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Operations Guide

BI Platform Support Tool 2.1


The BI Platform Support Tool is a Java based utility used by support engineers, consultants, and BI administrators.  It is designed for supporting many aspects of the BI Platform and simplifies the process of reporting on the landscape configuration, performing root cause analysis tasks, and delivering performance optimization and go-live services.  This tool is free of charge and will be maintained with enhancements and corrections for the foreseeable future. Meet the team behind this tool.

! IMPORTANT ! Regarding recent Log4j 2.x security vulnerability CVE-2021-44228, BI Platform Support Tool utilizes the same log4j version (1.2.6) as BI Platform. Therefore it is not affected. For more information see KBA 3129956 - CVE-2021-44228 - BusinessObjects impact for Log4j vulnerability.

 

Latest News: Jan 2, 2023

2.1 Patch 14 is released

2.1 Patch 14 is available now. This patch contains a new Default Objects (DFO) analysis report , applications analysis updates for 4.3 SP2, BI system logon management, support for use of SAML Wizard in 4.3 SP2, and many important fixes.  Refer to 2.1.14 Release Notes for more details.



 

Newest Release VersionVersionRelease DateLinkDocumentation

SAP BI Platform Support Tool
( Windows UI version and Unix command line version )

Note: This version requires an update to Host Agent 7.21 Patch 45 or above

2.1
Patch 14


2.1.14 Release Notes

Jan 2, 2023

Software Download Center
DIRECT DOWNLOAD

If you experience "File Not Found" error, please try to clear your browser cache data and cookies.

If the above link still does not work, follow the instructions below:
How to download from the Software Download Center

Having problems downloading the BIPST?

If you have problems downloading from SWDC, please reach out to the Customer Interaction Center for assistance



 



  • What operating systems are supported for the BIPST 2.1 client version?

    Windows 64-bit
     
  • What operating systems are supported for the BIPST 2.1 shell version?

    Currently, Redhat, Suse, Solaris have been tested and validated

  • What are the minimum hardware requirements for the BIPST 2.1 client?

    - 4GB available RAM
    - 1GB available disk space

  • Why is text too large to fit inside the UI elements?

    See Getting Started with the Windows client version
    If Windows scaling does not fix the issue, an additional zoom setting is available from the preferences menu

  • Is SSL Communication supported?

    SSL is supported for Corba, JMX, and Host Agent communications.  Refer to 10. Security Guide#10.SecurityGuide-SecuringCommunications

  • What is the performance impact of running the Landscape Analysis Report?

    Some data collected from the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform require queries to the Central Management Server (CMS).  Querying the CMS can have an impact on system performance however, generally the BI Platform Support Tool queries are optimized and very quick.  In a tuned system, it should not cause any issues.  

    Refer to the table below to understand which analysis types have a performance impact.  Those analysis types that produce more load on the CMS can be run during off business hours if required.

    Analysis Type
    Performance Footprint
    More info
    Server & ServicesNone
    ContentNone to LowIn CMS systems with more than 250,000 objects you may notice a small impact on the CMS while the CMS is counting objects
    License KeyNone
    HardwareNoneQueries SAP Host Agent which has very little to no impact on the BI system
    ScheduleNone to MediumIn CMS systems with a large amount of scheduled instances, you may notice a small impact on the CMS while the queries are running
    Semantic LayerNone to MediumIn CMS systems with over 250,000 objects you may notice a small impact on the CMS while the CMS is fetching semantic layer info
    Patch HistoryNoneQueries SAP Host Agent which has very little to no impact on the BI system
    Web Application Server AnalysisNoneQueries Tomcat JMX which has very little to no impact on the BI system
    TimeoutsNone
    BI ApplicationsNone
    Server GroupsNone to MediumIn CMS systems containing large number of Server Groups and reports, you may notice a small impact when finding reports associated with the Server Groups
    AuditingNone
    Default ObjectsNone to Low


  • What application servers are supported for Web Application Server analysis (JMX) report?

    At this time, only Apache Tomcat is supported.  Support for Websphere and Weblogic are on the road map for a future version.

  • Frequently Asked Questions about the SAP Host Agent

    SAP Host Agent - Frequently Asked Questions

  • How do I report an issue or request an enhancement?

    • To leave feedback or ask a quick question, please feel free to leave a comment on this page.  

    • To report a bug or issue to our development team, click here

    • To request an enhancement for the next version, click here

  • No labels

365 Comments

  1. Carly Thomas

     

    Very nice!  This is an extremely useful tool.  Thank you for sharing.

  2. Jonathan Brown

    Top notch work guys.  This tool was very well received when I demo'd it at the ASUG user conference.  Customer's have been hungry for a tool like this for years.  The best part is that its lightweight and can be run on virtually any machine in seconds.

    I'll be filling your inbox with new feature requests!

    Jb

  3. Christopher Vozella

    Great tool Tim and Toby! Big win for our customers and support!!!!

  4. Abhinav Shrivastava

    Great Work (smile)

    -Abhi

     

  5. Amit Banavalikar

     

    Great tool. Can this be shared with customers or is it internal? Thanks.

    1. Toby Johnston

      This tool is available to everyone.  Thanks for your interest.

  6. Muhammad Ahmad

    Hi,

    I am unable to download this tool, getting following error message.

    Forbidden

    You don't have permission to access /I818270/MyAttachments/0100f113-6bdf-4559-a59c-a18cafdd8719/BISupportTool64_Install.exe on this server.

    1. Toby Johnston

       

      Hi Muhammed,

      Could you try again?  It may have been a momentary problem with SAP Box.

      Thanks

  7. Muhammad Ahmad

    Thanks Toby,

    I successfully downloaded it, works great, this is awesome.

    Thanks for shearing this tool.

    Regards,

    MO

    1. Christopher Vozella

      Mr Mo!!! Thanks for the feedback.

  8. Anonymous

    Tim/Toby! Its really great tool! Looking forward to use this in our environment.

  9. Former Member

     

    No current plans for those specific items. Use the link in the wiki to submit them and get them on our radar. If it is something we can do it will get added.

     

    Thanks for the feedback,

     

    -Tim Coffman

  10. Toby Johnston

    Hi Shridhar,

    Your requests have been noted.  I'm happy to say that we have a new feature coming that I think aligns with your ideas.  Stay tuned.

    Thanks

    Toby

  11. Former Member

    Hi Toby/Timothy,

    Its really valuable thing for BI Administrators.

    Can you please suggest how to use it. I have downloaded the software from the link but when i tried to execute it to install it doesn't works.

    I need your help here. Request to share the documentation on this if any, that will be very helpful.

     

    Many Thanks,

    Sahil gupta

    1. Former Member

      The download is a self-extracting executable that automatically launches the app once extracted. You will want to make sure you save the file locally first and then run it. If it still does not run then it may be because your OS is 32bit, the tool is 64bit and will not run on a 32bit OS. If this is the case you can run the tool on the BOBJ servers which will be 64bit.

       

      -Tim Coffman

  12. Simon Iglesias

    Nice tool for documentation .!

    Thanks for shared !

     

    BR

    Simon

  13. Neeraj Upreti

    Can this tool be shared with partners...

    Neeraj

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Neeraj,

      This tool is publically available to everyone.

      Thanks,
      Toby

  14. Christopher Vozella

    and by everyone we mean EVERYONE!!! (smile)

  15. Chris Bethune

    This looks VERY promising.  I assess many BI environments and I have to do the work manually, use Solution Manager if possible, or a 3rd Party Utility that may or may not tell me what I need to know.  Great work!!

  16. Piyush Pimplapure

    Dear Guru's

    Excellent tool, thank you very much.

    Apologies if I have missed this questions somewhere, how about a *NIX server, do I need a Windows 64 bit to run this , or can we use client OS (Win 7) from 64 bit family.

    Regards

    Piyush

     

    1. Former Member

       

      Hi Piyush,

      It would require 64-Bit O.S only. Also it would need only enterprise ids(Admin preferable).

      Thanks,
      Kush

  17. Former Member

    Hi Piyush,

    It would require 64-Bit O.S only. Also it would need only enterprise ids(Admin preferable).

    Thanks,
    Kush

    1. Piyush Pimplapure

      Thank you Kush for the reply.

       

      What I am trying to understand is, can we run this utility on 64 bit Windows 7 machine, as it becomes difficult  in *NIX deployment to get 64 bit Windows server,

       

      Regards

      Piyush

      1. Chris Bethune

        I am running this on WIn 7 Professional x64 with Service Pack 1 and also ran it directly on a server running Windows Server Standard 2012.

        1. Piyush Pimplapure

          Wonderful,Thats what I was talking about. Thank you Chris!

           

          Regards

          Piyush

  18. Anonymous

    FYI, the description says the current tool version is 1.0.4 but when I downloaded it, extracted it, and went to Help > About, it says it's version 1.0.3. I'm not sure if this is a benign bug or a bad download link - can you check into it?

    1. Former Member

      Grant,

      I just downloaded and it came up as 1.0.4. The install exe should have the 1.0.4 in the filename and you should be able to see this in the download link as it points directly to the file. Let me know if you continue to have issues.

       

      -Tim Coffman

    2. John Clark

      I just downloaded it as well and it comes up with version 1.0.3.  Very odd since Tim got version 1.0.4.

      1. Former Member

        I found the problem and it has now been fixed.

         

        -Tim Coffman

  19. John Clark

    What are the parameters for the disk space calculations for the File Repository Servers?

    When I look at our testing environment I see the following:

    MetricMetric ValueRating
    Available Disk Space in Root Directory (GB)20.51 GBYellow
    Available Disk Space in Root Directory (%)51.28%Green
    Free Disk Space in Root Directory (GB)20.51 GBRed

    The ratings seem to be off.

    1. Former Member

       

      This has been changed in 1.0.4 and the only value analyzed is the % and it triggers yellow below 40% and red below 20%.

       

      -Tim

    2. Toby Johnston

      Hi John,

      Just an FYI, we have updated the disk space threshold again in version 1.0.5.  I think it makes alot more sense now.

      Adjusted disk space alert for the FRS such that the caution threshold is lowered to 30% from 40%. The actual space available must also be below 100gb to trigger and  alert.

  20. Former Member

    Dear Toby/Tim,

    This is a brilliant tool giving the complete system insight within seconds.Thanks a lot.

     Best Regards,

    Ameet

     

  21. Chris Bethune

    Really liking this tool, Alot!

  22. Anonymous

    Could you enhance this tool in the future to include the PID for each running BI service? The PID is listed on the CMC metrics screen and is useful to track down which java.exe process in Windows task manager corresponds to which Adative Processing Server, for example. Having the PID in the output report would help us more quickly identify why a certain java.exe service is consuming 3GB of RAM.

    1. Former Member

      Sure, I'll add the PID to the next release. It may come at first in a new server comparison report I am currently working on.

       

      -Tim Coffman

  23. Toby Johnston

     

    Hi James,

    Your list of enhancement requests almost perfectly matches our features that are coming in next versions.  Are you sure you havent hacked into our planning spreadsheet?  (tongue)

    Happy to say all of these features will be coming in the near future (with exception of RepoScanner, we have discussed but havent decided about that yet)

    Cheers
    Toby

  24. Simon Iglesias

    Hi Timothy , 

    What about to include the used size in frs by User and folder  ?

    I think it should be very useful .

    Thanks a lot 

     

    Knd Rgds 

    Simon

     

     

  25. S man

    Hi,

     

    Great work !!!

     

    I am not able to open report and also not able to download software.

     

    I am getting below error

    Forbidden

    You don't have permission to access /I818270/MyAttachments/0100f113-6bdf-4559-a59c-a18cafdd8719/BISupportTool64_Install.exe on this server.

     

    Please help me out to get it download.

    1. Toby Johnston

       

      Hi SJ,

      Sorry for the inconvenience.  We are in the processing of refreshing the links and uploading the new version.  Please check back again tonight / tomorrow.

      Thanks for your support!

      Regards
      Toby

  26. Former Member

    Hi Toby / Tim

    Afraid I missed the webinar the other day (and I'm not an ASUG member)

    Would you be likely to be repeating it at all? I'm keen to see how this is developing.

    Many Thanks

    James Bayly

    Deutsche Bank

    1. Former Member

       

      There will be a meet the experts session done in mid January which will essentially be a repeat. Stay tuned to the Enterprise Support Academy calendar on the SAP Support Portal for additional information.

      -Tim Coffman

  27. S man

    Hi,

    Now i am able to download and use tool ..Really awesome

    I observed that for clustered system I am getting error and followed 1818823 sap note too

    Still Getting error 

    In that error it shows my cms SIA name only but its not showing problematic server name

    how to resolve issue?

    More over with new version I am not able to do any analysis and it throws Java error.

    good to see E2E in it, waiting to use but need assistance 

     

     

     

     

    1. Former Member

      SJ, can you email me directly a screen shot of the error message you recieve? Your environment may have some corruption in an unexpected area. My email address is in the about tab of the application.

       

      Thanks,

      -Tim Coffman

  28. Zhang JiWen

     

    Hi Tim and Toby，

          Thank you for your helpful tool。

          However,there are some issues with me.

          1. If the location of BI support tool has chinese characters,there will come the java.io.IOException

          2.If our BI system is on Suse Linux server,we can't use the UNC address to create a landscape.

          

    1. Former Member

      Thanks for the feedback Zhang, for issue number one I do understand and we will take a look at it and resolve the issue. For issue two I can also see you emailed me additional information to help in understanding the cause. The tool does support accessing unix/linux shares using a UNC path and SMB share. I will review your information and let you know what I find.

       

      -Tim Coffman

  29. S man

    Hi Tim,

    I am not able to find your email ID. Please let me know your email ID.

     

     

    1. Former Member

      timothy.coffman@sap.com also located in help->about of the application.

       

      -Tim

  30. Michael Grackin

     

    We are using Corba SSL in all our BusinessObjects installations.  How do I configure this tool to use communicate using SSL?  It is unable to access the CMS since it is not using SSL to communicate.  ~  Thanks.  Mickey

    1. Former Member

      Michael,

      This is possible, I did see some communication recently that described how we can do this. Let us find it and post it here.

      -Tim Coffman

    2. Toby Johnston

      Hi Michael,

      To use SAP BI Platform Support Tool against a landscape running Corba SSL, you need to edit BISupportTool64.bat and add the below Java properties to the javaw.exe command. Locate the line that starts with start javaw.exe then append the following java properties after javaw.exe but before bitool64.jar

      -Dbusinessobjects.orb.oci.protocol=ssl -DcertDir=<SSLFILEPATH> -DtrustedCert=cacert.der -DsslCert=servercert.der -DsslKey=server.key -Dpassphrase=passphrase.txt

      **Where <SSLFILEPATH> is the path to where you store the SSL files on the host running the SAP BI Platform Support Tool

      For more info, refer to:

      http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1642329

       

      Thanks
      Toby

      1. Michael Grackin

        @Toby,

        Thanks for the information.  I will give this a try.  Sorry for the delayed response.

        1. Michael Grackin

          That did the trick!  Thanks again.  Mickey

  31. Former Member

    Hello Timothy/Toby

    This is a fantastic tool to get the platform summary. I could generate the Landscape Anaylysis report. But when trying to get the Content or Schedule Report ..I get a error

    after a long time of processing saying"An exception occured when trying to write extracted data". So unable to get these report. Please help

    Thanks in advance

    Veena

    1. Former Member

      Veena,

      Please email Toby directly, his email is under help>about in the application. This could take a couple emails to iron out depending on the issue. One thing you could try is to delete the BISupport sub folder that gets created when you launch the tool. Just remember to save your preferences before hand if you have any as this will delete those as well. Then launching the .exe again will start everything fresh again. Try just running one inspection only i.e. schedule and see what the behavior is that occurs.

      -Tim Coffman

      1. Former Member

        Yes Tim,  You are correct.

        Even i had the same issue with schedule inspection and it was resolved by deleting the BISupport folder and reinitiate the BISupportTool64_Installer.

        -JRK PRASAD

  32. Former Member

    Oh my. I've been waiting for something like this FOREVER!! downloading now and testing. Will also test with our internal environments.

     

    Question- does this include or supercede the WILY Interscope plugin for support manager? Also, what is the ETA for E2E tracing for 4.1? I've had a lot of large customers ask me about this.

    1. Toby Johnston

      This does not supercede Wily Introscope.  At some point, we may integrate metrics collected by Introscope into the landscape report however at this point in time, the landscape report is based on only data stored in the CMS repository.

      The E2E Trace Wizard feature supports 4.1 as of version SAP BI Platform Support Tool is 1.1.1 or higher.

      Thanks for the feedback

      Regards
      Toby

      1. Former Member

        awesome. thank you! I will be watching this closely, as an SAP partner.

  33. Charles Reed

    Tim and Toby,

     

    This has proved to be useful tool in the field for documenting and supporting BI landscapes.  Well done.

