When SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 was introduced several years ago, it introduced a radically redesigned Adaptive Processing Server. Oh sure, SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 also had an Adaptive Processing Server, but it did not have the almost overwhelming array of services as its BI 4.0 counterpart. In the early days of BI 4.0 deployments, there was a lot of mystery surrounding the Adaptive Processing Server and the proper way to divide the monolithic server for optimal performance. Thankfully, SAP introduced the System Configuration Wizard for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1, which greatly simplified the process of managing the Adaptive Processing Server.
Aside from the Insight to Action service introduced in BI 4.0 Support Pack 4, there’s been no changes to the array of services provided by the Adaptive Processing Server. Until now. SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 introduces four new services that you’ll want to understand. While these services will automatically show up in any new installation of BI 4.2, a BI administrator will have to do a little bit of extra work to add them to the cluster landscape when upgrading from a previous BI4 release.
BIMobileService(OCA)
The first new service is the BI Mobile Service. It is responsible for sending push notifications to the SAP BusinessObjects Mobile BI app for iOS (sorry Android fanatics!). Once this feature is properly enabled, your iOS users will be able to receive notifications when documents or instances are updated, when a document arrives in their BI Inbox, or if the BI administrator sends out a broadcast message (see related blog – SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 – You’ve Got Notifications).
For more information on configuring the BIMobileService(OCA) service, refer to SAP KB 2319187.
Commentary Service
The second new service is the Commentary Service. It is responsible for managing the new collaboration features in Web Intelligence 4.2. By default, the Commentary Service adds a table to the BI auditing schema to manage comments. It is recommended that the Commentary Service run in its own APS; however, it is less clear if the lone commentary table (COMMENTARY_MASTER) benefits from own database separate from the CMS and Audit databases. At present, such a connection must be created using JDBC which is a bit more cumbersome than a native connection. Although the commentary feature only works within Web Intelligence in BI 4.2, it has been described by SAP as a “platform” feature, meaning that SAP will add commentary functionality to the other BI tools in future support packs.
For more information on configuring the Commentary Service, refer to SAP KB 2313335 and SAP KB 2346055.
For more information on using the new comments feature, refer to SAP BI 4.2 SP3: What’s New in Web Intelligence.
Set Materialization Service
The third new service is the Set Materialization Service. This service provides support for new sets functionality that SAP has introduced into the Information Design Tool 4.2 SP3. Set processing was previously supported in a legacy BusinessObjects tool called Set Analysis.
For more information on configuring the Set Materialization Service, refer to SAP KB 2367484.
For more information on using the new sets feature, refer to SAP BI 4.2 SP3: What’s New In Semantic Layer or SAP BusinessObjects Information Design Tool 4.2 SP3: How to Create a Temporal Set.
Version Management Service
The fourth and final new service is the Version Management Service. This service doesn’t add any new functionality. It merely segregates the version management features that were previously supported by the Promotion Management Service. But there is a small wrinkle. The new Version Management Service maintains the CUID of the old Promotion Management Service. So if you’re patching an older BI 4.0 or BI 4.1 system, you’ll end up with a new Version Management Service but a missing Promotion Management Service until you manually add it via the CMC.
For more information on configuring the Version Management Service, refer to SAP KB 2402730 and SAP KB 2472087.
Conclusion
In many cases, it is probably easiest to manually add these services once the BI 4.2 patching is complete. In other cases, it may be preferable to re-run the System Configuration Wizard then make adjustments, especially if the split of your organization’s APS hasn’t been reconsidered since initial adoption of BI 4.0.
Updates
SAP KB 2429964 – Information Design Tool error related to missing or improperly configured Set Materialization Service.
I’ve discovered that the System Configuration Wizard does not put the Set Materialization Service in any of the Adaptive Processing Servers that it creates. Based on the SAP KB 2429964 note mentioned in the previous paragraph, it would seem that the Set Materialization Service should be placed in the same Adaptive Processing Server as the Adaptive Connectivity Service.
The System Configuration Wizard does assign the BIMobileService(OCA), Commentary Service, and Version Management Service to various Adaptive Processing Servers depending on which capacity deployment template size you choose (XS, S, M, L, XL). However, the default heap sizes for the Adaptive Processing Services are unchanged from their BI 4.1 values and may need increased.