Transcript Session Title - Lenoir

Correctly Sizing Your
Landscape for Scalable, HighPerforming Dashboards and
Required Software
Compatibility
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Comerit
© 2012 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.
14
1
13
Seminar Roadmap
12
Best-in-Class
Deployment,
Dashboards
Testing & Change
Management
• Dashboards vs. reports
•
•
•
•
•
Key dashboard roll-out decisions
Mobilizing your dashboard
Support organization
Volume, stress, and UAT
Training and change management
•
•
•
•
Scoping vs. requirements gathering
KPI definitions
Required skills and resources
Answers to dashboard FAQs
Options &
Prototyping
11 Performance
& Security
10
• Hands-on lab: Advanced techniques
• Web service integration and Adobe
Flex Builder
• Panel discussion: Dashboard Projects
• Ownership and branding
9 • Post-production changes
8
SAP AG 2009 / 1
• SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
4.0 overview
• Product updates and
implementation criteria
• Recent changes to dashboard terms
• Hands-on lab: Build a dashboard
with SAP BusinessObjects
Dashboards 4.0
• Common causes of poor
dashboard performance
• Effective performance testing
• Performance-enhancing design
techniques
• Preventing unauthorized access
to dashboards
• Password protection
Customization,
and SSO
Branding &
Governance
©
2
7
•
•
•
•
Landscape,
Connectivity &
Sizing
Data connectivity deep dive
Key criteria to retrieve data sets
Sizing and scaling recommendations
User management and access
5
control
• SAP NetWeaver® BW
Accelerator and
SAP HANA
6
We are here
3
4
In This Session …
•
We start by doing step-by-step sizing effort of a
dashboard project and look a five real-world sizing
examples
•
Then we will conduct a structured walkthrough of
compatible and required software components.
•
We end by taking a quick-peek at dashboard
performance options with in-memory processing from
SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator and HANA.
2
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing Environment for BI 4.0 and SAP Dashboards
Core components of Dashboard and BI
Compatibility Requirements
In-memory performance options
Wrap-up
3
The Sizing Tool – Getting Started
SAP has
provided a sizing
tool for the BI
environments. It
is based on
Flash and is
actually a
dashboard itself.
Output Area
(Sizing Results)
Download it:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/
index?rid=/library/uuid/1055c55
0-ce45-2f10-22ad-a6050fff97f1
Input Areas
(items and users)
This tool can help you size your BI 4.0 environments
with a few key assumptions and inputs.
4
The Sizing Tool – Entering Users
First, you have
to enter the
estimated
active
concurrent
users (ACU) for
the following
user types:
• Information
Consumers
• Business
• Expert
Users
Users
5
The Sizing Tool –On-Line Help User Definitions
The tool provides on-line
definitions of the user types
and guidelines on how to
determine Active Concurrent
Users (ACU). This is defined as
approximate 10% of the active
users.
Many dashboard users is large
organizations may be classified
as Information Consumers .
They may not wait 5 minutes
between clicks, but typically do
little drill-down and filtering.
6
The Sizing Tool – Assumptions
• The
next step is to make an assumption on the size of dashboards.
• The sizing tool classifies small dashboards as having 25 rows in the
result set, medium having 250, and large dashboards having 2,500 rows.
Assumptions: the tool was based on supporting two queries per
dashboards, and benchmarked was for accessing two relational data
sources. One with 6 dimensions with 77,000 entries and 400,000 line
items, and one with 6 dimensions with 7,000 rows and 40,000 line items.
7
The Sizing Tool – Output
The output of the tool is measured in SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS).
100 SAPS is defined as 2,000 fully business processed order line items per hour.
It is a measure that hardware vendors can use to decide which of their configurations
can meet your performance requirements. All hardware vendors are familiar with this
measure and this is what you will provide them when requesting a hardware quote.
8
The Sizing Tool – Memory Requirements
The sizing tool also provide a sizing estimate for the
hardware memory required for each of the tiers.
This is measured in Gigabytes
9
The Sizing Tool – Terminology
If you get stuck on the
terminology used in SAP
sizing and performance
benchmarking, there is a
link to the SAP benchmark
glossary in the tool.
There are also performance benchmark and installation guides
available on SAP Marketplace for individual software components.
