Successfully Migrating to SAP BusinessObjects XI 4.1

Successfully migrating to
SAP BusinessObjects 4.1

SEE FARTHER. GO FASTER.
2502 North Rocky Point Dr. Suite 650 | Tampa, FL 33607 | O: 813.968.3238 | www.ccgBI.com
Contents
Evolution of BI
• Top reasons to upgrade to 4.1 platform
• Reasons to convert licensing to BI suite
Upgrade Methodology and Process
• Milestones
• General Process
Case Studies
• Common Challenges
• Lessons Learned
• Customer success stories
Upgrade Complexity Packages
• Rapid vs. Complex
• Helpful Resources

Evolution of BI
Top Reasons to Upgrade to SAP BI 4.1

• SAP Business Objects Enterprise 5.x/6.x & CE9.x/10.x = 2009 or before
• SAP Business Objects XI R2 = June 2010
• SAP Business Objects XI 3.0 = March 2013
• SAP Business Objects XI 3.1 (SP7) = December 2015
End of Mainstream Maintenance Dates:
• SAP Business Objects XI 3.0 = March 2015
• SAP Business Objects XI 3.1 (SP7) = December 2017
End of Support Dates:

Top Reasons to Update to SAP BI 4.1

Enterprise Wide
• Trusted data discovery
and self service
• Support for corporate
BI journalists and
authors
• Improved user
adoption
• Mobile access
• Embedded analytics in
processes
• Visualization
technology
Technically Mature
• User activity
monitoring
• Cloud ready
• 64-bit support and
improved sizing
• Big Data ready
• System configuration
wizards
• Interoperability
• Right-to-left language
and display support
Lowering Cost & Risks
• Extensive audit trail
• Alerting
• SAP quality and security
standards
• Hot backups
• Workflow option for
ensuring governance
and compliance

Evolution of BI
Reasons to Convert to BI Suite

SAP has simplified the latest licensing model HOWEVER…
1. Customers are under no obligation to convert to the latest
license model
2. License models are not version specific
3. Customers of any license model can upgrade their software to
the latest version of the software as long as they are on the
maintenance

Methodology & Process
Upgrade Milestones

Upgrade Milestones
Milestone 1 M2 M3 M4
Planning
Design and Prep
Implementation
Cutover
Go Live

Upgrade Milestones
PLAN
DESIGN
& PREP
IMPLEMENT CUTOVER GO LIVE
• Assessment
• Architecture &
Sizing
• Migration Strategy
• Cutover Strategy
• Testing
• Training /
Enablement
• Architecture
• Security Model
• CMS and Audit
Creation
• User Account
Creation
• Etc…
• Install
• Configuration
• Migration
• QA
• Communication
• Training
• Deprecation
• QA
• Communication
• Full Deprecation
• Monitoring

General upgrade path & process
BI 4.1
BOE XI 3.x
BOE XI R2 SP2+
BOE XI
CE8, CE9,
CE10
E5, E6
MAIN STEPS:
• Setup the new landscape with the new software version
• Move the BI content from the existing system to the new one

Incremental Upgrade
• Upgrade content in stages
• 2 systems to maintain
• Shorter downtime
• Lock down only department
folder
• Issues affect only department
folder

Complete Upgrade
• Upgrade content all at once
• Only 1 system to maintain
• Longer downtime
• Lock down the entire system
• Issues may affect entire system

Case Studies
Customer Success Stories

Customer Success Story - #1
Customer:
Since 1977, PSCU has been a leading provider of traditional and online financial services to credit
unions. Today, they represent more than 800 credit unions, making them the nation’s leading Credit
Union Services Organization (CUSO). They offer industry-leading credit, debit and prepaid card
servicing to more than 18 million cardholders and innovative bill payment solutions to over a million
online bill payment subscribers.
Background:
• A mix of internal and external users ~300
• Content included webi reports, crystal reports, and dashboards ~8,000 production reports
• Development and production environment not co-located
• Client planning for an increase in the number of BI users
Key drivers for upgrade - Business Drivers:
• Co-locate development and production environments to reduce latency when promoting content
from dev to prod
• Scale up the architecture to accommodate for the anticipated increase in the number of users
• High availability architecture providing little or no downtime
• Elimination of legacy environments ensuring licensing compliance
• Standardized on version 4.x for access to the latest features of the BOE platform (monitoring,
auditing, development features, HTML5 dashboard, multi source universes)
• A development environment allowing for best practice SDLC processes

