SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 Migration Best Practices

I recently co-authored a piece for the SAP Analytics blog with SAP's Thierry Audas (@taudas) on SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 migration best practices. The article proposes some migration planning and preparation checklist considerations. This piece is just another chapter in the longstanding collaboration between APOS and SAP. If you want to see a concrete example of this collaboration, read Saskia Battersby's SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 Migration, Collaboration, and Innovation piece over at the SAP Community Network (SCN).

The close collaboration between APOS and SAP continues with our recent focus on migration acceleration products. This set of tools is designed to help you realize ROI faster by preparing for, and automating and simplifying the most labor-intensive, time-intensive, and potentially error-prone migration tasks. These products help you:

• Convert UNV universes to UNX universes in bulk
• Repoint Web Intelligence reports to UNX universes in bulk
• Schedule Web Intelligence reports, set/reconstruct prompts from .NET applications
• Migrate Crystal Reports 2011 to Crystal Reports for BI Enterprise in bulk
• Use Desktop Intelligence reports with BI 4.1
• Analyze Desktop Intelligence reports for Web Intelligence and UNX compatibility
• Migrate Desk Intelligence reports to Web Intelligence reports

If you're like the majority of SAP BusinessObjects platform managers or users we've been speaking with, then this is the year you are migrating to BI 4.0 or 4.1. Most say the benefits are too great to wait. They see BI 4.x as the future of BI in their organizations.

More APOS/SAP collaboration: don't miss our upcoming webinar on The Semantic Layer & BI4.x Migration (View the recorded webinar), with guest presenter Pierpaolo Vezzosi, Director, Solution Management at SAP. Pierpaolo has been working with the semantic layer for 12 years and will discuss its role and benefits in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0.

This webinar will be the first in a series of migration-focused events featuring guest presenters with deep and specific insights into the BI 4.x platform and migration considerations

APOS & SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 - Migration, Collaboration, Innovation

We have a new post up on the SAP Community Network:

APOS Systems recently released a product that converts UNV universes to UNX universes in bulk. The story of its development involves close collaboration between APOS and SAP's product management team, as well as innovation for the benefit of the entire SAP BusinessObjects™ community.

Read the entire post.

The post documents a small part of the long-time and ongoing collaboration between APOS and SAP. In this case, it's about migration to BI 4.0, and what APOS is doing, in collaboration with SAP, to smooth the migration path.

The APOS Converter for BI 4.0 universes allows you to scan your system for existing UNV universes, select them, and convert them in bulk to UNX universes. It's just one of the many BI 4.0 upgrade resources that APOS offers to help you migrate smoothly and manage your resources efficiently.

APOS Storage Center Integrates with KOM Networks' KOMpliance Secure Storage Solution

KOM Networks and APOS Systems today announced the integration of APOS Storage Center and the KOMpliance™ secure storage solution.

APOS Storage Center automates SAP® BusinessObjects™ archive, restore and migration processes allowing rules-based management of the document lifecycle while maintaining document integrity. KOMpliance patented technologies create secure WORM storage volumes using any HDD or SSD storage infrastructure enforcing data-at-rest security, data retention, authorized access and data integrity.

Read the press release (PDF)…

BI 4.0 Bulk Conversion Tools

APOS has just released a BI 4.0 UNV to UNX bulk conversion tool. The UNV to UNX Bulk Converter allows you to scan your system for existing UNV universes, select them, and convert in bulk to UNX universes.

For more BI 4.0 upgrade resources visit the APOS BI 4.0 Upgrade Resources page.

Webinar: 5 Ways to Improve Healthcare BI & Outcomes

Join Us for this Important Webinar on Wednesday, April 10, 2013, at 10 am or 4 pm ET
If you work in healthcare Business Intelligence, you know that you inhabit one of the most rapidly evolving, complex, and data critical types of BI environment there is. You also know that the prognosis is for radically and rapidly increasing data governance requirements and information sharing.

BI is critical not just for the business outcomes of provider and payer organizations, but also for clinical outcomes as well. And the continuing development of Meaningful Use strategies and Healthcare Information Exchanges will make the future of healthcare BI platform management extremely challenging.

This webinar discusses how you can manage your SAP BusinessObjects platform to provide better business outcomes, and to complement your organization's electronic health record (EHR) efforts, and its quest for better compliance with local, national and international regulatory standards, and better clinical and healthcare outcomes.
Join us:

View the Recorded Webinar

BI Data Governance - SAP BusinessObjects

If you didn't have a chance to attend our recent Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC) webinar, you missed some great insights on BI data governance -- how you can gain greater control over your BI platform through increased visibility into data connectivity, better security through awareness of data access, and more accountability through sensitive data audit.

It's no surprise that BI data governance is becoming a hot topic. As BI assumes a more critical role in business decision support, it gains access to more and more enterprise data sources -- sources which inevitably contain sensitive operational, competitive, and personal data.

In a perfect world, your security model and corporate policies would be enough to protect your sensitive data. Data access would be restricted to trusted individuals, and those individuals would follow corporate policies on disclosure. But, according to Symantec, 33% of criminal breaches to your data security involve a malicious insider (PDF). Further, in 75% of those breaches, data is stolen by individuals with authorized access.

Clearly, it is not enough to design your security model well and set it in motion. You need to remain vigilant. You need to monitor data access proactively. You also need to be seen to be doing so -- as a deterrent to misuse of data access, and frequently also to comply with the letter and spirit of regulatory requirements.

 

Learn more about what you can do to improve BI data governance:

View a recording of the SAP BusinessObjects Data Connectivity, Sensitive Data Audit, BI Data Governance webinar.

Webinar Reminder: SAP BusinessObjects Data Connectivity, Sensitive DataAudit

When: Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013 at 10 am and 4 pm ET

Learn how to mitigate growing performance and compliance risks caused by increasing BI data connection complexity and expanding regulatory requirements.

Effective control of your SAP BusinessObjects deployment depends on query performance optimization and data access accountability. But many of the processes and activities that influence optimization and accountability are typically outside of the BI environment and outside of the direct control of SAP BusinessObjects administrators and platform managers.

View a 3 min. video preview of the webinar

The time to gain control of those processes and activities is now, because you face growing complexity in your SAP BusinessObjects data access and data accountability requirements. In addition to internal query performance challenges, there are audit and monitoring requirements mandated by regulatory compliance. There is no question that these issues represent substantial risk to your organization's success and security.

In this webinar, we will discuss data connectivity issues that present a risk to every data-driven organization, including:

• Data Visibility and Control -Monitoring and Managing Data Connectivity
• Sensitive Data Auditing -Data Access Monitoring and Regulatory Compliance

The webinar will also introduce you to the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC), a data access, audit, and accountability solution specifically designed to help SAP BusinessObjects administrators and technicians monitor and manage BI data connections and queries.