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6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 1/37
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Nothing's more annoying than trying to browse the tens of thousands of BI assets in your SAP BusinessObjects CMS
and getting slapped on your mouse with the enterprise-unfriendly Too Many Objects message. (And it's not
just us who's affected by this!)
This happens in particular when browsing large CMS's through Instance Manager, a
capability or "micro-application" accessed through the Central Management Console
and that helps SAP BusinessObjects administrators search and discover the scheduling
activity of their deployment by a number of different properties (owner, date, status, folder,
etc).
So how do you sort through all this "Big Metadata"? There are a slew of different ways,
but the one we enjoy the most is shown below, using MetaMiner Community Edition,
to instantly get the answers you need around scheduled instances.
And if you missed our semi-pluggy-but-not-really-since-its-freeware announcement of MetaMiner Community
Edition now's a great time to have a look and start "MetaMining"!
668 View s 0 Comments
Tags: businessobjects, business_intelligence_(businessobjects), bi_platform, administration, bi4.1,
sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
0:00 / 4:23
Infolytik MetaMiner - Scheduled Instance Analysis
SAP BusinessObjects Scheduled Instance Analysis(on the Mac!)
Posted by Atul Chowdhury Feb 27, 2014
BI Platform & Data Services Patch History AnalysisTool
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 2/37
When investigating a problem on a SAP
BusinessObjects node, it is often very helpful to
understand what software has been installed on the
host and in what order was it installed. Fortunately, the
installer that SAP BusinessObjects products uses keeps
a detailed record of this information and this type of
detail is accessible if you know where to find it. This
Patch History Analysis capability will soon be included
as part of the BI Platform Support Tool Landscape
Analysis Report however in the meantime, I thought it would be helpful to release a stand-alone version for BI / DS
administrators to utilize.
The stand-alone tool is an executable jar file that queries this information from the installation manifest
(InstallManifest.sqlite) of a BOE system and generates an Excel report (.csv) containing information including:
Which products and patches were installed
What order were they installed
What date/time it was installed
Was it an install, uninstall, repair
Which user installed it
What was the build number
What is the setup language
Was the installation committed successfully to the manifest
Currently, the tool is programmed to support the following products and versions
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0 / 4.1
SAP Data Services 4.0 / 4.1 / 4.2
Information Steward 4.0 / 4.1 / 4.2
Usage
1. Download PatchHistory.zip and unzip PatchHistory.jar to the SAP BusinessObjects InstallData folder (for
example C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\InstallData) or copy the file InstallManifest.sqlite to the
same folder as your PatchHistory.jar (note: Java 1.6 is required)
2. Double click the PatchHistory.jar (alternatively, launch the program using the command java -jar
PatchHistory.jar)
3. A .csv file is generated
4. Open the .csv in Excel
Here's example output from a BI Platform 4.0 node:
PRODUCT TYPE DATE / TIME BUILD INSTALL USER SETUP LANGUAGE COMMITTED
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0 SP4 Install 2013-02-06 / 15:58:51 14.0.4.738 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0
Client Tools SP4
Install 2013-02-07 / 09:43:12 14.0.4.738 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0
update SP5
Install 2013-02-07 / 11:16:26 14.0.5.882 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0
Client Tools update SP5
Install 2013-02-07 / 13:05:26 14.0.5.882 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0
update SP5 Patch 3
Install 2013-02-07 / 14:13:53 14.0.5.957 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0
Client Tools update SP5 Patch 3
Install 2013-02-07 / 15:48:50 14.0.5.957 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 4.0 SP4 Install 2013-02-14 / 13:37:02 14.0.4.738 I123123 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0
update SP5 Patch 5
Install 2013-03-15 / 09:10:49 14.0.5.1003 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0
Client Tools update SP5 Patch 5
Install 2013-03-15 / 11:29:01 14.0.5.1003 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0
Client Tools update SP5 Patch 5
Uninstall 2013-03-15 / 14:59:41 14.0.5.1003 C123456 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0 Install 2013-03-15 / 15:36:20 14.0.5.1003 C123456 en TRUE
Posted by Toby Johnston Feb 26, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 3/37
Client Tools update SP5 Patch 5
SAP Design Studio 11.1.0.84 Install 2013-08-15 / 11:55:35 11.1.0.84 I123123 en TRUE
Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.0 SP7 Install 2013-12-11 / 10:38:47 14.0.7.1147 I123123 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1
update SP2
Install 2013-12-16 / 22:13:39 14.1.2.1121 D213123 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1
Client Tools update SP2
Install 2013-12-17 / 15:08:27 14.1.2.1121 D213123 en TRUE
Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.0 SP7 Uninstall 2013-12-17 / 17:10:54 14.0.7.1147 D213123 en TRUE
Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.0 SP2 Install 2013-12-17 / 18:31:06 14.1.2.1121 D213123 en TRUE
Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.0 SP2 Uninstall 2013-12-18 / 12:18:04 14.1.2.1121 D213123 en TRUE
Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.0 SP7 Install 2013-12-18 / 14:01:38 14.0.7.1147 D213123 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0 SP2 Maintenance 2014-01-12 / 12:37:02 14.1.2.1121 D213123 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1
update SP2 Patch 2
Install 2014-02-11 / 16:46:56 14.1.2.1195 I123123 en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1
update SP2 Patch 3
Install 2014-02-20 / 13:23:07 14.1.2.1216 I123123 en TRUE
Here's example output from a BI Platform 4.0 (with Data Services add-on) node:
PRODUCT TYPE DATE / TIME BUILD INSTALL USERSETUP
LANGUAGECOMMITTED
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 SP4
Install 2012-11-15 /
11:38:17
14.0.4.738 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
Data Services 4.0 SP3 Install 2012-11-16 /
09:43:14
14.0.3.273 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP4 Patch 5
Install 2012-11-19 /
10:53:14
14.0.4.855 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
Data Services 4.0 SP3 Patch 1 Upgrade 2012-11-19 /
12:11:46
14.0.3.353 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP5
Install 2013-04-26 /
15:59:25
14.0.5.882 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP5 Patch 7
Install 2013-04-26 /
18:12:57
14.0.5.1036 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
Data Services 4.0 SP3 Patch 3 Upgrade 2013-04-26 /
19:52:46
14.0.3.451 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
4.0 SP7
Install 2013-08-24 /
13:00:29
14.0.7.1147 TCoffman en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP6
Install 2013-08-25 /
14:32:03
14.0.6.1036 TCoffman en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP6 Patch 4
Install 2013-08-25 /
17:36:34
14.0.6.1145 TCoffman en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP6 Patch 11
Install 2014-01-24 /
19:19:10
14.0.6.1312 TCoffman en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP6 Patch 11
Uninstall 2014-02-06 /
15:29:57
14.0.6.1312 TCoffman en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP6 Patch 10
Install 2014-02-07 /
13:28:07
14.0.6.1272 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform
4.0 update SP6 Patch 10
Install 2014-02-11 /
15:26:10
14.0.6.1272 SAP\TJohnston en TRUE
Download the latest stand-alone version from here
BOE and Data Services Patch History Analysis Tool - Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects) - SCN Wiki
Download the BI Platform Support Tool here:
SAP BI Platform Support Tool - Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects) - SCN
1844 View s 3 Comments
Tags: businessobjects, bi, bi4, business_intelligence_(businessobjects), 4.0, bi4.0, reporting, bobj, bi4_upgrade, bi_platform,
tools, utility, bi4.1, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
BI Platform Analysis (and having fun doing it) - Part 1
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 4/37
The team at Infolytik has been working very hard to finally bring to the community
MetaMiner Community Edition: the first free ultra-light, cross-platform SAP BI4 and
XI3 landscape visualization app aimed towards helping administrators and architects
become more productive and efficient with their time spent managing SAP
BusinessObjects resources.
