Thinking Through an SAP BusinessObjects BI4 Migration

Introductions

Our Company EV Technologies is an SAP Gold Partner with operations in Australia and the United States •  SAP Software Solutions Partner •  SAP Certified Solutions provider •  SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise and SAP HANA Certified •  Migration experts – classic BusinessObjects products to

SAP BusinessObjects XI R2 – BI4

Eric Vallo •  Co-Founder and Managing Partner of EVT US •  Certified on SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise •  Business Intelligence Architect for the last 14

years •  Experience in managing systems ranging in size

between 100 and 30,000 users •  2011 SAP Mentor •  SAP Press Author

Diversified Semantic Layer •  Unprofessional

journalism at its finest •  global community •  Don’t miss podcasts both

on product news and application, as well as interviews with other BOBJ people in the community

•  Follow on twitter at @dslayered

•  Ask your questions #AskDSLayer

http://dslayer.net

In one weeks...

SAP Lumira for N00bs with Me

Why Go Now?

Business Drivers for BI4.1

•  SAP BW customers finally winning •  Integration for SAP HANA and SAP Lumira •  Greatly improved semantic layer •  Better suited for large scale, enterprise needs •  Significant improvements in mobile BI •  Modern technology stack support

Politics of Upgrades

•  Greg Myers, also of EV Technologies, put it best in an ongoing presentation on “The Politics of Upgrades” –  Never give up! Be the “true-believer” and keep driving the agenda. –  Show management the benefit to customers –  Use small words so they understand –  Talk in terms of benefits and risks –  Remember the risk of doing nothing! –  When all else fails, quit and go work for your pals

http://evtechnologies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/thepoliticsofupgrades.pdf

SAP BW Customers

•  Voyager and the UNV are no longer the only integration points

•  BICS becoming more pervasive within the platform •  Subtle tuning from SP to SP provides performance

gains over prior releases •  Analysis for OLAP/MS Office find their niche and

further, integrate with the SAP Design Studio platform

SAP HANA

•  BICS or Universe-based connectivity •  Support for direct table access or HANA

views, both relational and analytical •  Broader tool support in the BI platform

SAP Lumira

•  Integration to SAP Lumira Server from BI4 just introduced –  Integrate content from SAP Lumira Server

directly into BI Launch Pad

•  Produce content to be consumed directly within an Explorer Information Space

Benefits to the User •  The Common Semantic Layer benefits to the user span almost every aspect of the

reporting suite –  The new Common Semantic Layer (UNX) bridges gaps in disparate data sources –  Integrate Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or even SAP NetWeaver BW into integrated

reporting solutions –  SAP HANA and Hadoop connectivity is part of the platform

The Platform •  The benefits to the SAP BusinessObjects platform are subtle, but certainly there

–  A platform rewrite to support 64-bit operating systems exclusively means bigger and badder reports

–  Connection servers compiled as 64-bit services empower the use of native 64-bit database drivers

•  The new Adaptive Processing Server Behemoth –  While bulky, this process is well documented and can be tuned for the needs of each

deployment •  New monitoring engines have taken to proactive alerting of conditions of

concern within the environment •  Multi-tenancy capabilities greatly simplify administrative duties for decentralized

environments •  Integration of SAP authentication and data sources is ready to go

SAP BI Mobile

Deploy Web Intelligence/Crystal Reports/Exploration Views/ Dashboards/Lumira seamlessly to Mobile Devices

+ + =

Features Lost

Deprecated SDKs

•  The future of the SAP BusinessObjects SDKs will only be exposed via RESTful APIs

•  Changes in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 –  DeskI SDK is gone –  *WebI SDK is largely deprecated with some access to

legacy functions via a bridge API (transparent) •  This prevents access to many lower-level components of the

WebI document itself

•  The UNX SDK is a maturing SDK that is incrementally adding back features since BI4.0 SP4

Die Deski

•  End of life for Desktop Intelligence (DeskI) coincides with the end of life for SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1

•  DeskI has no place in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 •  A planned migration from DeskI to SAP

BusinessObjects Web Intelligence (WebI) or SAP Crystal Reports, as appropriate, is the only path forward

Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Patch (DCP)

•  The DCP provides breathing room for customers struggling with the investment in both retiring DeskI reports and upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0

•  Reduces the net impact of the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 upgrade, but does limit the capability of DeskI users

•  The DCP does not extend the product lifecycle of DeskI •  SAP has addressed dual-licensing concerns through the

DCP to help customers complete this migration

The Project(s)

Plan Like Any Project

•  A project is a project –  Identify resources needed to complete your project, including

system administrators, testers, developers, key business stakeholders, etc.

