Presentation from SAP Mentor Eric Vallo from EV Technologies @ SAP NZ BI SIG event in Auckland 11th April 2014

1. BI4.1 and Beyond
Carefully Thinking Through an
SAP BusinessObjects BI4 Migration

2. Introductions

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. In one weeks...
SAP Lumira for N00bs
with Me

7. Why Go Now?

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. SAP BI Mobile
Deploy Web Intelligence/Crystal Reports/Exploration
Views/ Dashboards/Lumira seamlessly to Mobile Devices
+ + =

16. Features Lost

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. The Project(s)

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. Divide and Conquer
Implement
the
Platform
Leverage
New
Capabilities
Shower in
the Cheers
of your
Business
Users
+
=

27. Migration Strategy

28. Migration Strategy
Staged Approach Big Bang Approach

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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

32. Sizing it Up

33. 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.

34. 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

35. Sizing Guide
Fine tune the sizing
requirements!
sap.com/bisizing

36. 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

37. Looking Ahead

38. 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

39. 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

40. 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….

41. Resources

42. 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

43. sap-press.com
Three titles in one team
SAP Press Authors

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

45. Questions?