SAP Lumira and Design Studio Convergence
For the latest information on Lumira 2.0 please see the launch blog series.
Update September 2016: The dates have shifted to assure the delivery of a high quality, performant release. The timing answer below has changed. Project scope remains the same as originally communicated.
Earlier this week at SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando, we announced the roadmap to converge SAP BusinessObjects Lumira and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio into one product.
This FAQ should address the most common questions regarding this transition.
What are we announcing during SAPPHIRE NOW?
We’re announcing a roadmap to combine the agility of SAP BusinessObjects Lumira with the dashboard and application capability of SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio for creating BI content into one product.
What is the product strategy behind this convergence?
We want to empower business users with agile tools that can access both trusted and departmental data while allowing them to upscale their visualizations to enterprise-level analytic applications when needed.
In addition, we are continuing to simplify the BI portfolio. An outcome of this convergence is we will have 4 primary BI tools going forward:
- SAP BusinessObjects Lumira (including Design Studio capability) for both trusted data discovery and analytic applications.
- SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Office for Excel based analytics
- SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence for self-service reporting
- SAP Crystal Reports for highly formatted reporting
In addition, SAP BusinessObjects Mobile BI is the single mobile application to consume this content.
What is SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0?
This product is the next major version of both SAP Lumira 1.x and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.x.
There will be continue to be two desktop clients as they exist today, but a single server side addon.
We are retaining two desktop clients as they target distinct user personas:
- Lumira desktop will continue to focus on agility for the business user.
- Lumira studio will enable the creation of powerful analytic applications and enterprise dashboards.
With the 2.0 release, the files created in these clients can be opened in the other because the two clients but part of a single product.
Why is SAP calling it one product if there are still two clients?
It is not unusual for one product to offer different ways of working with it. As an example, Web Intelligence has a DHTML client, Java applet client, and a desktop thick client but it is clearly one product.
What are the expected benefits for current SAP BusinessObjects Lumira users?
- Seamless promotion of stories created by business users into professionally authored enterprise dashboards and analytic applications.
- Full support for all SAP BW metadata and hierarchies with a new BW online data connection.
What are the expected benefits for current SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio users?
- Enable IT professionals and power users to rapidly develop, refine, and promote BI content that was prototyped by line of business users
- Access to offline data, accelerated by the Velocity in-memory engine.
- Ability to personalize existing enterprise dashboards.
- Improved Universe connectivity.
Why is this a big deal?
Business users and IT have different priorities. Business users are all about agility and speed. IT is mostly focused on governance, security, and scalability. Both needs are important. By converging onto a single product we can meet both sets of needs at the same time.
Will there be functional parity between Lumira 2.0 and the existing products?
For existing SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio customers, we expect there to be 100% functional parity with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 2.0.
We do plan some platform support changes in SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 2.0:
- It will be a 64-bit client only (similar to SAP BusinessObjects Lumira Desktop 1.x)
- We will only offer a server add-on to the BI Platform. Server add-ons to the NetWeaver and HANA platforms will not be supported. Data access to NetWeaver and HANA data will continue to be supported as they are today.
- Connectivity to HANA will only be supported through the HTTP-based INA connector, not a SQL/JDBC connector.
For existing SAP Lumira customers, the only capability that we are aware of that will be missing in SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0 compared to Lumira 1.x is the faceted Explorer-like view in the Visualize room. We will continue to have the faceted navigation view in the data preparation view of Lumira 2.0, but that won’t be available in the equivalent of the Visualize room until a later release.
We know that the faceted navigation view with visualizations is important, especially for current Explorer customers and will add that in as soon as possible after the release of SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0.
Design Studio 1.x files can be opened by SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 2.0.
Lumira 1.x files can be opened by SAP BusinessObjects Lumira Desktop 2.0.
All existing 1.X SDK extensions for both Lumira 1.x and Design Studio 1.x will continue to work.
Should customers continue to deploy SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 1.x?
Absolutely. Given the planned high level of parity between Lumira 1.x and 2.0, there is no reason not to deploy now with confidence.
Should customers continue to deploy SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.x?
