Business Objects Mobile – Architecture and Deployment

Hello All,
As a continuation of my previous blog, we are going to see more in detail about BO Mobile Architecture, Deployment scenarios, Server side and client side requirements in this blog.

The diagram below shows Mobile Installation on top of Business Objects Enterprise Framework

And the Business Objects Mobile Architecture will be like

Three deployment scenarios are supported for SAP Business Objects Mobile. You can choose to deploy based on your User community.

• BlackBerry devices registered on a corporate BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES)
• Non-BlackBerry devices and/or BlackBerry devices not registered on a corporate BES. This requires a proxy server or firewall to ensure security.
• User population that includes BlackBerry devices registered on the BES and other devices. This requires a BES and a proxy server or firewall.

Based on the above deployment scenarios the common architecture of BO Mobile would be like

Server side requirements

The following components need to be deployed on top of SAP Business Objects Enterprise Installation.

• The Mobile server composed of an authentication server (VAS) and a processing server (VMS).
• A mobile database that logs the user activity and provides information on synchronization of data between the SAP Business Objects Enterprise server and the mobile devices.
• A BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), if you are deploying the application to BlackBerry device users (Deployment type 1).
• A proxy server, if your deployment to BlackBerry devices does not include a BES server or if your deployment includes non-BlackBerry devices (Deployment type 2 and 3).
• To deploy client application to devices through OTA provisioning, you need to install and deploy the OTA web application, delivered with SAP Business Objects mobile, on a web application server.

Client side requirements

Based on deployment scenario, SAP Business Objects mobile application can be delivered to users via

• Over-The-Air to BlackBerry devices using the push capability in the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
• Over-The-Air (OTA) via a secured web site page. This requires you to deploy the OTA web application delivered with SAP Business Objects Mobile to a secured web application server.
• Manually on each device using the client desktop application supplied by device manufacturer.

I Hope this blog gives a good understanding on Business Objects Mobile architecture and deployment.
In our next blog we will see configuration of BO Mobile using Blackberry simulators.

Keep reading!

Business Objects Mobile – Introduction

Hello BOgglers,

Just a change from series of BO Administration series to emerging trends in SAP Business Objects.SAP BO Mobile is going to be the topic of discussion in my upcoming blogs starting from this.

The shift from a wired world to a wireless world of connectivity with the advantage of smart phones and handheld devices has lead to a new era of mobile computing, especially in the field of BI. BO Mobile allows to access favorite BI reports, metrics and right-time data with a single click from a mobile device with the following advantages

• Make informed decisions with instant access to personalized information on the move, can be alerted about changes to critical business data instantly.
• Leverage existing BI investments & skills to quickly reach mobile users.
• Users can intuitively access familiar reports without a need for additional training.

Devices Supportability

BO Mobile supports broad range of mobile devices including BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian OS and any J2ME 2.0-compatible devices.

Supported document types

• Web Intelligence documents
• Crystal Reports documents
• Limited gauge analytics (speedometers, barometers and thermometers)

Functionalities Supported

• Save documents locally and consult them offline, to mitigate network interruptions and minimize communication costs.
• Receive alerts when a document is modified, a condition is met or a schedule is run.
• Follow-up actions by clicking on report cells to launch an SMS, phone call or email.
• Set up a default document that opens automatically whenever log into application.
• Refresh reports to retrieve the most up-to-date data.
• View results using zoom and navigational shortcuts.
• Navigate to related documents via hyperlinks on reports.
• Drill on results to analyze detailed or summary data.
• Track data changes via customizable highlighting set up by the document creator.

Target Audience

Information executives: Users who needs to know a few high-risk KPIs at the right time, no matter where they are. A business case for this could be a sudden fall in sales or inventory levels brought to the attention of the respective director.
Field workers: Users of this segment work in the field and need specific information at specific times. A sales representative, while finding an unexpected opportunity, can browse for required historic information such as price negotiation, contract tenure to give immediate feedback to the customer.
Business analysts: Business analysts need a few strategic KPIs in addition to static reports.
Clerical member staff: This people occasionally need reports while they are on the move.

Limitations

• BO Mobile is not guaranteed to work on all mobile devices and operating systems.
• Report data sets can be large and can theoretically saturate available device memory. The unsatisfactory display of large data sets can be mitigated by designing smaller report views.

We will see more in detail about Mobile Architecture and installation and configuration in upcoming blogs.

Thanks for reading! Happy Blogging!  Read More about  Business Objects

Business Objects Administration – Cache Management

Cache management in Business Objects is going to be our topic today. We can manage the cache in Server as well as client side. Let us see how this is being done.

1. Managing Cache in Server side

Changing the Business Objects Registry Parameter: MaximumObjectsToKeepInMemory

Memory usage is controlled by the number of objects stored in the object cache. This is controlled by the Windows registry key called “MaximumObjectsToKeepInMemory” and specifies the maximum number of objects that the CMS stores in its memory cache. Increasing the number of objects reduces the number of database calls required and greatly improves CMS performance. However, placing too many objects in memory may result in the CMS having too little memory remaining to process queries. The upper limit is 100,000 and the default setting is 40,000.

The other place to enable this parameter is in the CMS server’s command line. The parameter is called “-maxobjectsincache”. This is invoked by adding it in CMC to the command line.

2. Managing Cache in Client side

In client side we can clear the cache in Web browser and Java control panel.

Clearing cache in web browser

To clear the cache in Internet Explorer (IE7) follow these instructions:
Tools > Internet Options > General > Browsing history > Delete…

Clearing cache in Java Control Panel

To clear the cache in Java Control Panel follow these instructions:
Control Panel > Java > General > Delete Files…

Hope you will be much comfortable dealing with Cache henceforth after reading this blog. Keep reading!

