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BusinessObjects Monitoring and Housekeeping activities

October 22, 2012 | 16,575 Views |
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Hi Techies,

I got a chance to summarize the monitoring and housekeeping activities performed by businessobjects Administrators and am sharing the same here.Below activities needs to be performed at regular intervals as specified below to keep the BusinessObjects platform optimum, error free and stable.

Daily:

      · Monitoring BO servers running with optimal performance

· Monitoring all the related CMS, Audit and Reporting Database services

· Verifying Web applications (CMC, Infoview, Custom Applications) availability

· Monitoring day to day scheduled report jobs  from  Instance Manager

· Supporting issues for Business users

· Monitoring the size of the below Business objects Installation Folders

o   Logging

o   Data

o   FileStore

· Managing BusinessObjects backup preferably Cold backup during off business hours.

Backup Type

Backup Contents

Applicability

Full Content backup

Central Management Server (CMS) System Tables

Used for Full Content recovery

Auditing Tables

File Repository Server (FRS)

Local audit log files

Custom SDK applications/code

Database Connections (ODBC DSNs)

Any Application/Server specific configuration document

BIAR Backup

.BIAR Backup

Used for selective content recovery

Weekly:

1. Scan / Repair and Compact all repository errors

2. Delete the contents under the Local host folder in order to clear Tomcat Cache

3. Delete contents under the Data Folder in order to clear Web Intelligence Cache

4. Delete contents under the Logging Folder to clear log files generated

5. Delete empty folders within File Store Using RDT (Repository Diagnostic Tool)

Fortnightly

1. Testing the availability of all Universe connections to respective Databases

2. Regular BO repository Maintenance like Cleaning Orphaned Connection/Universe/Documents

3. Running Integrity Checks on Universes to ensure parsing (Syntax/Semantic Checking)

4. Discuss performance issues with DBA identified from auditing reports

Monthly:

1. Monitoring BO Licenses and managing license from named to Concurrent and Vice versa (If applicable).

2. Restart Web Application Server

3. Restart Server Intelligent Agent (SIA)

Feel free to add some more valid points if any, so that everyone will get benefit out of it.

Thanks for Reading!

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31 Comments

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  1. Former Member

    Mani,

     

    On the weekly activities;

    1. what do u mean by local host folder that contains the tomcat cache…? did u mean the webapps folder?

    2. Do u mean delete all contents under the Data folder and the Logging folder? including the subfolders???? Will they be automatically recreated?

     

    Overall, excellent post.

    (0) 
    1. Manikandan Elumalai Post author

      Emmanuel,

       

      For your queries.

       

      1. Its Tomcat work directory. i.e $TOMCAT_HOME/work/Catalina/localhost/mywarname/

          As its name suggests, is where Tomcat writes any files that it needs during run time.

       

      2. You need to delete the files alone may be that are aged more than a month not the default directories. You will be in trouble if you do so.You can do the cleanup using OS level scripting.

       

      Regards,

      Mani

      (0) 
  2. Former Member

    Hi

     

    Would like to clarify few things.

     

    • scan / Repair and Compact all repository errors

     

    How to scan or repair errors do we have any tool for scanning this

     

    • Delete the contents under the Local host folder in order to clear Tomcat Cache

     

    In local host folder we can find number of files like  Admin ,analytic  balancer,Businssproces bi,,cmcAPP…………….)  You mean to say all this folder files has to be deleted…Please clarify on this

    (D:\BOXI31\Business Objects\Tomcat55\work\Catalina\localhost)

     

    • Delete contents under the Data Folder in order to clear Web Intelligence Cache

     

    In data folder (D:\BOXI31\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0\Data) we found number of folders   in webi which folder we have to select and delete

     

     

    • Delete empty folders within File Store Using RDT (Repository Diagnostic Tool)

     

    We do not have RDT in the our BO system. Can you please suggest where it will actually present.Or do I need to separately install..

     

    I can able see only Diagonistic tool but not RDT.