    Regards,
    Charles 

  34. Former Member

    Hi Timothy & Toby,

    Just ran this tool again (1.1.2) and the content inspections shows under Universes just the number of UNV files, it doesnt take the UNX's into account. Am I correct, or am I missing something?

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hey Berend,

      I'll check on this and make a correction if needed for release 1.1.4

      Thanks
      Toby

    2. Toby Johnston

      Hey Berend,

      This is now fixed in 1.1.4 and a lot more content types were added.

      Cheers
      Toby

      1. Former Member

        Thanks Toby!

        Small other observation: is there a simple way to figure out what  specific services are hosted in any APS on your system? For example, I was trying to figure out if more than one APS in my system was running the 'monitoring service' but I can only do that by manually checking each service. Would be nice to have an overview of hosted services per server.

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Berend,

          In the landscape report export go to summary.html and click on the node tab, then on the APS and check "services".  This will have the services running on that APS

          Thanks Toby

           

  35. Former Member

    Great support tool!!!  A must have for any BI admin or consultant.

  36. Former Member

     

    I downloaded the latest 1.1.3 version of this tool on my PC and now trying to login to our CMS server in order to generate the report. However, i am getting"Server IP not found or Server is Down" error while logging on itself.

    I can connect to my CMS through browser with same Hostname. I tried with the IP address as well but no help. Could you please guide.

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

       

      Hello,

      Are you connecting to the CMS through Network Address Translation or Firewall?  This is the difference between browser connection and BI Support Tool.  The browser connects on port 80 or 8080 through HTTP whereas this tool is using a direct CORBA connection.   You may need to make sure port 6400 is open on the firewall.

      Are you able to logon to the CMS via other client tools such as Information Design Tool?

      Thanks Toby

  37. Former Member

    The tool’s feature set certainly has grown quickly. The great descriptions in the report, links to related kba / documentation, and the detailed help menus are such great features.  It is evolving into a centralized support tool that gives insight into an issue and then easily links you to the support information on how to fix it, rather then having to separately go out and try to search for that information. I think this is a great example of improving the support experience and moving towards “support without messages”. Keep up the good work!! I look forward to some of the new features in the upcoming releases.

     

    I understand that the Landscape Summary Report query should run rather quickly in a small or large environment, and therefore should be able to be run at anytime without affecting system performance. In a landscape with a large number of report objects the Content and Schedule inspection queries would take considerably longer.  If an administrator would like to run the Content and Schedule inspection on a proactive preventative maintenance measure within a large landscape, would it be wise to run these queries during off peak hours? Or is the performance hit not that negligible on the cms server and db?

     

    Since some communication is using corba, do we have the typical issues running the tool from a client workstation as other BO thick client applications have when the client network has to traverse a firewall to reach the BI servers? If so, do we have and doc/kba with info on what services need static ports configured? I would imagine many or most admins are running the tool from an actual BI server which would typically make this a moot point, however since the tool only runs on Windows 64 bit architecture, in a UNIX/Linux only BI server environment an admin may have to use a client workstation outside of the server network.

     

     

    Jack Renaud

    Ecosystem Quality Manager, Global Ecosystem, SAP Active Global Support

    SAP America Inc, 400 International Parkway Suite 200, Lake Mary, FL  32746, USA

     

    1. Toby Johnston

       

      Short answer is that it's never a bad idea to wait until your system is not heavily loaded before you submit a batch of InfoStore queries (even if the queries are optimized such as with this particular application)

      I would say the landscape analysis is negligable and content / schedule analysis has a light foot print (but shouldnt be an issue for a properly sized CMS cluster to handle)

      Regarding the firewall, you will configure your BI Support Tool client the same as you would with Information Design Tool with the exception that the BI Support Tool currently only connects to the CMS and not the FRS or Connection Servers.  So basically you need to open just the CMS port/request port and make sure Network Address Translation isnt an issue (as it commonly is with Corba communication).

      Thanks
      Toby

       

       

  38. Former Member

    Just Brilliant - now you have included the E2E traces as a wizard this is a real game-changer for administrators. I had used the previous E2E gui but collecting all the trace etc was a nightmare

    Still a few more suggestions, but I love this tool, keep the updates coming guys

    • RepoScan 'Fix' utilities would be useful additons - i.e. orphaned objects etc
    • APS Recommendations - As per the new function in 4.1  CMC, you could include anaylsis of current -Xmx usage against memory avialable and functions needed input(i.e. 32 Gb avaialble, Scheduler, Charting, Data Fedorator, Seach required)  Then give a suggestion for APS/WebiProc server params
    • Schedules - More info please - Schedule Landscape, there is a good excel macro on BOB forum which reads all recurring schdules and plots a map/calendar of when the schedules happen, good for finding bottle neck times
    • Content - More info again please - I mentioned the wid-scanner before, this would be a big overhead in running thi, but the information is great for plannign migrations, working out what users are doing and targetting the 'monster' reports

    Will keep playing and post any other suggestions. Great work!

    1. Toby Johnston

      Thanks for the feedback James!.  We are interested in hearing if the E2E Wizard turns out to be a big value for you.  We are planning to improve on it some more this year.

      I think you will find that most of your other suggestions will be implemented at some point.  Regarding the WID scanner there is a tool called Sherlock that I would recommend checking out as it does a great job at this.

      Cheers
      Toby

  39. Former Member

    Strange... as of today I'm getting an error trying to download any of the released versions: "You don't have permission to access /a:msvjsm/MyAttachments/d02551aa-50d5-4f1a-be7e-ee9c4f764b94/BISupportTool64_Installv1.1.3.exe on this server." I tried this on two completely different systems, but the error is the same.

    Hickup?

    1. Former Member

      Berend,

      I just refreshed the links, please try aagin.

      -Tim Coffman

      1. Former Member

        Perfect! Thanks Tim, it works again.

  40. Rahul Verma

    Wow Toby & Timothy.  The more I talk about this evolution, is really less.  It gives you a 360 view, eagles eye on your system Internals.

    Outstanding Job !!!

  41. Former Member

    This is very nice tool

    Unfortunately I am getting the error " The argument has an invalid value server...." whenever I run the tool after entering cms info.  I tried to follow the notes... still same issue.

    I tried it  on two different systems ( cluster) , complaining one of the cluster cms  has corrupted data but cms status is green in cmc.

    Any help ?

     

    Thanks!

    Raj

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Raj,

      That error message will print out the name of a server.  You need to go into the CMC, stop that server, then delete it because it is having corrupt properties even though the server appears green in CMC.  After you delete the server entry, you may create a new server of the same type to replace it and then the problem will be resolved.

      If you have questions about this please post back again

      Thanks
      Toby

  42. John Clark

    I'm getting the following error when I try to run BI Support Tool 1.1.3 Landscape Inspector.  The other Inspectors run fine.  This is on a Windows Server 2012 box with BI4.1sp2.

    ERROR: java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size: 0 while retrieving server data.

    What might this mean?  Do I need to have the BI Support Tool installed in a particular directory?

     

    When I click on OK for the error above, I get the following Error:

    An unexpected problem occurred while writing extraction data. Please try again.

    I am an Administrator on the box so there should not be a permission issue.

    1. Former Member

      John,

      When running the install exe it will extract the contents into a local folder and then run the application from there. The folder is called BISupport. Please try deleting this folder and then re-running the exe. In most cases this will clear up some errors. If this doesn't work then email me directly (My Address is in the about tab of the tool) and we can work on a solution.

  43. Former Member

    Dear Timothy, Toby,

    Is there any reason to have limited the authentication to Enterprise ?

    For my customer, all BO administrators and security comes from SAP. It would be very nice to unlock SAP Authentication.

    Thanks in advance
    Jean-Pierre

  44. Former Member

     

    JeanPierre,

    The main reason for this limitation was for time to code the requirements into the client versus how much use this would give us in return. While the tool was still early in development we took the decision to not implement this behavior. Since you do bring this up we will have another look into this capability and determine if we should make a change here.

    -Tim Coffman

  45. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

     

    Getting Below error duration Installation -

    “---------------------------

    javaw.exe - System Error

    ---------------------------

    The program can't start because MSVCR100.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

    ---------------------------

    OK  

    ---------------------------”

     

    Re-installed the MSVCR100.dll , but no luck.

    Please assist me to install this tool .

     

    Thanks

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      For the benefit of everyone, this issue was resolved by copying MSVCR100.dll to your system32 directory

  46. Toby Johnston

    1.1.5 has passed beta testing and is now stable

  47. Former Member

     

    Hi Toby,

    I used the tool to do a "Landscape Analysis" on QA server (distributed) containing 64 GB each ( 4 nodes).

    In the " hardware configuration " section of the landscape analysis report he RAM detail is showing incorrect for 2 nodes. The same behaviour i could observer in the different environment. We checked the ulimit it showed the limit is "unlimited" for all the nodes.

    Could you please advice!!!

    Regards,

    Anjani Kumar

  48. Former Member

     

    Hi Toby,

    I used the tool to do a "Landscape Analysis" on QA server (distributed) containing 64 GB each ( 4 nodes).

    In the " hardware configuration " section of the landscape analysis report he RAM detail is showing incorrect for 2 nodes. The same behaviour i could observer in the different environment. We checked the ulimit it showed the limit is "unlimited" for all the nodes.

    Could you please advice!!!

    Regards,

    Anjani Kumar

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Anjani,

      Could you please email us the XML output (save landscape xml) along with a survey script of the node(s) in question?

      Using the survey script to assist support http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1681036

      Email the files to:  toby.johnston@sap.com; timothy.coffman@sap.com

      We will investigate the problem.

      Thanks! Toby

  49. Ilias Fytrakis

    Hello guys,

    I get the following error when I'm trying to download the support tool

     

    You don't have permission to access /a:msvjsm/MyAttachments/d77b4cfe-2f9c-4433-9377-558f9db684f5/BISupportTool64_Installv1.1.5.exe on this server.

     

    Thanks for your actions,

    Ilias

  50. Zakaria Aloumami

    Hi,

    i get the same error:

    You don't have permission to access /a:msvjsm/MyAttachments/d77b4cfe-2f9c-4433-9377-558f9db684f5/BISupportTool64_Installv1.1.5.exe on this server

    Regards,

    Zaki

  51. Zakaria Aloumami

    Hi,

    i get the same error:

    You don't have permission to access /a:msvjsm/MyAttachments/d77b4cfe-2f9c-4433-9377-558f9db684f5/BISupportTool64_Installv1.1.5.exe on this server

    Regards,

    Zaki

    1. Former Member

      The problem has been corrected. Downloads should now work.

       

      -Tim Coffman

  52. Former Member

    Hi,

     

    I am trying to run Landscape Inspector but it fails with following error: "OptionAction:: transformingError During node/server extraction:;java.lang.NullPointerException: while trying to invoke the method java.lang.String.length() of a null object loaded from local variable 'chars'.

    Content and Schedule inspection works just fine.

     

    Any ideas what might be giving this error?

     

    Thank you,

     

    Rain

    1. Former Member

      Rain,

      This error indicates there was a problem writing the SIA Node/BI Server data to the local XML repository. I can't say for certain the exact cause but if you email me directly I will work with you to resolve it and provide feedback to this thread once we resolve the issue. My email is timothy.coffman@sap.com.

       

      -Thanks, Tim

      1. Former Member

        After working with Rain it appears the issue stems from a null Node within the XML document structure. I have made a fix for this issue which I will release in the 1.1.6 build within the next couple weeks.

        -Tim Coffman

  53. Former Member

    Any chance auditing configuration information could be captured as well? The information (database, user, …) seems to be part of the XML, but not presented as such in the HTML reports. You can get some information from the SIA Node Summary, but it would be easier if this was presented separately (perhaps together with the CMS database configuration?).

    Thanks.

    1. Former Member

      Sure, I think we can add this information. The best place for it would likely be along with the CMS information. Since it is already in the XML it will be pretty simple to add. If you are looking for something specific besides what you see there in the XML let me know. Otherwise I can put this into 1.1.6.

       

      -Tim Coffman

      1. Former Member

        That would be great time. I don't know what the level of detail is that you can retrieve about the type of database and middleware / connection used to the CMS and audit database (sometimes it's a bit cryptic when looking at the Settings section in the CMC). Basically the more information regarding how the connection is configured, the better.

        Thanks!

        – Kristof

  54. Former Member

    Toby, Tim,

     

    As soon as i select the Schedule Inspection Report the BI support tool vanish. What could be the reason?

     

    Hi All,

    Did you face this issue. The  support report comes with Landscape Inspection and Content Inspection but not for Schedule. 

     

    Thanks !!

    Tilak

     

    1. Former Member

      I have not seen the issue before but there is likely some uncaught exception occurring in the data extraction algorithm. If you are on the latest version you could email us the Tracelog*.glf file which is in the BISupport/bin folder and it may help us understand the cause. Otherwise we may need to work with you to add additional debug statements to the trace to help isolate the problem.

      Feel free to email your results and then we can respond back here once we isolate the cause.

      -Tim

      timothy.coffman@sap.com

  55. Former Member

    Thank you Tim. I have forwarded the tracelog files.

     

    Kind regards,

    Tilak

  56. Anonymous

    Great tool. It is really useful.

    Version 1.1.5 - One issue. Click on 'Logoff CMS'. Message comes up as session is closed. But when i go back , still the tab shows "Log off CMS", instead of Logon CMS".

    Toby,

    You mentioned in top, this version 1.1.5 supports patch history. But i don't see the option for patch history.

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Jawahar,

      Thanks!  We are aware of that bug and will be fixing it very soon.

      Regarding Patch History, it hasn't yet been integrated into the BI Support Tool (it will be coming after SAP Host Agent integration)

      However, you can use the Patch History tool in stand-alone mode.  You just need to drop the jar into your InstallData folder and double click it and it will generate a csv report you can open in Excel.  Grab the tool here:

      BOE and Data Services Patch History Analysis Tool

      Thanks
      Toby 

  57. Former Member

    We want to identify Monster reports which had run in the past, needed more resources like memory and CPU so that we can take some cautious steps by adding extra resources or adding Service groups.

     

    Being said that, do we know a mechanism to identify the Memory/CPU consumption of the reports.

    If that can be added to the platform landscape report, that will be very useful.

     

    thanks,

    Tilak

  58. Former Member

     

    Hello Tim,

    This is a wonderful tool and very useful indeed.

    But I see another usecase of this Tool for migration comparison. Can't there be a Landscape Report for XI3.1 and then later after migrating to Xi4.1, I run the Landscape report and do a comparison analysis?

    This would be absolutely useful.

    Thanks,

    Vikram Raju

    1. Former Member

      Thanks for the feedback Vikram. We have had some thoughts about this in the past but decided not to pursue development work in 3.1. We do have options on the table to do something similiar for 4.0 suite that would provide information to you before you patch or install a support pack. I think this is also useful and would fit more in the tools framework.

       

      -Tim

  59. Atul Divekar

    Hello,

    I am getting error while log in to tool

    Error 22 Server <Servername:6400> not found or server may be down(FWM01003) Invalid argument: Create.

    I am able to ping server from my system.

    Thanks.

    Regards,

    Atul Divekar.

     

     

    1. Former Member

      Atul,

      The most likely cause here is proper name resolution. The BI Platform SDK requires that the name of the CMS be resolved by the IP. If the hostname cannot then it will provide an error when connecting. One thing that you can do is add the IP/hostname to your hosts file on your client and then it can make the proper check.

       

      -Tim Coffman

    2. Toby Johnston

      Hi Atul,

      You may also check to make sure you can telnet to the CMS host on port 6400.

      Open a command prompt, run the command:

      telnet cmshostname 6400

      If this returns a blank screen the connection is ok, if you get an error then you know the port 6400 is blocked.

      Regards
      Toby 

  60. Andrew Dale

     

    I am using version 1.1.7 beta , because 1.1.6 stable release gives me an error

    Forbidden

    You don't have permission to access /a:msvjsm/MyAttachments/52178d7e-1a6f-4832-a028-f2bf1f34f99a/BISupportTool64_Installv1.1.6.exe on this server.

    So, using 1.1.7, in Server Comparison, if I view a tab with multiple entries, e.g. the Adaptive Processing tab, certain rows have * against their Value Name which denotes "value is checked for equallity across servers" but this includes rows such as Server Request Port, Xss,Xmx. Why do these need to be the same? Mine all show yellow because they are different.

    The Xms row is yellow even though all values are the same -Xms32m

  61. Former Member

    Toby,

    While running the tool, it failed with an error " CGError During node/server extraction:: The argument has an invalid value server corruption encountered while processing data for server:servername_20140824_101840.cms"

    You had  mentioned that delete the  faulty server records in CMC.

    In CMC , we dont see this node  name. We have a running node with green status.

    Because of this error, we could not run this tool in our environment.

    Can you help to get rid of this server so that we can run the tool ?

    Thanks!

    Raj

     

     

     

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Raj,

      Run the following query in querybuilder to get the SI_ID of the server

      SELECT SI_ID FROM CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS WHERE SI_NAME='servername_20140824_101840.cms'    

      ****where servername is your real servername


      Then go to your SQL editor and directly delete this row from the database (stop the CMS cluster first).

