Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects)
Page tree
Skip to end of metadata
Go to start of metadata
BI
Upgrade Series

This page is part of the...

Introduction

This article explains how to upgrade to SAP Business Intelligence 4.0. This info exists in the Upgrade Guide on the Help Portal.

Product versions:

  • BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 SP2
  • LifeCycleManager XI3.1 SP2

Table of contents

Overall upgrade process

There are 4 main steps to upgrade to BI4.0:

  1. Preparing for upgrades
  2. Installing the BI platform
  3. Using the upgrade management tool
  4. Configuring the BI platform

1. Preparing for upgrades

Before upgrading to BI4.0 there are some tasks that you need to perform in both your existing deployment and the new deployment system.

To configure the existing deployment

  1. Perform inventory and cleanup, to ensure that only the required content is upgraded
  2. Run the Repository Diagnostic Tool to detect any inconsistencies between the File Repository and the CMS repository. The upgrade management tool will not run successfully if there are inconsistencies between the File Repository and the CMS repository.
  3. Identify any content that the upgrade management tool can't upgrade, along with the process required to upgrade that content. There is some content like Voyager Workspaces or Desktop Intelligence documents that require manual intervention before running the upgrade management tool.
  4. Back up existing repositories, including the system database and the Input and Output File Repository Servers.
  5. Back up custom web applications, HTML pages, and scripts in your existing deployment.

To configure the planned BI 4.0 deployment

  1. Setup and configure the Middleware and ODBC connections.
  2. Ensure that your machines meet the deployment system's requirements, you can find information about the supported platforms in the Platform Availability Matrix (PAM) http://service.sap.com/support -> Help and Support -> SAP BusinessObjects Support -> Documentation -> Supported Platform s/PARs -> SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0

Notes

2. Installing the BI platform

You can either create a deployment in a separate environment or a side-by-side deployment. You cannot do an in-place upgrade.

To install the BI platform in a separate environment

Installing in a separate environment is the recommended option.

Steps:

  1. Install BI4.0 on a separate server
  2. Use the upgrade management tool to upgrade your content
  3. Decommission XIR3.x or XIR2SP2 servers.

To install the BI platform side-by-side with anther deployment

A side-by-side deployment is possible but not recommended. You can install BI4.0 on the same server where either XI3.x or XIR2SP2 is running if your existing server satisfies all the BI4.0 requirements. Consult the PAM to make sure you have the supported platforms for the different components in BI4.0

Steps:

  1. Install BI4.0 your existing XI3.x or XIR2 servers. You will have two versions of the BI platform running on the same hardware, so make sure that you specify unique Central Management Server (CMS) cluster.
  2. Create a unique name and port number for your BI4.0 deployment (other than 6400) to avoid conflicts between deployments.
  3. Use the upgrade management tool to upgrade your content.
  4. After BI4.0 is successfully deployed, uninstall XI3.x or XIR2SP2.

3. Using the upgrade management tool

Once you have BI4.0 installed, you are ready to begin preparations for running the upgrade management tool. The upgrade management tool is a new tool in BI4.0 that allows you to upgrade your BI content from XIR3.x and XIR2SP2 environments. After completing the preparations, you can run the upgrade management tool.

Preparing the upgrade management tool

Perform the following tasks in your existing XI3.x, XIR2SP2 deployment:

  • Stop all of the servers, except for the Central Management Server (CMS),and the File Repository Server (FRS).

Perform the following tasks in your new BI4.0 deployment:

  • If you are using third-party authentication (AD, LDAP, SAP) you must configure the authentication plug-in in the CMC in your new BI4.0 deployment and map all the user groups (AD, LDAP) or roles (SAP) that you are planning to export from your existing deployment. The upgrade management tool can only import groups and users that are already configured and mapped in the BI4.0 destination system.
  • Stop all of the servers (including all Job Servers) in the destination deployment, except for the CMS, FRS, and the Report Application Server (if you plan to upgrade Crystal Reports documents).

