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Keep Your SAP BusinessObjects System Healthy Using the Tools You Already Own

Alan Mayer Solid Ground Technologies

1

In This Session

• Review typical BusinessObjects administrative tasks

• See tools and techniques that make those tasks easier

• Understand the software version each tool targets (XI 3.1 / 4.x)

• Know when to call in bigger firepower and more expertise

2

What We’ll Cover

• Introduction

• Living as an Administrator

• Knowing What You Have – Metadata Tools

• Seeing Where You’ve Been – Audit Tools

• Putting the Fires Out – Diagnostic Tools

• Keeping a Mindful Eye – Monitoring Tools

• Wrap-up

3

Nothing Beats Free

4

Until “Free” Looks Like This …

5

Each Tool/Technique Has a Purpose

• Too many tools confuse the person using them

What tool is right for the task at hand?

Is there a smaller set of really good ones?

• This presentation hopes to fill in some of those gaps

When to use it

What to expect

Where to go for more information

6

The Obligatory Disclaimer

• This presentation can’t cover everything

Only 75 minutes

Each topic worthy of a paper on its own

7

Tools by Version

• Most tools work in legacy versions of SAP BusinessObjects

XI R2 through XI 3.1

• A few techniques work only in future versions

We’ll label these appropriately when encountered

Legacy

BI 4.x

8

What We’ll Cover

• Introduction

• Living as an Administrator

• Knowing What You Have – Metadata Tools

• Seeing Where You’ve Been – Audit Tools

• Putting the Fires Out – Diagnostic Tools

• Keeping a Mindful Eye – Monitoring Tools

• Wrap-up

9

A Day in the Life

Crashes

Escalations

Requests

Root Cause Analysis

Configuration

10

Tasks by Type

• Tactical

• Diagnostic

• Monitoring

• Informational

What happening now

What happened in the past

What could happen in the future

11

A Word on Tactical Tasks

• Many jobs an SAP BusinessObjects Administrator

handles are tactical

Add users

Promote reports and corresponding

universes

Recycle servers

Manage report instances

• SAP BusinessObjects offers tools for exactly

these tasks

Central Management Console (CMC)

Central Configuration Manager (CCM)

• This discussion focuses on other activities

12

What We’ll Cover

• Introduction

• Living as an Administrator

• Knowing What You Have – Metadata Tools

• Seeing Where You’ve Been – Audit Tools

• Putting the Fires Out – Diagnostic Tools

• Keeping a Mindful Eye – Monitoring Tools

• Wrap-up

13

Metadata Tools and Techniques

• Uncovers content in your system

Types of content

Reports

Users and groups

Applications

Content by folder

User and group

assignments

Server configuration

14

BI Platform Support Tool

• Developed by SAP Support

• Much more than a content scanner

We’ll see it again for diagnostics and tracing

Here’s an example of detailed count by type:

BI 4.x

15

BI Platform Support Tool (cont.)

• It can also retrieve configurations by server

Includes current metrics as well

• Does this across the ENTIRE cluster

This is extremely time-

consuming if you’ve ever

attempted this manually

BI 4.x

16

• Some tools using the SAP BusinessObjects SDK take a while

to collect their data

• A few of these tasks can be quickly handled by querying the

relational repository tables themselves

SQL Legacy

BI 4.x

SELECT typeid,

count(*) type_count

FROM cms_infoobjects6

GROUP BY typeid ORDER BY type_count desc

The TYPEID values may change per

installation. Check using your CMC or

Query Builder to validate your values.

17

Query Builder

• An SDK-based program that can also be used to retrieve

information on your content

• You can submit SQL-like statements which are parsed into SDK

calls against the BO repository

Legacy

BI 4.x

URL for Query Builder:

<host name>:<port>/AdminTools

18

Query Builder Examples

• Find the number of public reports and folders

• Find the number of named users (1) vs. concurrent users (0)

SELECT count(SI_ID)

FROM CI_INFOOBJECTS

WHERE DESCENDENTS("SI_NAME='Folder Hierarchy'",

"SI_ID IN (23)")

SELECT count(SI_ID)

FROM CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS

WHERE SI_KIND = 'USER' AND SI_NAMEDUSER=1

SELECT count(SI_ID)

FROM CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS

WHERE SI_KIND = 'USER' AND SI_NAMEDUSER=0

Careful with QueryBuilder.

