chris maxwell reporting and data warehouse supervisor...
TRANSCRIPT
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Chris Maxwell
Reporting and Data Warehouse Supervisor
Montgomery College
Rockville, MD
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MONTGOMERY COLLEGE
Community College Founded in 1946
Three campuses in Montgomery
County, Maryland
Rockville
Takoma Park
Germantown
Instruction to over 60,000 students each
year.
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BUSINESS OBJECTS AT MONTGOMERY
COLLEGE
Crystal Reports XI R2
Over 1,000 production reports
Business Objects XI
Crystal Reports Server
InfoView
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Old BO XI R2 Environment
Banner
Oracle
10g DB
Datamart
10 g
Oracle
Windows Server 2003
32-bit Quad Processor
All BO Services
SQL Server - CMS
IIS Web Server
User
User
User
User
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Planned BO XI 3.1 Environment
Banner
Oracle
10g DB
Datamart
10 g
Oracle
Windows Server 200864-bit Quad Processor
Non-Web BO Services
SQL Server -CMS
User
User
User
User
Windows Server 200864-bit Quad ProcessorWeb BO Services
IIS Web Server
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Planned Approach
Verify HW/OS Selections supported by BO did not want to be bleeding edge
Hired BO consultant
HW Install
OS Install
BO Installation Procedures
Allowed One Week to have test environment up and running for testing
Second week for knowledge transfer
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Issue 1: ODBC
BO only supports 32-bit ODBC driver.
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Issue 2: Web Server Install and
Firewall Ports Installed non-Web servers on BO DB
server
During Web Install, install would end because CMS server could not be found.
**** BO randomly selects two ports for installing software. Network security monitored communications to identify ports and opened ports to allow install to continue.
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Issue 3: IIS Server
Installed BO Web Services
CMC and InfoView would not launch
**** BO does not support 64-bit IIS
**** After many attempts to get 32-bit IIS to work, switched to a 32-bit server running Windows Server 2003 and decided to use BO default TopHat web server.
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Issue 4: Accessing Oracle Data
Sources All BO services installed and running Could not access Oracle sources using either Oracle
or ODBC connectivity methods Able to query Oracle datasources using other
software on BO DB server (i.e., SQL Plus, ODBC connection wizard)
**** Default BO Folder contains (x86) in folder name. In communication between BO and Oracle, the parentheses break the communication.
**** Re-Installed BO software and renamed installation folder to exclude the parentheses.
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Issue 5: Misc
BO provided application to migrate CMS
from old to new was hit and miss.
Approximately 65% of folders and
reports initially transferred.
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Open Firewall Ports for each
BO Server PORTS (Request Ports) ASSIGNED TO BUSINESS
OBJECTS SERVERS
Central Management Server (CMS): xxx05
Crystal Reports Cache Server: xxx15
Connection Server: xxx20
Input File Repository: xxx25
Crystal Reports Job Server: xxx35
Crystal Reports Processing Server: xxx45
List of Values Server: xxx50
Report Application Server (RAS): xxx65
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Take-Aways
BIG, BAD Surprises!!!! SAP support: D
Ineffective and frustrating support structure
Little 64-bit experience
Little experience working with Firewalls
Installation Process Very Poor Very slow
No feedback
BO/Crystal Reports Future at MC in question
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Final BO XI 3.1 Environment
Banner
Oracle
10g DB
Datamart
10 g
Oracle
Windows Server 200864-bit Quad Processor
Non-Web BO Services
SQL Server -CMS
User
User
User
User
Windows Server 2003 32-
bit Quad ProcessorWeb BO Services
Tomcat Web Server
Altered BO
Default
Directory
Structure