SAP BusinessObjects in place vs Parallel

Upgrade
Its CMS database needs to upgrade to SQL server 2019. Either we upgrade the current environment from
SAP BI 4.1 SP5 to 4.3 SP5 on the same box or we upgrade from SAP BI 4.1 to SAP BI 4.3 was

 Option 1 -In-place upgrade. In this option, the current landscape needs to upgrade to BI 4.3 SP2
 Option2 – Parallel upgrade. Set up the new environment and Install BI 4.3 SP2 on the new
environment

We decided to compare these 2 options and shared our point of view on the same.

Area In-Place Upgrade Parallel Upgrade (New

Deployment )
Development Freeze A longer development freeze is Very limited development
required as an Upgrade is freeze is required as there is
going to be performed on an a parallel environment setup
existing installation for upgrade
OS Support Windows 2019

Rollback In most of the scenarios, the No rollback is required as

rollback option is not possible there is a parallel environment
as an upgrade is happening on available
the same instance. If the
customer has installed
BusinessObjects on Virtual
Machine then there is the
possibility of rollback.
Downtime Downtime will be required as No downtime is required as
an upgrade is performed on the installation will be performed
existing installed base on new servers
BI Content & User/Security No BI Content & User/Security BI Content & User/Security
Migration migration required needs to be migrated to the
new environment
Installation Issues Difficult to resolve installation Installation issues can be fixed
issues on the existing platform easily as there is a new
landscape
Outage The outage will be required if No outage is required as a
there are any issues during parallel environment needs to
installation/configuration be setup
Training No training to End users is Training is required for End
required as there is no change users as there is a new
in the interface interface (Fiorified LaunchPad)
for accessing reports
Risk Higher Risk as an upgrade is Lower Risk as we have a new
being performed on the platform to be set up and no
existing environment and constraint on downtime
limited time window
Hardware Setup NA New Hardware will be required
for installation/configuration
Time & Effort Less effort will be required as The additional effort is
the service pack is getting required in testing & break
upgraded fixing of reports as the code
base is getting changed in SAP
4.3

To summarise there are more cons rather than pros when we go in-place upgrade. It’s better to go parallel
upgrade option which is risk-free and you have plenty of time to perform the upgrade as well as regression
testing of BI content and security. Ultimately it depends on up how vital is customer’s BusinessObjects
Platform is and how much effort/cost the customer wants to invest. If BusinessObjects Platform is small and
not significantly important then customers can go for an in-place upgrade as well. However, there is no golden
rule to decide to go in-place or parallel upgrade. We need to evaluate options as per customer landscape and
take an appropriate call.

ASSESS

ASSESS USERS Upgrading/migrating is the software equivalent of moving into a new space. As with any
move, the first task is to take inventory. The following steps will help you gather information and assess
the size and scope of the job

ASSESS USERS

Determine the total number of SAP BusinessObjects users.

Identify users who require local installation of SAP BusinessObjects client tools (e.g, Universe Designer,
IDT) Determine if servers are configured for third-party authentication (aliases) (e.g., LDAP, AD, SAP).
Identify dormant users based on last login time.

Identify empty groups.

Understand and document user security.

Understand session peaks: What time of day do they occur? How often do they occur? What are the
peak values?
Upgrade from SAP BI 4.x to SAP BI 4.3

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.3 has been released on June 12th, 2020. I’m sure you know that by now! You can
read a lot more about the announcement and release here.

There are different paths to Upgrading or Migrating BOBJ to this latest version based on where you are
coming from. And your preferences.

Source: SAP Note 2921811

For the purpose of this article, I’ll focus on the right side of this picture: BI Platform 4.x to BI 4.3.
 Source: SAP Note 2921811

As you can see there are two methods:

 Upgrade “in-place” – I.e.: Install SAP BI 4.3 on top of SAP BI 4.x

 Upgrade “side by side” – I.e.: Like a migration, install a fresh SAP BI 4.3 then promote the content
the pros and cons of each approaches: “In Place” vs “Side by Side” Upgrades.

Those who know me are aware of my favorite method. I have had more problems than successes with in-
place upgrades.

Below you will see all the steps I have undertaken to run an in-place upgrade on my test environment. It’s not
as comprehensive as a real Production environment but this should highlight real steps and possible issues.

Architecture: Single Node with AWS EC2 t2.xlarge. That’s 4 Cores and 16GB RAM.

Products Installed:

 SBOP BI Platform 4.2 SP08 Server

 SBOP BI Platform 4.2 SP08 Client Tools
 SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 4.2 SP08
 SBOP BI Platform 4.2 SP08 Crystal Reports for Enterprise
  SAP Crystal Reports 2016 SP08
 SAP Lumira Designer 2.3
 SAP Lumira Discovery 2.3
 SAP Lumira Server 2.3
 SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Office 2.8
 SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Office 2.8 – Server Add-on

Languages: English, French, Finnish

Before you Start!

Important: Make sure you have a backup of your BOBJ platform and all its dependencies.