You can submit a request that

can crash a busy system!

Legacy

BI 4.x

19

Query Builder Output

• Query Builder returns its output as HTML tables

Not the easiest to manipulate

Legacy

BI 4.x

20

Excel

• Excel can be used to quickly paste and visualize

QueryBuilder output

Legacy

BI 4.x

Filter on the Properties column to

retrieve individual values from

multiple rows.

21

Know When You Need More Help

• These techniques will allow you to gather some metadata from

your system but not all …

In particular, information within your universes and reports is

not captured

Universes: Tables, joins, objects, conditions, …

Reports: Blocks, formulas, variables, …

• If you need this data, you’ll need other tools

Need to scan universes and documents for that metadata

SAP solution: Information Steward

Third-party tools can also help

22

Demonstration – Metadata Tools

23

What We’ll Cover

• Introduction

• Living as an Administrator

• Knowing What You Have – Metadata Tools

• Seeing Where You’ve Been – Audit Tools

• Putting the Fires Out – Diagnostic Tools

• Keeping a Mindful Eye – Monitoring Tools

• Wrap-up

24

Audit Universe and Reports

• The 4.x Audit universe is no longer installed with SAP

BusinessObjects

For XI 3.1 and earlier, installed with the software

You have to download the universe and related reports yourself

• Fortunately, this content is available through SCN

SAP Community Network

• The universe has been rewritten for a number of databases

• Reports, though, are provided only for Crystal Reports for

Enterprise

Download the universe and reports at:

http://tinyurl.com/73j85eo

Legacy

BI 4.x

25

The Audit Universe

Major Audit tables are outlined in RED above.

The remaining tables are primarily lookups.

(4.x tables shown)

Legacy

BI 4.x

26

The Audit Universe – Major Folders

Objects from the folders outlined in

RED above are commonly used in

Audit queries. (4.x universe shown)

Legacy

BI 4.x

27

The Audit Universe – Minor Folders

Objects from the folders outlined in RED

above are used in specialized queries for

load balancing, troubleshooting.

(4.x universe shown)

Legacy

BI 4.x

28

The Audit Universe – Conditions

Use these predefined filters as a template to

create your own query-based conditions.

(4.x universe shown)

Legacy

BI 4.x

29

Know When You Need More Help

• Querying against a large SAP BusinessObjects audit

database has its own challenges

Queries may run very slowly

Information returned may not be in the format you need

Extra transformation may have to be done

• If this is true for you, you may need to consider an alternative

audit solution

Create a data warehouse / mart from Audit data

Can look to third-party solutions

Legacy

BI 4.x

30

Demonstration – Audit

31

What We’ll Cover

• Introduction

• Living as an Administrator

• Knowing What You Have – Metadata Tools

• Seeing Where You’ve Been – Audit Tools

• Putting the Fires Out – Diagnostic Tools

• Keeping a Mindful Eye – Monitoring Tools

• Wrap-up

32

Using the BI Platform Support Tool Diagnostically

• The same tool supplied by SAP Support

can be used to troubleshoot system issues

• We’ll take a look at several methods in the

next few slides

BI 4.x

33

BI Platform Tool Change Analysis

• The tool can be used to compare differences between two

different landscape reports

This helps isolate issues caused by configuration changes

Landscape reports can be analyzed

Against one another (one week to the next)

Against system defaults

Scheduling landscape reports on a

regular basis will provide the

evidence when you need it

BI 4.x

34

BI Platform Tool Tracing

• The tool can also automate the collection of trace files

Define a landscape definition

Define the nodes and servers to be traced

Choose a working directory

Let the tool adjust global trace files (BO_trace.ini)

Run the end-to-end trace using the SAP Client Plug-in

Trace files are collected from ALL nodes

The SAP Plug-in requires Internet

Explorer. Other browsers will not

work.