Q: What does MetaMiner Community Edition do? A: MetaMiner CE is an ultra-thin high performance client that connects directly to the MetaMiner
Server and allows for Google-like search and discovery across all of your BI assets like Web
Intelligence, Crystal Report or Xcelisus Dashboards. Furthermore, MetaMiner reveals a complete
CMS object hierarchy, or tree, providing even the deepest of insights into your users' Favorites and
Inbox folders.
CMS Explorer is a complete
rendition of your Business Objects
folder hierarchy
Meta Query: True freehand SQL
against your CMS metadata
Filter groups provide quick slice and
dice across corporate assets like
instances and schedules
Q: What insights will it provide to better manage my Business Objects XI3 or BI4
deployment? A: There are lots of them. Here are a few off the top of my head:
MetaMiner Community Can Answer This
Question...
Why its helpful
We're performing a cutover from our XI3
environment to a brand new BI4 one.
We've completed the initial migration but
want to know - what reports were
changed or created in the last
15 days?
In order to remain within compliance and adhere to process and
promotion workflows, we must ensure that any unauthorized BI content
authored directly in the new BI4 environment is accounted for (or
removed)
Joe's about to leave the organization and
he's authored many reports in different
places. How can I quickly
identify all their content and re-
assign it to another user?
When deleting a user in an organization, it automatically deletes their
related reports and content. Their "Public" content is also promoted to
"Administrator" as far as ownership goes. By answering this question
we can more easily delegate content to a more accurate person in the
organization and preserve BI continuity of the user who's leaving the
company.
We have hundreds of scheduled reports in
our environment, but managing them has
become difficult. Is there a way to know
how many schedules are
running, by status and how
long do they run for?
Query execution and delivery time can be measured by duration of
schedules. Luckily, MetaMiner CE captures all of this data. And by
understanding duration times more we can gain tighter control over
when and to whom to schedule content, and schedule the longer-
running, "heavier" schedules to another machine, or during off-peak
hours (or procure new hardware if needed).
Lately, our reports running from a specific
job server seem to be failing. We'd like to
reschedule those jobs on a different server
but how do I find out all failed
jobs using a specific job
server?
Again, to maintain BI continuity in the organization, it's critical to learn of
where the failure points are and how to remedy them ASAP. It could be
a scheduled report or QaaWS component that fails, and now the
executive board is looking at stale, outdated data. We do not want this
scenario!
We keep running out of space on our file
store (FRS). Is there an easy way to
determine who's utilizing most of
the disk space, and the
There are a number of reasons why being alerted of resource
exhaustion is important. An untrained user may be developing "run-
away" reports that query more data than they should. Other reports may
simply store more data than they need, and could be re-saved to the
Posted by Atul Chowdhury Feb 25, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 5/37
reports that have the largest
file size?
CMS with purged dataproviders, and thus save time and money to the
organization.
Q: Awesome! How can I get MetaMiner Community Edition and start using it right
away in my XI3 or BI4 environment? A: It's simple: Just head over to http://www.infolytik.com/downloads , install the software and then
request a CE (free) license key from us and its yours to use - for free, forever.
And don't forget to visit some of the other awesome resources available to those wanting to learn more about Query
Builder, CMS metadata and understanding the SAP BI4 or XI3 platform "under the hood", like Mani's expert series
on using the Query Builder and the difference between CMS data vs. Audit data.
In upcoming parts to this series we will answer even more questions and perform more analysis and help uncover
the wealth of information harnessed inside your BI platform!
Happy Reporting!
Atul Chowdhury
Infolytik
813 View s 1 Comments
Tags: bi4_upgrade, business_intelligence, bi_platform, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
0:00 / 6:49
MetaMiner 5 Installation
I have noticed so many questions flowing around BusinessObjects Audit reporting and Metadata
reporting for a quite long time in SCN. The intention of this blog is to explain the basics and the
major difference between each of them.
To start with an introduction, Auditing is predominantly used to get the statistics about the
BusinessObjects deployment by providing more insights on usage metrics of the system where as
metadata reporting is used to get the real-time information about what is available in
BusinessObjects repository. Some of the metrics from Audit database
Who is the more active user in my BusinessObjects environment?
What is the major user activity (create/modify/refresh/delete) carried out on reports over a
week?
BusinessObjects Administration - Audit reporting vsMetadata reporting
Posted by Manikandan Elumalai Feb 17, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 6/37
What are the frequently failing scheduled reports?
Metrics which you can get from CMS database using Query builder (Metadata reporting)
What is the total number of users in the system and who are all the members of a particular
group?
What is the value set at server parameter called “Maximum Character Stream Size”?
What are the reports associated with a particular corporate category?
The below table could help you to distinguish the major differences
Category Audit reporting Metadata reporting
Nature of
data
The information stored in Audit tables is
historical in nature.
Repository tables contains real-
time information about BI contents
which is transactional (No history)
in nature.
Configuration Audit database configuration is not mandatory
during installation. We can continue to use
the system even without auditing and It can
be configured as on when it is required.
It is mandatory to Configure the
CMS database during installation
without which installation will not
succeed.
Direct SQL
access
Data available with in Audit tables can be
queried directly using traditional SQL.
Direct access to CMS tables is not
recommended as they are
encrypted. We need to use Query
builder to get the required
information.
Universe and
reports
Out of box and As-Is sample of universe &
reports are available in BO 3.x and BI 4.x
respectively
We need to develop the universe
and associated reports from the
scratch based on the requirement.
