SAP BO INTRODUCTION

  SAP BO 4.0 Introduction

SAP Business Objects Enterprise 3.1 is changed to SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence platform 4.0. 

SAP Business Objects Enterprise XI4.0, is the Business Intelligence platform that supports the entire range of Performance Management, Reporting, Querying, and Analysis Applications. It has proven architecture and platform support for Semantic Layers, Data Integration, and Security. SAP Business Objects Enterprise XI4.0 provides full web-based administration and configuration of the entire system.

     Software Development Kit (SDK) 

The software development kit included in the new version has many new features, such as support for security, support for alerting, support for role based authentication.
Architecture
64-bit Architecture.
Native support for 64-bit Operating System for BI 4.0 server side components.
Allows handling large reports: no more 2 GB memory limitation.
64-bit database middle-ware support.
Java Application server utilizing 64-bit JDK's (Java Development Kit).
Desktop products and client tools support Windows 32-bit and 64-bit OS platforms.
Nomenclature Changes

   There are few nomenclature changes made in the new version of BI 4.0 which are shown in the comparison table below.

BO 3.1

• Business Objects Enterprise
• Infoview
• Business Objects Xcelsius Platform
• Universe Designer
• Crystal Reports 2008
• Business Objects Voyager
• Dashboard Builder
• Web Intelligence
• Translation Manager

BI 4.0

• Business Objects Business Intelligence Platform
• BI Launch Pad
• SAP Business Objects Dashboard Design
• Information Design Tools and Universe Design Tool
• Crystal Reports for Enterprise, Crystal Reports 2011
• Business Objects Analysis, Edition for OLAP
• BI Workspace
• SAP Business Objects Interactive Analysis
• Translation Management Tool
• What's New in BI 4.0

In the latest BI 4.0,many changes have been made to the existing tools and few new tools have been introduced.
Common query interface across all reporting tools built in the Information Design Tool.
Many new features here including multiple data connection.
Data Federation included.
New abstraction layer for multi-dimensional data sources.
Native multi-source support.
Performance enhancements with engine update.
Crystal Reports Enterprise - online report development based on universes built /converted in Information Design Tool.
Installs many ERP and Portal integrations by default recommended to only install what you need.
Alert information through SAP Solution Manager support which can connect to products like Tivoli.
CMC monitoring of servers and thresholds related to their performance.
New Search Engine.
LCM (Life Cycle Management) installed by default.

Improvements
Some of the improvements made in BI 4.0 are mentioned below.
Universe can now be sourced from multiple data sources.
Universe can access from MOLAP (cubes from Microsoft Analysis Services, Essbase, Mandarin etc.) data sources directly via MDX without having to flatten them out. Prior version, Universe can access only SQL source.
More common look and feel to understand BI products, including Crystal, WebI, Explorer and BEx.
Universe can now be directly accessed by the Dashboards 4.0.
There is a tighter integration with BW via direct exposure of BW metadata (BW query and Info provider) to all BO tools.
Four times better performance in BI/BW in terms of API's (which means BW can access BO in a much faster way).
Enhanced virtualization support.
Additional monitoring.
A re-written auditing back-end.
The previous version's major limitation is, many components needed a separate installation. But in the new version of BI 4.0, the components don't need separate installations and these components are directly integrated with SAP BI 4.0. The components are mention below.
Enterprise Resource Planning.
Lifecycle Management.
SAP Solution Manager support.
Data Federation.
Mobile server support.
SAP Business Objects Dashboard Design (formerly Xcelsius) server support.
Language support.
SAP BW publishing servers.
WDeploy Graphical User Interface (GUI).
Web application consolidation.

BI Launch Pad

BI Launch pad provides an interface to the SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence platform repository that enables us to navigate to view and manage our business intelligence documents. It is a web based application from which we can access Crystal reports, Web Intelligence documents, and other objects, and organize them to suit our preferences. Some of the features in the BI launch pad are mentioned below.
Usability and Look & Feel improvements.
Quick and easy access recently viewed reports, instances, alerts and BI tools.
Tab based interface for easier navigation.
Customization and personalization capabilities.
Role based personalization.
Simplified deployment with one WAR file.
Improved user interface and additional options for interface customization.