We Will Miss You, Import Wizard

Ge#ng  Acquainted  with  Content  Migra5on  Technologies  in    SAP  BusinessObjects  BI4.1

My Company

EV Technologies is an SAP BusinessObjects solutions firm based 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

My Introduction

•  Co-Founder and Managing Partner •  Certified on SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise •  Business Intelligence Architect for nearly15

years •  Experience in managing systems ranging in

size between 100 and 30,000 users •  2011 SAP Mentor •  SAP Press Author

Shameless Plug  

Available Now @ sappress.com

Agenda

•  Tools in the Toolbox •  Upgrading Pre-BI4.1 •  Migrating Within BI4.1 •  Honorable Mentions •  Wrap-up

Tools in the Toolbox  

Migration Types

No single solution exists to satisfy all migration requirements in SAP BusinessObjects BI4.1

Upgrade Management Tool Promotion Management

Tool Selection Criteria

•  Upgrade Management Tool (UMT) – Migrating from versions of SAP BusinessObjects

prior to BI4.1 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 BI4 – OK to move between disparate BI4 versions – Used for both quick hit and recurring migrations

Upgrading Pre-BI4.1  

The UMT

•  A desktop tool deployed in the server installation of BI4.1

•  Admins have the flexibility of mass migration or selectively migrating content through environments

•  Supports migrations direct to system or via .biar

Think Hard About the Big Move

•  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 BI4.1 •  Review the object

log carefully

Other Bits

Support for dependencies and dependent migrations

Characteristics from the Import Wizard carry forward to handle

conflicts

Factory of Sadness

•  Orphaned objects in repository – Clean them up with the Repository Diagnostic

Tool or the EVT handy Repo Fixer •  Bad universe links – Reports that lose touch with their source over

time •  Failed instances never

migrate •  Ensure you have sufficient

disk in the target

New in BI4.1

•  Windows AD/LDAP mappings will remain intact

•  Prerequisite servers are checked before migrating content and warns if not running

•  New tracing parameters

UMT Hacks

•  Increase the heap for larger migrations •  Use temporary file systems with more

storage for big moves •  Migrate between BI4 landscapes..sshhhhh

I never thought I’d say it, but I miss the Import Wizard already.

The Verdict

Good luck.

Migrating Within BI4.1  

Promotion Management

Now conveniently located within the CMC….buuuuut renamed to Promotion Management

The PM Scoop

PM is the appropriate mechanism to move reports between BI4 systems •  PMis still no Import Wizard replacement •  Stability is significantly enhanced •  Vitally important that PM services are split

from other Adaptive Processing and Job Server components

•  PM job sizes have a sweet spot at around 100 1,000-ish objects ONLY

•  I dislike PM less in this release

The Processes

•  Part of the hairy Adaptive Processing Server split

•  Requires at a minimum, the Promotion Management Service and optional ClearCase Service

•  Works with the Wizard

Why Promotion Management?

A technology that serves a somewhat narrow scope despite the many options •  Schedule daily, weekly, monthly, etc. builds

to test environments •  Migrate users, groups, and rights to

environments within the SDLC •  Control the flow of code with manual

migration jobs •  Really, not any more steps than we already

had in the Import Wizard

What’s a Job?

Promotion jobs migrate one or more pieces of content between environments •  Jobs organized by common folder make

jobs easy to find later •  Rights can be set

at a folder level •  Jobs can contain any

combination of content type

How Do Jobs Work?

Jobs map a source to target and define the objects to migrate •  CMS clusters are defined and retained for all

future migrations •  Individual jobs select one

source and one target •  The job itself is saved

to the same CMS PM is used from

What’s in a Job?

With the job stubbed out, it just needs content •  Add all content to be migrated in the move •  Plan ahead: move rights, or not •  Plan ahead: are dependencies needed?

Deploying PM

Two schools of thought •  An PM environment for each source system – Controls who seems PM where

•  A single PM environment – Moves all content between dev, test, prod – Open to all

Version Management

Promotion Management <> Version Management

•  Version Management is a developer centric function

•  Provides versioning for reports •  Not necessarily an admin-centric function

but should be observed for review of history

New in BI4.1

•  Windows AD group support •  New content type migrations: – Analytical Application –  Information Steward – Design Studio – Desktop Intelligence

Clustering

•  Making Promotion Management HA •  Leverages a share drive for SVN repository •  Multiple SVN repositories are NOT

supported •  Backup and recovery for SVN is as important

as the other content in your landscape, especially when versioning

I never thought I’d say it, but I miss the Import Wizard already.

The Verdict

Good luck.

(again)

Honorable Mentions  

Honorable Mentions

Content Federation •  Replication services are much the same •  Used to synchronize environments

automatically – Compared to simple content moves in PM

•  Serves up predefined lists of content to be synchronized/published – Bi-directional moves supported

Content Federation

Synchronize from the “master” to the “child” Synchronize from a target to the “master” Synchronize bi-directionally

Federation Server

Honorable Mentions

Migrating Universes in .UNV format •  In general, work without a hitch •  Must be sensitive to 32-bit vs. 64-bit driver

requirements •  Fairly smooth migrations to .UNX – Decide on multi-source requirements early

•  Recent support for Explorer, for example, helps

More Philosophy

Have you ever moved before?

It is time to simplify

Resources

•  http://evtechnologies.com/fun-with-the-bi4-upgrade-management-tool/

•  http://evtechnologies.com/my-10-steps-to-get-to-bi4-4/

•  http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/BI4+Upgrade+and+Promotion+Management+KBAs

Questions?  

More Information

Contact: Eric Vallo Email: eric@evtechnologies.com On the Web: http://evtechnologies.com Twitter: @ericvallo