Absolutely. Given the planned high level of parity between Design Studio 1.x and Lumira 2.0, there is no reason not to deploy now with confidence.
Are we expecting a migration for existing content built using SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 1.x or SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.x?
There will be no migration steps or content rewrites to move to SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0 from either preceding product.
What are the licensing implications of the technical convergence?
In general, there is no change to license entitlements. The information below is preliminary and subject to change.
Customers entitled to both Design Studio and Lumira Server today:
Will receive the successors to Design Studio 1.x and Lumira 1.x functionality including data mashup and data preparation functionality:
- Lumira 2.0 discovery
- Lumira 2.0 designer
- Lumira 2.0 server addon – all functionality
Customers entitled to Design Studio only today:
Will receive the successor to Design Studio 1.x:
- Lumira 2.0 designer
- Lumira 2.0 server addon – excluding data mashup and data preparation
Customers entitled to Lumira Desktop or Lumira Standard only today:
Will receive the successors to Lumira desktop edition or Lumira standard edition
- Lumira 2.0 discovery or Lumira 2.0 discovery standard edition
Will there be any name changes?
We are likely to change the name of the Design Studio client to align with the SAP BusinessObjects Lumira brand. It is shown as SAP BusinessObjects Lumira, designer edition in this FAQ.
What else is happening with Lumira 2.0?
In addition to the convergence with Design Studio, we are planning to deliver a major upgrade to the user experience in SAP BusinessObjects Lumira, collapsing the current Compose and Visualize rooms into a single canvas.
When is Lumira 2.0 Expected?
Subject to the usual uncertainty about forward-looking statements, we expect rampup to start in April 2017 and a GA release in late Q2 / early Q3 2017. In addition there will be a beta release in late 2016 and a customer validation release in Q1 2017 to provide early access to select customers.
Where can I find the latest product road maps?
http://sap.com/roadmaps shows the SAP Lumira roadmap including Design Studio convergence (no login required).
Hi
Something is not clear in the licensing implications for customer in our situation. Here's our current situation:
- We have licenses for DS desktop and DS server.
- We have licenses for Lumira Desktop.
- We do NOT have licenses for Lumira Server.
What does the licensing implications of this “technical convergence” mean for us?
According to the blog post above, if we’re “not entitled to Lumira Server functionality” today, it means that we’re not entitled to Lumira server 2.0 in the future. Does it mean only publishing Lumira desktop to Lumira server? Or does it also mean that we can use Design Studio 2.0 desktop but will be unable to publish on Lumira/DS server (without purchasing or converting licenses)? Or should we read this: “Licensees of Design Studio Desktop and Server today will be entitled to equivalent functionality as well”?
Any clarification would be welcome !
Philippe Chartier
There will be many customers in a situation like yours. As stated in the blog, there will be no change to license entitlements. Lumira Server functionality will not be available to customers that don't license it.
We will be working out exactly what that means in the coming weeks.
Thanks, Blair
Hi Blair,
With respect to the comment "SAP BusinessObjects Mobile BI is the single mobile application to consume this content", how will the recent addition of SAP BusinessObjects Roambi to the portfolio impact this statement given that Roambi also provides connectivity to Web Intelligence as a data source?
Thanks,
Mustafa.
Hi Mustafa,
Mobile BI is included with your BI license. Roambi is a cloud application, sold using the subscription model only. It is not included with your BI license.
It provides connectivity to Webi as well as IBM Cognos and Microsoft Reporting Services, as well as web services.
Roambi is not a replacement for mobile BI. It offers 10 templates, and IT/power users map the data source into one of the 10 templates. The 10 templates will not look like existing BI Platform content.
Also, Roambi provides a 100% offline model for consuming mobile analytics. Webi documents can be consumed offline using Mobile BI.
Roambi is intended for the offline consumption of simple analytics, whereas Mobile BI is focused on mobilizing existing BI Platform content.
Hope that helps.
