Posted on Leave a comment

SAP BusinessObjects Sizing, Hardware & Licensing Models (Legacy)

This article concerns the sizing of SAP BusinessObjects software and how it relates to the choice of hardware to support it and licensing models.

In terms of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 it is important to make an informed decision on licensing and hardware based on a SAP BusinessObjects sizing exercise. The sizing exercise involves considerations for the specific Business Intelligence software products chosen to be implemented on Business Objects Enterprise and an analysis of the quantity and type of user that will be active on the BI System. A series of calculations are then performed based on the findings.

As an example consider Web Intelligence. One single Web Intelligence Report Server (service) running on Business Objects Enterprise can support between twenty five and forty users making simultaneous requests depending upon the report complexity. The Web Intelligence Report Server requires one CPU to support it. If more than forty users stress the Web Intelligence Report Server simultaneously there will be deterioration in performance. This can be rectified by configuring more Web Intelligence Report Servers and adding CPU or limiting the number of users. This principle holds true for several of the SAP BusinessObjects Servers running on SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise.

Whilst we can scale the system retrospectively in this way it is better to carry out the sizing upfront. The benefits are that it will provide an indication to number of SAP BusinessObjects Servers to configure, the number of CPUs required to support them, and the disk space that your BI System will require.

So sizing can be a useful guide to hardware procurement. However, it is also a guide to the most effective type of licensing to procure i.e. CPU based, Named User, or a combination of both. If sufficient licensing is not procured the BI System performance will suffer, but conversely no one wants to procure more costly software licensing than is necessary.

Posted on

Tomcat & Windows XP Troubleshooting SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.0

This post is about Russell Beech in discussion on the SAP Forum. SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise was installed on a machine running Windows XP. It was being used for development, POC and sales demo purposes. Windows XP was a constraint imposed by the standard build of the organisation that he was working for. Russell identified that the issue was a clash between Java components and Windows XP. This issue was becoming very time consuming and the solution was looking more and more like it needed a Java customisation. Not wanting to pursue that route Russell finally got permission to install Windows Server 2003. The problems were instantly solved. The forum thread is reproduced below as it gives useful insights into troubleshooting or go to http://forums.sdn.sap.com/message.jspa?messageID=6076352 to view it on the forum.

————————————————————————————————————————

Russell Beech

Posts: 6

Registered: 8/26/08

Forum Points: 0

XI 3.0 Tomcat Service Will Not Start

Posted: Aug 26, 2008 4:23 PM

Reply

I have installed Enterprise XI 3.0 from the Business Objects ESD site. I took the option to install Tomcat. The Tomcat service installed but will not start from the CCM or the .bat file.

I expected that as in previous releases Tomcat would be configured through the install. All other Business Objects services are running.

Has anyone had the same experience? Does anyone have a fix?

Best regards

Russ

————————————————————————————————————————————–

Continue reading Tomcat & Windows XP Troubleshooting SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.0

Posted on

SAP BusinessObjects Central Management Console

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise and SAP BusinessObjects EDGE both come packaged with the Central Management Console (CMC). This is a .NET or Java Web-based environment for managing, deploying, and configuring the entire SAP Business Objects Enterprise/ Edge infrastructure. The CMC is used by SAP Business Objects  Administrators to access and configure the SAP Business Objects BI system. The CMC provides management of and configuration for the following system elements:

  • Security
  • Authentication
  • User and group creation and management
  • Object rights
  • License keys
  • Folder and Category management
  • Scheduling
  • Services/server configuration
  • Server groups (clusters)
  • Universes and data connections
  • User interface settings and preferences
  • Business calendars