     

     

    Thanks

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    (0) 
  3. Former Member

    Mani – I think u really need to clarify things a bit because it appears different BO versions would have different folders.

    I am on BO 4.0 FP3 version 14.0.4.738. I dont see any folder named mywarname??

    The same goes for all the other folders –  please tell us specifically the folders and file types to delete.

    And how do u implement OS level scripting. Please complete your blog to get excellent reviews.

     

    Mohammed – the RDT scan can be found in the reposcan folder.

     

    Thanks.

    (0) 
    1. Manikandan Elumalai Post author

      Emmanuel,

       

      You cant find mywarname anywhere in BO installation folders. Its a generic term which I used to refer all the BO Application war files Such as CmcApp,InfoViewApp in (BO 3.x) and BOE in (BO 4.0).

       

      regarding OS Level scripting you can go for either VBScript(Windows) or Shell (Unix) to move/archive files.

       

      Hope am clear.

       

      Regards,

      Mani

      (0) 
  4. Former Member

    Hello Mani,

     

    Do i need to move/archive the aged out files on regular intervals? Is there any provision by which i can tell the system that on each 25th day of a month, archive the old log files or can i get an alert notifying “log files are about to cross say for example 250 MB. Take the necessary action!”?

     

    Seeking to hear from you..

     

    Thanks

     

    Avani

    (0) 
      1. Former Member

        Hello Mani,

         

        First of all thanks for the reply. I am trying to figure out the solution by following the steps. I would like to know something about “admin.xml” file. Is it anyhow useful in log file management?

         

        Please advice

         

        Thanks in advance..

         

        Avani

        (0) 
  6. Former Member

    Hi Mani,

     

    Question on one of the items –

    1. Monitoring BO Licenses and managing license from named to Concurrent and Vice versa (If applicable).

     

    Is swapping Named licences to Concurrent licences just a switch of number in CMC (OR) should something be traded back with the vendor?

     

    In trying to understand the current activity of Names vs Concurrent users in our system (BOXI 4.0), I ran an audit report using the activity universe during the last 1 month.   Objects I used – Event Status (Named User Logon Succeede, Concurrent Logon Succeeded); Event Date, Total Event Count. Filters: Event Year & Event Month as applicable, and Event Status as described above.

     

    The report gives me unusual values for Total Event Count (Named User logon events). Could you please share some inputs on how to interpret the logon events?  Many thanks.

    (0) 
    1. Manikandan Elumalai Post author

      Hello Sirisha,

       

      As long as your licence utilization is within the procured licence count you can always switch between Named and Concurrent licences based on User’s usage pattern.

       

      For your auditing related issue, Have you properly deployed and configured the As-Is sample of universe and reports. Please refer here for the process of enabling Audit and deployment.

       

      http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog/2013/06/03/businessobjects-auditing–considerations-enablement

       

      http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog/2013/01/07/sap-businessobjects-40-auditor-configuration-deployment-end-to-end

       

      If you still facing the Issue, try firing the below query against the Audit database to get the consolidated User sessions altogether.

       

      ———————————————————————–

      SELECT

         rank() over (order by count(ADS_EVENT.EVENT_ID) desc) as user_rank,

         count(ADS_EVENT.EVENT_ID),

         ADS_EVENT.USER_NAME

      FROM

         ADS_EVENT

         where

         event_type_id=1014

        group by

         ADS_EVENT.USER_NAME

      ————————————————————————-

       

      Regards,

      Mani

      (0) 
      1. Former Member

        Hi Mani,

        Thanks for your inputs once again. We’ve done everything as in you mentioned. A few things I missed to mention earlier –

         

        – All our licences are configured to be Named users and it makes sense that the audit reports I ran returned only usage against “Named User logon” events.

         

        –  We still have trouble getting the sample crystal audit reports to work. Got Crystal for Enterprise & have set up the universe and connection as you described.. The reports work when opened directly from the Crystal designer application, however unable to save the reports to the server. Logged the issue with SAP to resolve it.

