biit 2011 berg bo explorer v11

8/6/2019 BIIT 2011 Berg BO Explorer v11

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© 2011 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.

Accelerate in-memory querieswith SAP BusinessObjectsExplorer, accelerated version

Dr. BergComerit Inc.



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In This Session «

In this session you will learn how BO Explorer adds very fastad-hoc search capabilities to your warehouse and theinfrastructure needed to deploy it.

You will also learn how to format the output, see a step-by-step demo on how the tool works and explore how to plan for BW-Explorer in your organization.

You will also see the milestone plan for installing BW-Explorer and technical considerations for an successful implementation



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What We¶ll Cover «

BO Explorer Overview Ad-Hoc search A step-by-step Demo of analysis and formattingInstalling and managing BO Explorer Planning and Budgeting for BO Explorer Wrap-up



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Why BO Explorer...

BO Explorer is a search and exploration tool for unstructured and semi-

structured data. Unlike querying, 'exploration' is unstructured analysis.

A survey of 534 top BIprofessionals, reported that the

top concern was the ability todeliver faster query and dataexploration capabilities, BOExplorer addresses this need

S ource: Business IntelligenceS urvey, InformationWeek, 2009



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Why In-memory processing for BO Explorer?

Disk speed is growing slower than all other hardware components

In-memory datastores

Multi-channelUI, high eventvolume, crossindustry valuechains

Application-aware and

intelligent datamanagement

Disk-based datastorage

Simpleconsumption of apps (fat clientUI, ED I)

General-purpose,application-

agnosticdatabase

1990 2010

Architectural DriversImprovement20101990

216AddressableMemory

2502x50.15MB/$0.02MB/$Memory

5066 x253.31MIPS/$

0.05MIPS/$

CPU

Technology Drivers

600MBPS

5MBPS

DiskData Transfer

120x

1000 x100Gbps

100Mbps

NetworkSpeed

264 248x

Source: 1990 numbers SAP AG 2010 numbers, Dr. Berg

Physical hard drive speeds only grew by 120 timessince 1990. All other hardware components grew faster.



BO Explorer ( BOEx)has several ways in can connect to data sets:

1. External data may be indexed by the BO Data Services and stored ondedicated BW Accelerator (BWA ) blades.

2. BW data may be indexedon BWA blades for

fast in-memoryprocessing

3. External data may alsobe accessed as ' non- accelerated ' via SQL

universes and BOBJ X I

4. Excel spreadsheets mayalso be accessed

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BO Explorer Overview

S ource: SAP A g, 2010

Accelerated BOEx does not require BW. - You can accelerate all data sources



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In Memory Processing - General Highlights - BW A

SAP BW

InfoCubes

DSOs

1. Indexing andcompressionstored on a filesystem

2. Indexes copied into RAM on blades

BI Analytical Engine

3. Queries are routed to BWAby the Analytical engine



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In Memory Processing - Creating Indexes from external data

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Busin e ss Obj e ta ta Serv ice s

File s

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Ind ex G e si gnerE

Using the Index Designer in DataServices, you can also indexdata from external data files anddata bases.

It is important to note that the

BO indexes are on dedicatedblades.

For BWA you should alwayshave one 'spare' blade for failover. If a blade fails, the

system can reload the indexesfrom the BWA file system (i.e.IBM's GPFS ).

For BOEx blade, you can useonly one blade.

DataIntegrator



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The many BOEx Access Methods

BOEx is normally accessed through a webbrowser.

However, you can always download theresults from a search into Excel andperform analysis from there.

In addition you can save the result set asan image and load it on portal sites, handhelds, or sent as an email.

Finally, you can access the BOEx directlyfrom a handheld device that support basicweb browser functions.

S ource: Dan Kearnan, SAP AG (2010)



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Ad-hoc Search

The core idea of BOEx is thatusers can search the B I data like theywould using Google, Yahoo, Bing or other search engines.

Users should not have to know how the data is structured,

what query to execute, or how to display the data.BOEx takes a 'first stab' at presenting the data in a usableformat. From there, users may navigate and change thedisplay.

The users may save their settings and the display at anytime.



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A Step-by-Step Demo: Searching

Step 1. We load the BOEx web

interface into a browser

Step 2. We Search for "sales"

Step 3. We get the search results anda list of "informationspaces".

T he search result list is sorted based on an internal 'relevancy' score



A Step-by-Step Demo: The Initial View

Step 4. The system looks at the data and formats it based on implied

hierarchies (i.e., time, geography, customer ) as well as measures.Users may navigate and change measures, graphs and tables.



