Correctly Sizing Your
Landscape for Scalable,
High-Performing
Dashboards
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 • Answers to dashboard FAQs
• SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
Mobilizing your dashboard
4.0 overview
Support organization
• Product updates and
Volume, stress, and UAT
implementation criteria
Training and change management • Recent changes to dashboard
terms
Options &
Prototyping
11 Performance
& Security
10
• 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
• 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
2
7
•
•
•
•
•
Scoping vs. requirements gathering
KPI definitions
Required skills and resources
Data connectivity deep dive
Key criteria to retrieve data sets
Landscape,
Connectivity &
Sizing
• Hands-on lab: Build a dashboard
with BOBJ Dashboards 4.0
• 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’ll start by doing a step-by-step sizing effort of a dashboard
project and look at five real-world sizing examples
Then we will conduct a structured walkthrough of compatible and
required software components
We’ll end by taking a quick peek at dashboard performance
options with in-memory processing from SAP NetWeaver BW
Accelerator and SAP HANA
2
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing environment for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 and
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
Core components of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard and
SAP BusinessObjects BI
Compatibility requirements
In-memory performance options
Wrap-up
3
The Sizing Tool — Getting Started
SAP has provided
a sizing tool for
the SAP
BusinessObjects
BI environments. It
is based on Flash
and is actually a
dashboard itself.
Output Area
(Sizing Results)
Download it:
www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/i
ndex?rid=/library/uuid/105
5c550-ce45-2f10-22ada6050fff97f1
Input Areas
(items and users)
This tool can help you size your SAP BusinessObjects 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 Users
• Expert Users
5
The Sizing Tool — Online Help User Definitions
The tool provides online
definitions of the user types
and guidelines on how to
determine Active Concurrent
Users (ACU). This is defined as
approximately 10% of the active
users.
Many dashboard users in large
organizations may be classified
as Information Consumers.
They may not wait five 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 size of the 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 dashboard
and benchmarked 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 provides 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 the
SAP Service 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
12
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/01100035870000
0307202011E/SBO_BI_4_0_Companion_V4.pdf

Requires login credentials for the SAP Service
Marketplace
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)
13
PC Hardware Requirements for Client Side: SAP
BusinessObjects 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
14
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
SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 for at least six months
15
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing environment for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 and
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
Core components of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard and
SAP BusinessObjects BI
Compatibility requirements
In-memory performance options
Wrap-up
16
The Different Tiers in SAP BusinessObjects BI
•
•
•
First we have the application tier. This includes 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 includes 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 includes the Adaptive Job
Service and the Processing Services for the various BI tools.
• Each BI tool has different memory and processor requirements
17
The SAP BusinessObjects BI Scalability
SAP BusinessObjects
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
18
Dashboard Performance — Some Recommendations
•
You can scale the number of instances based on the Active
Concurrent Users (ACUs), and SAP has made some
recommendations:
 The CMS can handle up to 500 ACUs per instance and you can
currently scale this to eight 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 up to 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.
19
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 instances
 This is used for spreading
service loads on multiple nodes
Number of CPUs and available
memory of each server
20
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing environment for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 and
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
Core components of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard and
SAP BusinessObjects 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
22
Compatibility Operating Systems: SAP BusinessObjects
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 others, 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)
23
Compatibility: SAP BusinessObjects 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
24
Compatibility: SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 and
Application Servers
•
•
The application server handles the logic of SAP
BusinessObjects 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 uses 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
26
Compatibility: SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 and Web Portals
•
The Web Portal supported by SAP BusinessObjects
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
27
Compatibility: SAP BusinessObjects 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
28
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)
29
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 SAP BusinessObjects Explorer requires at least Flash player 10.1, there
have been some issues with large Flash files in SAP BusinessObjects
Dashboards
For example: Flash v10.1 seems to be stuck in “initializing” phase when files are
over 2MB. This seems to be less of an issue for smaller files and we have seen no
30
significant issues in version 11.
Compatibility — Connections to SAP NetWeaver BW
•
•
There are many ways to connect the BI tools to an
underlying SAP NetWeaver BW system
The following SAP NetWeaver BW versions are
supported with SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0:
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
SAP NetWeaver
BW systems on
SAP HANA
through a
relational
universe if you
have applied SAP
HANA service
pack 3 or 4
31
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing environment for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 and
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
Core components of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard and
SAP BusinessObjects 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
33
In-Memory Processing — SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator
(BWA)
SAP NetWeaver BW
Accelerator is a tool that
has been available for
almost six 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 an SAP HANA System We Installed Recently
•
The long-term idea with SAP 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.
SAP HANA is an
appliance that can be
implemented fast, is
cost effective, and can
super-charge the data
delivery and
calculations in your
dashboards!
35
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 SAP HANA. This makes
the system much faster! (SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards can consume data
BusinessObjects Data Services
from SAP HANA right now)
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
Sizing environment for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 and
SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
Core components of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard and
SAP BusinessObjects 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
Where to Find More Information
•
•
•
•
•
SAP Sizing tool
 www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/1055c550ce45-2f10-22ad-a6050fff97f1
Evan Delodder and Ray Li, Creating Dashboards with Xcelsius:
Practical Guide, (SAP PRESS, 1st Edition; 1st New Edition, 2010).
David Lai and Xavier Hacking, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
4.0 Cookbook, (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, and 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
bberg@comerit.com
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.
42