      DELETE FROM CMS_INFOOBJECTS7 WHERE ObjectID=<SI_ID from previous query> 

       

      Restart the CMS and you should be good to go.

      Regards
      Toby 


  62. Vinay jamili

    Hi Toby,

    Thanks for the excellent BI4 Support Tool.

    We had just tested the program object and observed that "Schedule analysis" is  missing in the package.

    Is there any plan to include " Schedule Analysis" in the program object.

    Is it possible to publish the output of the program object to users via email?

     

    Thanks in advance

    Regards,

    Vinay

     

     

     

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Vinay,

      Thanks for the feedback and nice comments.

      Yes, we are using Derby to do schedule analysis aggregation and this is having some problems in the program object scenario.  We are looking at correcting this for version 2.0 of BI Support Tool (Q1 2015).  Command line option will currently work with schedule analysis however.

      We are also looking into making the report available as email attachment.  As soon as I have any update on this I will post back however it will also likely be in version 2 before this gets done.

      Regards
      Toby 

       

       

  63. Kim Matthews

    Hi Toby – really love the tool.  I’m looking forward to getting it scheduled and incorporating the report as an analysis tool in our environment.  

    After using the report during an upgrade I noticed a nice to have that I could not find in the Explorer Indexing Server report.  The parameter path of the Index Files Directory?  Just like the FRS paths are included on the InputFileRepository report. 

    Thank you  Kim

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hey Kim,

      No problem.  I created a bug report and we can add it likely in version 1.1.9

      Thanks,
      Toby 

  64. Andrew Dale

    Hi Toby/Timothy

    I just downloaded version 1.1.8 (beta) and it does the same thing as 1.1.7. In Server Comparison, if I view a tab with multiple entries, e.g. the Adaptive Processing tab, certain rows have * against their Value Name which denotes "value is checked for equallity across servers". What does this actually mean? Does it mean they should be the SAME or DIFFERENT? and what is the key for the colour coding?

    This includes the row for Server Request Port. Why do these need to be the same? Mine all show yellow because they are different. The Xms row is yellow for my APSs even though all values are the same -Xms32m.

    When I tried to "File-Save Landscape to PDF" the system showed a progress bar which moved all the way to the right and then gave "Error - PermGen space (failed to allocate 416 bytes)" It did not create the PDF and then closed the tool when I oked the error message. I tried searching for this error message but did not understand the solutions. I am using 64bit Windows 7 SP1 but only have 32bit JAVA. Is this an issue?

    I used "File-save Landscape Analysis" and that worked ok.

    thanks for the great tool

    regards

    Andrew

    1. Former Member

      Andrew,

      I will add some descriptions to the comparison report to clarify. The highlighting of the various settings within that comparison is not intended to determine if they should all be the same or not. It is simply meant to point out they are different. This is mainly due to the fact that depending on the landscape configuration this could be good they are all the same or maybe not. To give an example of the server RequestPort, in some landscapes you may have this configured to communicate over a specific port due to firewall restrictions. If they were not identical then this will cause an issue. However, if you do not have this restriction then it is fine they are different.

      For the Xms value in the APS I will double check that comparison to be sure it is being done correctly. Toby will follow up as well related to the export issue.

       

      -Tim

      1. Andrew Dale

        thanks Timothy that makes sense

    2. Toby Johnston

      Hi Andrew,

      Regarding the PDF Export issue.  We ship with the BI Support Tool the 64-bit SAP JVM.  So, the fact you have a 32bit Java on your client is not an issue.

      Can you go to your BISupportTool folder, then edit the file BISupportTool64.bat.  Update the following line:

      start javaw.exe -Dtracelog.configfile=BO_trace.ini -Xmx2g -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -jar bitool64.jar

      Save the changes and restart the support tool again by double clicking the BISupportTool64.bat.

      Let me know if it resolves the issue so I can check the fix into our next version code.

      Thanks
      Toby 


       

      1. Andrew Dale

        Hi Toby, that works better, it does not crash!

        I get four PDFs: - Content, Landscape, License and Scheduling. which means I don't get ones for Server Comparison or Platform search. Is this correct?

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Andrew,

          That's correct.  In order to get all the landscape inspections you need to use the regular Save As landscape.  The PDF export is based on the Crystal Reports engine.  In order to use the CRPE, we had to basically re-write the format that the data is stored in, in order to be compatible.  So, the PDF export will be slightly behind in features as we have to catch up with the regular Landscape Analysis feature set.

          We are re-architecting the tool for version 2.0 and this should allow us to achieve feature parity between the PDF export and the original Landscape Analysis (save as) report.

          Glad to hear it is working now!

          Cheers
          Toby 

  65. Former Member

    Hi,

    I'm unclear with regard to setting up the Landscape Definition.  For example, this is what I have input:

    BI SERVERS

    Trace.ini Path :   E:\SAP BO\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\conf

    Logging Folder: E:\SAP BO\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\logging

     

    Web Application Servers

    Port 8080             Logging: E:\SAP BO\Tomcat6\logs;E:\SAP BO\Tomcat6

    No Port given      Logging:   E:\SAP BO

     No Port given       Logging:   E:\SAP BO\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\logging      

    But this is not like what I see in the help where it seems to want a folder named SBOP and sometimes SBOP....8080.  What I've done above is input the defaults as far as I can tell. Do I need to create folders and point the logging to those folders?

    Also, should  the 3 web applciation servers be part of just one entry sharing the same host?  They are on the same box.

    Thanks,

     

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ruben,

      You need to share out the folders on the BI nodes and AppServer nodes so that they can be accessed via UNC path \\machinename\foldername.  You can't use local paths because you need to access these folders on the remote BI / webapp machines, not your local client machine.

      If you click on the HELP button of the Landscape Definition screen, we provide a tutorial on how to share a folder and copy the UNC path link.  Note, the trace ini folder should have read/write permissions for the windows user you specify in the landscape definition.  All the logging folder shares should just be read only access.

      For example, right click on the logging folder, then choose share:

       

      Do I need to create folders and point the logging to those folders?

       toby : No, you just need to locate the logging folders, then share them as per the example above.

      Also, should  the 3 web applciation servers be part of just one entry sharing the same host?  They are on the same box.

       toby : No, you should create three AppServer node entries each having a unique port number but using the same hostname.  This is because each appserver instance will have it's own set of logging directories.  Notice the naming of the BOE webapp logging directories, it contains the APPNAME_IP_ADDRESS_PORT for the appserver that generated the logs.  See below, the possible locations where you will find BOE webapp logging folders.

       

      WINDOWS

      <INSTALL_DRIVE>:\SBOP*
      <INSTALL_PATH>:\SAP BusinessObjects\Tomcat 6\*.glf 
      <INSTALL_PATH>:\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\logging\SBOP*
      C:\windows\system32\configure\<systemprofile>\SBOP*
      C:\users\<appserver_user>\SBOP*

      UNIX

      $HOME/SBOP*
      <INSTALL_PATH>/sap_bobj/tomcat/bin/SBOP*


      You can also check out the following webinar where you will find a live demo of the E2E Trace landscape definition setup

      https://service.sap.com/sap/bc/bsp/spn/esa_redirect/index.htm?gotocourse=X&courseid=70246521

       

      Let me know if you have more questions or need any help!

      Thanks.
      Toby 

       

    2. Toby Johnston

      Here's another example.  I have 3 BI nodes in this landscape

      • BIPW08R2
      • BIPW08R2-1
      • BIPW08R2-2

      I have 2 instances of Tomcat on host BIPW08R2

      One Tomcat is running on port 8080 and another on port 8090.  

      Here's what it looks like:


  66. Chris Bethune

    One of my very favorite tools.  I lost count of the time I've spent as a consultant gathering up all of this info manually and putting it into something presentable.  Now I can use this tool and move on to looking at more pressing matters.

    1. Toby Johnston

      Thanks Chris, the positive feedback is much appreciated.  We have lots of great new features coming in version 2.0, stay tuned for more on this!

  67. Michael Hamm

    Hi Toby,

    we already have WinAD configured and i tried the new WinAd configuration wizard, but it lists only 6 instead of 18 domains. Is there any restriction?

    BR,

    Michael

    1. Former Member

      Michael,

      The configuration wizard is only designed for those BI systems which have not been configured, the design is such that it helps BI admins get the right files and settings based on their network configuration

      If your WinAD is configured then the wizard should have went to a summary page showing you sme information on your configuration, is this the location that is reporting fewer domains?

       

      -Tim Coffman

  68. Michael Hamm

     

    Hi Timothy,

    yes in the summary page are only 6 domains listed. But we have 18 domains connected.

    -Michael

    1. Former Member

      The table in that window is for groups imported, are you sure you mean domain? Feel free to email me directly as well if you prefer to send screen shots My email is in hrlp>about

      -Tim Coffman

  69. Moritz Hoedel

    Great tool, great support if there are questions!
    This makes the BI4 Admin's life easier for sure!!

  70. Kim Matthews

    Toby and Timothy –  this tool is amazing.  Is there a way to generate an output file in a csv format (or other) that can be consumed by an enterprise logging tool like ‘Splunk”?

    If not… please tell me how to extract all those great the CMS metrics into an output file that could be consumed? 

    We DO NOT currently have Solution Manager installed - its coming but need to get the metrics into our Enterprise now

     

    Thanks so much – K. Matthews

    1. Former Member

      Thanks for the compliments. In the current release we only offer the PDF or HTML style exports. However, with each data extraction it is stored locally in an XML. This XML is included in the HTML zip export and also in the application 'data' subfolder. Hopefully you can find a way to use this to pull the data.

      In future releases we are looking to expand our export capabilities beyond what is currently offered but its a work in progress. If you would like to request something specific feel free to email us the specs directly and we can evaluate it for a future release. Our contact info is in the about tab of the tool.

      -Tim

      1. Kim Matthews

        Thank you Tim  for the prompt reply, the XML file looks like it will meet our need!

        Kim Matthews

  71. Former Member

    This is a wonderfully useful tool, thank you!  I am new to it but already love the landscape analysis report.  I want to run the server comparison report next, but I do not see it.  In fact, my menu looks completely different than the 'tree' format shown in the Server Comparison Report help page.  Then I noticed that although the link I downloaded says version 1.1.9 (as well as the zip file), the help...about screen says I have version 1.1.8.  Can you help?  Thank you again!

    1. Former Member

      The server comparison report is the same in both 118 and 119 are the same. Whenever you run the Landscape Analysis the comparison report will be automatically generated as a seperate tab within the tool.

      -Tim Coffman

      1. Former Member

        Thank you!  I do see it now.

  72. Kim Matthews

    We've been using the tool via command line for about a month now, running as a daily scheduled object.  We are going to use the XML output to create drift reporting. Has anyone implemented something like this using the tool?  

    K. Matthews  

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Kim,

      One other note to mention, the XML is changing considerably in version 2.0.  So, you may not want to go too far in developing reports against 1.x version of the XML since they would have to be re-designed again for 2.0.  The good news is that the 2.0 structure of the XML is much easier to consume via the BOBJ reporting tools.  2.0 is scheduled for a summer time release (probably around July time frame)

      Thanks
      Toby 

  73. Former Member

    Kim,

    In the current GUI release the is a section for 'Change Analysis' which will do a comparison on server parameters between two XMLs. In the 2.0 version currently in development we are extending this functionality quite a bit, to include almost all aspects of the data extracted from a landscape. With any luck we will also attempt to include an analysis between two different landscapes i.e. production vs. development to identify differences.

    PS> If anyone is doing this outside of the tool, we would like to hear what your focusing on and try to enhance the tool to include the behavior.

    -Tim Coffman

  74. Kim Matthews

    Thank you Tim - we are using this feature but interested in automating it. Since we are using the command line piece want to pull the XML file, parse through and send any deltas to an email report.  I'll post back once we have something. 

    K.Matthews

    1. Former Member

      Please do, we do plan on implementing a runnable version with the version 2 code base and if there is something we can do at run time to help automate this type of functionality we will be happy to review it.

      -Tim Coffman

  75. Former Member

    Hi Tim/Toby,

    I am noticing issue while I am trying to download very recent version of SAP BI Platform Support Tool (client version) 1.1.9 or 1.1.8 since last week and page errors out when I click on download link.

    Not sure whats wrong,And it is consistently failing everytime I tried since last week.I have a valid SAP Support login.

    Can you quickly help with this,as I need to gather very recent platform related info and share it with SAP Support ?

    Your quick response would be appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Dinesh

    1. Toby Johnston

      Can you try the following mdocs folder location?

      https://mdocs.sap.com/mcm/public/v1/open?shr=KuaTzFlghwP5KTPVjcljJijDX5XjUVLpxApCxj_vyO4&obj=LnxXqtlWhRUHkOgkT7qOAKCFSgnJZqgpes0YdWpOHMw 

      1. Former Member

        Thanks Toby for quick response.

        Unfortunately this mdocs link did not work either it is timing out .I think it is timeout issue that I had noticed while I am accessing the links on the website too.

        Thanks,

        Dinesh

        1. Former Member

          Please ignore my earlier comments,This link worked for in Firefox Browser I was able to download the software.

          Earlier I was trying in IE 8 our company standard browser and it was consistently timming out  for me in IE.

          Thanks

          Dinesh

  76. Muhammad Ahmad

    Hi,

    I down loaded from both links successfully, there is no issue with the link.

    Regards,

    MO

  77. John Clark

    I tried running the Schedule Inspector against our Production environment and I received this error:

    CMS operation timed out after 9 minutes  Thread timeout has expired

    I think this is due to the issue described in this KBA 1273102 - CMS Operation timed out after 9 min in Query Builder   It doesn't say how big a "really huge" CMS database is.  In KBA 2033751 - Platform Search does not index InfoObjects, or only indexes small amount of InfoObjects. it says that a very big repository is approximately 180000 objects in the CMS database  What constitutes a "really huge" CMS database?

    Our repository has over 400,000 objects  I'm wondering if we need to increase the thread timeout referenced in KBA 1273102

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi John

      I would say 400,000 is an average size CMS database.

      In the BI Support Tool, we query in batches of 1000 objects to optimize the queries against larger CMS databases.   However, the Schedule Analysis is querying against instances which can be time consuming.  

      There's a few things you can do:

      • Check CMS database performance (rebuild indexes, check query stats, db performance, etc)
      • Increase number of CMS database threads if CMS database is underutilized
      • Increase MaximumObjectsToKeepInMemory regkey on the CMS host from 100,000 to 300,000 (only if CMS has plenty of memory and CPU)
      • Check CMS process and host performance
      • Delete / archive old instances and old InfoObjects

      I really wouldn't recommend increasing the Query timeout.

      In BIST version 2.0, we have added a new feature which is a BatchSize preference.  This will let you set the InfoStore query batch size from 1000 to 100 which should solve your problem with the Schedule Analysis

      Regards
      Toby 

       

       

      1. John Clark

        Our indexes are rebuilt once a week  Is that often enough or should they be rebuilt more often?

        Are there certain tables that should be done on a more regular basis?

        How do we determine if our CMS database is underutilized?  What statistics or metrics should we look at?

        I've looked at increasing the MaximumObjectsToKeepInMemory setting but I wish there was somewhere that we could test it.  We don't have as many objects in our non-production environments.

        I wish we could delete or archive old instances.  Our users say they need to keep everything forever or have long retention periods.  I think I actually got one group to let me implement instance limits to only the last 7 years.

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hey John,

          Once a week is more than enough.  CMS_InfoObjects7 is the main table that needs to be indexed as it contains the majority of the content.

          How do we determine if our CMS database is underutilized?  What statistics or metrics should we look at?  CPU , Memory, network, disk utilization should be sufficient.  Just make sure there is headroom for the db to draw some more resources from the host it is running on.

          Regarding MaximumObjectsToKeepInMemory, this is a safe change to make as long as the CMS has plenty of resources on the host where it is running.

          Next week, you will be able to test version 2.0.  Let's see if this solves your problem.  I'm pretty confident it will.

          Regards
          Toby 



  78. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    Thanks for the Tools. I've been using the tools recently and see in Dashboard Design Processing Server Parameters in BI Platform Suport Tools 1.1.9 Landscape there's parameter name in Dashboard Design Processing Server

    Parameter Name: Use Java Children

    Parameter Value: 1

    Description: Maximum number of child connections allowed

    When I check on CMC in Dashboard Design Processing Server, I can't find the settings for that Parameter Name: Use Java Children in CMC. 

    Is this Parameter configurable or where to find the Parameter to change it?