A Step-by-Step Demo: Searching in a result set & measures

Step 5. Again, we are interested in sales around Texas, and can

search the initial result set:

Step 6. By changing themeasure from 'margin' to'sales revenue' all graphsand tables change



A Step-by-Step Demo: Changing Charts and Drill down

Step 7. We can change the chart by selecting from the left menu

options.

Step 8. While the firstdisplay was based on the'best guess ', we can nowdrill-down to the differentproduct lines

The best graphingoptions, based on our

data, is highlighted bya star:



A Step-by-Step Demo: More Graphing Options

Step 9. There are many graphing

options and some are moreusefule than others.

"Proportional' view is best whenyou are looking for sizerelations I.e., what are thelarges contributors to sales"?

T ry several graphing options before deciding on 'your' view.

Most of the time, the reccomended graphs works best for the data set, but not always



A Step-by-Step Demo: Filter Results

We now see only the (product) lines sold 3 states

A lways see if any items have been removed in a filter,before you look at the data. I.e. 1 5 ,0 6 1, 78 9 is not the

sales revenue for the firm, only the revenue for 3 states

Filter values

are displayedhere:



A Step-by-Step Demo: Top-10 Analysis

S tep 12. In the visualization panel, we can perform top-10analysis by a single click. A ll other values are summarized in an"other" category and graphed.

The ability to quickly group and summarize data is a greatfeature. This is normally done in the B I analytical engine of

SAP NetWeaver BW, and can be very slow.



A Step-by-Step Demo: Other Display Options

S tep 1 3 . You can view thedata in relative size byusing a c omparison graph

L ine graphs are usually preferredif you have 3 -20 data points

A reas on the graphscan be highlighted byclicking on one or more data points



A Step-by-Step Demo: Sorting and New Calculations

S tep 1 3 . A ny data panel can be sorted in many ways

Measures used on any graph, can be calculated 'on-the-fly'

S tep 1 4 . We can also addour own measures.

In our example we areadding the measure 'marginper unit' as total margindivided by 'quantity sold'



A Step-by-Step Demo: Mini-OLAP exampleS tep 1 6 . In this mini-O L AP example we are:

L ooking at some key cities in a few states (filter)Only looking at data for 200 3 and only for " S weats and T -S hirts" (filters)Examining the profit margin per unit sold (customized calculation)

BOEx is not an O L AP tool, but can support basic drill-down

features. and thereby complex unstructured analysis.



A Step-by-Step Demo: Downloading a Data Set

S tep 1 7 . A ny result set displayed in BOEx may be saved to a PC as a comma-delimited file.

You can selectto save the dataset filtered bythe navigationsor only the datafrom thevisualization

panel.

Data saved this way can be opened in Excel or importeddirectly into Access and other data bases.



A Step-by-Step Demo: Configuring Measures

S tep 1 8 . Measures in the data set can also be configured to be"filter columns " for user navigation

Other options

includeMaxMinS um A verage

This is how you determine how data will be accessed and

how measures will be displayed



HINT : Connectivity, network and non-logical calculations

You sometimes can get the following message from the system:

T his normally means that the connectively to the system is

either too slow, or broken. T his is an issue that is more commonfor very slow connections such as older Wi- F i networks.

You can also get this error message if the result set yourequested are not available (i.e. non logical calculations).



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BOEx Required & Optional Components

Installing BOEx can be confusing. Some components are

required, while other are optional.Optional Components:

Data S ervices XI 3 .2 SP 1 if you use external dataIndex designer plug-in if you use external A ccelerated dataBW A ccelerator 7 .20 if you use A ccelerated data

Required Components:NW 7 .01 SP 05 Eh P 1 (minimum)Explorer XI 3 .2Explorer (blade) 2.0C lient T ools XI 3 .1 SP 2

Enterprise XI 3 .1 SP 2 (consider SP3 )Integration XI 3 .1 SP 2 for SAP

BW A, Data Services and BO Explorer 3.2, can run only on SUSE Linux 64-bit

OS for blade servers. XI and Integration can be on all SAP supported HW

& OSS ource: SAP AG , S ept. 2010

SAP Certified blade vendors:IBM, SUN, Dell, Cisco,Teradata, Fujitsu, HP



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Registrar and Take a free test drive

You can registrar for a free 21 days test drive at:

http://goexplore.ondemand.com .