Information
availability
Data available within Audit tables is not real-
time and is based on the parameter - “CMS
Polling interval”
Data available in CMS tables are
real-time in nature and they get
updated as soon as the BI content
gets added/modified/deleted.
Data
retention
and purging
We can purge data available within Audit
tables based on their age
Not possible. But the
inconsistencies between CMS
database and FRS can be removed
using Repository Diagnostics Tool.
Hope this blog is interesting.
References
BusinessObjects Query builder - Basics
BusinessObjects Auditing - Considerations & Enabling
BusinessObjects Auditing - What is changed in BO 4.0?
1194 View s 3 Comments Tags: bo_audit_metadata
Process to Uninstall :-
Updates can only be uninstalled one at a time, in the reverse order of installation.
WaitforCMSForTheFirstTime
Posted by Dharmendra Kumar Feb 14, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 7/37
How to Uninstall in Windows -
START - Control Panel - Programs - look for program which needs to be uninstalled - right click and uninstall/ change
* if the installed program cannot be changed, It will not show change option. It will only give option to uninstall.
NOTE –
Uninstalling program will not revert CMS from 4.1 to 4.0. To get get 4.0 deployment , we must restore CMS database
from backup after the uninstallation has completed.
After uninstalling the update, the previous version can redeployed using wdeploy which can be found at
<INSTALLDIR>\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\wdeploy to your web application server. All components in
your deployment must be at the same version level.
At one step, you SAP screen will show "WaitforCMSForTheFirstTime" for quite long time and SAP keeps thinking what
to do next.
I had the same situation and to proceed further, I started SIA (Server Intelligence Agent) and it worked.
Thank you!
474 View s 0 Comments
Hello BI4 Admins,
In addition to James Rapp's guide about Improving the User Experience in SAP BI Platform - BI 4.1 and Apache
2.4 Supplement,
I want to explain how to migrate an existing Tomcat SSL configuration to Apache and how to enable some logging
improvements.
Apache SSL Setup
Assuming that there is already a working SSL configuration for Tomcat in place,
the existing certificate and it's private key, can be extracted from the keystore used by Tomcat,
with the help of the java keytool and openssl:
- Open CMD.exe
- Change directory to "<BOBJ>\win64_x64\sapjvm\bin",
where <BOBJ> is C:\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\
(or on which drive it's installed in your deployment)
- Export existing certificate with the following command (always adapt the values in < > according to your deployment):
keytool -exportcert -keyalg RSA -alias <cert alias> -file apache.crt -keystore "C:\
<keystore location>\<keystorename>"
Configuring Apache Split Deployment for SSL andImproving Apache Logging
Posted by Moritz Hödel Feb 10, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 8/37
- Clone existing keystore to PKCS12
keytool -v -importkeystore -srckeystore "C:\<keystore location>\<keystorename>" -srcalias
<cert alias> -destkeystore myp12file.p12 -deststoretype PKCS12
- Switch directory to openssl in <Apache root>\bin, e.g. C:\Apache24\bin
- Extract private key from the PKCS12 keystore with openssl by the following command:
openssl pkcs12 -in myp12file.p12 -nocerts -nodes
- Copy the private key, shown in CMD as plain text, to a text file and save it
Please keep in mind that this is sensitive information since it's your certificates private key!!
- Rename the text file to apache.key
- Move the created files apache.crt and apache.key from "<BOBJ>\win64_x64\sapjvm\bin"
to your default keystore location
- Stop Tomcat and Apache
- Change your Tomcat SSL port to another value by modifying the corresponding connector
in "<BOBJ>\tomcat\conf\server.xml", to avoid conflicts, e.g. to 44380
- Open httpd.conf located in <Apache root>\conf, to configure SSL for Apache:
- Search for LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so
and uncomment it by deleting the # at the beginning of the line
- Insert the following lines, for example after the default Listen statement for HTTP.
Please adapt the <Apache root>, <HTTPS port>, <servername> and <default keystore location>
according to your deployment.
Keep in mind that <servername> has to match the common name (CN) of the certificate,
as well as the hostname used when accessing the BIP via HTTPS and that Apache needs "/" instead of "\" for paths:
Listen <HTTPS port>
SSLSessionCache shmcb:<Apache root>/logs/SSLCache(512000)
SSLSessionCacheTimeout 300
<VirtualHost *:<HTTPS port>>
ServerName <servername>
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile <default keystore location>/apache.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile <default keystore location>/apache.key
Include conf/bobj.BOE.conf
Include conf/bobj.AdminTools.conf
Include conf/bobj.BusinessProcessBI.conf
Include conf/bobj.MOBIServer.conf
Include conf/bobj.MobileBIService.conf
Include conf/bobj.clientapi.conf
Include conf/bobj.dswsbobje.conf
Include conf/bobj.explorer.conf
Include conf/bobj.explorer_help.conf
</VirtualHost>
- Start Tomcat and Apache
- Basic check of SSL configuration by accessing
https://<servername>/
-> should show the default "It works!" page
- Check BI Launchpad access via
https://<servername>/BOE/BI
-> should show BI Launcpad login
The deployment is now configured for SSL (HTTPS client access).
- Not specific to SSL, but can be helpful in this context:
In contrast to Tomcat, it is not possible to access http(s)://<servername>/BOE/BI/ or /BOE/CMC/,
while using the default bobj.BOE.conf, created by the WDeploy Split Deployment.
If you need that working, add the following parameters at the end of bobj.BOE.conf in <Apache root>\conf:
JkMount /BOE/CMC/ ajp13
JkMount /BOE/BI/ ajp13
Improving Apache logging
By default, Apache writes logs until the disk is full,
which is not a desirable behavior in a production environment.
In this simple example, we limit error.log, access.log and deflate_log.log
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 9/37
to write max. 10 files with 50 MB each, overwriting old files (like a ring buffer).
This is done by the help of rotatelogs, which is contained in <Apache root>\bin:
- Open httpd.conf, located in <Apache root>\conf
- Deactivate the following lines by commenting them with #:
ErrorLog "logs/error.log"
CustomLog "logs/access.log" common
- After that, add the matching one of the following lines, below each one deactivated in the step before:
ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs.exe -n 10 logs/errorlog.log 50M"
CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs.exe -n 10 logs/access.log 50M" common
- Open httpd-bi41.conf, located in <Apache root>\conf\extra
- Deactivate the following lines by commenting them with #:
LogFormat '"%r" %b (%{ratio}n) "%{User-agent}i"' deflate
CustomLog logs/deflate_log.log deflate
- After that, add the matching one of the following lines, below each one deactivated in the step before:
LogFormat '"%r" %b (%{ratio}n%%) "%{User-agent}i"' deflate
CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs.exe -n 10 logs/deflate_log.log 50M" deflate
- The LogFormat change, adds a % character after the deflate ratio, for better readability of the deflate_log.log
This can be further modified, see mod_deflate - Apache HTTP Server for more details.