     

    Regards,

    Budi Setiawan

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Budi,

      I had a look at this property and found that it is a parameter for the APS service which is not visible in the CMC UI and should not be changed.  By changing this, you would in essence break the scalability of the APS.  You can see this property if you query the server in the Query Builder.  SELECT * FROM CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS WHERE SI_KIND='server'

      Regards
      Toby 

  79. Former Member

    Many thanks Toby

     

    Cheers

  80. Rahul Verma

    Hi Toby,

    I think it does not read the CPU license.  It gives misleading information

    In our case, we have a 7 CPU license and after running the tool we get the following information under the license key inspection section:

     Both Processor and Concurrent License Keys detected.  Please remove a license key or contact SAP License Auditing

     Both Processor and Named License Keys detected.  Please remove a license key or contact SAP License Auditing

     Both Concurrent and Named License Keys detected.  Please remove a license key or contact SAP License Auditing

    can we improve this aspect please.

    thank you in advance.

     

    1. Joshua Kuhn

      Hi Rahul,

      Are you using v1.9 or the new 2.0 beta version?  Can you email me your xml please and i'll take a look?

      ~Joshua

  81. Anbazhagan Ilangovane

    Hello There,

    Please let me know if there's an option to change the Default authentication from Enterprise to LDAP ?

    Thanks.

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Do you mean the authentication type to logon to the CMS to generate a Landscape Analysis Report?

      If this is what you mean, we have added the option to use LDAP, and Active Directory auth types in version 2.0 which is currently in Beta.

      If this isn't what you meant, please clarify.

      Thanks,
      Toby 

  82. Anbazhagan Ilangovane

    Hello Toby,

    If I try any option say for example

    Analysis ->  In this screen If I select "Landscape Inspector" -> Click on Next Then it pops up a window and there only "Enterprise" Authentication mode alone is there, is this something we can change to LDAP or only 2.0 version has this option ?

    How can we get the beta version if that option is available there ?

    1. Toby Johnston

      Yes, this was added in Version 2.0.  If you send me your S-USER account id to toby.johnston@sap.com I'll add you to the beta list.  We are almost out of spots for the beta so don't wait too long (smile)

      Regards
      Toby 

      1. Anbazhagan Ilangovane

        Hello Toby.. I've mailed you my S-ID, please let me know when can we get the Beta version .. thanks much.

  83. Stephen Folan

    Hello Toby,

    In 1.1.9, on the schedule inspector, when we see the top errors. Is there a timeframe you are using in this query? Are these errors for all of time, since last patch, last number of months or anything like that?

     

    Thanks,

    Stephen

  84. Toby Johnston

    Hi Stephen,

    There is no timeframe, this is for all instances in the repository.

    However, in version 2.0 we have added the ability to specify a date range so you can filter on which ever time range you want.  I'll add you to the beta JAM group if you want to test it out.

    Cheers
    Toby 

    1. Stephen Folan

      Great stuff Toby, thank you. I have recieved the invite also.

      Cheers,

      Stephen

  85. Former Member

    Hi,

    Great stuff, just found it here, gives a good overview of the installed base,

    See that a version 2.0 is announced for November but can't find it.

    Is it somewhere already available so i can use it.

    Thanks already

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hello, I'm glad you found our application.  We are just waiting on final approval to ship and plan to release version 2.0 next week.  This wiki will soon be updated to contain links to the new software as well as information about the new features.

      Cheers
      Toby 

      1. Former Member

        Toby,

        Thanks for you answer.

        Cheers

        Stan

  86. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    Thanks for this useful application.

    Just wanted to know, if there is a similar tool for SAP BODS (Data services) 4.1 as well?

    Thanks,

    Shubha

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Shubha,

      No, not specifically but we are considering it.  Are you using Information Platform Services?  If so, then you can use the Landscape Analysis Report to get environment details since it is essentially the same as BI Platform.  

      Regards
      Toby 

  87. Michal Walczak

    Hi,

    I've installed today SAP BI Platform Support Tool ( client version ) 2.0.0 (build version 2.0.0.323) but it can't start. I've tested on 4 Widnows machines and I still have error 

    Error: loading:
    ....\BISupport\bin\server\jvm.dll

    What are the requirements regarding Java for this new 2.0 tool?

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Michael,

      The BIPST 2.0 client must be run on a Windows 64-bit host (same requirement as with version 1.x).  This is because the application is based and ships with the SAPJVM 64-bit.   Can you confirm, do you have this running on a 64 bit system?  Maybe you could try running it on a sandbox BI 4.x system?

      Let me know if you face further troubles.

      Thanks
      Toby 

      1. Michal Walczak

        Hi Toby,

        All tested operating systems are Windows 64-bit versions.

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Michael,

          Could you please do the following?  On the host where you want to run the BIPST 2.0, please open a command prompt.  Then browse to the bin folder of the BIPST 2.0.  In my example, I installed to C:\BISupportTool2 so the path is C:\BISupportTool2\BISupport\bin.  Then run the following commands one at a time and let me know the output.


          echo %JAVA_HOME%

          echo %Path% 

          .\java -version

          systeminfo | findstr /I type:

           

           

          Thanks
          Toby 

           

           

          1. Michal Walczak

            echo %JAVA_HOME%
            C:\Program Files\Java\jre6

            echo %Path%
            C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin;C:\Program Fi
            les\Java\jre6\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Win
            dows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Imaging\;E:
            \sapdb\clients\DatabaseStudio\pgm;C:\Program Files\HP\HP BTO Software\lib;C:\Pro
            gram Files\HP\HP BTO Software\bin;C:\Program Files\HP\HP BTO Software\bin\win64;
            C:\Program Files\HP\HP BTO Software\bin\win64\OpC;

            .\java -version
            Error: loading: E:\BI_PLATFORM_SUPPORT_TOOL_2.0_RTM\BISupport\bin\server\jvm.dll

            systeminfo | findstr /I type:
            OS Build Type: Multiprocessor Free
            System Type: x64-based PC

            1. Toby Johnston

              Thanks Michael.  I believe the problem is because JAVA_HOME is set at the system level to an older JVM.  In the next patch, we can fix this by explicitly setting JAVA_HOME in the BIPST batch file that launches the client.  

              However, in the meantime, on your client can you right click my computer, properties, advanced system settings, Environment Variables and remove the JAVA_HOME variable?  Or alternatively, you can try from cmd prompt to unset the JAVA_HOME variable then launch the BIPST from this cmd prompt.

              Let me know how it goes and sorry for the inconvenience.

              Regards
              Toby 

              1. Michal Walczak

                Removed JAVA_HOME variable - not resolved a problem...

                1. Toby Johnston

                  Hi Michal,

                  OK, I'm going to compile a new build for you to test which contains the required updates to the startup batch file.  As soon as it is ready to go, I'll send you private message on SCN with a link.

                  Thanks for your patience.

                  Regards
                  Toby 

                2. Toby Johnston

                  Hi Michal

                  I sent you a private message with the beta build to test.  If you didn't get the message send me an email toby.johnston@sap.com and I can send the link that way.

                  Thanks
                  Toby 

  88. Former Member

    Hi,

    Is there a tool that generates a report with the list of users with its authentication methods, access list of groups/users in each application object, such as folders, connections etc.?

    Thank you

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Flavio, we do have something similar called the Security Analyzer that allows you to export the user/groups permission for a particular object.  However, you want a list of users that shows what objects they have access to?  That could get pretty big I would imagine.   Maybe you could provide some more details about this requirement?

      Thanks
      toby 

  89. Shankar Narayanan SGS

    Great features. Much better than the previous version of Support tools.

    Regards

    Shankar

  90. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    Great tool see much more but if have problem to validate the JMX connection.

    I followed your how to add instruction for the JMX but no validation will be done.

    Do i need to activate more?

    Greetings Stan

     

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Stan, thanks for the feedback.  Does your JMX require user logon?  First thing I would do is go to your Tomcat server, browse to the Java bin folder and launch JConsole.  Are you able to connect with JConsole?

      Also, try to telnet to the JMX port from a command prompt on your BIPST client.

      telnet tomcathostname 8008

      In this example my Tomcat server hostname is tomcathostname and the JMX port is 8008.  If you get a blank screen, then the connection is possible.

      On the Tomcat server you can also use netstat to determine if Tomcat is listening on the JMX port

      netstat -noa | findstr 8008

      This should tell you the process id of the process listening on the JMX port (if at all)

      Let me know how it goes.

      Thanks
      Toby

       

      1. Former Member

        Hi Toby,

        Everything is looking good.

        Telnet on the client give's a blank screen

        On the server the port is open.

        I see no problem.

        Maybe you have some other solutions to look into

        Greetings Stan

         

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Stan,

          Could you please try with jconsole?  

          See below an example where my Tomcat hostname is BIPW08R2 and my port is 8008

          The JMX URL is:

          service:jmx:rmi:///jndi/rmi://hostname:portnumber/jmxrmi

           

          Let me know if this is working. 

          Thanks
          Toby 

          1. Former Member

            Toby

            The JMX URL works in the jconsole however when i fill in the URL the first screen with appears is that the secure connection with ssl failed and to continue with an insecure connection. I press continue

            In the Java properties of tomcat i use your setting:

            -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote

            -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8008

            -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false

            -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false

            But from the tool the validation is failed

            Greetings Stan

             

            1. Toby Johnston

              Hi Stan,

              Is the Tomcat server you are connecting to sitting behind a Network Address Translation (NAT)?

              On the Tomcat server, open a command prompt and run the command

              ipconfig /all

              Then on the BIPST client, ping the Tomcat server by hostname.  Does the IP Address of the ipconfig match the IP Address returned when pinging the server from the BIPST client?

              If so, you need to add one additional JMX property -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=tomcatHostname

              Where tomcatHostname is your Tomcat hostname

              For example:

              -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote
              -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false
              -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8008
              -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
              -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=tomcatHostname

              I have to use this same configuration since my Tomcat server is a VMWARE sitting behind a NAT firewall and it is working just fine

              Let me know if this is the problem.   If not, please reproduce the error while validating and email me the logs from BIPST_INSTALL_DIR\BISupport\logging to toby.johnston@sap.com

              Thanks for your patience.

              Regards
              Toby 

               

               

               

               

  91. Moritz Hoedel

    Hi Tim&Toby,

    As you might know, I already was a big fan of your tool, but Version 2.0 really takes it to the next level.
    I didn't have the time so far to check out all the features, but I can see some very interesting items in the menu (smile)
    Great work! Thanks!!!

    But as usual with big revamps, new issues/questions come up:

    • I also have some trouble to get the Web Application Server Report working.
      The validation of the JMX config in the tool is succesful, jconsole works, too, without issues.
      After testing it multiple times, it became obvious that it works 1 out of ~5 times, but in the other cases I get the
      "Failed to extract application server data from <hostname> on JMX port <port>
      (I used placeholders because of security reasons, the error message gives the real names as it should be).
      That's a bit strange...
    • In the "Server Details" for the Web Application Servers, there is only a field for the HTTP port.
      We don't have HTTP ports configured anymore for our Web Application Servers, due to security reasons.
      As far as I see it is also possible to use HTTPS here. Can you please confirm?
    • In the "SAP HostAgent Settings" for the Web Application Servers, there have to be some logging paths provided.
      • Are they mandatory?
      • It says "It is only required to configure this section if you are using the SAP HostAgent method for log collection..."
        But how can I control which one is used for log collection (HostAgent or Network share method)?
      • If you have multiple ports, you also have multiple logging directories for the same Web app, like
        SBOPWebapp_BIlaunchpad_10.1.1.123_44310
        SBOPWebapp_BIlaunchpad_10.1.1.123_44320
        How shall we handle this?

    Best Regards
    Moritz

  92. Toby Johnston

    Thanks for the feedback Moritz!

    • I also have some trouble to get the Web Application Server Report working.
      The validation of the JMX config in the tool is succesful, jconsole works, too, without issues.
      After testing it multiple times, it became obvious that it works 1 out of ~5 times, but in the other cases I get the 
      "Failed to extract application server data from <hostname> on JMX port <port>
      (I used placeholders because of security reasons, the error message gives the real names as it should be).
      That's a bit strange...

      That is weird. Are you connecting through a proxy or load balancer somehow? Or are you connecting directly to Tomcat? Could you send me the logs from BIPST_INSTALL_DIR/BISupport/logging?

    • In the "Server Details" for the Web Application Servers, there is only a field for the HTTP port.
      We don't have HTTP ports configured anymore for our Web Application Servers, due to security reasons.
      As far as I see it is also possible to use HTTPS here. Can you please confirm?

      The HTTP port is only for reference purposes and to provide a deliniator between multiple Tomcat instances running on the same host. We don't actually make a connection directly to the HTTP port. So, you can use the SSL port instead, that will work ok.
    • In the "SAP HostAgent Settings" for the Web Application Servers, there have to be some logging paths provided.

      • Are they mandatory?

        The logging paths are only used for the E2E Trace Wizard and not the Landscape Analysis Report. It is expecting the local path on that Tomcat server where the web application's logs are stored. For example:

      • It says "It is only required to configure this section if you are using the SAP HostAgent method for log collection..."
        But how can I control which one is used for log collection (HostAgent or Network share method)?

        This is specified at runtime when using the E2E Trace Wizard

         


      • If you have multiple ports, you also have multiple logging directories for the same Web app, like
        SBOPWebapp_BIlaunchpad_10.1.1.123_44310
        SBOPWebapp_BIlaunchpad_10.1.1.123_44320
        How shall we handle this?

        You would create two WAS nodes each with different https ports. Here's an example

         


        Anymore questions or issues, let me know!

        Thanks
        Toby 

    1. Moritz Hoedel

      Hi Toby,

      Thanks for the detailed reply!

      Regarding the JMX issue:
      First I couldn't reproduce it today, thus it seemed that it was a temporary issue in our landscape, but I just tried it for a last time and got the error again.
      I sent the logs to you by email.

      So far there are no more questions, but I guess they will come up in the next weeks (smile)

      Best Regards
      Moritz

       

  93. Moritz Hoedel

    Hi Tim&Toby,

    I found some more things:

    • Alert Summary -> System Alerts -> static.aps.sizing.cmdLineArgs
      We get an alert that -XX:+UseParallelOldGC is missing for one APS, but it's included in the command line parameters of the respective APS.
      It seems that this is not evaluated correctly if the APS is stopped.
    • Alert Summary -> System Alerts -> static.platsearch.MasterIndexLocation
      The error refers to the PS location, but it's accessible.
      Is this error also thrown if the Platform Search Service is included in multiple APSs?
      We still have a stopped one, also having this service.
      When checking the KBA linked with this alert it's referring to a config for multiple PS APSs.
      If the alert is referring to the same, the description in the tool should be adapted, to make this more clear.

    • Alert Summary -> System Alerts -> Authentication alerts
      • authentication.sap.property.DefaultSystem
        Is it really an issue if you don't have any default SAP system set?
        Which one should be set here, if you have a lot of them connected?
        We never did this and don't see any issues caused by this.
      • authentication.sap.property.SSO2DBKeyPasswordBlank
        The password is set in the CMC, STS is working fine. I don't understand why we get this alert
      • authentication.sap.property.UpdateUsers
        Update Roles and Aliases is scheduled and ran successfully.
        I don't understand why we get this.

    I could reproduce these authentication alerts in a report created for another system, too.

    • Alert Summary -> System Alerts -> webapplicationservers.protocolprops.compression
      As far as I know enabling compression is controversial, at least for HTTPS
      Please see CRIME for details.
      Is it recommended by SAP to enable compression also for HTTPS, despite the risks?
      Otherwise the corresponding check should be adapted to reflect this.

    • Semantic Layer -> Orphaned Reports
      For a lot of Reports we get "null" in column "Report Path", which makes it quite hard to find them easily (smile)
      Do you have any Idea where this is coming from?

    Best Regards
    Moritz

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Moritz,

      Thanks for all the feedback.  There are some important points here.  I'm out on holidays until Jan 04.  However, we will definitely address each point asap.  In the meantime, one of the benefits of version 2.0 is that you can customize the alerts.  If there are alerts you don't want to see anymore, you can change the threshold or delete them completely under Preferences–>Alerts.

      Will follow up as soon as I return.  Have a nice holiday!

      Thanks
      Toby 

      1. Moritz Hoedel

        Hi Toby,

        Thanks for your reply.

        No hurry, I just wanted to inform you about this (smile)
        OK, thanks for the info regarding the alerts

        Thanks, I wish you the same!

        Best Regards
        Moritz

  94. Joshua Kuhn

    Hi Moritz,

    Thanks for reporting some of these.  See my responses below for each one:

    Alert Summary -> System Alerts -> static.aps.sizing.cmdLineArgs -> "-XX:+UseParallelOldGC"

    For this one, the system alert is thrown regardless if the server is running or not.  The command line args can be retrieved from the infostore regardless if the server is running, unlike the server metrics.  If you recently added the argument to the command line, make sure you've stopped and restarted the corresponding server since the change.  Until the server starts at least once, the cmd line change isn't committed to the db.  The easiest way to tell is NOT by looking at what shows up in the editable server cmdline textbox in the CMC.  This shows up immediately regardless of what is committed for the server.  Instead, look at the 'server & services' inspection report, click on the correct SIA tab, expand the corresponding server accordion, and validate the command line here.  If you see the alert and its appears here, then there might be a problem.  However, I tested just now and wasn't able to reproduce what you described.