10
The Sizing Tool – Saving your Sizing example
Your BI and dashboard sizing effort can be saved or printed
from the tool and you can have many scenarios
11
The Sizing Tool – Demo
DEMO
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The Sizing Tool – Companion Guide
•
With the BI sizing tool, there is also
a sizing companion guide written
by Jason DeMelo.
•
This document explains how each
tool was benchmarked and the
assumptions made when building
the sizing tool.
•
You can download it from:
•
https://service.sap.com/~sapdownload/011000358700000307202011E/S
BO_BI_4_0_Companion_V4.pdf
Involve your basis team in the sizing effort and also make sure that
the assumptions you made are realistic from a functional standpoint
(i.e. how complex and intensive are your dashboards really).
13
PC Hardware Requirements for Client Side: BI 4.0
From a PC client perspective you need:
Memory
Minimum of 2.0GB memory
(really want more in practice)
I recommend 4.0GB (or more if you can afford it)
Processor
Minimum of 2.0 GHz core (more cores the better)
Disk Space
Min of 3.5GB free space if you only install English
Min of 7.5GB free space if you install all languages
Screen Size
Recommended resolution size is
Make sure you build dashboards on a standardized screen
resolution and size so that everyone sees the same images
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Real-World Examples
Tool
Area
SAP BW
BW Version
Named Users (#)
Dashboards Concurrent Users (#)
Simultaneous Requests (#)
Named Users (#)
Analysis
Concurrent Users (#)
Simultaneous Requests (#)
Named Users (#)
WebI
Concurrent Users (#)
Simultaneous Requests (#)
Server Memory
Server Disk
Hardware PC Memory (standard)
PC CPUs (standard)
Portal version
Server Operating System
Other
Flash version
Database Version
Performance overall (1-10) *Subjective
Manufacturing
Company
7.3
192
7-8
5-10
45
6
4-5
16 GB
100 GB
4 GB
2.33 GHz
(dual core)
WebSphere
AIX
11
SQL express
9
Airline
7.3
503
30-35
4-10
84
22
5-15
16 GB
95 GB
2 GB
Pharma
distributor
7.0 Enpk 1
168
26
4-20
8 GB
120 GB
2 GB
2.0 GHz
2.0 GHz
(dual core)
SAP
SAP
Win 2008
Win 2008
11
10
SQL express SQL express
8
8
Paper
company
Retailer
7.3
109
11-14
3-8
63
7
2-3
~30
7
2-3
8 GB
70 GB
4 GB
2.3 GHz
(dual core)
SAP
Win 2008
11
SQL
7
7.0 Enpk 1
309
22
5-15
46
6-8
7-10
1604
60-70
18-40
32 GB
230GB
4 GB
2.3 GHz
(dual/quad core)
SharePoint
Win 2008
11
SQL
9
These are real examples from companies that have been using BI 4.0 for at least 6 months
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What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing Environment for BI 4.0 and SAP Dashboards
Core components of Dashboard and BI
Compatibility Requirements
In-memory performance options
Wrap-up
16
The Different Tiers in SAP BI
First we have the application tier. This is include the
Web Application Services such as the Central
Management Console (CMC) and the BI launch pad.

SAP recommends adding a web application server for each 500 ACUs and
that at least 5GB heap memory is assigned and 900 threads are configured.
The next is the intelligence, or management tier. This include the
dashboard cache service, File Repository Service (FRS) and the CMS.

Only the first File Repository input and output Service pair (FRS) to register
in the CMS is the active pair. If you add more FRSs, these are assumed to be
passive backups for fault tolerance and failures.
Lastly we have the processing tier. This include the Adaptive Job
Service and the Processing Services for the various BI tools,

Each BI tool has different memory and processor requirements.
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The SAP BusinessObjects BI Scalability
BI is highly scalable
If you have a high
number of users, you
can split the application,
processing, and
intelligence layers on
separate hardware
servers
You can also
horizontally partition the
processing and
intelligence layers on
several servers
Tier Components
for Intelligence
Tier Components
for Processing
If you split the Web application
components on multiple servers, make sure
you also deploy a hardware load balancer
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Dashboard Performance – Some Recommendations
•
You can scale number of instances based on the Active
Concurrent Users (ACUs), and SAP has made some
recommendations:

The CMS can handle upto 500 ACUs per instance and you can
currently scale this to 8 instances (will be increased in next release).