- Restart Apache
Now we have configured a simple log rotation.
If you want to do more sophisticated things, have a look at cronolog,
also mentioned in the Apache documentation:
Log Files - Apache HTTP Server
I hope this helps some of you
Regards
Moritz
(Sorry for not providing any screenshots, but since this topic covers collection of sensitive information,
I didn't want to add some of our original systems)
796 View s 12 Comments Tags: ssl, bi_platform, bi41_platform, apache24
Continued from: A complete guide to setup CA APM Introscope 9 for monitoring SAP BI Platform 4.1 on Windows
[PART 1/2]
Step 4: Configure each BI node and application server node In this step, we need to enable monitoring on each Apache Tomcat and BI Platform node. In this example, Apache
Tomcat is installed by the SAP BI Platform installer. If you have a stand-alone install of Apache Tomcat or another
Java application server you can copy the wily folder from the BI node to the Java application server node and complete
the configuration as shown below.
1. On the BI / Java application server node, browse to <INSTALL_ROOT>:\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP
BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\wily\webapp then edit the file IntroscopeAgent_tomcat.profile with a
text editor
2. Search for $IntroscopeAgentEnterpriseManagerHost and replace this with the hostname of your Introscope
Enterprise Manager
3. Search for $IntroscopeAgentEnterpriseManagerPort and replace this with the agent communication port
number of your Introscope Enterprise Manager
A complete guide to setup CA APM Introscope 9 formonitoring SAP BI Platform 4.1 on Windows [PART2/2]
Posted by Toby Johnston Jan 31, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 10/37
4. Save the changes to IntroscopeAgent_tomcat.profile
5. Launch the Apache Tomcat configuration editor (START-->Programs-->Tomcat-->Tomcat Configuration) then
click on the Java tab
6. Add the following Java properties under Java Options
-Dintroscope.agent.name=TOMCAT_<PORT>
-javaagent:<Path_To_Agent.jar>
-Dcom.wily.introscope.agentProfile=<Path_To_IntroscopeAgent_tomcat.profile>
Example:
-Dintroscope.agent.name=TOMCAT_8080
-javaagent:C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI
4.0\java\wily\Agent.jar
-Dcom.wily.introscope.agentProfile=C:\Program Files(x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP
BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\wily\webapp\IntroscopeAgent_tomcat.profile
7. Click the Apply button, then click on the General tab and restart Apache Tomcat. If the Apache Tomcat service
fails to start, check that you entered the Java properties correctly in the previous step and that the files exist in the
specified locations
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 11/37
8. Next, launch the Central Management Console, logon as Administrator, choose Servers. Under nodes, right
click on an SIA node and click Placeholders
9. Edit the following Placeholder values:
Placeholder Value Description
%IntroscopeAgentEnableInstrumentation% true Enables or disables Introscope instrumentation
on BOE Java based servers (APS, AJS, etc)
%IntroscopeAgentEnterpriseManagerHost% IEMHOSTNAME Hostname of your Introscope Enterprise
Manager
%IntroscopeAgentEnterpriseManagerPort% 6001 Agent listening port of your Introscope Enterprise
Manager
%NCSInstrumentLevelThreshold% 10 Set the instrumentation level to 10
%SMDAgentHost% localhost This property should always be set to localhost
%SMDAgentPort% 59818 This port should match the port set in
SapAgentConfig.xml
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 12/37
10. Restart the Server Intelligence Agent and repeat steps 8 and 9 for each additional SIA node
Step 5: Validate the installation/configuration is working
In this step, we will make sure that the metrics are working correctly. Before you start this step, go ahead and refresh
some Web Intelligence documents, Crystal Reports, Dashboards, etc to generate some performance data in the
Introscope Enterprise Manager
1. Go to start, programs, CA APM, then click on Introscope Workstation Webstart or browse to
http://iemhost:8081/workstation
2. Logon to Introscope using user Admin and password Admin89
3. Click Workstation,New Investigator
4. Expand SuperDomain, then locate and expand your BI / Java application server node
5. Verify that you see the following:
6. Next, click Workstation, New Console and validate that the Apache Tomcat and BOE 4.0 dashboards are
returning data according to the products you are using in your BI landscape
Congratulations, your BI landscape is now being monitored by CA APM Introscope. Should you face a roadblock in
the configuration, you can request help from SAP by submitting an incident to component BI-BIP-DEP. Stay tuned to
this space for forthcoming BI Introscope diagnostics and monitoring blogs coming soon!
Please don't forget to rate this blog if you found this tutorial helpful.
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 13/37
1698 View s 3 Comments
Tags: support, bi4, monitoring, business_intelligence, solution_manager, root_cause_analysis, rca, diagnostics, w ily,
supportability, w ily_introscope, e2e_diagnostics, bi_platform_4.0, bi40, bi40_support,
sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
File Name Link
SAPCAR 7.20 DOWNLOAD
Introscope Enterprise Manager 9 SP15 DOWNLOAD
Introscope 9 customizations SP15 (aka Management Modules) DOWNLOAD
Diagnostics Agent 7.3 SP3 Windows 64-bit DOWNLOAD
Introscope Java Agent 9 SP15 (only needed if using stand-alone web-tier) DOWNLOAD
eula.txt (right click and save target as) DOWNLOAD
osgiPackages.v9.1.5.0.windows.zip (right click and save target as) DOWNLOAD
The procedure to setup CA APM Introscope 9 (formerly known as Wily Introscope) for SAP BI Platform 4.1 has got a bit
easier however, the documentation is still spread out across several locations. In this article, I will give you a
complete step by step example on how to get started monitoring your BI landscape using CA APM Introscope 9. In
this example, I have one host which will run the Introscope Enterprise Manager and another host where I am running
SAP BI Platform 4.1 SP2 + default Apache Tomcat deployment.
Here is the workflow we will follow:
Step 1: Download the installation media from the Software Download Centre
Step 2: Install the Introscope Enterprise Manager
Step 3: Install the Diagnostic Agent on each BI node and application server node
Step 4: Configure each BI node and application server node
Step 5: Validate the installation/configuration is working
Step 1: Download the installation media from the Software Download Centre
First, we need to download each piece of software from the Service Marketplace. If you find that your S-USER
does not have access to download one of these files then open a message under component XX-SER-SWFL and
request access to download the file. If you are installing to an operating system other than Windows x64 then search
for the file names under Support Packages and Patches to find the version appropriate for your platform.
Furthermore, if you find that the downloads do not complete successfully using the links below, then instead search
for the files in the software download centre and add them to your download basket. Once they have been added to
your download basket, you can then download them via the software SAP Download Manager.