-Blair
Thanks Blair for the info, we are in middle of selecting a corporate tool for dashboarding and visualizations. We have been working extensively with Lumira, Design Studio and other Non- SAP tools available in market. Do we have a specific timeline as to when Lumira 2.x would be available with the new UI design and other features as it would really help us in gauging the pros and cons and present it as an optimal choice.
Hi Aju,
We are targeting the end of the year (Q4 2016) to release Lumira 2.0 (with the new UI design) for ramp up, and early 2017 for general availability.
Regards,
Olivier
Thanks for this information
From my point of view it is very important to have this faceted explorer view, even better then it is in the actual explorer, incl. the explorations views, which can be created in 1 Minute, for me still one of the highlight in SAP BO.
Please add this explorer feature in 2.0
Thanks
What happens with Dashboard Designer now? I thought the plan was to move users off of Dashboard Designer (aka Xcelsius) and into Design Studio. Has that plan been dropped?
Hi Jon,
This convergence does not change our plans for Dashboards (Xcelsius). We will continue to position Design Studio 1.x & Lumira 2.x as our solution for enterprise dashboards.
Combining Lumira with Design Studio makes it easier for business users to rapidly prototype dashboards, similar to the old Dashboard Designer.
For more information on our convergence plans, I suggest attending this upcoming webinar on Tuesday June 28: https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&partnerref=Internal&eventid=1137441&sessionid=1&key=6E1D98467F10AD5D5C735EC90A3AB8FB®Tag=&sourcepage=register
-Blair
How about the application format? will lumira 2.0 have a new one?
Hi SAP,
Is there any chance to have High DPI support with 2.0 version?
Lukasz
Hi Lukasz,
The focus in 2.0 is to combine the two products with near 100% compatibility while improving the user experience. New features like high DPI support and other features requested on Idea Place will be addressed starting with the 2.1 release.
-Blair
Hi,
I guess not 100% of functionality will be available in both Lumira 2.0 design clients.
Can you already elaborate on that?
My guess would be scripts and planning (especially planning is not mentioned on any of those slides, any specifics there?).
Hi Clemens,
All existing Design Studio and Lumira functionality will be supported subject to the limitations described above. Scripts and planning will continue to be supported.
-Blair
Hi All,
What I understood that server side components for Lumira and Design Studio are becoming a single Add On as per the convergence strategy.
Design Studio has 3 Deployment options - BI Platform, NetWeaver and HANA.
In the above blog it is mentioned that on BI Platform mode would be supported which is logical.
What about Lumira Server for Teams? Will it still be supported? If Yes, will it support Design Studio Analysis application?
Thanks,
Supriya Das
The dates have shifted and are updated in the above FAQ.
Is there a GA date for Lumira 2.0?
Thanks.
Andrea
See the last question in the FAQ above.
I assume you mean that the rampup will start April 2017, right?
Hi,
Connecting to HANA supported only HTTP-INA I.e. XML for Analyis.
> BW4HANA
> HANA VDM I.e. Analytical/Cal Views
As a power user I have two different cal views if I want to combine by using free hand SQL join at connection layer I.e. Not possible I have to bring DS1 and DS2 and merge at report level which is always performance issue or call IT and change the view.
Create universe on HANA views and use ODBC connection then I can use free hand SQL which is not recommended by SAP for HANA systems.
I'm so sorry to say we don't need to think too much to design the product at this point of time as you know there are products available in the market like Tableau and qlikview try to analze and provide similar experience and equal functionality in the fast phase approach. SAP is successfully completed working one decade on BI platform not even single product has complete functionality and matured. Lingering and changing the strategies after starategies.
FIRST MAKE IT THE PRODUCT CONSIST,BUGFREE AND COMPLETE FUNCTIONALITY WITH COMPARE TO INDUSTRY STANDARD like Tableau,Power BI & Qlikview THEN THINK ABOUT MERGING AND MARRYING ..etc
Thsnks,
Kishore
Sorry Kishore this is not our strategy simply because it's easier to make 1 product consistent than 2.
Does SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio supports RoamBI??
hi blair
did i see somewhere, that L2.0 will work on Mac OS ?
can you tell us more about this
thanks
glen
Hi Glen,
Our strategy is to add the data preparation capability to Lumira Server instead of creating a specialized Mac version of Lumira desktop.
