SAP’s Strategic Direction for Analytics (BusinessObjects BI 2025)

SAP Introducing BusinessObjects BI 2025

SAP continues to develop BusinessObjects and will continue to invest in the interactivity between Analytical Cloud and BusinessObjects. SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025 will be enhanced to improve core workflows, i.e., report creation, access to information, and integration with ever more complex landscapes.

Integrating Bl, planning, and predictive in one native cloud solution allows one to move from insight to action, brings analytics closer to a decision, and provides trusted intelligence from customers’ most valuable data.

SAP Business Objects Timelines:

SAP BOBI 4.2 mainstream maintenance ended in December 2022, and Priority 1 support will end in December 2024, when BI 2025 will become available.

According to SAP, BOBI 4.3 mainstream maintenance will end in December 2025, and Priority 1 support will end in December 2027.

SAP plans to release the first version in Q4 2024; SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025 will be supported until at least the end of 2029 for mainstream maintenance and 2031 for priority one support.

BI 2025 will have the usual five years of Mainstream maintenance, followed by two years of Priority 1 support. Customers can choose to stay on-premises or move to the cloud on SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) or the Private Cloud Edition (PCE).

Choice of deployment Options:

The choice of deployment option plays a significant role in the overall update and migration strategy.

• Cloud-based deployments, such as SAP BusinessObjects Private Cloud Edition, offer flexibility, scalability, and reduced infrastructure costs.
• On the other hand, on-premises deployments give organizations greater control over their data and infrastructure.

SAP strongly recommends upgrading to Bl 4.3:

• SAP strongly recommends all customers upgrade to version 4.3.
• As version 4.2 will reach the end of priority one support at the end of 2024.
• BI version 4.3 carries a modern user experience for the BI Launchpad and Web Intelligence, using HTML5, with no Java required and many long-awaited improvements.
• Upgrade from any 4. x version is simple as no object format has changed – no migration is needed.

Components that are no more enhancements are planned in BOBI 4,3:

SAP depreciates the below components, which means they are still available with 4.3 releases, but no more enhancements are planned within 4.3. This also means some BI suite components will no longer be maintained after 2027, as SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.3 is designed to be supported until the end of 2027. But at the same time, SAP has an alternative solution for replacing these components.

• Universe Design Tool (UDT) –.UNV universe.
• Data Federator (DF): Multi-source universes.
• SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP (AOLAP).
• Live Office (LO).
• Crystal Reports for Enterprise (CR4E).
• Lumira.

Removed components from SAP BOBI 4.3 release:

The products and tools listed below were removed in SAP BOBI Platform 4.3 SP02 and later.

• Classic BI Launchpad (In BI 4.3, the classic BI Launchpad is replaced with the Fiorified BI Launchpad).
• SAP Crystal Reports 2020 services on Linux and Unix operating systems.
• Report Conversion Tool and Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack.
• Java Applet Viewer.
• SAP BusinessObjects BI Widget and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.
• SAP Crystal Dashboards and Presentation Design and Upgrade Management Tool.