Upgrade strategy used:
• Incremental upgrade where content was migrated,
tested, and deprecated from 3.1 for each business unit
Upgrade Challenges:
• Dev environment was being used for production
purposes thus making it difficult to identify true
production reports to be migrated to new environment
• Migrating all saved instances for historical purposes
• Remediation of broken crystal reports
• Loosing webi report to universe binding when migrating
Lessons Learned:
• Not pushing the environment clean up process leading
up to the migration
• Underestimating the probability and remediation of
defects
• No real internal reporting governance strategy to ensure
the integrity of the new pristine environment

Customer Overview:
The Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) is the agency charged with
licensing and regulating businesses and professionals in the State of Florida, such as
cosmetologists, veterinarians, real estate agents and pari-mutuel wagering facilities. Our
mission is to license efficiently, regulate fairly, and we strive to meet this goal in our day-to-day
operation.
Background:
• Diverse user base
• Primarily all crystal reports
• Large content store
Key drivers for upgrade - Business Drivers:
• Current environment resides on old hardware making a 4.1
upgrade to a new server
• Improved performance
• Convert Excel-based dashboard to universe-based and
leverage current/modern dashboarding application for
Executives
• Standardized on version 4.x for access to the latest features
of the BOE platform (monitoring, auditing, development
features, HTML5 dashboard, multi source universes)

Upgrade strategy used:
• Incremental upgrade to accommodate large content store
• Business units begin testing as new newly migrated content becomes available
• Considering the size and age of the system, use the RepoScan tool to correct discrepancies
prior to upgrade
Upgrade Challenges:
• Large promotions via Promotion Manager are problematic. Incremental promotions via
Promotion Manager are easier to manage.
• Smaller, phased migrations eased testing concerns and helped users to focus.
• Possible confusion over accessing multiple environments
Lessons Learned:
• Leverage the Command Line Interface (CLI) to facilitate large content promotions
• In large deployments, carefully evaluate disk space requirements and plan accordingly
• Be cognizant of searching/indexing configuration.
• Deprecation of unused content prior to migration and running the RepoScan utility can
significantly ease the process.
• Firm cut-over dates to new environment are critical

Upgrade Packages
Plan Components & Options

Complexity Package Options
Simple Upgrade 3.1 to 4.x Complex Upgrade 3.1 to 4.x
SIMPLE COMPLEX

Rapid Upgrade 3.1 to 4.x
• Installation of 4.x on standalone server
• Services configured
• Auditing configured
• Migration of 3.1 content to 4.1
• Authentication configured (AD, LDAP, SSO)
Outcome:
This results in having all users accessing and managing content in a new
secured 4.x production environment with no dependencies on the 3.1
environment.
Estimated Effort: 2 – 4 weeks
For more information, call 813.265.3239 or email info@ccgbi.com

Complex Upgrade 3.1 to 4.x
• Installation and configuration of dev, test, and production environments
• Additional node added to production environment
• Services configured on all 3 environments
• Auditing configured on production environment
• 3.1 Content migrated to respective environment
• Authentication configured on all 3 environments
Outcome:
This results in having all users accessing and managing content in the new
secured scalable 4.x dev, test, and production environment with no
dependencies on the 3.1 environment. SDLC best practices can be
implemented.
Estimated Effort: 5 – 8 weeks
For more information, call 813.265.3239 or email info@ccgbi.com

Useful Resources
• Upgrade microsite
www.sapbusinessobjectsbi.com
• BI Innovation Value Calculator
www.sap.com/BIcalculator
• BI Upgrade Value Calculator
www.sap.com/BIupgradecalc
• Web Intelligence calculation engine changes
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-43479
• BI Platform Features by version matrix
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog/2013/02/13/bi-platform-feature-by-
version-matrix

To summarize…
 Don’t miss the opportunity….understand the changing nature
of BI and take advantage the latest innovations from SAP
 Do a migration assessment and have a proper plan ready
 Be aware of the technical considerations
 Understand the common challenges in migration
 Learn how others have done it

Successfully Migrating to SAP BusinessObjects XI 4.1

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