On Premise BI vs. SAP Business Objects Cloud – What’s In It for SAP BW Customers – ASUG Webcast
This is a small short recap of an ASUG webcast last week given by SAP.
The usual legal disclaimer applies that things in the future are subject to change.
The GRC part of BusinessObjects Cloud is in state of being planned; no GRC elements in solution
Based on HANA Cloud Platform – only offered by SAP
Figure 1: Source: SAP
For BW customers
On the left includes the cloud application
On the right is the local intranet for customers who don’t want data pushed to the cloud
First way is to push to cloud; set up HANA Cloud
Connector and agent (one-time set-up on customer side), connect to BW system
Scenario is possible today
Figure 2: Source: SAP
Figure 2 shows an example scenario on how to connect to the source
Figure 3: Source: SAP
Figure 3 shows the data acquisition steps, similar to other BI clients
Choose query, selection, variables, data selected, pulled to the cloud
Figure 4: Source: SAP
Figure 4 shows the minimum requirements – BW 7.4 SP13 or higher
For hierarchies you need BW 7.4
Figure 5: Source: SAP
Figure 5 shows the limitations
Figure 6: Source: SAP
Figure 6 is the hybrid architecture
Left side is cloud application
Plan to provide mobile application to render various charts on app (not possible now)
Right side shows reverse proxy; reverse proxy is intermediate – handle request from browser, application is from the cloud
Reverse proxy – means the data never goes to the cloud; ensures data stays in your intranet (privacy)
Only possible for HANA/BW on HANA – generate HANA view on BEx query
Data is always accessed on the fly
Figure 7: Source: SAP
Reverse proxy is in company’s network
Local proxy in DMZ – data can be accessed outside company network
Figure 8: Source: SAP
Figure 8 is if you have your own HCP instance
Open a ticket, SAP will set it up for you
Figure 9: Source: SAP
Create BEx query, generate HANA view, create report in BOC
Figure 10: Source: SAP
Figure 10 is planned functionality for the BW system; considered for Q4 (TBD)
Subset of Question & Answer:
Q: This is related to merger of analysis and EPM. Just to confirm for standard BPC installation, the recommendation is to use EPM and use the combined tool for the rest.
A: Correct. This is the recommendation.
Q: Will BOBJ Cloud and BOBJ on premise work with HANA Enterprise Semantic Services?
A: Good question; will check
Q: Can you please just explain how the Proxy works and keeps the data on-premise. How does it work?
A: Proxy has an intelligent forwarding; proxy is main contact – access proxy; 2 ways – Apache or SAP Web Dispatcher – app determines request
Q: Will all the BOBJ Cloud BW integration issues being addressed?
A: We are trying to get the issues resolved, however it may happen that we hit technical limitations. Right now, we are investigating into this.
Q: what is the scenarios the business objects cloud recommeded vs on premise
A: Depends on needs – at moment BOBJ Cloud is a young product; concentrating on agile viz scenarios but not strictly speaking. Draw line at amount of customization – user management, how much custom scripting in app, custom viz
Q: SAP Agile Data Preparation uses HANA Enterprise Semantic Services. I would like BOBJ cloud and on-premise to be able to use it as well.
A: Thanks for the feedback! I will forward this to development and ask if there any plans on it.
Q: If you are currently a standard BPC installation using the EPM add-in, what are you losing/gaining by moving to the AO duel plug-in?
A: If using standard BPC, not gaining/losing much