Sounds obvious but make sure the last backup was successful and you have everything available in case you
need to restore:

 SAP BI Server
 SAP BI System Database & Audit Database
 SAP BI File Repository Server (FRS)

Software Download
Go to SAP Software Download > Support Packages & Patches > Analytics Solutions
See SAP Note: 2936923

These are the components I need to download and install:

 SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Server

 SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Client Tools
 SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Crystal Reports for Enterprise
 SAP Crystal Reports 2020
License Keys
You will need new License Keys for:

 SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Server

 Crystal Reports 2020

SAP Support Portal > Request Keys

Installation
SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Server
SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Client Tools
SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Crystal Reports for Enterprise
SAP Crystal Reports 2020
Installations Completed
Post-Installation Tasks
SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Server
Tomcat

Before:

After:

The version of Tomcat changes to Tomcat 9.0.26.

This will have impacts on changes you have made to your server.xml for instance to change port numbers,
SSL, etc.
It will also have impacts on any other customisation you have done under %INSTALL_DIR%\SAP
BusinessObjects\tomcat\webapps
This may have an impact on your SSO and also your .properties if they only reside in in %INSTALL_DIR%\
SAP BusinessObjects\tomcat\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\config
License Keys

As mentioned, SAP BI 4.3 requires a new license key.

1. Logon to the Central Management Console (CMC)

2. Click License Keys
3. Delete the old license key(s)
4. Add the new license key(s)

Finally, you will need to enable your BOBJ Services as they get disabled when there is an expired or invalid
license key.
 1. Logon to the Central Management Console (CMC)
2. Click Servers
3. Enable all Disabled Servers

SAP Crystal Reports 2020

As mentioned, Crystal Reports 2020 requires a new license key.

1. Open Crystal Reports 2020
2. Add the new keycode
3. Click OK
Optional: Cleanup
I followed these instructions to delete in bulk deprecated content from my BI Platform Repository after the
update of SAP BI 4.3 (SAP Note: 2914654)

I ran the following command:

java -Dtracelog.logdir=C:\DeprecatedContentDeletionLogs -jar DeleteDeprecatedContents.jar administrator

Password1 localhost XL.XcelsiusEnterprise XL.Query DataDiscovery DataDiscoveryAlbum

It completed successfully and all my SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (Xcelsius) 4.2 SP08 and
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 4.2 SP08 documents are gone.

Log file: SAP_BO_BI_DeprecatedContentDeletion__20200618_1592496984401.log

Thu Jun 18 17:16:37 BST 2020 [INFO] SUCCESS: Script finished successfully.
Thu Jun 18 17:16:37 BST 2020 [INFO] Total objects deleted from Repository: 3, from Recycle Bin: 3
Note: Maye you want to review the content going to be deleted, who was using it (or not), etc. There is no
rollback here!
Optional: Delete old versions

One issue with in-place upgrades is that you are adding yet again more software on your server. I want to
remove these old versions…

It’s not only about freeing up hard disk space, here are other benefits:

 Future update installation launching will take comparatively less time, as the number of versions
to be calculated will become less.
 Simple and elegant way to get rid of intermediate versions of BI Packages, where which you do not
need to uninstall and reinstall the latest version.
 Multiple intermediate versions of different packages of BI Suite in a BI System can be uninstalled
in ONE go.
 Tool does not require any downtime of the BI system servers or services and applications.
As I don’t plan to ever uninstall SAP BI 4.3 and roll back to SAP BI SP08 or even the older SAP BI SP07
which is also on this server, I’m going to try for the first time the SAP BusinessObjects ONE Uninstaller (SAP
Note: 2846512 and SAP Blog).

*** Note: There seem to be a bug with the solution. SAP is investigating. I’ll update here later. ***

Testing
Testing is important. Always is. I like to separate my tests in three sections:

 Functionality Testing. Are all features working?

 Content Testing. Are my Universes, Webi, Crystal, etc still working and as expected?
 Performance Testing.
Functionality Testing

I would usually do over hundred individual tests here. For the sake of this blog I have only done couple of
basic tests…

Products:

 SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Server:


o Web Intelligence – Create / Open / Refresh / Modify / Schedule: OK

o Crystal Reports 2020 – Open / Refresh / Schedule: OK

o Crystal Reports for Enterprise – Open / Refresh: OK

o
 Open / Refresh: FAIL
 
o
 Schedule: FAIL

Error Message: com/ibm/icu/text/NumberFormat (CRS 300003)

SAP Note: 2235156 did not help.

 Workflow Assistant: FAIL

The templates are unavailable.

 SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Client Tools


o Information Design Tool (IDT): OK

o Universe Design Tool (UDT): OK

o Web Intelligence Rich Client: FAIL
There are some Universe Dimensions that work in Information Design Tool (IDT), Web Intelligence (Web)
but not in the Web Intelligence Rich Client.

 SBOP BI Platform 4.3 Crystal Reports for Enterprise: FAIL

I can Create, Open from the BI Platform but cannot save back to the BI Platform.
 SAP Crystal Reports 2020: OK
 SAP Lumira Designer 2.3: OK
 SAP Lumira Discovery 2.3: Ok