Step 2: Install the Introscope Enterprise Manager
SAP provides a read-only version of CA APM Introscope (RTV version) for free as part of your support contract. This
means that you can leverage the monitoring and root cause functionality provided by Introscope, without spending
additional money on a full license. Should you decide that you want to create alerts, customize dashboards, or utilize
the Websphere/Weblogic power packs, then I encourage you to contact your account executive about upgrading to the
SAP Extended Diagnostics package (SED).
The Introscope Enterprise Manager should be installed on a dedicated server which has 24/7 uptime. All of the
performance metrics are stored in the SmartStor database which is maintained by the Introscope Enterprise
Manager. For best performance, you should install to a dedicated hard disk with plenty of available disk space
(300gb or more). The Introscope Enterprise Manager makes frequent read/writes to this disk and works best if
nothing else is reading/writing to this disk in parallel.
For additional information regarding Introscope installation process, refer to the CA APM Introscope 9.1.5 installation
guide.
1. Copy the Introscope Enterprise Manager 9 SP15 media, Introscope 9 customizations SP15, SAPCAR*.exe,
eula.txt, and osgiPackages.v9.1.5.0.windows.zip to a temporary folder on the host where you will be installing
the Introscope Enterprise Manager
A complete guide to setup CA APM Introscope 9 formonitoring SAP BI Platform 4.1 on Windows [PART1/2]
Posted by Toby Johnston Jan 31, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 14/37
2. Open a command prompt and extract the contents of WILY_IS_EM15_0-20007498.SAR using the sapcar -xvf
command
3. Edit the file eula.txt and change "reject" to "accept" to accept the end user license agreement
4. Edit the file ca-eula.txt and change "reject" to "accept" to accept the end user license agreement
5. Edit the file installer.properties and update the properties USER_INSTALL_DIR and
silentInstallChosenFeatures
6. Double-click on the file introscope9.1.5.0windowsAMD64SAP.exe to launch the silent installer. Wait about 2
minutes and check the install directory for failed log files. If no failed log is generated then the install worked.
Confirm the install worked by checking your start menu
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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7. Next, we need to turn up the Max Java heap setting for Introscope Enterprise Manager. Browse to your
Introscope install bin directory and edit the file C:\usr\sap\ccms\apmintroscope\bin\EMService.conf. Change
the Maximum Java Heap Size to 2048
8. Next, copy the file WILY_IS_MM15_0-10010973.SAR and SAPCAR.exe to the root directory of your Introscope
Enterprise Manager install. Then extract the contents to this directory
9. Next, go to Administrative Tools and restart the Introscope Enterprise Manager service
10. Copy the file SAP_BOBJ.jar, SAP_Apache_Tomcat_Basis.jar, and SAP_Host.jar from
<DRIVE>:\usr\sap\ccms\apmintroscope\sap\extra_modules to
<DRIVE>:\usr\sap\ccms\apmintroscope\deploy
11. Go to start, programs, CA APM, then click on Introscope Workstation Webstart or browse to
http://introscopehost:8081/workstation (note, you need to Java 6 x64 JRE installed). If prompted with a security
warning, check the box that you want to accept the risks and click run.
12. Logon to Introscope using user Admin and password Admin89
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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13. Click Workstation, New Console.
14. Confirm that the BOE 4.0 dashboards are installed. Confirm the Apache Tomcat dashboards are installed
Step 3: Install the Diagnostic Agent on each BI node and application server node The SAP Solution Manager Diagnostic Agent provides a framework from which the BI Platform 4.x c++ based
processes can be monitored. These servers connect to the agent listener port and collect/push Introscope metrics
via the NCS libary (ncs.dll). Additionally, the Diagnostics Agent also includes the SAP Host Agent which monitors
operating system metrics via the SAPOSCOL.exe program. It is recommended to install a Diagnostics Agent on each
BI Platform node and also each node hosting a Java application server. If you have a node that is hosting both the BI
components and the application server components then only one Diagnostics Agent installation is needed.
For information on installing the SMD Agent on Unix/Linux refer to the Diagnostics Agent 7.3 SP3 Setup Guide
NEW!! Tutorial for installing SMD Agent in stand-alone mode using silent installer on Linux
It is a requirement that you use a local administrator or root account to execute this installation. Be aware, the
sapinst installer will create three local accounts on the system and these accounts will be used to run the agent
services. The user accounts created are:
SAPServiceDAA (where DAA is the system id for this agent)
sapadm
daaadm
The following user rights will be assigned to the user running the installation and to daaadm account:
• Act as part of the operating system
• Adjust memory quotas for a process
• Replace a process level token
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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1. Copy the files SAPCAR*.exe and the diagnostic agent installer DIAGAGT73SP03_0-20006981.SAR to a
temporary folder on each BI node and application server node
2. Open a command prompt, then unpack the Diagnostic Agent installation media using the SAPCAR -xvf
command
3. Browse to the extracted folder SMD730_IM_WINDOWS_X86_64
4. Execute the Diagnostic Agent installer in stand-alone mode using the command sapinst
SMD_INSTALLATION_SCENARIO=ishub
5. Expand Solution Manager Diagnostic Agent-->SAP Systems-->Standalone Engines-->Diagnostics agent in
SAP Solution Manager then select Diagnostics Agent and click Next
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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6. You may be prompted that SAPinst needs to log you off in order to reliably continue the installation. Click OK
7. Log back on again and the installation continues automatically. On the next screen, confirm that the hostname
where you are installing the agent is correct then click Next. If you are installing to a machine with multiple
virtual hosts, specify the hostname of the virtual host where you would like to install the agent to.
8. Next, specify the Diagnostics Agent System ID and the drive where you would like to install the agent to then click
Next. The agent will always be installed to the path <DRIVE>:/usr/sap/<SID>/.
