Product versions:
Business Intelligence 4.0
Business Warehouse 7.x
Introduction
This article presents the pre-requisites for and detailed
configuration steps to accessing BEx Web applications stored in a BW
ABAP system from a BI 4.x (aka Business Objects Enterprise) system. |
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Configuration steps on BW ABAP backend
Step 0 : pre-requisites
- SAP NetWeaver ABAP 7.01 SP08 or 7.30 SP01 (see Note 1476156 and Note 1471463)
- ABAP stack only . No NetWeaver Java stack required, i.e. Portal and
BI-JAVA components. Note that the BI 4.x system includes an SAP JVM and
Java libraries required to run BEx Web templates.
Step 1 : define an RFC connection to the BI 4.x system
- from the SAP GUI, use the SM59 transaction code to access the RFC connection configuration screen
- select TCP/IP connections and click on the Create icon
- From the Technical Settings tab :
- specify a name for this RFC connection, you will re-use this name
when configuring the BI 4.x system, in our example "VERIGTECH10_BEX_WEB"
- connection type should be T
- select the application type Registered Server Program
- specify an alias (ID) for this program, in our example "VERIGTECH10_BEX_WEB"
- set your main BW ABAP backend host as a Gateway Host, in our example cdphl338.phl.sap.corp
- set the Gateway Service to sapgw##, where ## represents the instance number of your SAP Gateway. In our example, the instance
number is 00, and the value for this field is sapgw00.
- From the Logon and Security tab, select the option Send Assertion Ticket
- Leave the MDMP and Unicode and Special Options tabs to default
Step 2 : add the BI 4.x web tier as a connected portal
- from the SAP GUI, use the SM30 transaction code to access the connected portals (RSPOR_T_PORTAL) table view. Type RSPOR_T_PORTAL in the Table/View field and click Maintain.
- you might get prompted to acknowledge a warning message, click on the green tick to acknowledge
- click on New Entries to add a new entry to the table
- define the connected portal as follows :
- set the Destination as the RFC Connection you defined in the previous step, in our example "VERIGTECH10_BEX_WEB"
- give the new connected portal a name (can be any value), in our example "BI4.0 on VERIGTECH10"
- check the Standard Portal option if you want the BI 4.x
system to become the execution server for BEx Web template developers.
When checked, templates launched from Web Application Designer and
queries launched from BEx Query Designer will execute within the BI 4.x
system : a web browser window will open and launch the template via an
OpenDocument URL.
- enter the base URL of the BI 4.x web server in the URL Prefix
field. In a default installation scenario, this would be the base URL
to the Tomcat HTTP port, in our example
"http://verigtech10.dhcp.wdf.sap.corp:8080"
- select BOE under Platform. Note: you will not see this option if you did not apply SP08 for 7.01 or SP25 for 7.00 (see Note 1541365).
- Select Use SAP Export Lib (PDF) if you want the ability to
export BEx Web applications to PDF, PostScript and PCL files. The Adobe
Document Services are not available in BI 4.x, hence the only option for
printing is the Export Library for SAP NetWeaver BI.
- save the new entry with the Save icon from the top menu bar
Note: more information can be found on that configuration step from the
Help Documentation
Step 3 : define a Service user account for RFC connections
- from the SAP GUI, use the su01 transaction code to create a user account that will be used for RFC connections from the BI 4.0 system
- follow the usual steps to create a user account. It is recommended to define a Service account.
- in our example, we are creating the account BEXATBOE which will be used from the BI 4.0 system, see the next section
- only one role is required for that user, refer to the next article on the series for more details : Permissions and authorizations requirements for BEx Web into BI 4.x
Configuration steps on BI 4.0
Step 0 : pre-requisites
- a BI 4.0 system running from a machine allowed to make RFC connections to the BW system
Step 1 : create an OLAP connection to the BW server
This can be done in 2 ways : from Information Design Tool (IDT) or the Central Management Console (CMC).