         

        – As a workaround to this, the webi report designed to give the Total Event count where Event_Type = “Named User Logon Succeeded”, returns event count to be a few thousand logons on any day. I dug in a little bit against different objects and see that most of the logons are tied to “Logon without Client ID” under Client Application Type compared to other client app types. What does this mean? Any ideas will help..

        (0) 
  7. Former Member

    Hello Mani

     

    We have a batch script which has been scheduled to run daily to restart the Tomcat & SIA services [BO environment ver 3.1] will that not clear the Tomcat Cache ?

    Thanks

    – Leo

    (0) 
    1. Manikandan Elumalai Post author

      Clearing Tomcat cache is required to avoid the inconsistencies in your Web Application deployment.  This will ensure the deployed application in WebApps folder is inline with the one in Tomcat cache.

      (0) 
  8. Former Member

    Why do we have to :

     

     

    Restart Web Application Server

    Restart Server Intelligent Agent (SIA)

     

     

    monthly? Is that really necessary? Why? What happens if I decide not to restart both of them every month?

    (0) 
  9. Former Member

    I used the code you mentioned earlier to clean up logging folder using VB script. Instead of moving to other folder, i am planning to delete the files older than x days permanently. I am trying to the VB script on BO server using command prompt, i could not delete the files. See the attached screenshot. But i can manually delete the files in that folder. What might be the cause?

     

    Dim SOURCE

    Dim fso, SourceObj, TargetObj, fileObj

     

    SOURCE = “BO Logging folder path”

     

     

    Set fso = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)

    Set SourceObj = fso.GetFolder(SOURCE)

     

    For Each fileObj in SourceObj.Files

     

    If DateDiff(“d”, fileObj.DateLastModified, Now) > 90 Then

    fileObj.delete true

    End If

     

    Next

     

    (0) 
    1. Noel Scheaffer

      I was able to delete files older than 180 days in my logging directory with the following forfiles command…

       

      forfiles /p “E:\Apps\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\logging” /m *.* /c “cmd /c del @file” /d -180

       

      I schedule this command to run weekly using the Task Scheduler built into Windows.

       

       

      One odd thing I have found is that I have some files in the logging directory whose names are too long to be deleted.  Not sure what I am going to do about those.

       

      Noel

      (0) 
  10. Former Member

    Hi Mani,

    Could you please let me know ways to do the below given clean up and the best practices around it?

     

    2. Regular BO repository Maintenance like Cleaning Orphaned Connection/Universe/Documents

     

    Thanks,

    Kivi

    (0) 
  14. Former Member

    Hi,

    While doing the weekly data clearing jobs..

    1. Do we need to stop all scheduled jobs?
    2. Do we need to stop Tomcat Service and Server Intelligence Agent? (using CCM)
    3. After the data cleanup, after how much time gap users can access BO?

    I have experienced below mentioned issues:

    1. Once we try to stop, Server Intelligence Agent stops after a long time (more than 1 hour)
    2. BO reports / scheduled jobs etc not working for 48 hours or more.

    Requesting your help. Thanks in advance.

    (0) 
    1. Former Member

      Hi Baiju,

       

      “Once we try to stop, Server Intelligence Agent stops after a long time (more than 1 hour)” – Usually this happens if servers associated with SIA are not stopping then SIA will go in hung state. Example : java.exe process for Processing server etc.

      To stop the SIA is one go :

      • Open Services.msc
      • Open Server Intelligent Agent Service.
      • Go to Properties > Recovery Tab
      • You will see 3 options :
        • Change the FIRST FAILURE  to- TAKE NO ACTION. ( By Default it will be restart the service)
        • Stop the SIA and wait for 1-2 min if its not stopping then open Task manager and simply kill SIA.EXE
        • Done.

      This will stop the SIA.

      Meanwhile do check why these processes are hanging so that it should automatically stop . Check with Windows team too for same that it is not releasing the processes.

      Regards,

      Mahak

       

       

      (0) 

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