SAP BI 4.2 SP5 - Promotion Management Wizard

[Alex-Fortin]

What is Promotion Management Wizard?

Promotion Management Wizard is a tool that aims to ease the task of CMS content copy. Instead of using the Command Line Interface (CLI), Promotion Management Wizard offers a Graphic User Interface (GUI) for performing a full copy or a selective copy. LCMBIAR files are the same compared to the CMC or CLI versions of Promotion Management.

For more details about the new features of SAP BI 4.2 SP5, please read this blog post from Christian:

https://blogs.sap.com/2017/10/23/sap-bi-4.2-sp5-whats-new-in-web-intelligence-and-semantic-layer/

DISCLAIMER

The content of this blog post is provided “AS IS”. This information could contain technical inaccuracies, typographical errors and out-of-date information. This document may be updated or changed without notice at any time. Use of the information is therefore at your own risk. In no event shall SAP be liable for special, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from or related to the use of this document.

Overview

Promotion Management Wizard is step based user interface:

• Welcome step


• Scenario step


• Objects step


• Dependencies (only for selective content promotion)


• Summary step


• Finish step

Promotion Management Wizard will not create a job that could be reused within the Central CMS. This will save some space too.

Full copy/promotion scenario

Full copy can be achieved by exporting the full content and later importing the LCMBIAR generated.

Full copy can be achieved by running a live to live scenario. In that case, the tool will do - behind the scene - an export and once finished an import. Once this task is achieved, the temporary file will be deleted.

What are the things to consider when performing a full copy?

• Space allowed to the Temporary folder is critical. If the space allocated is not enough the process will fail. The tool provides within the summary step an estimate of the space needed. The safe formula is FRS size x 2.5 (i.e.: 50GB x 2.5 = 125 GB). Temporary location can be defined at the beginning of the process.


• Stop unnecessary processes


• On the destination machine (CMS), disable monitoring, auditing and search to maximize throughput


• Allocated enough memory (including swap) for the whole process. The more objects you import, the more memory is required although optimizations have been implemented. Here some estimate guidelines:
  
  
  
  • At least, 2GB of memory to run the Promotion Management Wizard itself
  
  
  • 1 GB of memory for importing 10K objects. Examples:
    
    
    
    • Example 1 - For importing 60K objects, 8GB sounds reasonable (2+6)
    
    
    • Example 2 - For importing 140K objects, 16GB sounds reasonable (2+14)
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• Make sure that Platform add-ons (Explorer, Lumira…) are installed prior to import/promote the content, otherwise objects will likely to fail.

How long it will take?

The time needed for performing a full copy depends on:

• Load on the source and/or the target system


• Network bandwidth and latency


• Memory (RAM) allocated


• Disk...

The time needed for importing an existing LCMBIAR is more or less 150% the time needed for exporting this LCMBIAR. Why?

• Writing on a disk and the corresponding Database takes more time than reading


• Post-processing could happen to ensure that relationships between objects are kept


• Some errors could happen when attempting to append objects that could slow down the process. Promotion Management Wizard will switch to a “safe mode” for ensuring objects can be added. This safe mode takes more time than the “regular mode”.

For example, if the time needed for exporting is 1 hour. Importing will take between 1.5 and 2 hours. The whole process (live to live) should be a little bit less than splitting in two (export then import).

Memory tuning

As mentioned earlier, it is really important to know how to modify the memory parameters.

• Step 1: Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\win64_x64


• Step 2: Open PromotionManagementWizard.ini


• Step 3: locate the Xmx memory parameter and change based on your needs like -Xmx16g

Because Promotion Management Wizard is an eclipse-java based application, some additional memory parameters can be added too. Lot of resources are available using your favorite search engine.

Copy tuning – keep the date

By default, Promotion Management Wizard will update the modification date. A dedicated parameter can be set to avoid this behavior. This will only work for objects that do not require a post-processing.

• Step 1: Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\win64_x64


• Step 2: Open PromotionManagementWizard.ini


• Step 3: Uncomment #-Dcom.businessobjects.lcm.commit=LEGACY


• Step 4: Modify the parameter: -Dcom.businessobjects.lcm.commit=KEEP_TS

This parameter is also available for selective promotion.

Video available here.

Selective copy/promotion scenario

Selective copy is designed to support two main use cases:

• Full copy cannot be done in one process


• Some objects were not copied (objects created after running the full promotion)

The phased approach for a full copy

Q: How to split the full copy scenario into smaller scenarios?

A: By following the same rules explained in the Promotion Management online help!