You can add more CMSs if you see over 80% utilization of the CPUs.

The dashboard cache can handle upto 400 ACUs per instance and
you can add as many instances you want (no limitations), but you
are unlikely to need more than one.

The dashboard processing is normally one per machine with no
limitations (the server automatically spawns and manages child
processes). If you need more, add more instances.
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More Key Factors That Determine Dashboard Performance
•
•
•
•
•
•
Concurrent number of users during peak load
times of system
Logical design of dashboards
 Simple, complex, and incredibly complex
 Number of records retrieved by the dashboards
Network capacity
Database speed of source data
Number of instance
 This is used for spreading
service loads on multiple nodes
Number of CPUs and available memory of each
server
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What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing Environment for BI 4.0 and SAP Dashboards
Core components of Dashboard and BI
Compatibility Requirements
In-memory performance options
Wrap-up
21
The Components of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0
The complete
components of the
BI landscape
consist of a variety
of software
Each of these
components have
their own
requirements
We will now look at
each of these
components and their
respective size and
version requirements
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Compatibility Operating Systems: BI 4.0 Server-Side
All server components only support 64-bit operating
systems. The mobile server is currently only supported
on Windows operating systems. For other the following
versions are supported:
IBM
64-bit BI
Server
Products
AIX 5.3
Power - TL
9
SP3
AIX 6 .1
Power TL5
Microsoft
AIX 7.1
Power TL1
SP1
Server
Server
2003/2003 2008 R2
R2 and
x64 - SP1
2008 R2
x64 - SP2
Oracle/
Linux
Sun
Solaris 10 Suse SLES Suse SLES Red Hat EL Red Hat EL
SPARC - 10 x86_64 - 11 x86_64 - 5 x86_64 - 6 x86_64 SP2*
*
Update 2* Update 2*
Business
Intelligence
platform
Analysis, edition
for OLAP
Explorer
Web Intelligence
Crystal Reports
- Enterprise
Crystal Reports
2011 (*3)
Dashboards
(Xcelsius)
Mobile Server
(*4)
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Compatibility : BI 4.0 and Database Servers
Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008 is included with SAP
BusinessObjects BI 4.0, but you may also use databases
from SAP, Oracle, Sybase, IBM and MySQL. The database
is used for storing CMS and the audit repository.
Vendor
Database
Version
Oracle
IBM
SAP
Oracle DB
IBM DB2
Workgrou IBM DB2
p Edition
Sybase Adaptive Sybase SQL
HANA MaxDB
Server Enterprise Anywhere
11g -R1
and R2
10g
-R2
9.7
9.7; 9.5
and 9.1
SP 3&4
7.7
15.7; 15.5
and 15
MySQL
AB
Microsoft
12.0.1
SQL Server
2012
2008
2005
SP2/3 & R2 SP3/SP4
SQL
Server
Express
MySQL
2008
5.1
AIX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
Using the SQL Server database that comes bundled with SAP
BusinessObjects BI 4.0 may save you a lot of money
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Compatibility: BI 4.0 and Application Servers
• The
application server handles the logic of BI 4.x and
can run on a variety of hardware. The supported Java
application servers include:
Supported Java Application Servers
Application Server
Version
Java Version
Tomcat
6.0.20 and 7.0 Java 6
JBoss App. Server
5.0 and 5.1
10
WebLogic
10.3
Linux
IBM Java
Sun JDK
Solaris Windows
Sun JDK
Sun JDK
Java 5 / Java 6
Java 5
JRockit 5.0
Java 6
JRockit 6.0
10.3.3, 10.3.4*, Java 6
10.3.5*, 10.3.6 JRockit 6.0
6.1.0.7*
Java 5*
7.0.0.11
Java 6*
SAP NW CE
7.2 SP3
SAP JVM 1.6
SAP NW JAS
7.3
SAP JVM 1.6
WebSphere
AIX
Sizing the application server
is based on SAP Application
Performance Standard (SAPS)
instead of CPU and Memory.