–  Identify any dependencies to complete the implementation –  List any assumptions and expectations of participants of the

project plan –  Define the target version number appropriate to your

environment –  Don’t fear the phased approach

Be Mindful of Upgrade Paths •  SAP BusinessObjects 6.5 SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0

•  SAP BusinessObjects XI R2 SP1 SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 •  SAP BusinessObjects XI R2 SP2 SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0

•  SAP BusinessObjects XI 31 SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 •  SAP BusinessObjects BI4 SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 If  running  XI  R2  SP1  or  earlier,  plan  an  upgrade  to  a  later  release  of  XI  R2  before  making  the  migra>on,  and  use  a  staging  environment    

BI4.0 SPx Migrations

•  In place upgrades recommended – Given BI4 was not undersized to begin with – Least time to implement

•  Full migration – generally not best practice – Requires new hardware stack – Migrate content with Promotion Management

Determine What to Move

•  Customers upgrading are CERTAIN to have content that does not need to be moved –  Unused inbox content –  Unread reports older than N days ago –  Reports created > N months ago with no revisions or instances –  Reports larger than N MB in size (indicates reports used for ETL) –  Reports owned by users that are no longer with the company –  Unneeded report instances not controlled effectively by limits –  Users that are completely inactive within the environment

•  Find and locate this content with a combination of your Auditor data and third-party tools

Versions Don’t Live Forever

•  An organization’s current install base and patch level dictates the timeliness of upgrades

•  Each product End of Life (EoL) should ALWAYS be carefully observed

Product Mainstream EoL EoL SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise 6.5 LOL

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI R2 June 30, 2011

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Dec 31, 2015 Dec 31, 2017

Divide and Conquer

Implement the

Platform

Leverage New

Capabilities

Shower in the Cheers

of your Business

Users

+   =  

Migration Strategy

Migration Strategy Staged Approach Big Bang Approach

Moving With the Right Tool

•  Tool selection criteria –  Upgrade Management Tool (UMT)

•  Migrating from versions of SAP BusinessObjects prior to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1, but after XI R2 SP2

•  Requires conversion of content into the new platform •  Generally a one-off technology for upgrades

–  Lifecycle Manager (LCM) •  Migrating content between SAP BusinessObjects environments

running BI 4.1 •  Okay to move between disparate SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1

versions •  Used for both quick hit and recurring migrations

Approaches to Migrations

•  As upgrades –  Migrations take time

•  Iterate through your migration to a test environment many times •  Develop regression test plans and execute before the big move •  Migrate in small chunks

–  Die DeskI •  They aren’t moving until

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 •  Review the object

log carefully

Test Strategies

•  All of your content was moved into SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1? Now what?

•  There are multiple test strategies that are recommended –  Regression testing –  User acceptance testing –  Full migration testing

•  Calculation engine changes still happen, don’t assume changes will have no affect

Sizing it Up

SAPS

•  Defined as: –  SAP Application Performance

Standard (SAPS) is a hardware-independent unit of measurement that describes the performance of a system configuration in the SAP environment. It is derived from the Sales and Distribution (SD) benchmark, where 100 SAPS is defined as 2,000 fully business processed order line items per hour.

BI4 Sizing Estimator

•  Enter the user and report profile projections

•  The provided SAPS rating is the one to use in all hardware shopping sprees

Note: SAPS rating varies by hardware manufacturer

Sizing Guide

Fine tune the sizing requirements!

sap.com/bisizing

Hardware Considerations

•  Remember a few things when you are shopping: –  64-bit hardware is the new standard –  Don’t be shy when shopping for memory – SAP

BusinessObjects BI 4.1 likes it –  Minimal physical disk footprints are a thing of the past –

Plan for many patch levels and the retention of old patches •  Temporary storage for bigger reports will require more space

–  Other rules about storage, network, and I/O still hold true in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1

Looking Ahead

Beyond BI4.1

•  Support Packs will continue to deliver new functionality

•  The accelerated pace of change isn’t going away

•  BI innovations will happen more frequently on the SAP HANA platform

SAP Lumira V1.12 •  The UI is being changed to provide parity with

SAP Lumira cloud •  The concept of story boards is being brought to

the UX •  SAP Lumira becomes more extensible allowing

for 3rd party add-ons

SAP Lumira V1.15

•  Publish stories to SAP Lumira Server •  Associated values in right-click context •  Attributes are now dimensions…not facets…

or attributes….or characteristics….

Resources

Resources •  http://evtechnologies.com/betterbobj-data-in-motion •  http://evtechnologies.com/blog •  http://evtechnologies.com/state-of-the-sap-

businessobjects-bi-4-0-upgrade-april-2014 •  http://sapbusinessobjectsbi.com •  http://scn.sap.com/community/business-intelligence •  http://dslayer.net

sap-press.com

Three titles in one team

SAP Press Authors

Contact Us •  Eric Vallo – on twitter @ericvallo – via email eric@evtechnologies.com

Questions?