1. Export/Import/Promote user groups and users


2. Export/Import/Promote the dependencies (connections, universes…) required for documents


3. Export/Import/Promote the public folders (documents…)


4. Export/Import/Promote the content generated by the users (inboxes, personal folders…)

Prior to make a selection:

Go to options of the Objects Step
Select "Exclude Dependencies"
Check "Object Security". If needed check "Top Level Security"

Video available here.

The selective copy/promote... for other cases

You can simply export/promote some objects, folders. You need to pay attention to the dependencies and the time/CPU needed to calculate them. Select few objects at the beginning and test by performing an export.

The tool gives you the ability to check/uncheck the dependencies calculation.



When the dependencies are displayed you can also exclude some of them or all of them.

Reminder: The tool is designed for mass copy. No rollback doable!

Source and Destination

Once installed, Promotion Management Wizard can access to previous versions of the Business Intelligence platform (4.x). So typically, you can export the CMS content of SAP BI 4.2 SP3 and import to SAP BI 4.2 SP4 CMS using Promotion Management Wizard running on SAP BI 4.2 SP5.

However, the tool won’t stop you when attempting – for example – to copy the content of SP4 to SP3, you should avoid that. Objects serialization can evolve between service pack and backward compatibility of objects is often not guaranteed nor supported.

The tool won’t be able to copy the content from XI 3.x. Instead, use Upgrade Management Tool for this task.

Linux

Yes. Promotion Management Wizard works on Linux, with a Graphic User Interface (GUI)! If you are familiar to Linux, you should be able to setup X11 (X Window). A regular remote desktop could do the work too.

Typically, for launching X11 with Promotion Management Wizard

ssh -Y root@mylinuxbox

Then

./PromotionManagementWizard

Promotion Management Wizard requires GTK2+ to work properly. Here the command line for installing it:

yum install gtk2 libXtst xorg-x11-fonts-Type1

sometimes sudo could be necessary:

sudo yum install gtk2 libXtst xorg-x11-fonts-Type1

 

After, Promotion Management Wizard will properly work:

Final words

We hope that this tool will help you. You can watch the two videos:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw1XjYS8IXU


• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLmBUyZhh0U

[former_member182521]

Thanks for sharing .Good to see all these things coming.

[shiva_vishnubatla]

 

Alex, Thanks for sharing this. This is a huge feature enhancement and the most requested feature in this topic area.

 

[denis_konovalov]

 

If it works reliably - it'll be the best thing since sliced bread 🙂

[Joe_Peters]

Alex, does this provide a way to selectively not override content in the destination?  That was one feature in Import Wizard that is sorely missing in LCM, PM, BIAREngine, and PM Command Line.

Also, is the Dependency Viewer hierarchical?  It isn't in UMT, and has been the source of significant frustration.

[randy_champagne]

Any idea if there will be a command-line interface for this functionality?

[denis_konovalov]

CLI functionality like this already exist.

[Alex-Fortin]

Hello,

This option is not available in the UI. However, we added an option to rename objects when an object is in the destination but do not have the same CUID.

I'm not sure if I'll answer properly, but the Dependencies step display the list of objects in a tree. The discovered object as root element, the objects which triggered as "children".

Hope it helps

Alex

[Joe_Peters]

Thank you.  So there's no way to avoid overwriting an existing object with the same CUID?

[mike_quinn]

 

Hi

following your workflow and have migrated users/groups to BI 4.2 SP5 from BI 4.1

However, a simple folder with some Webi reports, there's no way I can get the security on the folders to go across.  No matter what options I try.  The summary screen looks fine and it looks like its going to move the CALs, groups etc ... it just doesn't.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Mike

 

 

[former_member345728]

Hi

Is it possible to do selective content promotion in LCMBIAR to live system scenario?

The button Selective content promotion is not active. And it does not matter if a LCMBIAR file was exported in full or selective mode.

Thanks.

[former_member283797]

FYI - I installed an SP5 update to an SP4 system, but the PMW did not install.  I didn't do that intentionally, could it have been caused by a 'custom' SP4 installation?

 

I could later go back into control panel and modify the installation to install it, but that did mean a SIA downtime to do this.

[olivier_armani]

 

Hello,

 

Thank you for this article.

 

Just one question: what is intended to the status “ignored”? I mean, under which circumstances the PMW will treat an object as “ignored” rather than “imported” or “failed” ?

 

I’am trying to perform a Full content promotion Live to Live from a BI4.2 SP4 to a BI4.2 SP4.

 

Thank you for your advice.

[former_member185603]

You don't need to install PMW on production system. You can have it DEV and QA at the most

[former_member283797]

We are seeing this tool run very slowly and importing 8000 (objects plus instances) can take over an hour.  Per the formulas here, we have memory settings high enough.  There doesn't appear to be any bottleneck on the server from a system resource perspective.

