SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.3 SP02 Available on SAP Cloud Appliance Library

[christian_ah-soon]

If you are looking forward to making yourself familiar with the latest capabilities and features of SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.3, SAP Cloud Appliance Library (SAP CAL) is allowing you to test SAP BI 4.3 Support Package 2 for free, through a 30-day trial license.

SAP CAL provides pre-configured and ready-to-use SAP solutions that can run in your own public cloud accounts from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform.

The new solution is an update of SAP BI Platform 4.2 Support Package 1 solution on SAP CAL which now includes Support Package 2 Patch 4 and SAP Live Data Connect 3.3. This new solution replaces the previous SAP BI 4.3 SP1 solution that is no more available.

SAP BI 4.3 SP2 on SAP CAL

This article describes all you need to know to take advantage of the SAP BI 4.3 SP2 availability on SAP CAL:

• What is SAP CAL?


• How to Create your Instance?


• How to Connect to the Windows Virtual Machine?


• How to Connect to the Linux Virtual Machine?


• How to Manage an Instance?


• How to Connect to SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform using SAP Live Data Connect?

What is SAP CAL? ⤒

SAP Cloud Appliance Library offers a quick and easy way to consume the latest SAP solutions in the cloud, such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP HANA Express Edition, Model Company Solutions, Industry Solutions and SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.3 SP2.

SAL CAL Solutions List

It's an online library of latest, preconfigured, ready-to-use SAP solutions that can be instantly deployed into your own public cloud accounts (e.g. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform) to kick-start your SAP projects.

It’s free, since SAP provides you a 30-days trial license so you can test SAP BI 4.3 SP2. You only have to pay for the cost charged to you by your cloud provider. The account you create on SAP CAL needs to be linked to your cloud provider account since the instance created on SAP CAL for your testing is deployed on virtual machines hosted on the cloud.

The solution proposed for SAP BI 4.3 SP2 Patch 4 contains:

• A Linux virtual machine running the SAP BI server and SAP Live Data Connect 3.3.


• A Windows virtual machine with all SAP BI client tools: Web Intelligence Rich Client, Information Design Tool, …

How to Create your Instance? ⤒

After you have logged into SAP CAL, follow these steps to create your test instance:

1. In the Solutions page, use the Search text field to to search for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform 4.3 SP02.


2. Click it to open its page and click Create Instance. You may also directly click Create Instance from the search result list.









SAP BI 4.3 SP02 Solution Page on SAP CAL




3. Read and click I Accept to accept the terms and conditions of the solution.


4. Select your cloud service provider and enter the required fields to connect to it.


5. Enter a name for your instance and a password. You will use this password both to connect to the Windows virtual machine and to the SAP BI Platform as Administrator.









Instance Name




6. Click Store Key to store the key in this instance page. This key is used to connect to the Linux virtual machine as root. If you do not store it, you need to download and keep it for further use.









SAP CAL Instance Private Key




7. Validate the information message and let SAP CAL deploy your instance.









Information Message




8. On your instance page, the status will remain Activating until the instance is deployed. This may take between one and two hours.









Instance Page - Activating




9. When the instance is fully deployed and ready to use, its status is shown as Active.

How to Connect to the Windows Virtual Machine? ⤒

The instance page contains the IP address of the Windows virtual machine running in your instance. To connect to this machine:

1. On Windows, start Remote Desktop Connection.


2. In the Computer text field of the Authentication page, enter the Windows External IP Address available on the instance page, then click Connect.


3. When you are prompted for credentials, enter:
   
   
   
   • Administrator
   
   
   • The password you have provided when creating the instance
   
   
   
   









Welcome - Warning




4. Click Enter.
   
   
5. When you are connected to your virtual machine, you can open the Welcome.html page on the Desktop that contains some useful details. If you click it and get a warning message, it means the client tools installation is still running. In this case, logout and reconnect later.









Remote Desktop Connection Login Page




6. When the installation is over, you should see a folder containing shortcuts to the client tools.


7. Click the corresponding shortcut to start Web Intelligence Rich Client, Information Design Tool…
   
   
   
   • The system to use is bihost.
   
   
   • The default password for Administrator is the one you have provided when creating the instance. Even if this is a test environment, we recommend that you change it.
   
   
   
   
   
8. From the Windows virtual machine, you may run the browser and access:
   
   
   
   • The BI Launch Pad through the http://bihost:6400/BOE/BI URL.
   
   
   • The CMC through the http://bihost:6400/BOE/CMC URL.
   