Note: If you have BI 4.0 patch 0.5 or earlier, do use the CMC
method; the IDT method has a bug (ADAPT01505743) that was corrected in
BI 4.0 patch 0.6 and later versions.
using Information Design Tool
- from IDT, open a session to the BI 4.x server with a user ID that
has permissions to create OLAP Connections (refer to this article for
more details : Permissions and authorizations requirements for BEx Web into BI 4.x)
- expand the Connections folder, pick the destination folder (it can be any folder although the default preference would be Common Connections / SAP BW)
- right-click on the folder and select Insert OLAP Connection
- specify a name for that connection (can be of any value), you will
need that name when configuring the BEx Web Applications service later
on. In this example, we entered BIR4BExWeb. Click Next.
- select the SAP BICS Client for SAP NetWeaver BI 7.x middleware driver. Click Next.
- set all properties as follows :
- Authentication Mode : select "Use specified user name and
password, Single Sign On from BI Launch Pad 4.0 to BW is not supported
at the moment, hence we are setting the connection with a specific user
account
- Client is the client number for your BW ABAP backend system the BEx Web templates are stored into
- User Name / Password : use a BW account that is defined on the ABAP backend (refer to this article for more details : Permissions and authorizations requirements for BEx Web into BI 4.x)
- Language : EN
- System ID : System ID of the BW ABAP backend the BEx Web templates are stored into
- Application Server : host name of the BW ABAP backend the BEx Web templates are stored into
- System Number : instance number of the BW ABAP backend the BEx Web templates are stored into
- Click Next
- Select Do not specify a cube in the connection option. You
may observe a delay of a few seconds to be able to select that option,
and wait until the available cubes are displayed. Click Finish.
- the connection properties should look like this :
using Central Management Console
Step 2 : create a dedicated Adaptive Processing Server for BEx Web Applications
- Log on to the CMC and go to the Servers section
- Create a new server
- Select the Service Category "Advanced Analysis Services" and Service "BEx Web Applications Service", click Next
- The next screen allows you to add other services to your server :
do not select any if you want this server to only process requests for
BEx Web applications. It is recommended to use a server (or servers)
dedicated to BEx Web Applications for scalability reasons; it also makes
the troubleshooting and monitoring easier as you know only Bex Web
Applications are processed by this server. Click Next.
- Give your new server a name. I used "RIG.APS.BExWebOnly" with RIG
the node name, APS for AdaptiveProcessingServer and BExWebOnly to
indicate it is meant for BEx Web applications. Click on Create.
- The new server will appear under the "Adavanced Analysis Services" category and as disabled.
- Select the new server and enable it, before starting it.
Step 3 : configure the Adaptive Processing Server
- select the newly created server and go to its Properties
- scroll down to the BEx Web Applications Service section and set the various properties as follows :
- Maximum Client Connections : 15 by default
- SAP BW Master System : this is the name of the OLAP Connection we defined on the BI 4.x system (step 1), BIR4BExWeb in our example
- JCo Server RFC Destination : this is the name of the RFC Connection we defined on the BW system (step 1), VERIGTECH10_BEX_WEB in our example
- JCo Server Gateway Host : this should be the same value than
defined in the RFC connection, i.e. the main BW ABAP backend host, in
our example cdphl338.phl.sap.corp
- JCo Server Gateway Service : this should be the same value than defined in the RFC connection, i.e. the Gateway Service as sapgw##, where ## represents the instance number of your SAP Gateway. In our example, this is set to sapgw00. Important: when using aliases, make sure they are configured as described in the SAP Note 52959 (e.g. for windows by maintaining file: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\services , refer to the Note for details)
- JCo Server Connection Count : this is the maximum number of concurrent JCo connections to the BW ABAP system
- click Save and Close
- restart the Adaptive Processing Server for the changes to take effect
The configuration is now complete ! You should now be able to
access BEx Web templates from BI LaunchPad, see the next article of the
series for more details : How do end users access BEx Web Applications from BI 4.x ?.
References and links
