SAP BusinessObjects is Not Dead

SAP recently announced GA for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.3(SAP BI 4.3). This has end to the speculation that SAP is making BusinessObjects redundant. On the contrary SAP announced SAP BI 4.3 and this is supported till 2027.There are lot of new features and functionalities which are introduced by SAP as part of SAP BI 4.3 and this release is actually compliment with SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC).

Key Takeway of this release

Hybrid

• Access on premise data via Universe
• Reuse existing Web Intelligence document as data source
• Consume Crystal Reports Calculations into SAC
• On board existing on premise user to using API
• Publish BI content into Analytics Hub from CMC /LaunchPad

Redesigned User Interface

• New Fiorified BI LaunchPad – its compatible with existing content and authorization
• Scheduling and Notification
• Schedule reports to multiple destinations
• Failed instance to be rerun and how many times
• Schedule report multiple time during business hour window
• Platform Level Changes
• Installation Enhancements – Support for Tomcat 9 ,SAP JVM and pre-requisites check for disk space
• Security Enhancement –Support for SAML 3.0 and multiple set of DB credentials
• Admin Tools –Enhanced security for Admin Studio, improvement in promotion management and workflow assistant to perform routine admin task
• Improvement in Audit functionality- Included Authentication type,Failed Logins,# named user and concurrent user sessions at Landscape level inAudit log

Semantic Layer

• Data source reference for multiple database credentials
• Access to SAP BW connection based on HTTP for SAP BW Info Providers and other Info Provider Types
• Access to SAP HANA HTTP Access (INA-based)
• Support for new Data Sources – Google BigQuery ,IBM DB2 Warehouse,Denodo,Snowflake,BigData: Cloudera, Hortonworks, MapR
• Web Intelligence Improvements
• One Webi client for web and desktop
• Parity with Web Intelligence Java Applet and Web Intelligence Rich Client 4.2 SP07
• HTML5 (no Java), touch ready
• Reading window to view ,refresh and schedule reports
• Crystal Reports Enhancements
• Page based XLSX exporting which has overcome limitation of 65000 rows
• Row and Column headers are now frozen, use scroll bar to navigate and compare report contents. . This is Similar to Excel & its helpful for long or wide reports
• Application not supported with SAP BI 4.3 : BOBJ EXPLORER,DASHBOARDS (Xcelsius),BI Widgets,Lumira 1.x,Design studio
• Application Supported with SAP BI 4.3 : Lumira Dics 2.x,Lumra Designer 2.x ,WebI Java Applet Viewer ,UDT/IDT,Live Office,Analysis Office ,Crystal Reports

Licensing

• Its named user ,concurrent session based , CPU based as well as subscription based
• SAP offers a conversion program called the Cloud Extension Policy to allow for a partial termination of on-premise maintenance when replaced with a new cloud contract.
• However the Final call on agreement is between SAP AE and customer.
• Customer who are on XI 3.1/4.1 should migrate to SAP BI 4.3 immediately and leverage the benefits

As per SAP Roadmap customer should start their journey with SAP BI 4.3 as well as SAC. Every customer will have its own priorities however everyone is moving towards Cloud these days. So while upgrading to BI to 4.3, customer should start focusing on SAP Analytics cloud and build new use case in SAC. They can also consume data from existing universe as well as use existing Webi Report as data model in SAC. Moving towards SAC does not need any additional investment initially. They can work with SAP and convert the unused license into SAC license .

Customers can also leverage use cases in a hybrid landscape. To begin with they can use data discovery in SAP Analytics Cloud and operational reporting using Webi/Crystal. With Live connection to on premise data sources will allow customers to use existing data, queries, and security without moving the data to the cloud.