   
   
   

Windows Virtual Machine

How to Connect to the Linux Virtual Machine? ⤒

Accessing the Linux virtual machine is needed for some administrative tasks on the servers, such as stopping or starting the SAP BI or Tomcat servers, reviewing the log files, deploying web applications...

To connect to the Linux virtual machine, you may use PuTTY and PuTTY Key Generator (www.putty.org) and follow these steps:

1. You may have already downloaded the key file generated when you have created your instance. Otherwise, you must have stored it on the page. You may go to the instance page on SAP CAL portal and click Download Key.









Download Private Key




2. If you choose to encrypt this key with a password, you will be asked to provide it when using this key in PuTTY Key Generator and PuTTY.


3. Start PuTTY Key Generator to convert this key into a PPK key.


4. Click Load to save the key previously saved. Click OK after the informational message.









PuTTY Key Generator




5. Click Save private key and save the key. Click Yes at the PuTTYgen Warning if you do not use any password.


6. Quit PuTTY Key Generator and start PuTTY.


7. In Host Name (or IP address), enter the IP external address of the Linux virtual machine. You can get this address in the instance page.









PuTTY Session




8. In Connection > SSH > Auth, click Browse and select the previously generated PPK file.









PuTTY Key




9. Click Open.


10. Click Accept if a warning message is displayed.


11. In the login as: invite, type root and validate.


12. You’re now connected. You'll find the SAP BI 4.3 files in the /data/bobj/sap_bobj/ folder. Have a lot of fun!

PuTTY Login

How to Manage your Instance? ⤒

On the SAP CAL instance page, you can suspend, start or terminate your instance. Typically, you should suspend the instance if you do not use it (to avoid extra charges from your cloud provider), and restart it when needed.




Click the links at the top of the page to run the corresponding action.

Instance Menu

You can even schedule the activity of your instance, by clicking Edit and defining when to start and stop your instance through different options.

Instance Schedule Options

How to Connect to SAP Business Objects BI Platform using Live Data Connect? ⤒

In SAP Analytics Cloud, you can query universes or Web Intelligence documents stored in the SAP BI Platform repository.

Before you learn about the detailed connection workflow, note that the extensive documentation of SAP Analytics Cloud and Live Data Connect can be found here:

• SAP Analytics Cloud


• SAP BusinessObjects Live Data Connect Installation and Security


• SAP BusinessObjects Live Data Connect


• SAP Analytics Cloud: Model

To test this workflow with your SAP CAL instance, follow these steps:

1. Start Live Data Connect by entering the following command lines on the Linux server:




1. su bipadm


2. cd /data/cs_ina_ldc-3.3.0


3. ./LDC




2. In the SAP BI Platform, create:




1. A dedicated user for SAP Live Data Connect. This user must have the rights to access the resources to expose in SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC).



2. A dedicated category for SAP Live Data Connect (LDC). Add this category in the Live Data Connect configuration file. The Web Intelligence documents that belong to this category will be listed in SAP Analytics Cloud.




1. Connect to SAC with your SAC credentials.


2. Create a Connection to the Live Data Connect server:




1. Go to the Connections tab.


2. Click the [+] button and choose Connect to Live Data > SAP Universe or WebI document.


3. Give the connection a name.


4. In the Host field, enter the instance’s hostname. You entered this name during the creation of the SAP CAL instance. This name can be found in the endpoints list of the instance’s SAP CAL page.


5. In the HTTPS Port field, provide the LDC server HTTPS port (8090).


6. In the User Name and Password fields, enter the credentials of the dedicated user you have created previously. If you have not created such a user, you may also use the user Administrator.


7. Click OK to validate the creation of the connection.




3. Create a Model on a universe or Web Intelligence document:




1. Go to the Modeler tab.


2. Choose Live Data Model.


3. In the System Type field, choose SAP Universe or WebI document.


4. In the Connection field, select the connection you have created previously.


5. In the Data Source field, select the universe or Web Intelligence document you want to access. Only the documents belonging to the category you have created are listed.


6. Create a query based on the selected universe or Web Intelligence document.


7. Click OK to validate the model creation.


8. Save your model by clicking the floppy disk icon in the toolbar, give the model a name, and click Save.




4. Create a Story using the above model:




1. Go to the Stories tab.


2. Choose to create a new Canvas using a Classic Design experience.


3. Add a Chart or a Table to the canvas.


4. Choose Existing Model, and select the model created above.


5. Select the measures and dimensions to use in the chart / table.