BI 4.x

35

Survey Scripts

• SAP offers survey scripts that can be run

Usually for UNIX / Linux installations

Offered as shell scripts

• Combination of operating system (OS) commands

Collectively allow SAP Support engineers to

diagnose your system

These scripts can be a good source

of commands for other diagnostic

tests

Legacy

BI 4.x

36

OS Utilities

• Many operating system commands programs are

useful for diagnostics

• Different offerings between Windows and UNIX / Linux

• This section will introduce you to several of them

Legacy

BI 4.x

37

OS Memory Utilities – UNIX / Linux

• vmstat

Monitor memory usage

Look for high pageouts (po or so depending on Linux version)

vmstat <delay> <number of iterations>

Example: vmstat 5 10

procs memory

R b w swpd free buff cache si so

1 0 0 13344 1444 1308 19692 0 168

1 0 0 13856 1640 1308 18524 64 516

3 0 0 13856 1084 1308 18316 56 64

.

.

Linux

High paging

(> 100/sec)

Legacy

BI 4.x

38

OS Disk Utilities – UNIX / Linux

• iostat

Measure disk usage

Look for utilization > 60 – 80%, response times > 35 msec

iostat <interval>

Example: iostat 5 (Sample every 5 seconds)

Device r/s w/s kr/s kw/s wait actv svc_t %w %b

sd1 84.7 0.0 10615.1 0.0 0.0 1.6 19.0 1 100

sd4 27.6 6.8 220.5 51.6 0.0 2.9 83.0 0 98 s

sd6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0

Average service time

(response) Utilization

(% busy)

Solaris

Legacy

BI 4.x

39

OS Network Utilities – UNIX / Linux

• netstat

Monitor network traffic

Look for collisions > 10% output packets

netstat –i -I <network> <sample interval>

Example: netstat –i –I en0 5

Name Mtu Network Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Coll

en0 1500 <Link> 96 0 67 0 0

en0 1500 192.100.61 nullarbor 96 0 67 0 0

AIX

Legacy

BI 4.x

40

OS CPU Utilities – UNIX / Linux

• vmstat

Use vmstat to check system utilization

Look for % CPU utilization, large run queues, %sys > %usr

Aim for 70% utilization

Solaris

procs … cpu

r b w … us sy id

49 0 0 … 84 16 0

31 0 0 … 82 18 0

.

.

Run queues

are long

% user > % sys

(Good!)

No idle time

(100% busy)

Legacy

BI 4.x

41

OS Dashboards – UNIX / Linux

• top / topas

• Collectively refresh many OS-related statistics

Legacy

BI 4.x

42

OS Metrics – Windows

• Use Performance Manager for measuring metrics

CPU, memory, disk, network, …

Windows 2008

version shown

Legacy

BI 4.x

43

Windows Performance Manager

• Hints on using Performance Manager

Choose the System Diagnostics Data

Set and run it for 5 – 10 minutes

1

View the report that is created 2

That report will highlight the

most relevant metrics

3

Details also available 4

Legacy

BI 4.x

44

Web Intelligence Rich Client (WRC) Utilities

• Has a non-documented debug mode

• Press ALT-SHIFT while the cursor is the bottom left corner

45

Web Intelligence Browser Utilities

• Has a non-documented Administrator tool

Web Intelligence Administrator Tool

Default Location:

C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\apps\

WebiAdminTool

Program:

GenericContainer_AdminTool.jar

• This tool can show relationships and activity

between running Webi and APS servers Can see which

server is processing

Webi documents –

live!

BI 4.x

46

Web Intelligence Browser Utilities (cont.)

