The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) 4.0 platform uses two concepts called servers and services to refer to the types of software running in the background on the BI 4.0 platform computer that hosts the BI 4.0 application environment. This computer is commonly referred to as the BI 4.0 application server or host. A BI 4.0 server is a process at the operating system level of the application server that hosts one or more individual BI 4.0 services.

Additionally, a BI 4.0 server executes as a background process on the BI 4.0 application server and contains its own server process ID (PID). In contrast, a BI 4.0 service is a server subsystem that performs a specific function and runs in the memory space and under the process ID of its corresponding parent BI 4.0 server. I’ll give you an overview of the management of BI 4.0 servers and services, including their roles and functions. I’ll also provide tables you can use for reference, as well as links to other tables in the administration guide. The audience of this article is system administrators and installers for SAP BusinessObjects, and readers should be familiar with the Central Management Console (CMC).

Description of SAP BI 4.0 Servers

SAP BI 4.0 servers are collections of services executing in the BI 4.0 Server Intelligence Agent (SIA) on the BI 4.0 application server. The SIA is managed through the BI 4.0 Central Configuration Manager (CCM) on the BI 4.0 application server as shown in Figure 1. The SIA is the only BI 4.0 process that appears on the list of Windows Services within the operating system of the physical or virtual BI 4.0 application server. Figure 2 shows a list of Windows Services with the SIAI included in the list. BI 4.0 servers run within their own process on the BI 4.0 application server and can be configured and administered within the CMC of BI 4.0. The type of server is denoted by the set of services running within its container. You can find BI 4.0 servers within the CMC on the Servers List area under the navigation tree option of Servers as shown in Figure 3. BI 4.0 servers are categorized by kind of server. You can find a description of each of the kinds of servers contained in the BI 4.0 system in a table in the BusinessObjects 4.0 Platform Administration Guide, pages 60-62. Each of the types of BI 4.0 servers has at least one BI 4.0 server associated with it as shown in Table 1. You can find out more about the changes in server types in the BusinessObjects 4.0 Platform Administration Guide, pages 46-47.

Servers Management Area in the CMC

The servers management area (Servers page) of the CMC is the primary tool in SAP BI 4.0 for server management and related tasks. The Servers page provides a list of all the BI 4.0 servers within the current BI 4.0 system and provides a mechanism for administering these servers. The navigation tree on the left side of the servers management area provides a number of ways to view the BI 4.0 servers list. BI 4.0 servers displayed on the Details pane on the right side are filtered based on the selected ones on the left side navigation tree. Figure 4 shows the expanded navigation tree options of the servers management area of the CMC. You can find the navigation tree options on the Servers page of the CMC along with a related description of the navigation tree option in the BusinessObjects 4.0 Platform Administration Guide, pages 347-348. The Details pane on the right side of the Servers management area shows a list of the appropriate options (e.g., servers or server groups). However, for navigation options nodes, server groups, service categories, and server status, the Details pane of the page only shows names and descriptions. Figure 5 shows the columns of the Details pane of the servers management area of the CMC. A helpful resource for the columns in the Detail pane of the servers management area of the CMC is in the BusinessObjects 4.0 Platform Administration Guide, pages 349-350. A context menu is associated with each of the BI 4.0 servers listed with the Details pane of the servers management area of the CMC. This context menu becomes available when you right-click a listed BI 4.0 server as shown in Figure 6. Table 2 provides a list of options that can be selected from the context menu for a BI 4.0 server and a description of that option.

Server Status Navigation Option with CMC

Starting with BI 4.0, the servers management area of the CMC contains a consolidated list of servers according to their current status. This is a valuable tool for checking to see which BI 4.0 servers are running or stopped. For example, if slow performance is occurring within a BI 4.0 client application, an administrator can use the Server Status list to quickly determine if any of the BI 4.0 servers are stopped or in an abnormal state. Possible states for BI 4.0 services include:

• Stopped
• Starting
• Initializing
• Running
• Stopping
• Started with Errors
• Failed
• Waiting for Resources

You can find the Server Status list within the CMC on the Servers page under the navigation tree option of Server Status as shown in Figure 13.

BI 4.0 Services

A BI 4.0 service is a subsystem within BI 4.0. The service executes within the memory space of its parent BI 4.0 server and under the process ID of the parent BI 4.0 server. Some of the functions of BI 4.0 services include:

• Processing requests from client applications (e.g., SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, and SAP Crystal Reports)
• Communicating requests to the appropriate BI 4.0 server
• Session authentication
• User privilege management
• Displaying contents of client applications in various formats
• Building ad hoc queries based upon the universe semantic layer
• Acquiring data from data sources for queries and reports
• Managing scheduling and event triggers
• Managing audit information
• Managing the storage of files and objects
• Managing the multiple instances of reports
• Optimizing the use of cache for system performance
• Managing searches of objects within the system
• Managing version control and lifecycle management of objects
• Managing data federation in which queries and reports have multiple sources of data
• Managing connections to databases and data sources
• Publishing reports and queries to appropriate destinations

Names and descriptions of BI 4.0 services included in a BI 4.0 system are in the BusinessObjects 4.0 Platform Administration Guide, pages 47-55.

Service Categories Navigation Option with the CMC

You can configure and administer BI 4.0 services in the CMC of BI 4.0, in which services are broken down into categories. You can then display and configure services under the Service Categories navigation tree option on the Servers page of the CMC as shown in Figure 14. A BI 4.0 server may host services belonging to multiple service categories. Therefore a BI 4.0 server can appear in several service categories. In addition, service categories are divided into core BI 4.0 platform services and services associated with specific BI components. Service categories in a BI 4.0 system include:

• Connectivity services
• Core services
• Crystal Reports services
• Data federation services
• Lifecycle management services
• Analysis services
• Web Intelligence services
• Dashboards services

Examples of BI 4.0 service categories broken down by associated BI 4.0 service and related BI 4.0 server are available in the BusinessObjects 4.0 Platform Administration Guide, pages 55-57.