    Alert Summary -> System Alerts -> static.platsearch.MasterIndexLocation

    For this one, the alert is thrown if you have multiple Platform Search service APS's.  Any APS without a Platform Search subservice will not be factored into the equation.  Similar to the above, the running status isn't factored in.  The reasoning behind this is... regardless if you have the one 'running' APS configured correctly, the other APS's which are stopped should also be configured correctly because they have the chance of being started in the future, and thus causing problems.  If you have multiple APS's and it detected a local path, then the alert should be thrown. If APS #2 ever starts, it'll commit any changes locally rather than to the master index location which was previously used.  I'll revisit the description to see if it needs to be altered.


    Alert Summary -> Authentication Alerts -> authentication.sap.property.DefaultSystem  <and>

    Alert Summary -> Authentication Alerts -> authentication.sap.property.UpdateUsers     <and>

    Alert Summary -> Authentication Alerts -> authentication.sap.property.SynchronizeUsers

    I created a JIRA ticket for these. ( BITBITOOL-749 ) These are all user alerts which are defined in the Preferences section of the tool.  I'll talk to the person that created these and verify if they are alerting incorrectly or if maybe some aren't needed.  However, any of the user alerts can be removed from the Preferences > Alert section within the tool if you don't feel its valid in your situation.

    Alert Summary -> System Alerts -> webapplicationservers.protocolprops.compression

    I created a JIRA ticket to review this one. ( BITBITOOL-748 )  We'll work with the internal SAP team that supports the various application servers to get their thoughts and this.  But its quite possible, as you mentioned, we just need to add a SSL check when evaluating this alert.  

    Semantic Layer -> Orphaned Reports

    I've seen the null value displayed as well and just assumed it was for reports stored in the auto-save folder that were never officially saved by a user.  But I'll look into this further. logged under ( BITBITOOL-750 )

     

    In the future, please create a forum post via the BIP Support Tool home page.  There are two links, one called 'report an issue' and another called 'report an enhancement'.  Both are searchable/viewable by others visiting the scn page plus we'll track the status for issues there.  The comments on this page will be harder and harder to follow as it grows.  I'll enter the ones above for you.

    Regards,

    Joshua

     

    1. Moritz Hoedel

      Hi Joshua,

      Thank you very much for your detailed reply and for handling these issues.

      Oh I'm sorry. I saw the "report a bug or issue" link, but I thought it's just generating a comment in this thread.
      Of course I will use the official process in the future.

      Best Regards
      Moritz

      1. Joshua Kuhn

        no worries. All bug/regression posts through the tool are publicly searchable here: http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/remote-supportability. As we get more and more fix requests, it'll help keep everyone informed.

  95. Former Member

    Awesome tool!  Questions pertaining to the Enterprise Alias Manager... I'm looking at aliasing all of my AD accounts with enterprise.  When I use this feature in this tool, it only affects those AD accounts that do not have an enterprise account correct?  In other words, AD accounts that already have an enterprise alias won't have their passwords reset?  Enterprise accounts without AD are left untouched?

    1. Joshua Kuhn

      Hi Rob,

      Correct, (for the Add Enterprise Alias option) any user that already has a secEnterprise alias should be left untouched.  The code loops through each user object, then loops through all aliases for that user.  if enterprise is found, it moves on to the next user.  If it gets through all aliases for a user and doesn't find secEnterprise, then the user is added to a list and eventually updated.  Since it is doing an update to the CMS database, its always a good idea to have a db backup taken just in case.

      The tool also has the option to remove enterprise aliases, in which case it basically does the opposite workflow.  It loops through the users, and any user with an enterprise alias will be added to a list and eventually the alias removed.

      Regards,

      Joshua

  96. Former Member

    Hello Experts,

    The SAP BI Platform Support Tool seems an awesome and much needed tool. My thanks to the development team who put great efforts in putting this together.

    Ok, now coming to my issue...

    We have BOE 4.1 Services on a Physical Machine and the default Tomcat 7 on a virtual machine with Windows Server 2012 R2 on both the servers. We have firewalls in our network and disabling them is not an option for us (sad)

    So I have been successful installing the SAP BI Platform Support Tool, and configuring the SAP Host Agent on both BOE Server and Tomcat Server. However, I'm unable to make JMX work on the Tomcat server. On the Tomcat server, I have the following parameters added to the TOMCAT --> Java --> Java Options

    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8008
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false
    -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
    -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=TomcatHostName

    I copied the 'operations.d' file from BIPlatformSupportTool installation folder to the SAP folder on both the BOE server and Tomcat Server as mentioned in the guide.

    Now on the SAP BIPlatformSupport Tool, I have configured the BOE server node and the Tomcat web app. The BOE Server node is working fine. On the Tomcat web app node, I'm able to validate the 'HostAgentSettings' which is connecting to TomcatHost on port 1128. And on the JMX Settings, I have 8008 as the JMX port and this port is opened on the Tomcat server. But when I try to validate the JMX Configuration, I get an failure message 'JMX Configuration validation failed for this node. Check Port and authentication options and try again'. On checking the firewall logs on the Tomcat Server, I could see connection requests from the SAPBIPlatformSupportTool client machine getting dropped and the ports it is trying to connect seems random. I have gone through the instructions and guide multiple times and I'm unable to understand what I'm missing. Is there any other port (apart from 1128, 8008, 8080, and all other BO required ports) that needs to be opened to validate this JMX configuration?

    I appreciate your help.

    Thanks,

    ilyas

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ilyas,

      Thanks for posting.  You can post your issues on our forum for best support response.   http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/remote-supportability. The comments section here is very large and details can get lost (smile)

      Anyhow, the first thing I would check is to make sure you can connect from the BIPST client to the JMX listening port on the Tomcat host 8008.   One test would be to open a command prompt on the BIPST client and use telnet to test the connection

      telnet TomcatHostName 8008

       

      If you are getting a blank screen then the connection is possible, if you get an error then either the hostname resolution is not working or port 8008 is blocked on the firewall.  Also make sure in the hosts file of the BIPST client, that you have added the TomcatHostName (as used in the -Djava.rmi.server.hostname property) and the NAT IP Address (in otherwords, the IP Address of the Tomcat host that routable from the BIPST side of the firewall)

      Sincerely,
      Toby 

  97. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    Thanks for your response. I have created a discussion on the support community (http://scn.sap.com/thread/3846889).

    Just to answer your questions - Yes, I'm able to telnet from the BIPST client and I have the host file configured on the BIPST client with the TomcatHostName and IP Address.

    I believe my issue is related to firewall as I could see requests getting dropped on the firewall logs of the tomcatserver whenever I try to validate the JMX Settings on the BIPST client.

    Is there any other port that I need to configure and open for the JMX setting?

    Thank you,

    Ilyas

     

  98. Tony Tony

    Toby,

     The user security analyser will help our BO Admin guys immensely -great job.

    Tony

    1. Toby Johnston

      Thanks Tony.  Let us know if there are enhancements you'd like to see.  

  99. Former Member

    Hello, Toby,

     

    I would like to join a circle of those, who thank you for this very helpful tool. So, thank you. (smile)

    But, I have got a question. How can you explain this? (The tool has detected a 32 bit Windows despite the fact, there is a 64 bit one.)

    Thanks.

    Laco

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Laco,

      Thanks for the thanks!  Try browsing in a command prompt to <INSTALL>\BISupportTool\BISupport\bin then run the following commands and let us know what happens / screen output

      set JAVA_HOME=..\
      set Path=.

      echo JAVA_HOME = %JAVA_HOME%
      echo Path = %Path% 

      java -jar .\bitool64.jar -Xms256m -Xmx4g

      Thanks
      Toby 

       

      1. Former Member

        Hello, Toby,

        it works. So, I guess, it is a matter of wrong Java configuration. This is the CMO, so it is not a big deal, because we will migrate it to FMO, soon.

        Thank you. (smile)

         

  100. Arun Chanda

    Hi Toby

    I installed SAP Host agent on all my windows servers (2008R2) , SAPHostExec and SAPHostControl services are running, in the clustered environment and when i try to capture the E2E traces using the BI Support Platform tool 2.0.1 i am encountering the below error. Could you please help.

    "Failed to Validate Host Agent of all BI & Web Application server nodes. Only "Use Shared Folders" option will be available for BI & Web Application log collection until SAP Host Agent is correctly configured."

    Thanks
    Arun  

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Arun,

      This is most likely because you have not copied the operations.d folder to the BI and WAS hosts.  Check steps 5 and 6 under the Getting Started Guide.

      Getting Started Guide (BI running on Windows)

      You also need to setup your Web Application logging directories for each WAS node in your landscape configuration.  There is a demo of the landscape configuration here

      Let me know if your have more questions on this.

      Thanks
      Toby 

       

      1. Arun Chanda

        Your solution worked Toby, but i am having another issue :"unable to gather patch History data from Landscape" See Tracelog for more details.

        Thanks

        Arun

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Arun,

          Go to your landscape configuration, and change the forward slashes under INSTALL DIRECTORY and DEFAULT LOGGING DIRECTORY to backslashes.  Do this for each BI node in the landscape.

          Then try the Patch History again.  Let me know.

          Thanks
          Toby 

          1. Arun Chanda

            Cool, the trick worked, Thanks a ton for responding immediately. Thanks Arun

    2. Toby Johnston

      Hi Arun,

      There have been some important improvements in the E2E Trace Wizard in Patch 2.  I would recommend upgrading your client to 2.0.2 which is released today.

      Cheers
      Toby 

      1. Arun Chanda

        Hi Toby, Thanks for letting me know, i just downloaded the patch 2.0.2 and i will apply the new patch.

        Thanks - Arun

  101. WILLIAM MARCY

    Hi Toby,

     

    It seems that the BI Support Tool No GUI is not available throught the download link. Can you check on your side ?

    Nice job by the way.

    Regards, 

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hey William,

      Can you try the link again?  Let me know if this is not working still.

      Thanks
      Toby 

      1. WILLIAM MARCY

        Working fine ! Thanks a lot. Have a nice week end.

        1. Toby Johnston

          Thanks, you too!

          1. WILLIAM MARCY

            Hey Toby,

            I've downloaded the NOUI Zip file now available and there's the client installation inside. Can you check on your side if I'm crazy...or not (smile)

            Thank you. Have a nice day.

            William

            1. Toby Johnston

              Sorry William.  Looks like I got my wires crossed.  Try this one: https://mdocs.sap.com/mcm/public/v1/open?shr=890nu-CfVKuOI90J6zHYM5x7Kq6CrCSEJ-3yJ44U-rE&obj=7dK52h1UPnv67GOLk2HUBb7s2Z0T1xtNteGXIntKQa0

  102. Thilo Weigel

    Great Tool!

    however we get an error saving the Patch History to PDF:

    Report file file:/C:/Program%20files%20(x86)/SAP%20BusinessObjects/BISupport/binbitool64.jar!/templates/PatchHistory.rpt not found

    Any ideas. We run the Tool with no administrative rights on the BI-Server, but with full access (read, write, execute) to the SupportTool folder.

    Best Regards,

    Thilo

    In addition: I just tested on my local VM with full administrative rights. Still revieve the error from above when exporting Patch History to pdf.

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Thilo,

      Thanks for reporting the problem.  This is a known issue.  We are currently re-writing the export functionality right now and hope to release this soon.  We will likely disable the PDF export until this is ready since it is out of sync with the currently functionality.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

      Regards,
      Toby

      1. Thilo Weigel

        Hi Toby,

        thanks for the information!

        Regards,

        Thilo

      2. Arun Chanda

        Hi Toby

        While exporting the data for Semantic Layer Analysis report, the generated PDF file does not have any information as well(Its empty). One of my developer required all the universe and reports information. I just copied the content into excel from the BI Support Platform tool. I guess you might be aware of this issue as well. It would be great if you can add an option to export the Semantic Layer Analysis Report into an Excel. Appreciate it.

        Thanks

        Arun

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Arun,

          Thanks, yes we are aware and hope to have the new export solution ready soon.  One other trick is to open the HTML file for the desired report in MS Excel and it will automatically create an excel file with the data for you.

          Cheers
          Toby 

  103. Former Member

    Hello,

    I'm just getting started with installing what looks like an awesome tool.  I installed the SAP Host Agent on all four of our servers. 
    Node 1:
    App 1 - CMS - error during validation
    Web 1 - Tomcat - validated

    Node 2:
    App 2 - CMS - validated
    Web 2 - Tomcat - validated

    When I go to Validate the HostAgent Settings I receive an error:
    Error Connecting to HostAgent
    Unable to validate the SAP HostAgent.  This could be due to network connectivity, bad credentials, or misconfiguration. Please try again.

    I tried deleting the service from the offending node and reinstalled the HostAgent again without any issues. but the error still generates when trying to validate.

    Any help/suggestions appreciated. Thanks
    Paul Zuniga

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Paul,

      From the host where the BIPST client is running, open a browser and try to connect to the WSDL address.  For example (where APP1SERVERNAME is your actual server name)

      http://APP1SERVERNAME:1128/SAPHostControl/?wsdl

      What is the result?

      Thanks
      Toby 

       

      1. Former Member

        This page can't be displayed.  Then I realized the URL for the host should use a mgmt. address because of the firewall.  All 4 hosts now validate. Now when I go to the wsdl URL it shows XML.
        Now I'm off to configure JMX for tomcat.

        Thanks Toby

  104. Former Member

    Hi Tim/Tody,

    We have installed the tool and are able to generate a landscape report for our clustered env.

    When we try to generate the End2End trace for a simple actions like CMC/BI login or report launch for a opendocument, we see the "FAILED" message as the final end results.We observe the logs getting generated in the e2e_workdir.

    I are able to validate the SAP host agent and also the JMX port for the Tomcat, we have created a discussion in the form as suggested (http://scn.sap.com/thread/3881629)

    Could you please let us know if we are missing anything in generating the reports.

    Thank you,

    Regards,  Sumith

     

     

  105. Brian Kudera

    I'm having issues with the platform support tool (specifically seems to be the host agent) on my new 4.2 boxes. I understand the Host Agent is now supposed to be integrated in the 4.2 install? Is this correct? The prerequisites still indicate that I need to install the Host Agent separately. Getting Started Guide (BI running on Windows) 

    Perhaps I've overwritten the default agent that came with 4.2 and should have not tried to manually install the host agent?

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hey Brian,

      The BIP 4.2 installer doesn't actually install the SAP Host Agent for you.  However the installer for the Host Agent s included on the install cd under /BusinessObjectser/Collaterals/Tools/SAP_HOSTAGENT

      You can check on your system for the host agent under C:\Program Files\SAP\hostctrl\work.  View the file dev_saphostexec and check the version that you have installed.   For example:

      kernel release 721

      kernel make variant 721_REL

      compile time Mar 21 2016 21:07:50

      patch number 12

      What is the specific issue you are having?  

      Cheers
      Toby 

      1. Brian Kudera

        Thanks Toby for the information re: the inclusion of 4.2. 

        My initial issue was that I was trying to generate a landscape analysis report and the BIPST could no longer communicate with my other nodes.  Upon discovery, I noticed the host agent service wasn't running on my other nodes, nor could I get the agent to start. It said invalid credentials.  Although, I never changed my password or started using a different password. So my thought was that I'd uninstall and reinstall the host agent, but then I read the information about 4.2 and thought that I really messed something up once I manually uninstalled the host agent.  Because then I couldn't get it to reinstall - it'd fail with failed to register error.

        I eventually got the host agent to reinstall successfully (don't know how I finally got it to work, you tend to lose track of your bread crumb of trails after trying many different things that span many different days).  One of the things I tried was uninstalling 4.2 SP02 Patch 01 and reinstalling the Patch. This may have contributed to it finally working as well, not sure.

        Regardless, I can now successfully run a landscape analysis report again.

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Brian,

          In the future, if you have issues with starting the SAP Host Agent, you can try resetting the password using this article: How to reset your SAP Host Agent (sapadm) password

          Or, you can uninstall the Host Agent (with option to delete the sapadm user ) per https://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw73/helpdata/en/34/b28f7c6ec849c4a8c641beedcf90dc/content.htm and reinstall it and this will re-create the sapadm user.

          You should never have to modify or patch your BI Platform to make the Host Agent or BIPST work properly.

          Glad to hear it's working now.  Let us know if you have further questions.

          Regards
          Toby 

           

          1. Brian Kudera

            That's the article I followed to uninstall, and removing the sapadm user.  But it wouldn't reinstall after I followed those steps.

            I was only needing to create a landscape analysis report to submit with an incident to SAP Support regarding an issue I was having with installing 4.2 SP02 Patch 01. 

  106. Bill Walker

    Hi Toby,

    Very nice work on this page.

    Thanks,

    BW

    1. Toby Johnston

      Thanks Bill!!!

