bi 4.0 migration strategy and best practices

BI 4.0 Migration Methodology and Best Practices

Eric Molner

February 3, 2013

Who Is Analytics8?

– Founded in 2002

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Entire Data Warehousing “Stack”

Entire Lifecycle: From Strategy to Implementation

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Our Customers

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Eric Molner

Monday, April 10, 2023 8

– Principal Consultant, based out of Chicago

– Over 8 years of Business Intelligence experience

– Held a variety of roles from lead developer to project manager

– Effectively worked with clients in the financial, retail, healthcare, and transportation industries

– Main areas of concentration:

SAP BusinessObjects Migrations

Deployment, Installation, and Configuration of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise

Data Visualization/Data Discovery

Reporting Best Practices

Business Analysis

Logical database design for reporting

Testing/Data Quality Management

Key Improvements in BI 4.0Integration

• Connect across BI Tools using the same semantic layer• No longer need separate installs for Lifecycle Manager

Performance• 64-bit O/S• Run BI suite with SAP HANA

New Functionality• Explorer/Exploration Views• Visual Intelligence• Information Design Tool• Crystal Reports for Enterprise

Better Administrative Tools• New Monitoring Features

Enhancements• Web Intelligence• Dashboards (a.k.a. Xcelsius)• Crystal Reports 2011

Ease of Use• Common design experience across all BI tools (e.g. Excel vs. PowerPoint)• Common query panel across all reporting tools• Better Data Visuals (e.g. Chart Objects)


Migration Methodology

• Analysis and recommendations related to organization, process, and technology.BI Assessment

• Review of environment setup, inventory of reporting documents, and review of user activity profile.

Existing Deployment Assessment

• Complete migration roadmap and detailed plans for each phase.Planning

• Buildout of new environments, software installation, and customization.

Installation & Configuration

• Migration of existing content and conversion where necessary (i.e. DeskI).

Migration & Conversion

• Testing and validation of security model, targeted content validation, and performance testing.Testing

• Comprehensive technical and end user training course are available.Training


BI Assessment Based on a comprehensive analysis of the Current State, the Desired or Target State, and a Transition Plan or Roadmap to move from the former to the latter.


Information

Requirements

Technology Platforms

Process & Methodology

Organization and Skillsets

Review of known requirements and

level of service

Review of current system and capabilities

Outline of current capabilities and

processes

Assessment of organizational structure and capabilities

Future tactical information

requirements and strategic direction

Required future technology ecosystem

and architecture

Sustainable long term approach to

development and governance

Clearly defined roles and responsibilities

Prioritized BI releases on an incremental delivery schedule

Alignment of technology releases with information and

business requirements

Incremental approach to implement new

processes, methodology and

governance

Resource gap analysis, transition plan and schedule

Current State

TargetState

Transition Plan

Existing Deployment Assessment


• Utilize tools in migration toolkit to get comprehensive list of SAP Business Objects documents

• Analyze usage data tied to inventory and look for opportunities to eliminate or consolidate content

• Give each document an ultimate disposition (eliminate, archive, consolidate, migrate, etc)

• Ideally, the only content being migrated is that which is regularly used by the business or has another well defined and understood audience and purpose

Following the Staged approach, we recommend taking each business area through the following stages:

Comprehensive Inventory

Overlay Audit Usage Data

Categorize Content

Migrate to 4.0

Analytics8 Migration Toolkit

• Environment details (servers, CPU, memory, OS, etc)• User activity profile (# users, tools used, methods used)

Stakeholder Migration

Questionnaire• Comprehensive environment analysis• Impact Analysis• Data Lineage

System Profiler

• Metadata for non-repository documents• Includes all versions of DeskI and CrystalNetwork Crawler

• Join SAP BusinessObjects metadata with auditor data• Provides insights into document usage and user activity

trends

Auditor plugin for System Profiler

• Identify inconsistencies between CMS and FRSRepository

Diagnostic Tool (RDT)

• Compares report datasets pre- and post-migrationBulk Report Comparison Tool


Existing SAP Business Objects Deployment Assessment – Analytics8 utilizes a comprehensive set of tools to provide a complete picture of your current environment.

