how to Consolidation/Merging of two different BO User Applications into One

[former_member546611]

Hello All,

We have a below project undertaken and need your help in understanding the best approach/best practice to be followed for the same:

- Application A - runs on BO version 4.2 SP 07, has 200 active users, consist of WEBI and AFO reports based on bex queries only.

- Application B - runs on BO version 4.1 SP 10, has 2 users, around 200 Webi reports based on one universe.

We are migrating contents of application B into application A and need to understand what should be the best migration approach here.

- How should we handle the default users? Should we migrate those users as well -like (Administrator/Guest/SmAdmin)?

1. We are planning to migrate the reports/universes/users/groups through online CMC Promotion mgmt. approach.

While doing so, is there any order in which we should migrate the contents and should we have the dependencies marked or promote without dependencies.

2. Both application A and application B has common default users like Guest/SMAdmin/Administrator - Should we only migrate its personal folder content and not these users?

3. How to we verify post migration all the contents of app b is migrated to app A.?

4. Can we define multiple directory for destination 'File system' for o/p of scheduling reports.

5. Any other best practices to keep in mind?

Thanks.

[DellSC · Accepted solution]

1. Here's the order I usually use when I migrate systems for my clients:

- Users, User Groups, and Access Levels - no personal folder or personal category content yet.

- Universes and connections with their security.

- Public folders and their content. Depending on the number of reports and instances, I usually break this up into several part to try to keep the number of migrated objects under 2k - 3k.

- User content

When doing the migration this way, you don't necessarily have to migrate dependencies because they've already been migrated.

Also, I use the Promotion Management Wizard, which should have been installed with your 4.2 SP7 system, for large promotions instead of the web application. It's more stable for larger migrations.

2. If you migrate the Administrator user, the Administrator password will change to the one that's being migrated. I usually only migrate the default users if there is security explicitly assigned to them in the object that are being migrated.

3. If you have the CMS universe installed in your 4.2 system and you're migrating the content to new folders, it should be fairly easy to design a Webi report using that universe to get the list of reports and folders in the new system after migration and then compare them to what's in the CMC in the old system. The CMS universe won't work with the old system.

4. No

5. Here's a couple:

a. Run RepoScan (see Administrator's Guide) against the old system - first in Scan mode to see if there are any issues and then, if there are issues, in Repair mode. This will fix any discrepancies between the CMS and Filestore as well as identifying and fixing other issues. Make sure your old system is "clean" before migration.

b. Be sure to look at the error messages that are written at the end of the migration - if you use the Wizard, they can be saved to a separate file. They will let you know of any issues with specific objects and there may be ways to fix the issues and then migrate the individual objects that had issues.

c. Be sure to read the wiki that Denis posted.

-Dell

[former_member546611 · Accepted solution]

Thank you Dell for your guidance and feedback 🙂

On our BO 4.2 Sp 07 - we do not have PMW installed. I'm unable to find it on the application server and also not under the client tools.

Also, since our target is of higher version when compared to lower version, as best practice it is recommended to create the jobs in higher version.

In our case, if there is no live to live connectivity established b/w source and target, then how do we login on higher version and create lcmbiar files?

Thanks.

[DellSC · Accepted solution]

I assumed there was connectivity between the two. Since there isn't, you'll have to use the Promotion Management web app in the old system and export from there to multiple .lcmbiar files based on the information above. You'll have to do it in smaller chunks and I don't think you'll be able to bring over any instances (I'm not sure when that feature was added to PM.) The problem with the earlier version of PM is that it calculates all of the dependencies when you add objects to the job instead of when you click on Manage Dependencies, so it can take a long time to build the job and may run out of memory.

-Dell

[denis_konovalov]

you can start with promotion pattern book to help you understand promotion concepts better :

https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Business+Intelligence+Platform+-+Pattern+Books+Index

[former_member546611]

Also, can we configure more than one SMPT server on AJS?

Like App A has different smtp server configs and 'To address' and App B has different one. Once we move the contents of App B into A , do we have to change the reports destination's scheduling addresses.? or is there a better approach to handle this?

[DellSC]

This should really have been asked as a separate question. However, if the schedules only use the default job server configuration instead of setting their own "from" email address, you have a couple of options:

1. Create server groups - one for the existing servers and one with a separate instance of each of the processing, cache, and job servers required for the reports that are being migrated. Both groups will use the same file repository servers and, potentially, event server. Configure SMTP in the new job server like it's configured on the old server. If the set of users from the old system and the system you're migrating to do not overlap, you can set security so that the migrated users only have access to the server group for those reports and the existing users only have access to the server group for the system you're migrating to.

2. Server groups with overlapping users - if you have some users who are in both systems, you won't be able to use security as above to control which server group reports run on. In this case, you'll have to modify ALL of the schedules in the system to use one server group or the other.

3. I'm not entirely sure whether schedules and instances will migrate from the old system. In this case, all of the schedules for migrated reports would have to be recreated and you would explicitly set the From email addresses instead of using the default when doing this.

-Dell

[former_member546611]

Hello Dell,

1. Both systems do not have overlapping users. Also schedules and instances will migrate from 4.1 SP 10 version. I did verify this in the system.

2. Creating a server group - Does this mean we have to crate one more Adaptive job server/ webi server - Migrated reports are of WEBI kind only - Any other duplicate servers to be created? Adding one ore AJS will help us configure 2 different SMTP servers, right?

Once this server group is created, we need to set up the security, so that when ever they will run scheduling it will use servers defined in the server group- Do we not need to change any scheduling serveries in the scheduling properties?

[VenkateswaraGY]

Hi hetalkat,

When you say in your BI 4.2 SP07 machine if you are unable to PMW (Promotion Management Wizard), then it might be because, your BI 4.2 SP07 landscape may be not a fresh installation, I believe it is an existing system updated to BI 4.2 SP07.

If So, you can still get PMW, in the BI 4.2 SP07 machine on the server machine, by modifying the BI Platform base installation.

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Regards, Venkat.

[former_member546611]

Thanks Venkat for confirming.

Yes you are correct. We upgraded are existing BO system of version 4.1 to 4.2 SP 07 and it is not a fresh installation of 4.2.