• The interface:

Points to an APS

server involved in

processing the

document

Much more

functionality available

(demo)

BI 4.x

47

Database Connectivity

• SAP provides a utility to test connectivity to a variety

of databases

cscheck

UNIX / Linux only

Location (varies by BO version, UNIX / Linux):

bobje/enterprise120/linux_x86/dataAccess/RDBMS/

connectionServer/tools

Example: ./cscheck ping -m local -c "ODBC Drivers"

-d "MS SQL Server 2005" -u myDatabaseUser

-p myDatabasePassword -s SQL

More information:

http://tinyurl.com/nyfnlh2

Legacy

BI 4.x

48

Viewing Your Errors

• BI 4.1 produces trace files using GLF format

Several of these trace files can be opened at once

View errors chronologically

• You’ll need a GLF Log Viewer to do so

More information (search for GLF)

http://tinyurl.com/otfhs2j

BI 4.x

49

Know When You Need More Help

• Some problems require more than a few tools to resolve …

• Experience play a large part

• If you’ve spent more than a day on a problem

Consider opening an SAP Incident

At least another person will be looking at the same issue

50

Demo

51

What We’ll Cover

• Introduction

• Living as an Administrator

• Knowing What You Have – Metadata Tools

• Seeing Where You’ve Been – Audit Tools

• Putting the Fires Out – Diagnostic Tools

• Keeping a Mindful Eye – Monitoring Tools

• Wrap-up

52

Monitoring

• Built into the BI 4.1 Central Management Console (CMC)

BI 4.x

53

Server Monitoring

• Metrics available for most BI 4.1 servers

BI 4.x

54

Monitoring Output BI 4.x

Output can be seen

interactively or via

universe queries

55

Tomcat Manager

• CMC Monitoring does not address your application server

Tomcat by default

• Fortunately, it comes with its own Manager portal

Connections,

threads,

memory used,

and more can be

read.

Legacy

BI 4.x

56

Wily Introscope

• Another monitoring solution is available for

SAP BI customers

BI 3.x / 4.x is bundled with a Wily Introscope license

• This allows a much deeper look at how your entire environment is

running

Application and BI servers

• It also gives you monitoring across all your nodes

• Setup and usage go far beyond our time today

• The demonstration will give you a glimpse …

Legacy

BI 4.x

57

Know When You Need More Help

• Monitoring can seem like a complex subject

• Customers are confused on how to set up and use the available

tools

Emphasis on USING the tools

Not many tutorials on cookbook strategies

• Look towards the end of this article for more information and

presentations

58

Demo

59

What We’ll Cover

• Introduction

• Living as an Administrator

• Knowing What You Have – Metadata Tools

• Seeing Where You’ve Been – Audit Tools

• Putting the Fires Out – Diagnostic Tools

• Keeping a Mindful Eye – Monitoring Tools

• Wrap-up

60

Where to Find More Information

• http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/SAP+BI+Platform+Supp

ort+Tool

Main wiki site for the BI Platform Support Tool

• Manikandan Elumalai, “BusinessObjects Environment

Assessment using Query builder”,

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-42953

• Alan Mayer, “Audit Thyself using BusinessObjects 4.0”, 2014

ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference,

http://tinyurl.com/nmcdhon

• Alan Mayer, “Getting into Trouble (and Back Out)”, 2011 ASUG

SAP BusinessObjects User Conference,

http://tinyurl.com/l3lyuag

61

Where to Find More Information, cont’d

• Alan Mayer, “Deep Dive – Monitoring Servers using BI 4.1”, 2014

SAP Analytics and BusinessObjects Conference

• http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/BI+Platform+Root+Cau

se+Analysis+Wiki

Main wiki site for SAP Monitoring and Wily Introscope solutions

62

7 Key Points to Take Home

• Learn how to categorize administrative tasks

• Know the tools that can make each task easier

• Understand the software release each tool applies to

• Realize when you’re in over your head

• Call in more extensive solutions when needed

Possibly more expensive

• Research additional sources for more

information on each tool / technique

• Justify the time needed to master these

techniques

Or continue to live the hard life of an

Admin without them

63

Your Turn!

How to contact me:

Alan Mayer

Solid Ground Technologies

alan.mayer@solidgrounded.com

@solidgrounded

Please remember to complete your session evaluation

64

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