  107. Chris Bethune

    Hello,

    I have a few questions related to using the tool against BIP running on UNIX.

     

    1.  For the SAP Host Agent folders, would it have to be able to see those as a UNC path?

     

             2.  More specifically, if I running this tool from a desktop or laptop on Windows is it going to require a need to access the folders via Samba?

     

              3.  If accessing the folders on the server directly isn't an option, would it be acceptable to copy the files in those folders to an alternate location and read them from there?

     

              4.  Does the sapadm account have to be used for Host Agent and the folder paths?  Ideally, if we have multiple BIP Admins we would like to have individual user credentials to use with the tool vs sharing the the credentials of sapadm with multiple people.

     

    Regards,

    Chris

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Chris,

      Sorry, I didnt see your comment until now (not sure why I'm not getting notifications (sad)).  

      Here's the answers:
       

      1.  For the SAP Host Agent folders, would it have to be able to see those as a UNC path?

        See below#2 

               2.  More specifically, if I running this tool from a desktop or laptop on Windows is it going to require a need to access the folders via Samba?

      With the E2E Trace Wizard, you have the option of using either Host Agent or UNC Path (Shared Folders) to collect BI logs and WAS logs.   If you are using the Host Agent, you don't need to create any samba share.  If you want to use UNC (Shared Folders) option, then yes you would need to use samba share.  We did test this scenario and it is working ok. 

                3.  If accessing the folders on the server directly isn't an option, would it be acceptable to copy the files in those folders to an alternate location and read them from there?

      Yes you could do that, however if you have to manually copy files anyways then it might be more advantageous to just do the E2E Trace manually per this kbase  https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1861180

                4.  Does the sapadm account have to be used for Host Agent and the folder paths?  Ideally, if we have multiple BIP Admins we would like to have individual user credentials to use with the tool vs sharing the the credentials of sapadm with multiple people.

      For the Host Agent yes, you should use sapadm account for authentication (on Windows I have seen this account replaced with another Windows account however on Unix I don't think this is possible / supported).  For UNC/Samba shares you can use whichever user account you want to secure the folder.

      I also want to mention that in the next patch (2.0.5) the E2E Trace Wizard has been improved considerably.  Please try this version when it becomes available (early Aug).

      If you have anymore questions or concerns let me know. 

      Cheers
      Toby 

  108. Former Member

    Hi
    I have a question related to largest instances. I am running a report in BI Platform Support tool, for the largest instances. is there a way we can, increase the number, the list shows up to 10 largest instances, I want to get it up to 100. Please advice.
    Thanks
    Loki

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Lokesh,

      Adding an option to parameterize TOP N for Schedule Analysis is targeted for the 2.1 release (coming Q3/Q4 this year)

      Cheers
      Toby 

  109. Stephen Folan

    Hi Toby, Timothy,

     

    Is there a plan to release 2.x as a Command-Line / Program Object so it can be scheduled?

     

    Thanks,

    Stephen

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Stephen,

      Yes!  In the next SP you will be able to schedule to the BI Platform directly from the BIPST client (the client handles the legwork of publishing the program object and scheduling, etc).  Here's a teaser pic (smile)

      1. Atul Divekar

        Hello Toby,

        Do you have any plan to release next SP, we are looking to use scheduling functionality.

         

        Regards,

        Atul Divekar

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Atul,

          Yes, we are done with development of version 2.1 (with Scheduling feature) and are in the final processes required to release the software.  We are aiming for end of the month but it could be early Sept for release depending on how everything goes.  There will be communications on SCN and twitter once the version is released.

          Thanks
          Toby

  110. Alberto Castillo

    Hi,

    I want to install this tool for a test but found something that I probably got wrong or needs to be corrected in the manual.

    In the paragraph  where you wrote how to configure JMX for Tomcat, (I find that the file in the image is not setenv.sh but looks more similar to bobjenv.sh), according to my limited knowledge on Linux, to be able to insert the line:

    JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8008 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false"

    I should put first the command  "export", if I don`t do it, the variable won`t be taken. As you can see below, all other configurations in setenv.sh uses the export command:

     

    echo jmxremote.password detected, will add GC options to Tomcat
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Xloggc:/DBO/sap_bobj/tomcat/logs/gcTomcat.gc"
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -XX:+PrintGCDetails"
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -XX:+PrintGCTimeStamps"
    # Add java options GC to tomcat
    # :GCDisabled
    # End of enable GC for tomcat
    # END USERCONFIG
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/sap/hostctrl/exe
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Dcom.sap.vm.tag=tomcat_cmpcds113"
    #Se adiciona linea sin autenticacion para BI platform tool
    export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8008 -Dcom.sun.manageme
    nt.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false"

    Am I right or wrong?

    Thanks,

    Alberto

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Alberto,

      Technically your right.  However, the JAVA_OPTS variable mentioned in the manual is set in the file setenv.sh.  

      When Tomcat is started by startup.sh, it runs catalina.sh which sources the file setenv.sh into it's shell (see below)

      if [ -r "$CATALINA_BASE/bin/setenv.sh" ]; then
      . "$CATALINA_BASE/bin/setenv.sh"
      elif [ -r "$CATALINA_HOME/bin/setenv.sh" ]; then
      . "$CATALINA_HOME/bin/setenv.sh"
      fi

      Sourcing the variables set in a script has the same end result as exporting the variable from the startup.sh or catalina.sh script.

      Hope it helps to clarify.

      Regards
      Toby 

      1. Alberto Castillo

        Toby, thanks a lot for the clarification, now I understand how it works and why it was like it is in the manual.

        Regards,

        Alberto

        1. Toby Johnston

          It's my pleasure Alberto!

  111. Brian Kudera

    Hey Toby - unable to gather patch history errors... I reviewed comment above and reviewed the recommendation to check that all forward slashes are back slashes in the landscape config, and they are. Any other suggestions on why this error might occur?

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hey Brian,

      Did you deploy the operations files on the server(s)?  Refer to:  Getting Started Guide (BI running on Windows)

      Let me know if you still face an issue

      Regards
      Toby 

       

       

      1. Brian Kudera

        Don't you just love it when people can't follow your wonderfully written instructions?

        Thank you...

         

        Also, publishing of the reports failed yesterday and is still failing today. Not sure if this is a known issue or if I have misconfigured something again?

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Brian,

          Currently the BIPST sends to SAP over SFTP (FTP over SSL).  Maybe your network is blocking outbound access to FTP protocol on port 21?

          The SFTP solution will be replaced soon with a web service which will be a much more accessible option.  

          Regards
          Toby 

           

           

          1. Brian Kudera

            Not blocking outboud on port 21. I used to be able to submit files and I used to get emails back from the system.

            Recently, I changed my portal password. I wonder if it hasn't synced everywhere yet. Thanks for the reply.

            1. Toby Johnston

              Hey Brian,

              I see, maybe the FTP server was temporarily down.  You can test the connection by going to Landscape Tools --> Communications Analyzer then enter IP Address: 169.145.10.10  and port 21 and click test.

              Portal password wouldn't affect the upload.

              Let me know if you still face an issue.

              Thanks
              Toby 

              1. Brian Kudera

                FYI I tried this- the test works, but the upload still fails. Error:

                Publish to SAP failed

                The upload to SAP Predictive Support Alerts system failed. Please check network connections and try again.

                1. Toby Johnston

                  Hi Brian, could you send me the BIPST tracelog under BISupport/bin/logging ?  toby.johnston@sap.com

                   

  112. Alberto Castillo

    Hi Toby,

    Yesterday nigth I was able to restart tomcat for development system and sadly the port did not get opened. Today I found what looks to be the problem so just want to write to you to clarify something else.

    Looking for logs I have found  a catalina.out file where I can see (blue lines):

    INFO: Command line argument: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote
    Aug 30, 2016 8:58:40 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
    INFO: Command line argument: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8008  (here I set port 8008 as per the guide)
    Aug 30, 2016 8:58:40 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
    INFO: Command line argument: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
    Aug 30, 2016 8:58:40 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
    INFO: Command line argument: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false  (here I set no authentication)
    Aug 30, 2016 8:58:40 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
    INFO: Command line argument: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote
    Aug 30, 2016 8:58:40 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
    INFO: Command line argument: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9004  (here the port looks to be override)
    Aug 30, 2016 8:58:40 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
    INFO: Command line argument: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=true  (same happens to authentication)
    Aug 30, 2016 8:58:40 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
    INFO: Command line argument: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false

    So according to logs, seems that I set port 8008 and authentication to false but then another line in the script setenv.sh override this and sets the port to 9004 and authentication to true. Here is the extract from the setenv.sh file my installation has (blue is what the file already have, red is what I wrote):

     

    echo jmxremote.password detected, will add JMX options to Tomcat
    export CATALINA_OPTS="${CATALINA_OPTS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote"
    export CATALINA_OPTS="${CATALINA_OPTS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9004"
    export CATALINA_OPTS="${CATALINA_OPTS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=true"
    export CATALINA_OPTS="${CATALINA_OPTS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false"
    export CATALINA_OPTS="${CATALINA_OPTS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.password.file=/DBO/sap_bobj/tomcat/conf/jmxremote.password
    "
    export CATALINA_OPTS="${CATALINA_OPTS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.access.file=/DBO/sap_bobj/tomcat/conf/jmxremote.access"
    # Add java options JMX to tomcat
    # :JMXDisabled
    # End of enable JMX for tomcat
    # Start of enable GC for tomcat
    # if not exist "/DBO/sap_bobj/tomcat/logs/gcTomcat.gc" goto GCDisabled
    echo jmxremote.password detected, will add GC options to Tomcat
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Xloggc:/DBO/sap_bobj/tomcat/logs/gcTomcat.gc"
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -XX:+PrintGCDetails"
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -XX:+PrintGCTimeStamps"
    # Add java options GC to tomcat
    # :GCDisabled
    # End of enable GC for tomcat
    # END USERCONFIG
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/sap/hostctrl/exe
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Dcom.sap.vm.tag=tomcat_cmpcds113"
    #Se adiciona linea sin autenticacion para BI platform tool
    export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8008 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxr
    emote.ssl=false -Dcom.sum.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false"

    So, the question here is, should I comment the blue lines? or just modify them and delete the red one?

    Regards,
    Alberto

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Alberto, 

      Yes, just delete the red one.  You only need to define these properties once.

      Regards
      Toby 

      1. Alberto Castillo

        Hi,

        Thanks for your help, at the end everything worked fine. Now I will do some tests, probably an stupid question, but  when doing universe consistency check there is no way to save the report. Is this rigth?

        Regards

        Alberto

        1. Toby Johnston

          Not a stupid question as it's not obvious but you can save the output of Universe Analyzer by going to File, Save, Save Landscape Analysis when you have the Universe Analysis results tab selected.  This will save the results in HTML format.

          Cheers
          Toby 

          1. Alberto Castillo

            Thanks again Toby for  your patience and help, and thank you guys for this tool, in just some minutes I was able to get a LOT of information and recomendations for my systems.

            Regards,

            Alberto

  113. Former Member

    Hi Toby 

    Where can I download SAP BI Platform Support Tool 2.0 Patch 5? Thanks. 

    Guillaume

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Guillaume,

      I've sent it off for publishing on Wed so it should be available anytime now.  I'll post the new link asap

      Cheers
      Toby 


    2. Toby Johnston

      Hi Guillaume,

      Patch 5 is available for download now.

      Regards
      Toby 

      1. Former Member

        Hi Toby

        Thank you very much.

         

        Best Regards.

        Guillaume

  114. Alberto Castillo

    Hi Toby,

    I'm having a problem with the Trace Wizard where every time I try to use this functionality, an error "Failed to validate Host Agent in all BI and Web Application server nodes......"

    According to some messages before, you mention that this is a problem with Host Agent version, the problem here is that we are using 7.21 Patch 17 compiled this last August so it is prety new. Also validated that SAPADM has all rights to read or write into /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/operations.d  and that Host Agent is up and running. Logging directory is configured in Landscape Configuration.

    What else could I check?

    Alberto Castillo

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Alberto,

      Firstly, please download Patch 5 as it contains many new features / fixes for the E2E Trace Wizard.  Make sure to update the operations files on your BI / WAS hosts as per the upgrade guide.  Updating to a new version of BIPST 2.x.x

      Regarding the issue, your Host Agent version is fine.  It could be that the permissions are not strict enough on the operations files.  

      Try the following:

      As root run the following commands to set the required file permissions / ownership of the operations.d fiolder
        
      chown -R root /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/operations.d
      chmod -R og-w /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/operations.d 

       

      If you face further issue after upgrading and fixing the permissions, please email me the sapstartsrv.log from /usr/sap/hostctrl/work

      Thanks
      Toby 


      1. Alberto Castillo

        Hi Toby,

        Excellent!! E2E trace worked without problems now after installing the new patch and copying the new operations.d. Also, I had problems also with patch History and now it is working flawlessly.

        Thanks a lot Toby.

        1. Toby Johnston

          Awesome, thanks for the feedback!   

  115. Kim Matthews

    HI Toby - Patch 5 E2E functionality fantastic!  Successfully ran and collected across 8 nodes; small issue when running across 16 nodes.  Very long wait on the final step reverting the BO_trace.ini.  Would you consider adding the name of the node to the status message?  If tool gets hung would be easy to see which node still requires the .ini file revert back to default.   

    Thank you Kim

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hey Kim,

      That's great, thanks for the feedback.  Yes, I could add the name of the node to the status bar, I'll add it to the backlog.  Also, I plan to add the BO_trace value for each server to the Landscape Report so that you can quickly see what this is set to across the landscape.  

      Cheers
      Toby 

      1. Kim Matthews

        Great - I like that suggestion better! Thank you Toby.

  116. Ajay Gupta

    Toby,

        Wanted to add to the wish list of features for the next version of Support Tool.  It would be really nice to have list WebI & AOLAP reports that are dependent on BW Connection and HANA Views. Under Semantic Layer - Connections, I get list of WebI document that depend on BW connection but nothing showing AOLAP related objects.  It would be great if under Dependencies it could also show BW Connection and HANA Views showing all WebI as well AOLAP objects.

    Regards,

    Ajay

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ajay,

      We will look at adding this in the next version (2.1).  Will keep you posted on this.

      Cheers
      Toby 

  117. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    We have the BIPST 2.0.6, configured and successfully connected to our BO server (which has BO Services and Tomcat on one server itself). I'm able to run all the utilities except the END TO END TRACE. 

    I'm able to get to the screen which says LAUNCH Microsoft IE, once the IE is launched and when I select START TRANSACTION, the sent and received bytes continue to show '0' and after 2-3 mins that window disappears. I tried on another machine and I'm running into same issue. I was able to get it to work and collect traces couple of random times.

    Any thoughts how I can resolve this issue?

    I appreciate your assistance.

    Thank you,

    Ilyas Mohammed

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ilyas,

      What version of IE are you running?  Are you using the "Run As Administrator" option?  You may also try to make sure that there are no residual iexplore.exe processes in memory (check in task manager and kill off any iexplore processes)

      Is the problem specific to a particular workflow?  What happens if you just try to trace the logon for BI Launchpad?  Does this work consistently?

      In the past I've seen this happen but usually closing all IE processes and trying again resulted in success.

      Regards
      Toby 

       

  118. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    I have IE11. I'm using the BISupportTool64.bat file which is outside of BISUPPORT folder to launch the BIPST.

    Yes, I'm making sure none of IE processes are running in the task manager.

    This issue is with all the workflows. The sent and receive bytes continues to be '0' and after about 2 mins, that window disappears.

    I even tried rebooting the machine to see if its works, but it didn't.

    Thank you,

    Ilyas

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ilyas,

      Sorry for the delay.  Hope you fared well with the hurricane.  We are still without power in Volusia unfortunately.

      Anyhow, about the issue:

      Can you try testing the sapclientplugin outside of the BIPST?  

      Go to BIPST_INSTALL\BISupport\bin\sapclientplugin then right click on plugin-starter-gui.exe and choose run as administrator.  Then try to record a transaction and see if the sent bytes is showing transmission.

      With this test, we will know if it's an issue with the plugin itself or with the BIPST launching the plugin

      Thanks for hanging in there with this issue.

      Regards
      Toby 

  119. Former Member

    Hi,

    My environment is a 2 cluster nodes in RHEL6 , BI4.2 on each node. I followed instructions to install SAP Host agents,

    but I still get error message when I try to launch E2E  : "failed to validate Host Agent on all BI and Web Application Server nodes. Only 'use shared folders' option will be available for BI and Web Application log collection until SAP Host Agent is correctly configured"

    How can I troubleshoot error message like this ?