“House Cleaning” Existing Environment


Elimination- Stale content

- Duplicate reports

Archive- Existing content

- Eliminate redundancy in “user driven” archives/backups

- Put in place ongoing archival process

Consolidate and RefineDistinct Core

Reports

Initial Inventory240,000 Documents

Final Inventory~ 100,000 Documents

~ 80,000 Eliminated

~ 60,000 Archived

Consolidation expectedto net ~4,000

fewer documents

How to Identify Excess or Obsolete Content

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This following can help identify content that may no longer be relevant ‒ Last refresh date

‒ List of reports that were run in the last 12 to 24 months

‒ Last login date of a user

Conducting a S.W.O.T. analysis with the business users can yield a richer result, than analyzing the audit data. By engaging the business, it could result in indentifying redundant efforts, or establish BI initiatives that would immediately following the migration

S = Strengths

W = Weaknesses/Limitations

O = Opportunities

T = Threats

Upgrade Paths

Upgrade from the following sources:

XI 3.x

XI R2 SP2 (or higher)

BIAR file generated from XI R2 SP2 (or higher, except BI 4.0 FP3)

Upgrading from a BusinessObjects version prior to XI R2 SP2 will require to go through a multi-step upgrade path


BOBJ 5/6 XI 3.1 BI 4.0

Planning

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Consider the following when putting together a project plan:

• What does my current BOBJ environment look like?• What issues (e.g. technical) are we struggling with?Assessment

• When can we start the project?• Are we passed the End of Life (EOL) date on our current

version?

Time and Deadlines

• What internal/external resources do we need to be successful?Resources

• Will the upgrade project impact any current developments?Impact

• Will our administrators and power users be able support the new version? Training

– Build and configure new environment(s)• Servers are now 64 bits only

– Side-by-Side Deployment: Install 4.0 on the same machine(s) as the existing environment• Specify a different cluster name to avoid conflicts• For 4.0 use ports that are not used by the existing

environment

– Set-up and configure database for auditing• Auditor schema is new with 4.0 and is not directly

compatible with prior versions of auditor.• In order to keep historical audit data, a new database

instance will need to be created. Otherwise the existing audit data will be lost.

– Separate installs for client tools, Explorer, & Live Office


Installation & Configuration

BI 4.0 Migration Prep Checklist


– If the existing environment is XIR2, confirm it is at least at SP2 level

– Review the Product Availability Matrix (PAM) document to ensure compatibility with other technologies like operating systems, application servers, and web browsers

– License Keys

– Install Files• Includes the latest service packs and fix packs

– Server with 64bit operating system installed• The account used must have Administration privileges

BI 4.0 Migration Prep Checklist Cont…


– Separate database instance for CMS System and Audit data store• The account used must have privileges to create, modify, and delete tables, and to create stored procedures

• 32-bit and 64-bit database drivers should be installed on the new BI 4.0 server(s) for both the CMS System, Audit, and reporting databases

– Confirm location of NEW File Repository

– Create a back up of the existing system DB and FRS prior to beginning the migration

– Back up custom web applications, HTML pages, and scripts in your existing deployment

BI Platform Component Comparison


Complexity XI R2 / XI 3.1 BI 4.0

* Audit New audit schema

* InfoView BI Launch Pad

** Dashboard Builder

BI Workspace

N/A Encyclopedia / Discussion

End of Life

N/A Performance Manager

End of Life

* Universe Designer

No Change

* N/A Information Design Tool* Minor Effort ** Medium Effort *** Significant Effort