This is planned for Lumira 2.1 (2H 2017).
Thanks, Blair
Hi Blair
Can you please elaborate little more about the data preparation capability to Lumira Server and how it replaces the need for Installation of the Lumira Desktop onto Mac OS. I have got a client request to support Lumira on Mac OS.
Is there direct installation set up available for Lumira Desktop that supports Mac OS ?
Is there any alternative we can suggest the client to use Lumira Desktop ?
Please advise
Best Regards
Dhinesh Kumar Ganeshan
This is about a year off so we don't have a lot of details. The requirement at this time is to take the Prepare tab on Lumira Desktop and implement it on Lumira Server. As I stated above we don't plan to release a version of Desktop with native MacOS support.
The other alternative I can suggest is solutions like virtualization (like I do as I run a Mac) or remote desktop solutions like Ctrix.
Thanks, Blair
Hi Blair,
We are on BI4.1 SP6 on Linux Red Hat OS, oracle DB.
We installed Lumira server v1.31.2 on Linux OS. When we try to access the storyboard via the BI launchpd we get an error HDB 01001. After researching the error I found out that we are required to install a package which we are required to purchase SAP HANA license (subscription) from Red Hat. We don’t connect to HANA database.
Is this package required because the Lumira server install is a HANA runtime?
Will this package be required for Lumira server v2.0 on Linux?
Is the v2.0 available on BI4.1 and BI4.2 and when?
Thanks!
Hi,
Lumira Server does not depend on HANA - however it does have an in-memory engine called Velocity. The Velocity engine does depend on some libraries that Red Hat has chosen to distribute in this paid version.
Unfortunately this is a decision that Red Hat has made - not SAP. I would recommend that you share your feedback with Red Hat. Other Linux distros like SUSE have not made packaging decisions like this.
2.0 will be support BI 4.1 SP07 & later, and BI 4.2 SP02 & later. Dates are described earlier in the blog.
Regards, Blair
Thank You Blair.
Hi Blair,
In this part:
Customers entitled to Lumira Desktop or Lumira Standard only today:
Will receive the successors to Lumira desktop edition or Lumira standard edition
Shouldn't these customers be receiving Lumira 2.0 discovery instead of Lumira 2.0 designer? Sorry if I understood it wrong.
Swapna
Thanks Swapna - I've corrected the blog.
Hi Blair,
I just check the latest Lumira 2.0 PAM. I see that Linux is not included as a supported server -- only Windows Server. Will Linux be supported or will it only be Windows Server? If Linux will be supported, what flavor Redhat or SUSE?
Linux Redhat and SUSE will be supported in the GA version.
Hi Blair, we posted this same question to OSS and the reply we received was that "Linux support is not planned for the GA in Q3," can you please confirm if this is correct and if so, do you know when support for Linux will be available?
Thanks,
David
I have confirmed with product management that Red Hat and SUSE will be supported in the GA version.
Thanks very much for the quick confirmation Blair.
David
Hi Blair,
Thanks for your very useful post. I faced a very serious issue with Lumira since it does not support full outer join (only supports left join & inner join).
Could you let me know if this version supports full outer join?
Thanks,
Tin
Does Lumira 2.0 support BEx Query designer functionality on cell editor which uses two structures?
Today Lumira does not support cell editor / two structure as we see issues with time characteristic refresh in the BI platform when we refresh the lumira document.
So we want to get an idea if we have to use the functionality going forward or make more Bex report without using cell editor features.
Please advise.
Thank
Hi Sini,
Lumira 2.0 will add a new way to connect to BW called BW Online. This will match the capability of Design Studio 1.6 which currently supports 2 structures from a BW query.
BW Online capability is described in detail in note 1869560.
Thanks, Blair
Hi Blair
Which is the best way to upgrade to Lumira 2.0 if both Lumira 1.X and Design Studio 1.X are installed in a BI platform as add-ins ?
Uninstall Design Studio 1.X and then upgrade Lumira to 2.0 version ?
Thank you very much