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Mickey GrackinIT Specialist

Office of Information Systems Management

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Migrating to BOB4(A Not So Short Story)

Agenda

• Who am I? What do I know?

• Where we were with BusinessObjects

• Migrating to BusinessObjects V4

• How are we doing now?

• Where are we going?

Disclaimer: This presentation should in no way be construed as indicating thatBusinessObjects or SAP are endorsed by NIST or are recommended by NIST or that they arenecessarily the best materials, instruments, software or suppliers for the purposesdescribed.

Who am I? What do I know?

• 11 years working with BusinessObjects products

• 7 Years with BusinessObjects 5.x on the AIX Platform

• 4 Years with BusinessObjects XI R2 on the Windows 2003 R2 Platform

• 8 Months with BusinessObjects 4.0 on the Windows 2008 R2 Platform

• 2 SAP Application Associate Certifications:SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 4.0

Where we were withBusinessObjects

Where we were with BusinessObjects


• BusinessObjects XI R2, SP6 with FP6.3

• Windows 2003 R2 Platform

• 2 Production Reporting Areas

• 1 Development Reporting Area (and Test/UAT)

Development (and Test/UAT) Production (Financial)

Production (Non-Financial)


• Large number of User Inbox Documents

• Large Number of User Personal Documents

• Oracle CMS and Oracle Data Sources

• Approximately 500 Users, 600 PublicDocuments, 30 Universes

• Import Wizard and Universe Designer tools accessible via Citrix Server

• Pure browser based Web Intelligence (no Deski, no Crystal, no Webi Rich Client usage)

• BusinessObjects SDK Custom Servlets

Migrating toBusinessObjects V4

Migrating to BusinessObjects V4


Step 1: Stand Up Servers (Four (4) Windows 2008 R2 Virtual Servers)

Development (and Test/UAT)

Production (Financial)


Sandbox (Patch Testing)

(BusinessObjects V4 migration started in Dec 2011)


Step 2: Content Inventory (Development and Production Reporting Areas)

• Document Public Content (Documents, Universes, Connections, Categories)

• Document Security Rules (Universe Access Restrictions, Folder/Application Security, etc.)


Step 3: Content Clean Up (Development and Production Reporting Areas)

• User Account review and clean up

• Public Document Instances andSchedules review and clean up

• Universe review and clean up(Development Only)

• Personal Documents review and clean up (YIKES!)


Step 4: Software Install/Configuration (Sandbox first, then Development)

Development (and Test/UAT)Sandbox (Patch Testing)

• BusinessObjects V4 is very different from BusinessObjects XI R2

• Determine Necessary Components to Deploy

• Separate Apache Tomcat Installation, manual deployment of BOE application

• Add NIST Warning Banner to Logon Page


Step 5: Content Migration (Development)

Development (and Test/UAT)

• Encountered Issues with Upgrade Management Tool (UMT)

• Personal Documents were a major issue due to Shortcuts


Step 6: Content Testing/Fixing (Development)

• Find software issues

• Find and Fix content migration issues

• Special characters (“ or CRLF) in Document Description caused issues

• Users with Measurement Unit set to Inches were an issue in BOB4

• Documents with Prompts encountered issues when attempting to schedule in BOB4

• Documents with Custom SQL could lose the SQL if Modified using Web Mode


Step 7: Rebuild Security (Development)

• BusinessObjects V4 (as well as V3.0 and V3.1) permit custom Access Levels

• A LOT more application rights to set

• Some issues with Security were found

• Schedule Documents to Inbox retained original owner

• Sending Personal Documents could not be done without full ‘Copy Objects’ right, ‘Copy Objects User Owns’ did not work


Step 8: Train End Users

• Update User Training Materials

• Update Adobe Captivate Tutorials

• Classes were taught by two development groups (before and after Go Live)


Step 9: Secure Servers/Approve Release

• Acquire Apache Tomcat SSL Certificates

• Acquire Corba SSL Certificates

• Update System Security Plan (SSP) documentation

• Scan and Secure BusinessObjectsInstallations

• Install and Deploy the software on both production servers

• Configure and secure the software on both production servers

• Go Live Version: BOB4, SP4 with Patch 5


Step 10: Software Install/Configuration(Production)

Production (Financial)



Step 11: Migrate Content to Production/Go Live(XI R2 to V4)

• Move content from BusinessObjects XI R2 production to new BusinessObjects V4 production using Upgrade Management Tool

• Publish Fixed content from BusinessObjectsV4 development to appropriate production server

• “Big Bang” – Two Week Content Freeze

(BusinessObjects V4 Go Live Feb 15, 2013)


Step 11: Migrate Content to Production/Go Live

Development(and Test/UAT)

BOB4 Production(Financial)

BOB4 Production(Non-Financial)

XI R2 Content

XI R2 Content

XI R2 Production(Financial)

XI R2 Production(Non-Financial)


Step 12: Post Go Live Activities

• Continue End User Training

• Assist Users with Personal Documents

• One Month Overlap for Developer ONLY access to XI R2 installations

• Decommission XI R2 installations

• Celebrate smooth/successful migration

How are we doing now?



• Address lingering and new software issues

• Corba SSL issues affecting software restarts

• Scheduled jobs failing periodically requiring reschedule

• General Web Intelligence software issues

• BusinessObjects V4 “quarterly” patching (Currently running BOB4, SP6 with Patch 5)

• Java JRE/JDK patching (Desktops/Servers)

OR

Where are we going from here?



• Information Design Tool (IDT)

• Planning to upgrade to BusinessObjects 4.1 in Nov 2013

• Leverage Business Objects SDK

• Look at Web Services

• Look at Mobility Services

Questions???

QUESTIONS???