Where to run the upgrade management tool

There are some considerations to have in mind when deciding where to run the upgrade management tool:

  • The upgrade management tool is available as a GUI interface for Windows and as a command line interface for Unix/Linux.
  • When you run the GUI upgrade management tool you are given the option of doing a complete upgrade or an incremental upgrade. (A comparison of complete vs incremental upgrades is outlined in the section below.) If you are using the command line, you can only do a complete upgrade.
  • The upgrade management tool requires that the features that you are going to upgrade are available on the machine where you are running it. This means that you need the components installed with the different BI platform servers.
  • You need to run the BI 4.0 Server to install the upgrade management tool. The server install requires a 64bit OS.
  • UMT reads from source, saves on the local Hard Disk and writes to the target.
  • The OS's Temp directory should have at least 10GB free disk space.  Don’t run out of ‘temp’ disk space!
  • Greatly reduce upgrade time by setting JavaHeap to use as much RAM as possible in the ‘command line’ (in the shortcut) for UMT.

Complete upgrade vs incremental upgrade

In a complete upgrade, all the Business Intelligence content is upgraded from the source deployment to the destination deployment.A complete upgrade replaces the functionality that was available in the Central Configuration Manager (CCM) in BusinessObjects Enterprise XI3.x

Incremental upgrades allow you to migrate individual objects to a destination deployment. The incremental upgrade replaces the functionality that previously existed in the Import Wizard.

Complete Upgrade

Incremental Upgrade

Upgrade all content at once

Upgrade content in stages

Only 1 system to maintain

2 systems to maintain

Lock down entire system

Lock down only department folder

Issues may affect entire system

Issues affect only department folder

Longer downtime

Shorter downtime

Running the upgrade management tool

When you run the upgrade management tool, your BI content will be migrated and upgraded to the new BI4.0 system. However, there is some content that will require manual action in order to be upgraded.

BI Content that is upgraded with upgrade management tool

  • Security, Access Levels, Users/User Groups,Calendars, Events,
  • Folders, Categories, Personal Documents, Repository Objects
  • Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, QaaWS
  • Universes (unv), Connections, Scheduled Jobs, Instances
  • Remote Connections, Replication Jobs
  • Mobile Subscriptions, Offline Documents

BI Content that requires manual action to upgrade

BI Content

How to upgrade?

Universes

When you run the upgrade management tool universes (UNV) created in the Universe Designed are migrated to BI4.0 as UNV and they will continue to work as they are in BI4.0; there is no need to do any modifications. If you decide to upgrade your UNV to UNX (universes created in the new BI4.0 Information Designer) after running the upgrade management tool you will have to open them in the Information Designer to upgrade them. Notice that only relational universes can be converted, OLAP universes can't be converted. More detailed information on how to Convert Relational universes (UNV to UNX) can be found here: http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Conversion+of+the+relational+universes+in+BI+4.x%2C+from+UNV+to+UNX

Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports are upgraded to SAP Crystal Reports 2011 by the upgrade management tool and they will work fine in BI 4.0, if you want to upgrade from SAP Crystal Reports 2011 to SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise you will have to open each report in SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise and map the report columns with UNX objects on the Field Mapping window. You can find more information regarding these two versions here: http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/From+Crystal+Reports+2008+to+SAP+Crystal+Reports+2011+or+SAP+Crystal+Reports+for+Enterprise

Voyager Workspace

Voyager workspaces are upgraded by the upgrade management tool. However, some work must be done before and after running the upgrade management tool in order for the workspaces to be upgraded:

  • Voyager workspaces can only be upgraded from BusinessObjects 3.1 or later to BI4.0
  • Connection prompts are not supported during conversion. This means that you must change the connection to either to SSO or Pre-defined in the source system. After the upgrade, you can change the connection to prompt in the target system.
  • OLAP Connections must be recreated in BI4.0, before running the upgrade management tool. The new connection name must be identical to the BusinessObjects 3.1 OLAP connection otherwise the voyager workspace won't be upgraded.
  • For Voyager of SAP BW, mandatory variables without default values will fail. To avoid this, modify the query in the Query Designer to specify a default value prior to upgrade. After upgrading, you can set it back to the original setting

Xcelsius

Xcelsius dashboards are migrated by the upgrade management tool as they are. They will continue to work fine and can be opened in SAP Dashboards.
Considerations about upgrading dashboards:

  • If you have embedded URLs in Xcelsius models and Flash files, these URLS are not upgraded. You will need to manually update the embedded URL after the upgrade.
  • Hardcoded references to server names such as web service URLs or host names are not upgraded. Hardcoded references require manual change after upgrading.
  • If you wish to convert them to the SAP Dashboard format, you can open them in SAP Dashboards and use the option to convert. This will convert the dashboard to the new format and create the new Flash behind the scenes.

QaaWS

The upgrade management tool migrates the QaaWS and UNV. It is based on BI4.0. When running the upgrade management tool you will be prompted for the Target Web Application Server Name so that it can be updated accordingly in QaaSW services.
QaaWS does not support UNX Universe, so if you convert your UNV universes to UNX you must use Query Design from Dashboards to replace the QaaWs.

OpenDocument

The OpenDocument URL has changed between versions, so you can either manually update your OpenDocument URLs to the following: http://<server>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/<platformSpecific>?iDocID=<doc ID>...
or you can configure your Web Server to redirect:

    • If upgrading from XI3.x to BI4.0:
      Redirect: ../OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp
      To: ../BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jspOpenDocument
    • If upgrading from XIR2 to BI4.0 migration:
      Redirect: ../businessobjects/enterprise115/desktoplaunch/opendoc/openDocument.jsp
      To: ../BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jspOpenDocument

BI Content that is not upgraded

Content

Not Upgraded, what can you do with this content?

Desktop Intelligence

The upgrade management tool does not upgrade desktop intelligence documents as Desktop intelligence has reached end of life. Desktop Intelligence documents don't work in BI4.0, so upgrade Management will not migrate them to a BI4.0 system. You can convert Desktop Intelligence documents to Web Intelligence. You can convert them to Web Intelligence using the Report Conversion Tool in your existing XI3.x deployment and then bring those Web Intelligence documents with the upgrade management tool, or you can convert your Desktop Intelligence documents residing in your existing XI3.x using BI 4.0 Conversion Tool and then publish them to your new BI4.0 deployment. For more details review the following document:
Desktop Intelligence End of Life and Conversion from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/30aa95e6-62eb-2d10-d495-b7970d93f40e Desktop Intelligence detailed conversion guide, feature by feature : http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/1gjACg http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/HhtKDQ

Audit database

The audit database has a new schema, so you can upgrade your existing audit database. You can keep it for historical process and start the new database in BI4.0. If you want to create reports from both databases you can use the Information Designer to create a multisource universe.

Subversion repository

If you are using the version management feature in the LifeCycle Management console in XI3.x, note that the content in the Subversion repository will not be upgraded by the upgrade management tool because the repository is external. XI3.x has Subversion v1.4.x. while BI4.0 has Subversion v1.6.x. Therefore, you will need to use Subversion commands to export, import and upgrade the Subversion repository.