There does appear to be a lot of writing to disk to a derby database, but that doesn't seem to be saturating throughput in any way.

Are there any tips you have for further troubleshooting slow performance with this tool?

We've already applied all the best practices from: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2531264

 

[former_member283797]

Also, be warned that this will currently not move your scheduled/recurring instances successfully.

You can successfully move the object and re-create the schedule from scratch:

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2625500

[abdussamad_peera]

I assume PMW imports content from 4.x environment only.  Could it also work with importing 3.1 content?  Also, is this a replacement for UMT?

[former_member192642]

Hello,

Does promotion manager wizard support single sign on using AD plugin (kerberos)?

I tried to login to the remote CMS and it still asks me for AD user name and password. So I would like to find out if I have done something wrong. AD SSO works everywhere else except for promotion management wizard.

Thanks.

V/r,
Bryan

[denis_konovalov]

there is no SSO inside Promotion manager or OMW.

[former_member623335]

Hi,

Can we roll back the objects promoted using the Promotion Management Wizard tool?

 

Praveen

[andreasja_schneider]

Great post, thanks.

 

Please, I've got two questions:

 

1. Will the Server Settings, think XmX Parameter for APS and the splitted APS, etcbe copied as well?


2. What about schedules and instances?

[omacoder]

My experiences with this upgraded utility have been less than pleasurable.

 

Objects 17,000 objects

Servers: 8 core, 65GB RAM

PromotionManagementWizard.ini : -Xms28g, -Xmx55g

Export to biar took 13 hours

Import from biar has taken 23 hours (SO FAR, showing only 48% done in the committing filestore phase)

Consumed memory is only 39GB.

CPU utilization is good, bounces between 8% and 17%

The CMS is logging error after error during the 'Committing filestore' phase.

Errors: 

|f23cb0a6-ae41-b734-393c-f5a0b842dbb2|2019 09 10 15:08:07:847|+0000|Error| |>>|E| |cms_svc4.CMS| 6148|4460|| |65|0|1|0|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|cms_svc4.CMS.commitEx4|localhost:6148:4460.710286:1|CgKzjiVf7kHPpDAts5Fw3Cc90f068|||||||||||assert failure: (d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565). (false : no message).

d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565:-: TraceLog message 192418

|83b4c767-d0a2-e8f4-eb87-0b69b560c314|2019 09 10 15:08:07:865|+0000|Error| |>>|E| |cms_svc4.CMS| 6148|4460|| |65|0|1|0|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|cms_svc4.CMS.commitEx4|localhost:6148:4460.710286:1|CgKzjiVf7kHPpDAts5Fw3Cc90f068|||||||||||assert failure: (d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565). (false : no message).

d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565:-: TraceLog message 192419

|96987dfa-445a-ba34-3b16-765106450374|2019 09 10 15:08:07:883|+0000|Error| |>>|E| |cms_svc4.CMS| 6148|4460|| |65|0|1|0|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|cms_svc4.CMS.commitEx4|localhost:6148:4460.710286:1|CgKzjiVf7kHPpDAts5Fw3Cc90f068|||||||||||assert failure: (d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565). (false : no message).

InfoStore.cpp:8012:-: TraceLog message 192420

|b18f1513-dfbf-56c4-cb71-4e4f54345644|2019 09 10 15:08:07:901|+0000|Error| |>>|E| |cms_svc4.CMS| 6148|4460|| |65|0|1|0|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|cms_svc4.CMS.commitEx4|localhost:6148:4460.710286:1|CgKzjiVf7kHPpDAts5Fw3Cc90f068|||||||||||assert failure: (InfoStore.cpp:8012). (false : no message).

d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565:-: TraceLog message 192421

|64a66fc0-6d2e-d6b4-99d7-fc7355b1fe0f|2019 09 10 15:08:07:924|+0000|Error| |>>|E| |cms_svc4.CMS| 6148|4460|| |65|0|1|0|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|cms_svc4.CMS.commitEx4|localhost:6148:4460.710286:1|CgKzjiVf7kHPpDAts5Fw3Cc90f068|||||||||||assert failure: (d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565). (false : no message).

d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565:-: TraceLog message 192422

|a6c8fee8-6ed5-a5b4-8869-705e0145aa7f|2019 09 10 15:08:08:861|+0000|Error| |>>|E| |cms_svc4.CMS| 6148|4460|| |65|0|1|0|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|cms_svc4.CMS.commitEx4|localhost:6148:4460.710286:1|CgKzjiVf7kHPpDAts5Fw3Cc90f068|||||||||||assert failure: (d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565). (false : no message).

d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565:-: TraceLog message 192423

|31f89d0e-3ea3-7564-d862-233d2d734a63|2019 09 10 15:08:08:879|+0000|Error| |>>|E| |cms_svc4.CMS| 6148|4460|| |65|0|1|0|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|cms_svc4.CMS.commitEx4|localhost:6148:4460.710286:1|CgKzjiVf7kHPpDAts5Fw3Cc90f068|||||||||||assert failure: (d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565). (false : no message).