Note: WebSphere use IBM
Java SDK for all operating
systems and v6 is not
supported for Analysis –
OLAP edition,
Hardware: Server-Side Requirements
From a server sizing perspective you need:
Minimum CPU
4 x 2.0 GHz Core CPU
Minimum Memory of Server
Min of 8.0GB memory - 16GB recommended
(but more based on number of users)
Minimum Disk Space
If you only install English: 11GB Windows;
13GB AIX/Solaris; and 14GB for Linux
If you install all languages: 14GB Windows;
15GB AIX/Solaris; and 16GB for Linux
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Compatibility: BI 4.0 and Web Portals
The Web Portal supported by SAP BI 4.0 is extensive
and covers all major Portal Servers and their latest
versions:
Supported Web
Portal Servers
Sever
MS SharePoint
(.NET 3.5)
IBM Websphere
SAP NW Enterprise
Portal
Oracle WebLogic
* as part of 10.3.2
Version
2010
2007
7
6.1.5
6.1
7.3
7.0
10.3.4*
10.3.2
10.3
10
AIX
Linux
Solaris Windows
Note:
Microsoft’s
SharePoint
portal product
only runs on the
Windows
operating
system
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Compatibility: BI 4.0 and Clients
Most Windows operating systems are supported by SAP
BusinessObjects BI 4.x at the client side. All desktop
components of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.x are 32-bit
32-bit BI Desktop
Products
Dashboards (Xcelsius)
Web Intelligence
Rich Client
Crystal Reports
for Enterprise
Crystal Reports
2011
Crystal Reports
Viewer 2011
Crystal Presentation
Design
BI Client Tools – Client
Components
Live Office
Mac
Mac OS X
Desktop
Windows XP Windows Vista
Prof. (SP3)
(SP2)
Servers
Windows 7
(SP1)
Server 2008
Server 2003 &
(SP2)
& 2008 R2
2003 R2 (SP2)
(SP1)
Mac OS X
is currently
not
supported
except for
the SAP
Crystal
Reports
Viewer
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Compatibility: BI 4.0 and Web Browsers
There are various browser and Java requirements for SAP
BusinessObjects BI depending on the type of operating
system you are using
Supported
Browsers and
Java Versions
Safari 5.1
(Apple 1.6)
Firefox 10*
(JRE 1.6)
Internet Explorer 7
(JRE 1.5/1.6 for WebI)
Internet Explorer 8*
(JRE 1.6)
Internet Explorer 9*
(JRE 1.6)
Mac
Desktop
Mac OS X
Windows Windows Windows
7
Vista
XP
Servers
Server 2003 &
2003 R2
Server 2008
(SP2) & 2008 R2
PS: On server side
IIS is supported as
Integration option
in MS SharePoint
V6 for Server 2003.
V7 for Server 2008
V7.5 for Server 2008 R2
The Safari browser 5.1 is supported only by the Mac OS X operating system.
Internet Explorer 8/9 standards mode is currently not supported by BI launch pad.
For Firefox usage, you need the Extended Support Release (ESR).
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Other Software Requirements
To run the system correctly, there are several
components needed on the client side.
Software and Version
Windows Mac OS
Microsoft Office 2010
Microsoft Office 2007 SP2
Microsoft Office 2003 SP3
Adobe Reader 10.0
Adobe Reader 9.3.x / 9.4.x
Adobe Reader 9.0
Adobe Flash Player 11
Adobe Flash Player 10
While BO Explorer require at least Flash player 10.1, there have been some
issues with large Flash files in Dashboards. For example: Flash v10.1 seems to
be stuck in “initializing” phase when files are over 2 MB. This seems to be less
of an issue for smaller files and we have seen no significant issues in version 11
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Compatibility – Connections to SAP BW
There are many ways to connect the BI tools to an
underlying SAP BW system. With BI 4.0, the following
BW versions are supported
Product
Dashboards
Web Intelligence
Crystal Reports for Enterprise
Dashboards
Analysis, edition for OLAP
Dashboards
Web Intelligence
Crystal Reports Enterprise
Explorer
Web Intelligence
Live Office
BEx Web Applications
Explorer
Crystal Reports for Enterprise
Crystal Reports 2011
Connection
BICS (transient
universe)
BICS (NW BI Java)
BICS
Multi source universe
(SQL)
OLAP Universe (MDX)
Integrated with BI 4
BWA / HANA
D2D
Directly to BW
BW 7.30 BW 7.02 BW 7.01 BW 7.01
SPS 03+ SPS 02+ SPS 08+ SPS 06+
Dashboards can
also be built on
BW systems on
HANA through a
relational
universe if you
have applied
HANA service
pack 3 or 4
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What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing Environment for BI 4.0 and SAP Dashboards
Core components of Dashboard and BI
Compatibility Requirements
In-memory performance options
Wrap-up
32
Why In-Memory Processing?