  1. Export repository in XI3.1:
    1. Launch the Command Prompt.
    2. Change directories to subversion\ bin ( i.e. C:\Program Files\Subversion\bin )
    3. Run the export command
      svnadmin dump c:/LCM_repository/svn_repository > dumprepo
    4. Copy the generated dumprepo file to a 4.x machine
  2. Import to BI4.0
    1. Launch the command prompt
    2. Change directories to $BI4.0InstallDir$\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\subversion)
    3. Run the import command:
      svnadmin.exe load "E:/SAPBOBJ/SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0/LCM_repository/svn_repository" < c:/dumrepo
  3. Upgrade the Subversion repository in BI4.0 to Subversion v1.6.x"
    1. Run the following command in the BI4.0 machine:
      svnadmin.exe upgrade "E:/SAPBOBJ/SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0/LCM_repository/svn_repository"
    2. Restart the SIA in BI4.0 machine
 LCM JobsAccording to the BI 4.x upgrade guide,  XI 3.x Lifecycle Management (LCM) jobs cannot be migrated to BI platform 4.x because their contents are version-specific. By default, the migration of LCM objects is disabled. However, if you want to keep the history of your InfoObjects, you can force the migration by adding the following option to the upgrade management tool: -Dumt.systemVar.omitLCMObjects=false

4. Configuring the BI platform

  1. For third-party groups, authentication use the CMC to configure the windows AD. For AD authentication click on Update. For SAP authentication go to the Update tab and click Update Aliases.
  2. Specify the new owner right for existing products.
  3. Specify rights with new products (WRC, IDT, LCM, etc).
  4. If you are upgrading from XIR2SP2, set up rights at the root folder.
  5. Perform any required updates to documents that were not upgraded by the upgrade management tool.
  • No labels

19 Comments

  1. Unknown User (u3u3nlk)

    This is a great read.  I finally found an article that I can use to answer many different questions an end user may ask or a problem I may incurred.

  2. Unknown User (odrb3pq)

    Hi,

    Thank you for this wiki, it provides a lot of information to start a Bi 4.0 upgrade project.

     I have one question: how does work the side-by-side? For me, XI 3.1 only works with 32 bits OS, and the BI 4.0 only works with 64 bits OS, so how can we have both versions on the same server?

    THank you,

    Gabriel

  3. Denis Konovalov

    Gabriel,

    The OS will have to be 64bit for side by side installs of XI3.1 and BI4.x, and the server hosting such deployment have to be very powerfull....

    Regards,

    Denis

  4. Unknown User (tf6j75v)

    sorry about  that ......... taking out my post.

  5. Denis Konovalov

    Dear guest,

    If you have an urget need of help - please open a Support Incident, otherwise - please use appropriate forum on this site to post your question and our community of experts will try to help you.

    This page is "How to" information, not for problem solving.

    Hope you understand.

  6. Former Member

    Thank you for providing this document...great information!

  7. Jon Fortner

    This needs more pre-running information. For example, more memory and extending the timeout on the UMT command line. Adding as much memory as you can get your hands on to the box running UMT, having enough room on \TEMP and not having it on the same drive as your FRSes. For large repositories, increase your CMC timeout from the 9 min default to 20+ minutes, making sure your Repository can hold more than your existing repository (this depends on how much DeskI and other non-compatible conent you have), having enough CPU power, Crystal Report print drivers, etc. You might also have a troubleshooting section that tells us how to turn the UMT tracing on and when EXACTLY it starts writing to the Logs. It should cover common issues and present solutions on links to them. For example "Timeout During Receive" or Null Pointer Exceptions. Since the UMT writes NOTHING to the log while Retreiving Objects and NO errors pop-us, it give you NO HELP. Good job UMT programmers! As it appears to us now, we cannot do a full upgrade with our 400K object repository, the UMT is sending horrendous SQL statements to the repository that take hours to run and when the database doesn't respond in 5-6 minutes, it sends it again and again and again...  So, I suggest SAP test their tools on larger repositories and adjust their approach to handle them. Sending SQL with 20,000+ lines of NOT IN LIST SI_IDs will NEVER perform well.

  8. Former Member

    Dear Sir,

    We are upgrading to BI 4.0 from 3.x and have LDAP setup on the 3.x server. However, we need to migrate the security, access levels and users from 3.x system. Do we need to setup LDAP authentication before we migrate or post the migration. What are the steps to setup LDAP authentication on the BI 4.0 platform. Any inputs are highly appreciated.