Read More about  Business Objects Administration

Business Objects Administration – Managing Timeout settings

Hello Booglers,

From this Blog onwards we are going to see more in detail about Business Objects Administration and Best practices.

Let us start with timeout settings. As we started moving from 2-tier to 3-tier architecture (DeskI to WebI), the role of timeout becomes significant as it is associated with reports running time.This post will be handy for those who struggle with the timeout issue and various methods to apply itin a Business Objects Enterprise deployment.

Timeout can be configured at the below levels.

1. Designer level

In Designer Application Go to: File > Parameters > Controls

Configure the Limit execution time to setting which limits how long the SQL query is allowed to execute. This hasgreatimpact on reports that contain multiple queries.

Universe Parameters

2. Web Application Server level (Tomcat)

• In the Business Objects Installation server go to Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0\warfiles\WebApps \InfoViewApp\WEB-INF
• Open web.xml in a text editor.
• Change the session-timeout value to the one desired. The default value is 20 minutes.

<session-config>

<session-timeout>60</session-timeout>

<!– 20 minutes for session objects –>

</session-config>

Similarly, modify web.xml on the following folders:

• AdminTools– for Query Builder
• CmcApp– for CMC
• CrystalReports– for Crystal reports
• InfoViewAppActions – for Infoview

3. Central Management Console

Go to: Home > Servers > Web Intelligence Processing Server > Properties

You can configure various timeout setting heresuch as cache timeout, idle document timeout, Idle Connection timeout.Configure these values to the desired.

Similarly, modify settings for Desktop Intelligence Processing Server and Crystal Reports Processing Server.

And finally configure the Auto-save time delay option for Web Intelligence under Business Objects Applications.

4. Central Configuration Manager

Go to: CCM > Web Intelligence Report Server > Properties > Command

Add “-RequestTimeoutxxx” to its command line (where xxx is the duration in milliseconds)

Configure this value to the desired one(for 60 minutes the value would be 3600000).

Similarly, modify settings for Web Intelligence Report Server.

Hope this will be useful for timeout setting in your BOE deployment.

Watch out this space as more to come on BOE Administration. Keep reading!

Read More about  Business Objects Administration

Track Data Changes

What is Data tracking?

Data tracking is a new feature available in Web intelligence in BOXI 3.1. Data tracking places your current report data in context by highlighting changed data and displaying the previous value of a dimension or measure along with its current value.

Data Tracking Options:

Web Intelligence XI 3.1 highlights changed data according to parameters you set. You control the formatting of the changed data, the types of changed data highlighted and the amount of data change that triggers data highlighting.

Reference Data:

When you track data changes, you select a particular data refresh as a reference point. This data is known as the reference data. When you display the data changes, Web Intelligence places your current data in context by showing how it relates to the reference data.

Data Refresh with Data Tracking Options and Reference Data:

After some time, when we refresh the same report, it will check the new updated data with the reference report data (given above) and it will show the changes as per the parameters you set in data tracking options.

Advantages:

We can focus our analysis on key areas and avoid wasting time exploring irrelevant data.

Read More about  Data Tracking

Business Objects FRS Pruning

Hello Techies,

This is the continuation of Business Objects File Repository Servers Blog and we are going to see how to optimise the File Repository Servers by FRS pruning.

Have you ever got the chance to see how a Crystal or WebI document or Instance stored internally in the File System? Here it is.

The document will be saved internally in the file system with in one or more folders named based on random name generation.
What will happen if the report or the Instance deleted?

The report or the Instance alone will be deleted and leaving the temporary folders as it is. As a result of this over the period of time, there will be thousands of folders in the FRS and will be a intricacy for the Administrator when he goes for the FRS Backup. The Backup process will be very time consuming as well as occupy more space and finally the FRS will be inefficient.

How to get rid of this?

The “-Prune” command, added at the end of the command line of the File repository servers will be handy at this moment.

Working with FRS Pruning and Tracing

-Prune command, added at the end of the command line of servers triggers the server to go through the ‘Input’ or ‘Output’ folders in the internal ‘Filestore’ folder of Business Objects Enterprise to clean up all the empty directories.

-Trace command, added at the end of the command lines of the servers logs the activity of that specific server in the ‘Logging’ folder of the BOE installation directory.

We need to periodically delete the empty FRS directories to cleanup the disk but not to be manually. Instead the FRS server should be started with the -Prune command line switch. When this switch is used, the FRS servers’ status will remain ‘Starting’ till the deletion is done. Once deletion is done, the servers will stop. The -Prune switch will have to be removed manually to allow the servers to start normally.

Working with FRS Pruning and Tracing

Add -Trace and -Prune

1. Stop File Servers (both IFRS and OFRS) in CCM (XIR2) or in CMC (XI 3.x).

2. Add -Prune command at the end of the line to FRS (Input and Output) and also –Trace Command at the end of the line to check it is cleaning up files and folders that are empty.

3. Start the servers and Monitor the pruning process, you should gain more hard disk space.

Remove -Trace and -Prune

1. Stop the Servers and remove -trace and -prune commands from the command line Parameters of FRS.

2. Start the Servers again normally.

Viewing Log files

You can find the log files in the below location (for XI 3.x)

C:\Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0\Logging

Points to remember

• After the Pruning process if any empty folders still exists, they may be used by BO to keep for its housekeeping process.

• Don’t leave the prune option enabled even after the prune completed. Once pruning completed successfully the FRS will be stopped. We have to re-modify the command line by removing –Prune and -Trace and Server has to be started manually.

• Pruning process does not clean-up any CMS object that lost the FRS files that they need to point to.

Please Note -Prune is an undocumented feature in Business Objects.

We will see more about the Business Objects Servers Tuning in the upcoming blogs.

Happy Blogging!!  Keep reading!!