SAP BI 4.0 : Facts on the ground
Last month, when we decided to use BI 4.0 for one of our high visibility Project. We were glad to be leveraged from new features projected by SAP in BI 4.0. Though We had mixed feedback during internal alignment among architects, as our experience with the Product had been lackluster during Ramp up. After singing up " Ramp up partnership" We really grilled the Product in our Labs, results were not up to the expectation. Be it either related to BW- BO Integration and performance or Quality of the product. But just like you I also live in hope and expect things to be better, and in fact they are getting better; but we really don't know how long will it take when our Projects will not be impeded because of stability and issue in Product?
Nonetheless after decision was made to use BI 4.0. Management buy in was taken to invest in BI 4.0 toolset. BI team was charged to come with Tools fitment (Decision Tree) , Migration methodology , Dev, consolidation, Production environemnt setup timelines and Developing Best Practices etc. Discussion with our infra team started. The first thing emerged in this discussion was Right Platform to install BO...........
BI 4.0 On Windows or On Unix:
During initial discussion we carried out rigorous discussion about OS selection. As usual some fellow architects coming from Windows background favored Windows. But some stakeholders posed arguments in Unix/Linux favor like Robustness, Resource sharing, No Registry complexity and easy use of Virtualization using VMWARE etc . We could not decide the install platform in that meeting. Follow up meeting was scheduled.
I tried to figure out in other clients landscape and found that most of the installation are on Windows, but came to know some on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 and an another one on AIX 6.1. I really wanted to get realtime feedback for both of these in Production. Some of the statistics which came into light were.
1. Mobile support on AIX is not available.
2. It is hard to find experienced Unix administrator or especially the person who has vast experience in BO admin functions on Unix/Linux. In fact this is entirely true. I clearly remember last year when I was interviewing for Unix BOBJ administrator role in Europe region. It look a while to find out Right fit. The ratio was 1:15.
3. Running UMT (Upgrade mgmt tool ) bit of pain from command line. There is no migration tool like Import wizard available in client tools in BI 4.0. UMT is available only on server.
4. For AIX "JFS2" is a standard. While SAP don't support JFS2 for BI 4.0. Ironically they support ext3. How do you solve this puzzle? Go for ext3?
5. Configuring SVN(Subversion) for LCM is also not straightforward.
While on windows some potential pitfall came up are..
1. Install and uninstall in not smooth. So far I have not been able to uninstall BI 4.0 on windows 2003 and 2008 in straightforward way. I am yet to find landscape where install was done as per decided schedule.
2. You really need to put much powerful hardware and that will cost more.
3. Patch upgrade will require time and Planning and of course some cost end of the day.
4. Virtualization at least for sandbox and D will not be straightforward. I have some experience using VMWARE at least.
Next important decision was choosing Right BI 4.0 version. I am not really able to understand why SAP started one more Ramp up in BI 4.0 series (Feature Pack 3). Historically SAP has been known for its Robust products. It seems same history could not be repeated. Many bugs had been reported in SP02 series and many more critical feature left out which are now included in FP03.
BI 4.0 SP02 or FP3
The First things comes up in mind is " Should we go for Ramp Up software for our Business Critical projects?". It's a genuine thought at least from Sr. Mgmt and Project managers point of view. You can't put your investment in Risk. But from technical stand point as FP 03 includes most of bug of SP02 fixed with really required additional feature. It is good to go for Feature pack 3.
I got access to SP02 and FP03 both. When I started working on SP02 I had lot of stability issue. Sometimes I was not able to publish my connection in repository and sometimes I could not save BO Analysis OLAP workspaces, open them and other problems like this. But FP03 seems to be stable. And general consensus among users is to go for FP03. Update installer is available. SP02 customers can upgrade. I really do hope it will work out. If BI 4.0 does not get stable doesn't matter SP02 or FP03, hugs investment will be on stake.
Depsite of having this roller coaster ride. I am pretty confident SAP will put things back on track.
I got a chance to play with BO Analysis OLAP Edition, Office Edition , Webi , CRE and BO Explorer in 4.0 Suite. I will discuss my experience in next post. Stay tuned.............
Comments
This is a nice blog which is around BO 4. I still find it hard to believe how BO 4.0 current toolset with compete with the existing Bex Toolset. Bex is strong and easy in so many places. Keep it Smart and smiple is the policy which SAP should utilize in furthur design of BO tools.
Posted by: Manu | June 26, 2012 4:53 PM