Upgrading from 3.1 to 4.1

[former_member196901]

Hi All,

I am going to upgrading from 3.1 to 4.1 soon. I wanted to know the best practices from your experiences?

My questions were:

1- After i install the new 4.1 on new hardware. I use Upgrade Management Tool to move my access levels, users, groups, folders, reports, universes, connections. Correct? What services need to be running when i move my contents? Can i turn some services off to make the process fast? Also what best practices would you suggest when moving the contents? Move everything in one shot or do one category at a time?

2- What contents are movable and what are not, and need to be recreated in 4.1?

3- Can i point the 4.1 CMS db to the same as 3.1 CMS db? Or do we need a brand new CMS db for 4.1?

4- What other things i need to know when upgrading from 3.1 to 4x versions?

5- Lastly, if we want to upgrade from 4.0 to 4.1 do we just simply apply the 4.1 SPx on the environment? Or do a full install of 4.1 on top of 4.0?

Thank you for your inputs.

[Former Member]

Here are the points:-

1.  Yes you can stop the Dashboard realted, WEBI related and CR related servers for better performance

2. As far the as the moving contents using UMT, it depends on your Source BO server. That means if there is discrepency with CMS DB and FRS, then it will not migrate to the destn. servers. But all the infoobjects that are there on the source systems, the UMT will display.

3. You can't point to the 4.1 CMS DB to the 3.1 existing CMS DB, obviously.

4. The best practices include disabling the audit database before starting migration, disabling indexing and platform search on the 4.1 servers etc.

5. No need to do full install, just patch upgrade is fine.

6. Also you need to check the different types of authentication before starting the migration. In CMC you can check that in the authentication and you need to configure that.

Regards,

Abhijit.

[CdnConnection]

Zeek,

     There are so MANY blogs on migration, start some links below

Start with some links below

BI Upgrade & Migration - Top Online Resources

Sizing and Deploying SAP BI 4 and SAP Lumira

SAP-IT internal migration from XI3 to BI4

Some Previous Webinars to also help

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Upgrade - Events

Regards,

Ajay

[former_member185603]

1. Yes, you use UMT to move all the objects to new environment. It depends how many objects in your 3.1 environment. if you have thousands of objects, i would recommend move in batches. Or use Command Line UMT to avoid time out. Move in this order Access levels, Users/Groups, Universes/connectiosn/Reports. if you use AD or LDAP authentications, make sure that is setup before moving the users and groups.

2. Basically all the reports, universess, connections can be moved to 4.1. I am not sure what else you have in your environment.

3. You cannot point 3.1 CMS db to 4.1 CMS. Ypu need to create new CMS DB and move the objects.

4. Make sure test all of them in dev/qa environments first before going live.

5. if you already have 4.0 environment, you can just apply upgrade 4.1 install, not Full install of 4.1

There are so many articles or blogs in SCN, search for mre information.

Check below lonk

All you need to know before upgrading to BI4.0 - Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects) - SCN Wiki

How to Upgrade to BI4.0 - Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects) - SCN Wiki

[former_member196901]

Thank you Jawahar,

I searched a lot but i couldn't come up with answers to my specific questions. A lot of results that i came up with were like webinars and stuff but nothing from personal experiences.

[former_member185603]

I hope i clarified some of your questions. If still not clear, let us know.

[former_member196901]

Thank you Ajay and Jawahar again,

If you dont mind, i just had other questions like best practices. Meaning, what are the best practices that one should follow while upgrading from 3.1 to 4x or from 4.0 to 4.1? Best practices that can make the upgrade fast and with very minimal downtime. For example, i keep reading on google that NOT ALL services need to be running while upgrading and only CMS and IN and OUT FRS should be running ONLY. Is that true?

Also, thank you for the links, i will definitely visit them to learn more.

[former_member185603]

4.0 to 4.1 is not considered as upgrade. It is similar to applying SP.

From 3.1 to 4.0/4.1 is upgrade. You don't need to run all the services. Yes just CMS and FRS should be fine.

It all depends on how you want to upgrade. Full upgrade or incremental upgrade. Many times, incremenatal approach is best option espically if you have many objects to promote and it will reduce the downtime.