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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9. The Diagnostic Agent will create 3 user accounts which are needed to run the SMD Agent services. Selecting
local domain will have the installer create the user accounts locally on this host. Alternatively, you can also use
domain accounts which have already been created on the domain (for example: SAPServiceDAA, sapadm,
daaadm). Select a domain model and click Next
10. Next, you need to specify a password for the new user acccounts. It is recommended to use the same
password for all three user accounts and it is required that you use a strong password containing both upper-
case and lower-case letters and numbers (9 or more characters). After you have entered in both passwords,
click Next
11. You will be prompted to add the service account user to the trusted users list. Click Yes
12. Next, select a free instance number for this Diagnostics Agent. If you do not have any other agents running on
this host, choose the default instance number of 97. Otherwise, enter another available instance number and
click Next
13. On the Unpack Archives screen there are no changes needed here, click Next
14. On the Parameter Summary screen, click Next to start the installer
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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15. When the installation completes, you will be prompted. Click OK
16. Open a command prompt, browse to <DRIVE>:\usr\sap\DAA\SMDA97\script then execute the following
command to configure the agent to point to your Introscope Enterprise Manager:
smdsetup.bat hostagentconf emhost:"IEMHOSTNAME" emport:"6001"
17. Next, run the following command to enable the host agent
smdsetup.bat hostagent state:on
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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18. Download the attached SapAgentConfig.xml, copy it to
<DRIVE>:\usr\sap\DAA\SMDA97\SMDAgent\applications.config\com.sap.smd.agent.application.wilyhost and
overwrite the existing SapAgentConfig.xml. This file specifies the TCP port on which the agent listens for
incoming metrics from BOE (NCS/c++ based) services. By default, this port number is 59818
19. Go to Control Panel-->Administrative Tools-->Services and restart the SAPHostExec and SAPDAA_97 services
(where my system id is DAA and instance number is 97)
20. Repeat the steps in this section for each BI and application server node
Continue to next part: A complete guide to setup CA APM Introscope 9 for monitoring SAP BI Platform 4.1 on
Windows [PART 2/2]
4358 View s 10 Comments
Tags: bi4, business_intelligence_(businessobjects), analytics, 4.0, monitoring, business_intelligence, solution_manager,
root_cause_analysis, rca, remote_supportability, diagnostics, w ily, supportability, w ily_introscope, e2e_diagnostics,
bi_platform_4.0, bi40, bi40_support, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
Hello SCN Members; This is my very first blog and I hope this topic would help you to go through the basic troubleshooting to
be performed to narrow down your issues for a resolution in BI Platform. You can always use the immense KBA's available in SAP xSearch itself for a direct resolution which may
help. However we might be in the dark unless you come to know what the exact problem is and how to
resolve it. Hence troubleshooting is a very important part to look into. It would be difficult to show examples of errors that may be faced, however I would mention generic
examples and points to look forward to in case of any issues. In this blog I would kickstart with troubleshooting and checklists for issues during installation. Immediate failure or partial installation scenarios are pretty common. Where do we look into for such
cases? 1. First look whether the user performing installation is a not part of root in Linux and has admin level
privileges or else is part of admin group in windows.
2. Check the free space available for user in *nix and adequate free space is available in installation
directory of BO in windows.
3. Issues can be related with antivirus. Ensure that this is kept inactive temporarily during installation.
A very common scenario where default Db installation is not being used but connection is done to a Db in
a different server.
Basic troubleshooting for installation issues in BIPlatform
Posted by Arvind Pandalai Jan 31, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 22/37
1. Network non - availability, is a major cause. Basic test is to ping the Db server to ensure that BO server
and Db server is in same network.
2. Does the BO user have adequate read, write access to the CMS Db.
3. Telnet the ports to check whether the port assigned is available or being used by some other process.
4. You would often see, majorly in *nix that issues such as CMS fails to start or fails to register error,
reason the JAVA HOME, CLASS PATH and Environment variables are not in place.
5. Issue can be related with few MS and *nix libraries. To look into these we will need to go through the
logs. System logs, install logs and var logs would be of great help in such cases. A very well known and troublesome issue usually found with coredumps in *nix environment. Most of the
dumps that get generated during installation is a consequence of inadequate free space or else unavailability
of memory. Ensure that a bare minimum of 8 Gb is available for installation. Keep in mind this is just a
minimum requirement and will not help in any manner as soon as development activities begin in the
system. I hope this has been helpful. Your comments and inputs are welcome to enrich this blog for installation
debugging issues and scenarios. Next time; generic issues observed with web intelligence reporting and how can these be narrowed down.
Cheers;
@R^!N|) PS: Do go through How to troubleshoot any issue in your SAP BI 4.0 deployment
483 View s 2 Comments
Tags: intelligence, businessobjects, bi, sap, bi4, business_intelligence_(businessobjects), 4.0, bi4.0, bobj,
business_intelligence, bi_platform, bi4.1, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
Hello Everyone,
these days I went ahead and added an Apache Web Server to a test BI4.1 Installation as per the proposal
made by James Rapp. I was particularly eager in seeing how much effort would it take to do this for a standard
1-box BI4 installation. Here I am sharing screenshots of that process in order to give you a highlevel overview.
This blog is not intended to give you instructions on how to split deploy with Apache. For the correspondent
instructions please visit following Documents:
Improving the User Experience in SAP BI Platform 4.0 with Apache and WDeploy
Improving the User Experience in SAP BI Platform - BI 4.1 and Apache 2.4 Supplement
Quick Step-by-Step Guide to Apache Split Deployment with BI 4.1
I am on Windows Server 2012, BI4.1 SP02 Installation with Tomcat7, Downloading Apache 2.4.7 and mod_jk
1.2.37. Furthermore I am also using the httpd-bi41.conf and workers.properties file shared in the documents by
James and Ian in the articles above.
After Downloading the Apache files, I extracted it to the root folder (in this case Z) just to make less changes
to paths later on in the configuration files (C:\->Z:\):
Checking out the Apache Split Deployment
Posted by Victor Gabriel Saiz Castillo Jan 30, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 23/37
From the module mod_jk, which comes as a separate .zip file, copy the file mod_jk .so file from modules-2.4-
win64-VC11.zip to \Apache24\Modules:
In the httpd.conf file, adjust the corresponding lines for the ServerAdmin and ServerName. Because my
Apache root is not C\Apache24, I also need to adjust ServerRoot and DocumentRoot in this file:
Before starting with the installation of Apache Web Server, make sure that no one else is listening on port 80,
this is the port that Apache will listen to in standard. With following command you can check which process is
currently listening to which port:
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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In case you would see another program listening to port 80, you could identify it by the process ID being shown
to the right of the last screen. This Process ID can be useful in the task manager to get to the corresponding
program.
Open a command window in \Apache24\bin. Now we are ready to install Apache Web Server in form of a
windows Service with the name BOEXI40Apache. Services starting with the name BOEXI40 will automatically
appear in the CCM:
Ok, the installation says there is something wrong, but no explanation and no logs, so I go ahead and try to
start Apache from the CCM, Seems I can start it without any issue:
Test to kindly ask Apache if it really works?