    I checked :

    • operations.d deployment on linux hosts
    • host agent deployment on linux host, and lauch of sapadm process
    • log directories for CMC / BIlaunchpad

    Thank you for your help

    Hervé Radix

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Hervé,

      Could you email me the logs from the server where the Host Agent is running?   The log I'm looking for is sapstartsrv.log under the directory /usr/sap/hostctrl/work.  My email is toby.johnston@sap.com

      Also, could you show me the permissions of the operations.d directory.  Browse to /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/operations.d and run ls -al

      Thanks
      Toby 


      1. Toby Johnston

        Hi Hervé,

        According to the Host Agent logs, the client is passing in the wrong credentials

        [Thr 140364318504704] *** ERROR => Invalid Credentials [saphostcontrolweb.cpp 318]

        [Thr 140364318504704] *** ERROR => Webmethod ExecuteOperation ( validate ) failed: Invalid Credentials [saphostcontr 1451]

        In your landscape configuration where you configure Host Agent credentials for each node, are you using sapadm account and correct credentials?  Is this validating successfully?  Also did you configure this for both BI nodes and WAS nodes defined in your landscape?

        Let me know what you find out.

        Regards
        Toby 

        1. Former Member

          Hi Toby

          Thank you very much for your help; you were right about wrong credentials. I've been able to run a scenario , and record it, and anallyze it with GLFViewer. This analyzing tool is very interesting, and I was wondering where I could find documentation around it. For example , do we have to set HIGH trace level during recording ? It's quite hard to navigate through the log data  flow, with event analyzer for example. I would be interested in event analyzer information also , or the log analyzer too.

          Best regards

          Hervé

          1. Toby Johnston

            Hi Herve,

            Have a look at these articles, I think they will help you to better understand how to parse the logs using FlexiLogReader and GLF Viewer and understand the workflow

            1. Former Member

              Hi Toby

              I'm now using E2E and collect glf files.

              I've one question around BO_trace.ini. interaction with E2E : I understood that E2E updated some settings in BO_trace.ini on BI server. I supposed that after scenario run, original BO_trace.ini was restored to set Business Object logs behaviour. But when I look at  :

              <INSTALL_DIR>/sap_bobj/enterprise_xi40/conf/BO_trace.ini , I still see the following content :

              [bi42adm@tlsrbboqde01 conf]$ cat BO_trace.ini

              append=true;keep_num=50;

               

              Should not BO_trace.ini  go back to his original version after the scenario run ?

              Thank you very much

              Regards

              Hervé Radix

              1. Toby Johnston

                Hi Hervé,

                Yes it should restore the backed up version (named BO_trace.ini.bitool.old.  The only situation where it wouldn't is if the wizard crashed / or you closed the client before it could restore the BO_trace.ini.    Did you experience this?  Which version of BIPST client are you using?

                You can restore the original BO_trace.ini by deleting the existing BO_trace.ini and make a copy of BO_trace.original.ini and rename the copy to BO_trace.ini.

                In the latest version of BIPST, there is some additional logic to help prevent inconsistencies.  Please make sure you are using version 2.0.5 and higher.

                Also in the next version (2.1) we provide alerting on BO_trace.ini keep num settings so this would show up as an alert in the Landscape Report if keep_num > 5 in the BO_trace.ini

                Let me know if it is still an issue for you

                Thanks
                Toby 

                1. Dafang Zhang

                  Hi Toby,

                  I have a couple questions related to this very topic (e2e tracing from the Support Tool).  I'm working with an SAP Tech Support engineer to troubleshoot a Promotion Management issue.  The engineer mentioned that we don't need to install the host agent to run the landscape report and the e2e tracing, and when we did that, we got the landscape report; however, we couldn't get any e2e communications between the client and the server - we don't see any bytes sent/received to/from the server after the transaction was started and stopped.  We do have the latest version of the Support Tool (2.0.6), but the tool is published on a Citrix server farm and we can only run from there.  Would the e2e tracing work from the Support Tool without the host agent deployed on the BO server?  Any insight to get the e2e tracing working over Citrix?

                  Best,

                  Dafang

                  1. Toby Johnston

                    Hi Dafang,

                    Long time no talk!  

                    To do an E2E Trace, you don't even need the BIPST.  You can do it manually using the sapclientplugin following this kba https://service.sap.comsap/support/notes/1861180.  In this case you don't need a Host Agent.

                    The BIPST E2E Trace Wizard is meant to automate the steps and backup/override/restore bo_trace.ini configurations  / collect log files from all the hosts in your environment.  In the case of promotion management, you would need to collect logs from 2 or more CMS landscapes but currently, BIPST only targets one environment at a time.  The others (for example the PromMgmt and Destination landscape) you would have to collect the logs yourself.

                    Firstly, you typically need local admin access while running the sapclientplugin (either manually or via the BIPST).  Otherwise the plugin will be unable to create a proxy between IE and the server.

                    To use the E2E Trace Wizard in the BIPST you need to configure your landscape (under Landscape Configuration) to use either a host agent or alternatively configure shared folder directories for each node.  BIPST will use either Host Agent or UNC Path to connect to the BI and application server hosts in your BI landscape according to the settings specified on step 2 (use Shared Folders or Host Agent) 

                    Let me know if you are looking for more information on this.

                    Regards
                    Toby 

                     

                     

                    1. Dafang Zhang

                      Thanks Toby, very insightful!  I love this tool that integrates so many other tools so that we only need to publish the BIPST to the Citrix server.  At this point, the sapclientplugin did get launched via the published BIPST app over the Citrix session, but it doesn't seem to be able to send/receive bytes to/from the server.  Your message made it clear that we do need to use the UNC patch to connect to connect to the BI and application server hosts, since we don't the Host Agent install on the BO node.  However, the issue here is that our deployment is a RHEL6-based, we don't have Samba installed on the Linux nodes, either.  So, in our case, from the BIPST can't really access the BO server via UNC path.  Any other ways to get the BIPST to connect to Linux-based BOE with the network share?

                      Regards,

                      Dafang

                      1. Toby Johnston

                        Hi Dafang,

                        The zero bytes sent/received issue is an issue with the sapclientplugin and most likely not the BIPST specifically.  Have you tried running the sapclientplugin on this citrix host without the BIPST (per this kb article https://service.sap.comsap/support/notes/1861180 )?   Are you able to run the sapclientplugin by using the option "Run As Administrator"?

                        Regarding unix hosts, the BIPST does support these platforms for log collection.  However, you would need to have either samba (for UNC/Shared Folders option) or Host Agent in order for the BIPST to be able to access the log folders.

                        Regards
                        Toby 

  120. Anonymous

    Hi Toby, the download link for "Command-Line / Program Object (NOGUI version)" is not more available. Appears the message: "Public access to folder expired". Can you put it accessible again?

    Thank you!

    Angelica

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Angelica,

      Sorry for the delay, I've been out on vacation.  The NOUI link is updated now.  Also, we will be releasing a new command line and scheduling option for 2.1 early next year.

      Cheers
      Toby 

  121. Derek Fox

    Hi Toby

    Can you please put a digital signature on the BISupportToolSetup.exe installer as some organizations have put in place security restrictions that any software that does not have a digital signature will not be allowed to be installed.

    Regards

    Derek

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Derek,

      Thanks for raising this concern.  The BIPST installer is actually not an installer but just a self-extracting zip file.  If you download from the SAP download center, there is an md5 checksum which can be used to validate the software package. 

      However, this is a good idea and we will look at adding this to the next big release (version 2.1).

      Cheers
      Toby

  122. Deborah Tolley

    Hi Toby,

    Was a couple of versions behind and just updated from 2.0.4 to 2.0.7.  Excited to see the addition of using a random password and to disable new aliases to the Enterprise Alias Manager.  But, have a few questions:

    1)  Is the same random password used for all alias created at the same time (if I create aliases for 100 users in group X would they all get the same random password) or does each alias gets its own random password?  If it's the former, any possibility of doing the later in the future as creating multiple accounts, even if they are disabled, all with the same password would be a violation of our security rules.

    2)  If a user already has an alias and is a member of the WinAD group being updated, will another alias be created, or will the existing alias be updated, or will it be ignored - nothing added/changed?

    Thanks,

    Deb

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Deborah,

      1.  Originally, this is what I had intended to have a random password for all generated aliases however it was coded to use the same random password for all aliases.  This has since been fixed so every alias has a different random password and this is scheduled to be release in version 2.1.  If there is urgency for this let us know and maybe we can get you a beta build with this update added in.
      2. Ignore.  f an Enteprrise alias exists already for the user, the BIPST Alias Manager will skip the user and not update / create another alias

      Cheers
      Toby 

      1. Deborah Tolley

        Thanks for the info, that's great news.  There is no urgency on the pword fix, but if you need testers, will be happy to help.

  123. Erik Sabol

    Hi Toby,

    my question is regarding E2E trace functionality in BI Platform Support Tool - I am using version 2.0.7 on Windows. All the configuration has been setup (AC_tool) plus additional configuration as described in the manual for BIPST (operations.d, etc...). I am able to collect all the metrics and reports from BI and also Tomcats. However, we are facing an issue with Promotion Management web application and I was trying to execte E2E traces via BIPST.

    All the prerequisites have succeeded under Landscape Configuration and all has been validated. Under Step 1 of E2E Trace Wizard I was able to choose the landscape,  in Step 2 I have confirmed settings, in Step 3 SAP Client plugin window has appeared and I was able to launch Internet Explorer. However, after you launch Internet Explorer, the active SAP client plugin window should disappear and a new window with activated fields should launch again. In my case, there is no window launched at all and basically cannot trace anything as I am not able to Start Transaction,.. It just disappears and never launches back again. I have tried to launch SAP Client plugin manually from BIPST folder structure and it was working but I had to do all steps manually as described in KB 1861180. I am using Internet Explorer 10 (native on Window Server 2012). I have also downloaded the latest 32-bit SAP Plugin Client plugin [KB 1435190] but that was failing within BIPST workflow as well. I am running BIPST as Administrator and my domain user which I entered in Step 2 has Administrative rights (included in Administrators group) across the landscape of involved servers.

    I could strangely not find any traces of errors either in BIPST or OS. Anyway, I managed to collect E2E traces manually, but just letting you know about this issue. I might test that further with BIPST as it's very practical and you did a good job there:)

    Erik.

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Erik,

      Thanks for reporting this issue.  To run the BIPST client, are you right clicking run as administrator?  If so, try just running the BIPST client as the domainuser you are logged on to the Windows host with (without the right click run as administrator).  You may need to reconfigure your landscape configuration if this is the case (since we depend on the user home directory for persisting the landscape configuration).  Since we are switching the context of the user account "during run as administrator for the sapclientplugin step), it's best to just be logged on as a regular user when running the BIPST client.

      One other option you can do as an alternative is to uncheck "Use integrated SAP Client Plugin".  Then when get to step 3, just manually start the SAP Client Plugin (right click run as on the plugin starter exe) from the BIPST folder.  On step 4, if your BusinessTransaction.xml does not automatically load, then browse to the location of your BusinessTransaction.xml to load it manually.  Then continue with the log collection and it should work.  (note that currently the wizard can only collect from one landscape at a time so not ideal if you need logs from src and dest systems involved in the promotion, we will add the option for multiple landscapes in the future).  Does the sapclientplugin work in this scenario?

      Let me know how it works out.  I'm definitely very interested in making it work for you and would be willing to do a citrix gotomeeting if you face further trouble.

      Cheers
      Toby 

       

       

  124. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    I am having an issue downloading the tool.  I getting prompted for my S-User and Password during the download, but it does not seem to be authenticating to allow me to install. 

    Thanks,
    James 

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi James,

      Can you try to browse for the software in the Software Download Center and download from there?  Refe to:  How to download from the Software Download Center

      Also, do you normally download software using this S-USER?  There are no restrictions to download the software except your S-USER needs to general download permissions.  You might need to contact your super user to have them grant download rights on the software download center.

      Let me know how it goes.

      Regards
      Toby 

  125. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    Support tool and The step by step configuration wiki that you have created is something called as Phenomenal work that you have done. Just wanted to appreciate your efforts to make the stuff so easy for US. 

    Cheers,

    Mahak

  126. Michael Hamm

    Hi Toby,

    for BIPST 2.1 it is stated on this page that it will be released in Q1. What is the status? Is there a planned features list? (smile)

    BR,

    Michael

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Michael,

      Feature development is done and we are in the product release and QA phase now.  Should be early Q2 if all goes well.

      This week I'll post a blog on the SCN explaining all the new features and functionality, I'm happy to say we have implemented almost all of the customer requested enhancements made during 2016 (smile)

      I'll post back once the blog is released.

      Cheers
      Toby 

      1. Michael Hamm

        Thanks Toby for the quick reply! What you have written about the enhancements sounds promising (this compensates the later release (wink) )

        BR,

        Michael

         

      2. Roberto Wrembel

        Looking forward to use version 2.1 and I am impressed that all customer request are inside.

  127. Kim Matthews

    Hi Toby - upgraded BOBJ to 4.2 sp3p5 are the agents installed from Diagnostic Agent 7.4 compatible?  

    Thank you Kim 

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Kim,

      Yes, the Host Agent (7.21) included with Diagnostic Agent 7.4 is compatible with BIPST.

      Cheers
      Toby 

  128. Alexandra Cristina Alstanei

    Hi Toby

    I am trying to install the BI Platform Support Tool on our Production copy. I managed to do all the needed configuration on the server, however, when I get to validating JMX Settings, I am getting an JMX Validation error: "JMX configuration validation failed for this node. Check port and authentication options and try again.". I can confirm that the password is correct, the HostAgent Settings have been validated, the port that I am using is free (so, it can be used) and there is no Firewall blocking the communication.

    Also, there is nothing logged in my Tomcat logs. Please, note that using the same method I managed to configure BI Platform Support Tool for DEV, QA and Sandbox.

    The OS that the system is installed on is Linux x86_64.

    Can you suggest what is wrong?

    Best regards,

    Alexandra Alstanei

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Alexandra, 

      Could you send me the BIPST logs from BISupportTool/bin/logging?  You can send to my email toby.johnston@sap.com

      I'll look forward to your mail.

      Thanks
      Toby

  129. Former Member

    Hi Toby,

    I downloaded the 2.0.8 version which seems to have been released today. I extracted it and ran the BISupportTool64.exe using admin account. The installer won't start and the exe file just disappears from the folder. I have admin rights on my laptop, and I tried to run the installer from different locations and it is still the same issue. I'm trying to install it on a 64 Bit Windows 10 laptop.

    Can you please provide me any tips on how I can get this tool installed?

    I appreciate the help.

    Thank you,

    Ilyas

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ilyas,

      I confirmed the media downloaded from the Software Download Center is installing ok.  It sounds like you may need to add BISupportToolSetup.exe to trusted software list as it's usually an antivirus type program that is deleting the file.  Go to your antivirus in your system tray and check there then add it to your trusted list.  I am using McAfee here and do not have any issue.  Let me know how it goes.

      Thanks
      Toby

    2. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ilyas,

      I wanted to follow up and make sure this is resolved.  Feel free to email me at toby.johnston@sap.com if you want to take this conversation offline.

      Thanks
      Toby

      1. Former Member

        Hi Toby,

        You are right, I was able to get it installed on other machines and later on mine too. I think it was something to do with the antivirus.

        Thank you very much for your help on this.

        Thanks,

        Ilyas

        1. Toby Johnston

          Ok thanks for the update, glad to hear!

  130. Brian Kudera

    I'm working on a HIGH incident with support, and they requested an E2E trace. I utilized BIPST (version 2.0.5) to generate the E2E trace and sent them the zip file that the tool generated.

    They said this was incorrect and that I cannot use the BIPST to generate an E2E trace, and that instead I have to follow Note 1861180 to correctly do an E2E trace??

    It would be nice if the differences between this note and what is included in the Support Tool could be shored up. I lost two days in processing a HIGH incident because of this discrepancy.

    Just some feedback that I hope is constructive.

    Thank you.

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Brian,

      Sorry for the confusion.  They are mistaken, the E2E Trace in the BIPST is the same as KBA 1861180 except that BIPST automates the log collection (I also wrote that KB Article).  Did they say what exactly was missing from the logs?  Could you email me the incident number so I can follow up with them? toby.johnston@sap.com

      Thanks
      Toby

      1. Brian Kudera

        I was afraid that was the case, but it is difficult to tell support that I don't trust them. (smile)  Would appreciate if you could follow up to close the gap. He advised the BusinessTransaction.xml document was not included in the compressed folder, but it definitely was. Regardless, he said I should not be using the E2E tool out of BIPST. (sad) Incident 235685 / 2017

        1. Toby Johnston

          Thanks Brian, I checked the E2E you generated from BIPST and it does look complete.  I sent him an email to find out why he told you that.  I think it's a training issue or something along those lines.  Will try to rectify

          1. Simone Caneparo

            There are some situations when passport does not kick in and some information are not grabbed, this is documented in Note 2300368 

            In that case there is the need to manually set the server properties for trace log details to high.

             

            1. Toby Johnston

              Thanks Simone.  I don't think this is the case for Brian but good to know about this issue.

  131. Atul Divekar

    Hello Toby,

    Is there any way to compare two environment landscape report?