BI Client Comparison


Complexity XI R2 / XI 3.1 BI 4.0

* Crystal Reports CR 2011 and CR for Enterprise

*** Desktop Intelligence

End of Life

* Xcelsius 2008 Dashboards

** Explorer No .unv support

*** Voyager Analysis, edition for OLAP

* Web Intelligence

Web Intelligence

* Minor Effort ** Medium Effort *** Significant Effort

Desktop Intelligence Conversion

• OPTION 1: Isolate DeskI reports be either deleted or archived• OPTION 2: Consolidate with an existing WebI report(s)• OPTION 3: Convert DeskI using Report Conversion Tool in XI3.x or in BI 4.0

NOTE: The report conversion tool will provide one of three statuses for each report after it’s been converted: “Fully Converted”, “Partially Converted”, or “Not Converted”.

There is an option to capture details about the conversion in a database.


BusinessObjects comes with a Report Conversion Tool to convert DeskI over to WebI

Complete vs. Incremental Upgrades

There are two common approaches to a migration:

1. Complete = migrating all BOBJ content at once‒ Takes a shorter period of time compared to a incremental approach‒ Best for smaller, less complex deployments

2. Incremental = migration in batches (i.e. department by department)‒ Takes a longer period of time compared to the complete approach because time is spent to eliminate redundancies, and prioritize order of

migration‒ Best for larger, more complex deployments

NOTE: The Upgrade Management Tool is used for moving content to 4.0. The tool does not copy server or server cluster settings so a manual configuration will have to be done in the 4.0 CMC.


Testing

– Performance• Does it meet current SLAs?• Can the new environment handle capacity?

– Comparison• Utilize report comparison tool to automate the process of making sure the outputs are the same between environments

– Security Model• Do I have less/to many rights?


This stage should be conducted in two key areas:

1) After the 4.0 environment is installed and configured:– Ensure proper performance– Understand what impact there is to existing SDK code

2) After the migration and conversion

Bulk Report Comparison Tool

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Key Benefits

– Allows automated comparisons of report datasets pre- and post-migration

– Saves time and money by mechanizing report regression testing

Key Features

– Accesses report datasets through SDK, writes output to CSV and database

– Allows for proof that reports produce exact same content in 3.1 and 4.0:

– Dataset comparison (every column, every row, every data provider)

– Rowcount comparison

BOBJ 3.1 Server

BOBJ 4.0 Server

Reports Reports

DB DB

Automated Testing

Training – SAP Certified Training Partner

– Most of the existing SAP BusinessObjects courses have been updated or are in the process of being updated for 4.0 where applicable

– Special consideration should be given to training in the following areas given the amount of changes made in 4.0• Web Intelligence – Full upgrade with dramatically changed interface

• Information Design Tool – New semantic layer

• Dashboards (formerly Xcelsius) – New connectivity functionality and features including some changes to the interface

• Crystal Reports Enterprise – For customers wishing to abandon Crystal Reports 2011 and move to Enterprise


Migration Best Practices

‒ “House Cleaning” Existing Environment : Example remove excess and obsolete reports

‒ Conduct S.W.O.T analysis with the business users

‒ Keep the original environment available long enough to compare to the new environment to ensure that the content was migrated successfully

‒ Go through a “practice run” of the migration

‒ Development should NOT be done on any 4.0 environment until the migration is complete

‒ Security = specify the new “owner right” for existing products, and set rights for new products (IDT, LCM, etc)


Migration Best Practices

‒ Keep existing functionality as part of the migration, and any new functionality not currently implemented or was not available in a previous version will be evaluated after the migration

‒ Have a Test Strategy in place to ensure the migration was a success

‒ Understand what new functionalities are offered in 4.0 to prepare for next steps after the migration

‒ If architecting a clustered environment, make sure each server node works properly

‒ A simple way to conduct a performance test is by creating a publication that schedules the same set of reports in both the old environment and the 4.0 environment. This can be done during different times in a day to gauge performance.


Questions?


Eric Molner

Analytics8500 N. Michigan AveSuite 810Chicago, IL 60611

T: 312 878 6600F: 773 326 0749

www.Analytics8.com

Thank you!