You can also upload your own data and try BOEx to see if it is

something for your organization.



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BO Explorer XI 3.2 and Explorer Blade 2.0 New Features

Many customers looked at earlier releases of BO Explorer and theprevious release called "Polestar" and noted several limitations.

Many of these limitations are now remedied. This include:

The possibility to import your own Excel files

Create your own calculations at the user level You can group related dimensions for simplicity of analysisSecurity in improved and row-level data security canbe implemented

You can personalize the view by filtering informationUsers may navigate hierarchies instead of 'flat' data

PS! BOEx solution is licensed based on number of blades and the number of named users.



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BW A 7.2 New Features

In earlier released of BWA you could not index DSOs, with version 7.2

this is now available.

Also, prior to BWA 7.2, the solution was only used for rapid in-memorydata fetches. B I analytical engine processes such as data sorts,calculated key figures (CKF ), restrictive key figures ( RKF), top-5conditioning etc., was still costly overheads to the query execution.

We now have a new " calculation engine "and a new " aggregation engine " inside . This means that the benefitsof in-memory processing is no longer confined to data fetches andqueries can be made to run even faster.

You can now performance tune most BI Analytical

Engine functions with BW

A, not only data reads.

SAP NetWea ver BW Accelerator 7.2

Calculation Engine

Aggregation EngineIndex



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BW A 7.2 New Features - MultiProviders and Queries

MultiProviders (MP ) are 'views' that links data stores, InfoCubes and/or

InfoSets together for simplifies user access and querying.

In the past, indexing these was a challenge.

Today we can index MultiProviders 'nativly'. This means that we cancreate an Index of MPs that have multiple InfoCubes once, and haveautomatic delta-loading capabilities (only changed records gets updatedin the index ).

For Multiproviders that also have DSOs and InfoObjects we can createperiodic 'snapshots'.

Indexes can also be built based on queries. This allows you to takeadvantage of query calculations as part of the index creation.

H I I H H I I P

H I I Q H I I R

H I I S H I I T

H I I U



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BOEx Milestone Plan

Since most vendors build the HW as Made-to-Order, it is important

to get the purchase order placed as soon as possible.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Project start upBW implementation review and ranking of InfoCubes/DSOs for indexingReview physical hardware infrastructure and network accessSize the BWA using program in note: 917803Plan for fail-over, disaster recovery and backupHW vendor selection (& approvals if required)Contact vendor and place Purchase order Collect benchmarks for current performance and targets

Execute performance tuning of queries, install SAP BO XI and BO-ESecurity designExamine process chains and create new if neededInstall hardware BWA and connectivityTest connectivity and perform readiness assessmentTraining for 2 system adminsCreate first indexes and test functionalityMake enhancements and change scope as needed (i.e. more infoproviders)

Create all planned indexes and test process chains (time to build indexes)Execute system test with User Acceptance team (end users)Design and implement updated process chainsCollect benchmarks for current performance and targets

Document results and close project

BO Explorer Milestone Plan Weeks



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Budgeting for BOEx

You have to plan for:BOEx licenses (per blade as well as per number of users)

Hardware costs (approx. $14K-$20K per chassis + $6-8K per blade and a rack, if you dnot have spare place for the chassis. Add in 2 network cards and a file system.)f

Good planning numbers for production environment (only):Small HW costs ~ $40K to $60KMedium HW costs ~ $60K to $250KLarge HW costs ~ $250K to $500K

Add consulting fees for 2-3 people for 8-12 weeks. The actual time needed depends onhow much of the infrastructure you already have in-place and how you plan on roll outsolution)

Remember to plan for 3-years vendor service costs.



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Resources

BO Explorer Implementation Checklist by SAPhttp://tinyurl.com/32v5ycw

SAP BOEx ProductWebsitehttp://www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects/large/business-intelligence/search-navigation/explorer/index.epx

SAP BOEx CollaborationWorkspacehttps://cw.sdn.sap.com/cw/community/sap/sapbusinessobjectsexplorer

Inside SAP BusinessObjects Explorer - bookSAP PRESS, ISBN:978-1-59229-340-7, Ingo Hilgefort,Hardcover, 315 pages



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Your Turn!

How to contact me:Dr. Berg

[email protected]



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Disclaimer SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, SAP NetWeaver ®, Duet�® , PartnerEdge, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other prod

and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.W

ellesley Information Services is neither owned nor controlled bySAP.

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