     

    Regards,

    Atul Divekar

    1. Joshua Kuhn

      Hi Atul,

      The 'Change Analysis' feature was developed to compare two different extractions from the same landscape.  This feature is basically doing a text comparison between the various data points.  The tool should allow you to select two different data xml's from two different systems as long as similar reports were selected during the extraction (IE server & services, content, etc) but i'd imagine EVERYTHING will show as different in this scenario.  The original intent of this comparison feature was to compare the same landscape at two different moments in time.

      Let's say you start to notice a new problem and you know some settings were changed a few weeks ago.  Using the tool to go back and compare an extraction from a month ago to today's extraction might help uncover those changes.

      We have spoken about the ability to compare two different landscapes but this hasn't made it into the current product just yet.  But it is on the drawing board. 

      Regards,

      Joshua

  132. Atul Divekar

    Thanks Joshua..

  133. Brian Kudera

    Hello team! Any update on 2.1? Deploying a new system and wondering if I should load up 2.0 or wait until 2.1.

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Brian,

      Development is finished.  We are just waiting for security validation team and other release processes to conclude then it will be released.  Current RTC date is October 31 if all goes according to plan.

      Should also mention that upgrade to 2.1 is automatic.  Same as applying a patch version for 2.0.

      Cheers
      Toby

  134. Garrick Hall

    I am in the process of replacing the workstation I use for BIPST.  I have SIX different BOBJ clusters I connect to and use the tool with.  In the documentation for application updates, it states "Since all your history data and preferences are stored in your user roaming profile, this information will remain after the update. ".  Is there a map of where this information is stored and what is used so that I can copy my existing BIPST profile to the new workstation, eliminating the need to reconfigure each system and connection?

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Garrick,

      In the current version 2.0, you can copy the folder C:\Users\<YOURUSERID>\AppData\Roaming\BISupportTool to the new client to accomplish this.

      Regards
      Toby

       

  135. Garrick Hall

    Great Toby, 

    Thank you for the quick response.  Looking forward to 2.1 and the new enhancements coming!

  136. Rodrigo Garcia Naranjo

    Hi Toby,

    I'm also looking forward to 2.1 version so I can execute it through Linux server, since currently I have one concern, that I'll explain below.

    The BI Platform application which I want to connect from my computer it's on a Linux server that I cannot reach directly, to access it, I need to use a Linux "jump server" through a VPN, and once inside the jump server, I can connect(ssh) to the target BI server.

    From this worflow, the way I connect to the Web Application Server is using one Proxy to the "jump server", and connect directly from my machine to the target BI server using a tunnel from my localhost to Tomcat Port through Proxy, so that way I can access the WAS from my computer to the Target BI App. I tried tunneling CMS port, but is not working, Is not allowing me to connect to the CMS, showing the message "Could not reach cms "'ocalhost:6400' Specify the correct host and port and check for network issues". Although I can telenet CMS port from my computer successfully.

    ¿Do you have any idea on how can I make a successful connection? Not sure if it the issue could be that the tunnel and proxy configured to the target BI Server is trough IPv6, that's the only way I can connect to te server. If there's not another way, I should wait for the new release to execute the Support Tool directly from BI Server.

    Thanks for any feedback, and comfirming such a great tool!

    Regards!

    Roy

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Roy,

      Try adding the hostname / FQDN of the CMS server and the external IP Address into your /etc/hosts file on the BIPST client.  Also, you need to make sure that the CMS request port is also open on your firewall.  Refer to:  https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2151044

      Let me know if it helps.

      Thanks
      Toby

       

       

  137. Former Member

    Hey Toby, the link for NoGui version doesn't work anymore ... (sad)

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Enzo,

      Should be fixed now.

      Thanks
      Toby

      1. Former Member

        thanks for the reactivity :D!

  138. Former Member

    Hello Toby,

    We have recently upgraded our BI sandbox environment to BI 4.2 SP04 patch3. Before the upgrade, we were able to connect to our BI system with the Support tool (BIPST 2.0.8) and landscape report and other utility were working absolutely fine. Post the upgrade the tool is not able to reach the CMS. Everytime we provide the login credentials, the message 'Internal error' flashes and the connection doesn't get established. Our BI environment is on linux and we are trying to connect it from other windows machine. As it was able to establish the connection earlier, so doesn't look like any external connectivity issue.

    Thoughts.

    Regards,

    Shashank

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Shashank,

      In BI 4.2 SP4 there were some changes to the SDK and Corba which provide additional security.  In version 2.0.8 we upgraded the SDK to this latest version in order to support these changes.  Can you double check that you are indeed using version 2.0.8?  (check help / about in the BIPST client)

      Also, are you using Corba SSL?

      Let me know what you find.

      Thanks
      Toby

       

      1. Former Member

        You got me. I had updated it before we started the upgrade, but seems something wrong happened and it didn't get updated. The patch was still showing as 2.0.7.

        I tried updating it again and now its showing 2.0.8. Connection is working fine post update.

        Thank you so much for your prompt response and sorry for the confusion.

        Regards,

        Shashank

        1. Toby Johnston

          No worries, that's good news!

          Cheers
          Toby

  139. John Clark

    I thought I ran across a function that looked at the java heap settings for all of the Business Objects services and compared it to the physical memory on the server.  Was that not in the BI Support Tool?  I can't find it anywhere.  I'm using BI Support Tool 2.0.8.  I'm looking at a BI4.2sp4 environment.

    1. Brian Kudera

      Coming in v2.1!! Very excited for this as well.

      Maybe Toby will give us an update on the status of 2.1. The last update indicated it should be released around Nov 1.

      1. John Clark

        Drat, I need it now.  Trying to get the RAM increased on our servers and our server team is being difficult.  BI4.2sp4 uses 12.5 GB just sitting there and they can't understand why we need to increase our RAM from the 16 GB the server has.

        1. Brian Kudera

          John, if you have the 8000 minimum SAPS requirement from the PAM guide as well as your sizing results which should show how much RAM your servers should have to run, then that should be enough evidence for the server teams?

        2. Chris Bethune

          Another tedious option for you is to compare PID in Task Manager to what's in the CMC and that will tell you what server is using the resources.

          A few explanations and pieces of info I've used to build a case with tough server teams.  They often need to be educated in a respectful way on how the system works as it probably doesn't align with the typical application profile they see where they can rely on average usage.  You have probably been a responsible administrator and made sure your system is making the best use of available resources.  You are likely protecting the system and your users from degrading the performance by exceeding more resources than you have available to you by having configured the sizing according to SAP guidelines. 

          • 16GB is called out in the Product Availability Matrix as suitable for a POC type of system.  That alone kind of makes a case for providing more resources for a real world environment.
          • BOE is heavily reliant on JVM processes that consume memory in heaps; thus average usage of resources is not an accurate reflection of max usage (which is what you are looking to size for).
          • Look at "Metrics" on your Servers in the CMC and the number of full garbage collections.  The higher the number, the more you are reclaiming resources and thus an one example you may need to allow for an increase on your XMX value on that particular server.  
          • I gather you have your XMX values set so that you won't exceed what is available to you.  Because of that it's possible you'll never exceed the sum of all those XMX values because you have to a degree "throttled" how much the system can potentially use.  Thus you don't ever trigger a need for increased resources on standard IT performance monitoring tools.  In short they should be looking for you to regularly exceed a maximum X% of what is available rather than how much you use on average.
          • Use the sizing tool and compare that to what you have set and that can give you an idea of how much you are short versus how it should be sized.
          • If you collect messages and tickets from your organization of performance issues that's also a good indication you could use more "horse power.". Monthly close cycles in the business are typically good times to be on the look out for the worst case scenario on usage and when you're likely to see complaints.

          I'll leave it to the SAP team to give the official and vetted answers but perhaps the info helps.  Perhaps it's all info you are well aware of already.  I may be slightly off on some of my points but I think it probably gives you a general idea.

           

          1. Toby Johnston

            I think these are good suggestions by Chris.

            To add to this:

            The most accurate way would be to pull a historical record of performance from BI Monitoring or Introscope (CA APM Introscope Monitoring Setup Guide for BI Platform 4.x (Windows)

            This way you can see, during peak times how much heap are your APS using, how often are the JVMs garbage collecting, how much RAM / Virtual Memory is your host consuming,  Just because you are only currently at 12.5gb of RAM out of 16gb doesn't mean the JVMs aren't garbage collecting constantly to try and free up enough memory to meet the needs (this situation will cause very poor performance even though server is not technically out of memory). 

            With Introscope, you can export these historical charts and put them in a slide deck or document.  I think this would be the best way to provide a convincing business case to aquire more resources

            PS.  A performance analysis based on Introscope / Monitoring is next on our list of features for the next version of support tool (2.1 Patch )

          2. John Clark

            Thanks for the tips Chris.  Yes, we are facing a serve team that only looks at averages.  They also want to look at our BI4.1 servers and say that is all we need for our new BI4.2 servers.  From our initial installations, BI4.2 uses more RAM than BI4.1 just sitting at idle.  I had this same issue with them when we upgraded from XI3.1 to BI4.1.  They couldn't understand why the BI4.1 servers needed 16GB of RAM when the XI3.1 servers were only running on 4GB.

            • I plan on pointing out to them that our servers are only configured to the minimum for a POC type of system and not a Production system.
            • How many garbage collections is considered to be "high"?  I'm sure this is a subjective value and I will most likely get a response of "That really isn't that high".
            • Our XMX values were just left at the default that the Configuration Wizard set them.  I haven't added them up but I expect that the total would exceed the physical memory on the servers.  We just happen to not be using high memory on multiple services at the same time.  I am going to go through these and add them up.
            • I've been running through the sizing tool this morning.  It's a little difficult to get good results from that tool.  For example, we have 3,195 users in our Production system but we only have an average of 874 unique logins per month.  The other complicating factor is that those 874 average unique user logins account for an average of 117,120 actual logins during the same time period.  Which of these numbers do we use for calculating "Active Concurrent Users"?  I suspect that many of these logins are our scheduling interface but I'm not sure how the sizing tools takes scheduling into account.  There is no reference to scheduling in the documentation for it at all.  I have trouble putting enough faith in this tool to use it to justify our hardware.
              Also the sizing tool says it's been updated but there are hints that it might not have been.  I downloaded the current copy and it still lists Crystal Reports as being version 2011.  If the tool had indeed been updated for BI4.2, I would expect it to either include all versions or to list Crystal Reports as version 2016.

      2. Toby Johnston

        Brian is right, looks like we added this in 2.1 only. (hard to remember, we've been working on 2.1 for so long (smile)).  I would recommed just running the 2.0 landscape report with server & services and hardware summary.  Then just add up the Xmx from all APS on that node and compare that to the physical RAM available on the server.  

        As far as the release, I was hoping for November 1st but unfortunately other teams that do validations could not get us scheduled in time so it caused more delay.  But the good news the last validation is happening over the next two weeks,  Once we pass this then we will move forward with the release decision meeting and will be able to publish the software on the Software Download Center. 

        I also have the 2.1 wiki page almost done.  I'll be swapping out the old with the new over the next two weeks and you will be able to see exactly what is included in the new version.  There's a lot of great new stuff!

        Cheers
        Toby

         

         

  140. Ilias Fytrakis

    Dear Toby,

     

    Initially I would like to thank you and the rest of the team for providing us this valuable tool.

     

    Secondly, I would like to ask you some questions about 'Landscape Tools' -> 'Universe Analyzer':


    1.) In a production environment we have run Universe Analyzer with 'Convert Universes' option checked. The overall progress was quite slow, so we have stopped this operation manually. Since then, a folder named '_toDeleteTempConvertedUnx'  has been created under Universes root folder, which contains all universes in unx format. Also in the Dependencies of the newly created unx universes, we can see Business & Data Security Porfiles. Is this normal?

     

    2.) Is it safe to delete the aforementioned folder?

     

    Thanks in advance for any answer.

     

    Kind regards,

    Ilias Fytrakis

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ilias,

      Thanks for the feedback.  Yes normally, this folder would get cleaned up but it sounds like you killed off the client before it completed this operation.  You should be able to safely delete this temp folder.

      In the new version 2.1 you now have the option to select only one or more Universe to analyze.  This way, it may be possible for you to now take advantage of this tool.

      Cheers
      Toby

  141. Brian Kudera

    How do we search for existing enhancements submitted and the status of the enhancement?

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Brian,

      We are looking to get on to the new Innovation site (the new Idea Place) where you can search and upvote, etc.  Until then, if you could let me know which enhancement request I will check on it for you in our JIRA system.

      Thanks
      Toby

      1. Brian Kudera

        Thanks Toby- the ability to change alert threshold by node (CMS & web tier node have less RAM requirements than proc/lumira node).

        1. Toby Johnston

          Hi Brian,

          We are halfway there.  In a complex alert you can filter on SIANODE ID but RAM is not exposed as a metric yet (currently you can only alert on BI metrics and settings, not available RAM in complex alert).

          Will prioritize this for the next patch.  Here's the enhancement id: BITBITOOL-1505

          Thanks
          Toby

           

  142. Joshua Kuhn

    Hi Brian,

    Can we have a chat about this when you have some free time?  As Toby mentioned, we can probably look into this in one of the upcoming patches.  But i'd like to know more about the alert you're looking to create or alter.  If you're available this week, please email me a day and time.  Otherwise we can setup a time that works for you after the holidays.

    Regards,

    Josh  (joshua.kuhn@sapns2.com)

  143. Chris Bethune

    I personally would like to be able to modify the storage threshold for the FRS to maybe use a percentage of what is available or a specific value.  Several orgs I have worked with can be a bit tight on the space they will provision.  This can result in a situation where you actually have plenty of storage based on actual growth rate but is outside the range of the tool's alert.  I've found myself having to explain why I have alerts even though I am in reality within an acceptable range.  Some understand it's not always an exact science; others unfortunately do not.  Alternatively, some mechanism to acknowledge the alert and add an explanation of why it is different in the specific environment would also be good as far as I am concerned.  It would be nice to able to provide recipients of a completed landscape report showing a "clean bill of health" that acknowledges the alerts were fully considered.  I also completely understand that some alerts simply must stand as they are in order to maintain their integrity.  In fact in many cases, it has helped me deal with a tough infrastructure admin that does not want to give up the game needed hardware resources.  It can be a double edged sword at times I suppose.

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Chris,

      Thanks for the feedback.  We understand that some alerts do not fit all customer situations.  Some alert customizations might be needed to meet the "clean bill of health" requirement.

      If you go to Alerting → User Alerts you can tweak the thresholds to meet your needs.

       

      Let me know if this doesn't address your address.

      Thanks
      Toby

  144. Atul Divekar

    Hello Toby,

    I am having an issue downloading the tool.  I getting prompted for my S-User and Password during the download, but it does not seem to be authenticating to allow me to install. I am having super admin privileges for my S id.

    Then i tried to download software from SAP SoftwareCenter and i got 73554900102000001334 file which is 2.0.7, but i require 2.0.8 coz i am using BI 4.2 SP4

    Regards,

    Atul DIvekar

     

     

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Atul,

      Are you able to download other BusinessObjects software (such as SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.2) with your S-USER account?  

      What happens if you manually browse to the file in SAP Software Download Center?  Refer to this wiki page: How to download from the Software Download Center . Are you able to see the file there or is the folder missing? (this would indicate a permissions issue)

      If you want to reach out to me directly at toby.johnston@sap.com I will be happy to help you get access if there's something missing from your S-USER account.

      Thanks
      Toby

  145. Doug Bonomo

    The direct download link no longer seems to work.  And searching for 'platform support tool' in the support portal software area yields 3 sections, which then lead to 'no data' folders, which are then empty.

  146. Ajay Gupta

    Toby,

        Would it possible to update the Authentication Wizards > SAP > NEW Entitlement System to read the SAPUILandscape.xml configuration file.   Currently it looks for saplogon.ini or manual entry in order to work.   The SAP Gui workflow has changed in ver 7.3, where all the information is now stored in SAPUILandscape.xml

     

    Ajay

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ajay,

      We have a sprint meeting today.  Will discuss with the team and let you know.
      Thanks
      Toby

    2. Toby Johnston

      Already discussed with the auth wizard developer.  We will add this for 2.1 Patch 6 (eta 2 weeks ish)

    3. Toby Johnston

      Hi Ajay,

      This has been added now per your request and available in latest patch 6.

      Cheers
      Toby

  147. Ajay Gupta

    Thanks Bud,

           Awesome job, see you at SAPPHIRE

    Ajay

     

  148. Colm OMahony

    Using BIPST 2.1, I'd like to use AD authentication with the Landscape tools but I get a message, "The necessary java options have not been found".

    Can anyone let me know what java options are required. I can't find any reference in the documentation.

    Thanks,

    Colm.

    1. Toby Johnston

      Hi Colm,

      In the BIPST client, when you select Win AD authentication on the CMS logon dialog you will see an "i" icon appear.  Click on this icon and it will pop out instructions for setting up Win AD configuration on the client.  Let me know if you have questions.

      Regards
      Toby