Note that the port number is missing, that is because the standard port is 80
To make things fancy, I keep following James’ proposal and change the display name of the service from
BOXI40Apache to Apache HTTPD 2.4.7:
The CCM looks more organized now with the new name for Apache:
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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As we are still going to be using tomcat for the dynamic content, I add tomcat as a dependency to Apache in
the CCM, this way tomcat will be automatically started when we start apache. Similarly, tomcat cannot be
stopped while Apache is running:
Adjusting now the config.apache file of WDeploy with the ws_dir and connector_type:
Also adjusting the config.tomcat7 file with as_dir, as_instance and as_service_name:
Copying the downloaded httpd-bi41.conf file to \Apache24\conf\extra and copying the workers.properties file to
Apache24\Conf:
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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After making a backup of the server.xml file, adjusting it now and uncomment the AJP connector line by
deleting the <!-- characters at start and --> at the end of the line:
Restarting Apache now by using CCM or windows services. Looks good as the service can be started.
Afterwards, update the CacheRoot and CacheLockPath in the downloaded httpd-bi41.conf file:
Create the corresponding folders of the last screen if needed. Creating now a task with the windows task
scheduler to clean the cache:
Enter a name for the Task, run whether the user is logged on or not, Do not store password:
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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Trigger at startup:
Setting a new action with corresponding arguments:
Adding now an Include line to the httpd.conf file in order to load the httpd-bi41.conf file:
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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Then checking if the Apache server can be restarted. It does correctly, so im stopping it now.
Now its time to start predeploying:
wdeploy tomcat7 -Das_mode=split -Dws_type=apache -Dwork_dir=Z:\temp predeployall
After a successful deployment, I see a corresponding message:
Creating an empty MOBIServer.zip file in the predeployed content:
And now its time to split deploy!
wdeploy tomcat7 -Das_mode=split -Dws_type=apache -Dwork_dir=Z:\temp deployonlyall
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 29/37
Running now post-installation checks. Around 100k files as static content in the BOE directory? -> Check!
Were some extra Include conf/bobj* added to the httpd.conf file? -> Check!
bobj* Files were added to Apache24/conf? -> Check!
Is public,max-age=315360000 (or whatever value you configured in mod_headers) being inserted by
mod_headers from the httpd-bi41.conf file? -> Check!
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 30/37
Victor
1083 View s 2 Comments Tags: bi4, bi_platform, bi4.1, apache;
I got real problems with performance in BI Launch Pad. For instance, my reports were opening very
long time, navigation in BI Launch Pad was awful.
1. Let's modify the Tomcat setting, because by default they have low value.
o JavaHeapSize (-Xmx) from 2G to 4G
o MaxThreads from default (200) to 900
1.1 JavaHeapSize we should modify:
cd <bo inst folder>/sap_bobj/tomcat/bin
modify setenv.sh
# set the JAVA_OPTS for tomcat
Code:
JAVA_OPTS="-d64 -Dbobj.enterprise.home=${BOBJEDIR}enterprise_xi40 -
Djava.awt.headless=true -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=false -Xmx4g -
XX:MaxPermSize=384m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Xloggc:
<bo_inst_folder>/sap_bobj/tomcat/logs/tomcat.gc.log -XX:+PrintGCDetails -
XX:+UseParallelOldGC"
1.2 MaxThreads we would modify:
cd <bo_inst_folder>/sap_bobj/tomcat/conf modify
server.xml
Define a non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8080
Code:
-->
<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="8443" maxThreads="900" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>
<!-- A "Connector" using the shared thread pool-->
<!--
<Connector executor="tomcatThreadPool"
port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="8443" />
-->
2. Cleaning of old installed patches and service packs from BO. What does it mean?
Just go to <bo inst folder> and run ./modifyOrRemoveProducts.sh (for Linux):
It is clear that i have many various installation on my server. But it is important to delete old installation!
3. Cleaning of logging directory, in <bo inst folder>/sap_bobj/logging
o Deleting Trace-Files
o Deleting Logs old than 30 days
4. Tuning APS, for start you can use CMC Wizard.
5. APS properties for tracing set to unspecified (-> means bo_trace.ini are used)
Level - Description
Unspecified - Force the use of BO_trace.ini to be used
SAP BusinessObjects 4.1 Performance issue
Posted by Andreas Sbrzesny Jan 30, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 31/37
None - Only critical events such as failures will be logged
Low - Ignores warning and status messages
Medium - Only Status messages with least important will be ignored
High - Includes all the logging messages
6. Disabling of unused services in the CMC, for instance, Crystal, Analyses services.
7. Reorganisation of database statistics of BO-Repository and BO-Auditing.
This one is high important point. As you know, every database has to manage its statistics according to number of
rows. And if you do not collect stat, than you performance as well as refresh rate are decreasing.
2052 View s 1 Comments Tags: performance, bo41
Best Practice for Promoting content using promotion Management Tool:
Guys Please follow this simple procedure to promote the jobs Easily and effectively.
If assume you have to move some content from Development to Integration platform and if your integration platform is
a brand new platform ( just installed BI 4.1 platform) and doesn't contain anything in it except the Default user groups
and the Default folders etc ( which comes with installation ) then If you try to promote a job including the security it
wont work. Nothing will be promoted to destination in this case.
As a first step try to create a job which include all the User Groups which are part of security mapping and promote it
to the destination.
In the second step you can now select any assets such as Folders or universes along with security by selecting this
option:
Things to be Noticed:
promotion Management do not calculate the Security aspects like Users and user Groups, custom access levels etc
as dependent objects and this is the reason it do not display the security aspects in the Dependents tab, but it will
calculate whine you select the above option as shown in screen shot. If you click on that View security button it will
display all the dependent security objects, where as UMT acts completely different in which even security objects are
calculated as dependents.
If you Upgrade to BI 4.1 SP2 you can also promote around 2000 objects in each job which is a very good news where
as in the previous versions it has been already declared that only 100 objects is the limit per each job.
Please leave your feedback and reply me back If you face any trouble.
Thanks,
Vamsheedar Reddy Mannem
1193 View s 4 Comments
Best Practice for Promoting content using promotionManagement Tool
Posted by vamshi mannem Jan 23, 2014
Are you seeing unusually high virtual memory usage
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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I may be able to help explain why!
As I tend to talk too much, I have provided a summary and a details section below. Choose your own adventure
SUMMARY
Webi monitors VM usage as part of it's Memory Analysis feature. This can cause issues when VM limits are
exceeded
glibc (version 2.10 or higher) which is updated on most newer RHEL versions can cause excessive VM
allocation out of the box.
There are ways to tune/tweak memory allocations using the steps outlined in this KBA
Another option is to disable the Enable Memory Analysis option for the WIPS servers
DETAILS
We have seen a few issues come into Product Support now where BI System Administrators were reporting
abnormally high VIRT (Virtual Memory) usage for the BI processes on their Linux installations. I didn't really think
much of it at first because virtual memory isn't usually a concern now a days with RAM being so cheap and hard drive
space being plentiful. Whelp, it wasn't long before I realized that this IS an issue for BI 4.x. Why you ask?