     

    1. Former Member

      There is a link to a detailed Upgrade Guide at the top of the page where you might find more information. As Denis has said, I think it would be best to open a support incident. The people that know how to answer your question may not be following this page.

  9. Former Member

    Dear Jason,

    Thank you for responding! I just had a quick question regarding the LDAP authentication. Do we perform the following steps before the upgrade?

    1. Set up LDAP authentication on BI 4.0
    2. Map all the LDAP user groups in BI 4.0
    3. Configure LDAP in BI 4.0

    Then perform the upgrade and import all the users, groups, security and access levels from the 3.x system.

    Kindly revert if the above mentioned procedure is correct.

    Thanks,

    Vivek.

     

    1. Former Member

      Hi Vivek,

      I was merely assigned to clean up the page spelling/grammar/organization wise.

      However, in the Upgrade Guide it says this:

      Pre-upgrade:

      When you use the upgrade management tool to export third-party users with existing authentication,

      use the following guidelines:

      Configure and enable the correct authentication plug-in on the destination deployment.

      Ensure that the groups in the source deployment are mapped in the destination deployment.

      Ensure that the administrative credentials for third-party users are the same in the source and

      destination deployments.

      Post-upgrade:
      You must use the Central Management Console to manually update

      the authentication plug-in.

      For more information on third-party users and the authentication plug-in, see the “Authentication” chapter

      of the SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence platform Administrator Guide.

       

  10. Marcos Morais

    Fantastic!

    Thanks for sharing this information.

    I'm currently migrating from BO XI 3.1 SP5 to BO 4.1 SP4 and with a little concern. Your information was great and will help me a lot!

    Thanks again for sharing!

  11. Former Member

    Hi ,

     

      This is really awesome information regarding upgrade .

    I am looking little details on below information, Please let me know your thoughts

      We are planning to migrate from Windows to Linux our SAP BO Environment . I am looking below information..can you please suggest .

     

    1. how to check the Performance of the Current SAP BO Envi on Microsoft .. What are the facts to be consider for Performance?

    2. Which is the latest version of SAP BO is more stable.. 4.1SP7,SP8 or 4.2 SP1 or SP3 ..

    3. What are the facts we need to consider for SAP BO version Stability.

    4. What are the facts need to consider for Linux server Sizing

    5. What kind of server Topology is consider. Servers Clustered based CMS..etc

    6. What facts define the Server Topology?

    Thanks,

    Anitha

  12. Former Member

    Hello,

    We are thinking about migrate our SAP BW 7.0 enviroment to BW 7.3, but we have SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 installed, that use Universes to generate reports in Web Intelligence from SAP BW's queries. 

    Is there Compatibility between SAP BO XI 3.1 and SAP BW 7.3?

    We would like to find these informations about Compatibility between differents SAP systems. Where can we find it?

    Regards,

    Gabriel 

     

  13. Dallas Marks

    Gabriel,

    According to the PAM for XI 3.1 SP7, SAP NetWeaver 7.3, 7.31 SP4+ are supported. But the larger issue are the risks remaining on the XI 3.1 platform, which has been out of patch support for over a year. For example, XI 3.1 is NOT compatible with Windows 10. Eventually you will be bitten by operating system, database, or browser compatibility.

    Also, the BI4 platform, now currently at version 4.2, has some improved connectivity options for BW users.

  14. Former Member

    Can the Upgrade Management tool be used to upgrade BI contents from BOXI3 server running on teradata to BI4 server running on BW on HANA?

    1. John Clark

      I would think that would work fine.  It should't matter what database you are using for the repository database.

    2. Jon Fortner

      Yes it can. You are contacting the CMS server and it handles the database details, the UMT doesn't care.

      1. Former Member

        Thank you John and Jon. This is a good news.