Focus
Technology
1990
2012
Improvement
CPU
0.05
304.17
MIPS/$
MIPS/$
6083x
Memory
0.02
79.15
MB/$
MB/$
Addressable
Memory
216
264
248x
Network
Speed
100
100
Mbps
Gbps
1000 x
Disk
Data Transfer
5
702
MBPS
MBPS
3508x
140x
Source: 1990 numbers SAP AG, 2012 numbers, Dr. Berg
Source: BI Survey of 534 BI professionals, InformationWeek,
Disk speed is growing slower than all other hardware components,
while the need for speed is increasing
In-Memory Processing — BW Accelerator (BWA)
SAP BWA is a tool that
has been available for
almost 6 years and is
being used by
hundreds of
companies.
It can load data in-memory
from SAP and non-SAP
sources and you can build
dashboards on the data
using standard BEx queries
and BICS connections (as
covered earlier)
34
An Example of a HANA system we installed recently
The long-term idea with HANA is to replace the databases under SAP
NetWeaver BW and SAP ERP with in-memory processing databases,
instead of traditional relational databases. This means much faster query
response time and a smaller database.
HANA is an appliance
that can be implemented
fast, is cost effective
and can super-charge
the data delivery and
calculations in your
dashboards!!
Looking Inside SAP HANA — In-Memory Computing Engine
Vs.
Metadata
Authorization
Transaction
Manager
Manager
Manager
SQL Script
SQL Parser
Volumes
Relational
Engine
-Row Store
-Column Store
Calculation
Log
Disk Storage
Data
Session
Manager
MDX
Engine
Volumes
Load
Controller
Replication Server
We can also move the whole database that has the source data for
your dashboards to the in-memory platform of HANA. This makes the
system much faster!! (SAP Dashboards can consume data from HANA right now)
BusinessObjects Data Services
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing Environment for BI 4.0 and SAP Dashboards
Core components of Dashboard and BI
Compatibility Requirements
In-memory performance options
Wrap-up
37
High-Volume User Management and Access Control
•
•
•
•
Plan for a gradual rollout to a limited number of users
Keep the numbers comparable if possible
 This will allow you to predict system loads and performance
issues by stipulations from real performance data
 I.e., roll out to 50 users each week
Simplified versions of high-impact dashboards may be created for
casual users
 I.e., a dashboard with only one query and summarized data with
limited navigation and passing of variables
Create a hardware contingency plan and budget
accordingly
Only in rare cases should you use a big-bang
approach. Since user patterns are hard to predict,
this may cause significant performance issues.
38
Resources
SAP Sizing tool:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/1055c550ce45-2f10-22ad-a6050fff97f1
Evan Delodder and Ray Li, Creating Dashboards with Xcelsius (SAP
PRESS, 2010).
David Lai and Xavier Hacking, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0
Cookbook (Birmingham, PA: Packt Publishing, 2011).
Dashboard and Presentation Designer (Xcelsius) forum on SDN
http://forums.sdn.sap.com/forum.jspa?forumID=302
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.x tutorials on SDN
www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/dashboards-elearning
39
7 Key Points to Take Home
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Use the SAP Sizing tool for initial sizing estimates
Size your system based on concurrent users and SAPS
Use realistic data volumes, users & dashboard complexity in your
assumptions
Use the SAP system guides on the SAP Service Marketplace, but plan
to operate your system at max. 70% load for “spare capacity”
Keep the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 environment on a separate
stack from SAP NetWeaver BW
Make sure the PCs have enough memory
Examine the “standard” PC of the users and developers; pay attention
to connectivity, screen size and resolutions, CPUs, and all software
release versions to assure compatibility
40
Your Turn!
How to contact me:
Dr. Bjarne Berg
[email protected]
41
Disclaimer
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, SAP NetWeaver®, Duet®, PartnerEdge, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their
respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product
and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Wellesley Information Services is neither owned nor controlled by
SAP.
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