Well, it all started a few years back when we were learning to operate within the constraints of a 32-bit operating
system. Windows has a well know limit of about 1.8 - 2.0 gigabytes of memory per 32-bit process. Once a process
hits this limit, it's a crapshoot as to what will happen. Either the application will crash, hang or if you were lucky
enough, it would through a catchable error message.
To work within this 32-bit limitation, we implemented a memory analysis feature into the Webi Processing Server and
allowed administrators to set a low/high/max memory setting to help control this. Since we do not know how much
memory will be used when a query is executed on a report, we just have to do our best to stop new queries from
coming in when the "high" memory mark is reached.
What type of memory does the Webi Processing Server take into account with this Memory Analysis? Virtual Memory
of course. Why? Because on Windows, if a process exceeded 2GB of Virtual Memory, the process would do horrible
things. So, we had to monitor this as best we could.
I could write a whole document on that subject so if anyone has questions around how that works. feel free to
message me. I'll fast forward a little bit to today's 64-bit world. Today, with BI 4.x being 64-bit, we are not worried
about memory as much. The limits are very high with 64-bit processes and we will likely never reach those limits.
Even though the limits are much higher, we still have this Memory Analysis feature implemented and enabled by
default on the Webi Processing Servers. It is still a useful feature for administrators that wish to keep an eye on their
system's resource usage and limit users from executing unusually large requests. Out of the box however, our
default settings are low and this can cause some hard to explain behavior if you don't know what you are looking at.
Enough background, here is a little known issue that I wanted to bring to everyone's attention.
It seems that some versions of Red Hat EL 5.x and 6.x ship with an updated version of the glibc libraries. Starting
with around version 2.10 of glibc, the default malloc() functionality changed slightly. For those that aren't aware,
malloc stands for Memory Allocator and the new default behavior was added to potentially increase performance on
some applications. The new functionality will allocate an "arena" of memory per thread that a process uses and will
do this based on the # of CPUs that the server has. So on multicore machines, we are seeing that a HUGE amount
of virtual memory is being allocated right on the startup of our processes.
Right out of the box, my 16 CPU test system was allocating up to 11GB of virtual memory for some processes. Webi
processes (WIReportServer) were using 1.7-2.0gb of VIRT memory right out of the gate and were climbing up to 4-
5gb after a single report refresh. The java processes were way up there too and often started in a range of 8-10gb.
This becomes a concern for our Webi Memory Analysis feature as Virtual Memory is what it monitors for the Webi
processes.
This results in stopped/failed Web Intelligence Processing Server and end users start reporting a variety of errors.
Server is Busy, Out of Memory, etc...
So, what's the solution? I have started a Knowledge Base article that documents the known work-arounds for this
issue. It is linked below:
https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1968075
In short, there are 2 options.
1. Add an environment variable to revert back to the old malloc() functionality (where virtual memory was not blown
way up)
2. Disable the Memory Analysis feature in Webi.
I would recommend option 1 personally. The KBA above gives the details of which environment variables to test with.
on your BI 4.x Linux install?
Posted by Jonathan Brown Jan 21, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 33/37
The below - shows you the 'top' output of my BI server right out of the box after starting my BI processes with
'startservers'
And the below image shows the memory usage AFTER setting the environment variables.
Notice how much lower they are once we revert the malloc settings back to the old way of doing things. It's not just
Webi that is lowered, you can see the reduction in VIRT is across the board.
So, if you have a RHEL system with glibc version 2.10 or higher, you may want to check your VIRT usage to see if it is
abnormally high. If it is, it might be worth testing these environment variables to see if it helps you keep that under
control.
If you read this far down! Thanks for tuning in.
Jb
887 View s 6 Comments
Tags: bi4.0, linux, bi_platform, tuning, red_hat_linux, red_hat, bi4.1, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
BusinessObjects Administration - ContentManagement Procedure
Posted by Manikandan Elumalai Jan 20, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 34/37
Continuing with introduction to Content Management Plan http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-
platform/blog/2014/01/06/businessobjects-administration--content-management-plan I would
like to explain step by step procedure involved in the Content management process in this blog
which has been partially replicated from my old blog here http://blogs.hexaware.com/business-
objects-boogle/business-objects-content-management-planning/
Architecturally there were lot of changes starting from BusinessObjects version XI. Compared to
earlier BusinessObjects versions (Legacy architecture till version 6.5) which is user centric, From
XI onwards it’s Object centric. i.e. things revolve around Objects (BI content) as compared to users
in legacy versions. Again these BI contents (Universe, Reports) will be organised using folders.
Throughout this blog I am going to use Marketing, Finance and HR as different departments of the
organization and Refresher and Author as functional roles of users. Let us start our content
management process from here.
1. Organizing BI contents by folders
To begin with, we need to consolidate Universes, Reports and even users in a hierarchical manner
using folders. This will help both system administrators and end users to use the system
effectively with minimal or no training. In most of the cases top level folders will represent either
departments of the organization or Geographic regional categorization followed by departmental
split. It is up to the organization’s choice to decide their folder hierarchy. Here is my sample
categorization.
2. Organize User groups/Users as per organization preference
Now we need to group the users in a best possible way to apply security on top of the folders
organized above. In most of the cases users will be categorized department wise, User role wise
or intersection of both of them preferably in line with the folder hierarchy.
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 35/37
3. Identify required access levels for each user category
Now it’s time to identify who need access to what. As part of this we will be identifying set of
rights needed for each user categorization. For each user category or departmental folder we will
be creating a separate access level based on the access for user to the required folder.
4. Setting up security
Finally the security applied for each departmental folder would be something similar to this.
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 36/37
5. Organizing objects using categories for flexible access
We can utilize categories to provide access to users who needs right to use BI contents from two
or more departments. For example the summary report will be maintained for each
department/Region is used by the Finance team for the monthly processing. Though this report is
maintained in each department’s folder we can create a category to tag all the summary reports
and access them from one place. This is depicted below
Reports with category tagging
Reports in their logical folder path
6. Managing report object instances within each department folders
It is always important to manage instances along with its original reports as this has a very big
impact with File store size. By defining proper instance management plan we can manage report
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=30 37/37
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instances either based on their age or number. Refer here to know more about instance
management plan BusinessObjects Instance Management
Hope this would be helpful for those who start designing BusinessObjects Content management
plan.
586 View s 2 Comments Tags: bo_content_plan
If you missed it, the recording for my TechEd 2013 topic on managing rights in 4.1 is available here.
917 View s 2 Comments
Object moved to here.
Understanding Security and Rights recording fromTeched 2013
Posted by Greg Wcislo Jan 9, 2014
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