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: [email protected] On the Web: http://evtechnologies.com Twitter: @ericvallo