InfoStore.cpp:15937:-: TraceLog message 192424

|f36c17d8-7905-c1d4-fb1b-a1344d79fb15|2019 09 10 15:08:08:895|+0000|Error| |>>|E| |cms_svc4.CMS| 6148|4460|| |65|0|1|0|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|BIPSDK.InternalInfoStore:commit|vmsapsvc1cusprd:13376:64.9498728:1|cms_svc4.CMS.commitEx4|localhost:6148:4460.710286:1|CgKzjiVf7kHPpDAts5Fw3Cc90f068|||||||||||assert failure: (InfoStore.cpp:15937). (0 : Undefined operation being called, ignoring).

d:\r764\src\platform.services.cms.cpp\servers\cpp\CMS\include\InfoStoreSubsystem.h:565:-: TraceLog message 192425

[omacoder]

PMW Freezes: No idea if it's actually working or if it's stuck.

https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/idea/237720

[denis_konovalov]

Based on the other posts  where you mentioned the issues PM has in your environment - there appear to be a common symptoms across all "promotional tools".
Which to me points to something in your repositories that makes our tools struggle.

Have you run repodiag on your repo's lately ? Any inconsistencies ?
Any specially complex rights/security models you use ?

[omacoder]

Per pattern book, I did run reposcan and repair any inconsistencies before attempting the migration. I would say definitely non-complex. We have a few custom access levels, otherwise our environment would seem pretty standard compared to others as far as folder security.

[denis_konovalov]

then its weird ....  do you have any other performance issues ?
Are environments on virtual or "real" hardware ?

it is very strange that only promotional tools would have these performance problems...

[omacoder]

No performance complains/issues from our customers.

We've got ~200 users, ~60,000 objects in the repository, all webi or instances with excel. We only keep the last 20 instances of each recurring report. I'd really consider this a very small repository.

Everything is virtual.

I'm working on standing up a dedicated LCM server running on its own cluster to try and isolate the AJS/APS that is the workhorse and grab those logs.

[denis_konovalov]

Yeah, that's very small.

I'd look at the virtual infrastructure as well, just how much I/O , network bandwidth and CPU does it really give to the hosted images of your servers.

[former_member338489]

Is this available, or will it be available, in Information Platform Services?  Is this tool capable of connecting to any version of BI Platform?  Can we connect it to a 4.1 system as well?

[sdimario]

Hi,
in Promotion Management Wizard there is a Find option, to search a Report, user ecc.. With combination CTRL+F, but the content that i search doesn't work, how is it possible?

I have to migrate 4000 reports with Selective content promotion

 

Thanks

[martin_dingeldey]

Hi Alexandre,

the youtube videos for promotion are private videos now so we can't see them anymore.

Did you restrict the access or is this a mistake?

Best regards,

Martin

 

[former_member678535]

Hi Alexandre,

 

Kindly note that the Youtube videos need to be uploaded again or they should be public as we can't access them.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Abdulhameed

[former_member733889]

Hi Alexandre,

 

We try to migrate BO contents from One server to another server with ( BO SP4.2 SP7 Patch 10 on both servers) using PMW.

Since contents are so many so started to use Selective Copy/Promotion Scenario. After migration users Schedules from public folders are not getting migrated to another server. Followed steps mentioned here

 

1. Export/Import/Promote user groups and users


2. Export/Import/Promote the dependencies (connections, universes…) required for documents


3. Export/Import/Promote the public folders (documents…)


4. Export/Import/Promote the content generated by the users (inboxes, personal folders…) - Still working on this migration.

Let us know where we are missing steps during migration

Lakshmi Telagi

 

[akanksha_pandey]

From where we can get the PMW in the Software Download for BO 4.3 SP1.

[former_member156435]

Hi all, I am new in the BOBJ world and I would like to use this tool to migrate the entire bobj content, as I am having issues with lcm_cli tool.

The source system is 4.2 SP8. However, I do not find Promotion Management WIzard anyware in the installation. And there is no documentation on how to identify if it is installed, nor from where or how to start the tool. Can you help me with this information?

I have identified how to identify and run the tool on Linux, but unable to identify how to run on Windows.

 

[sharon_smith3]

Regarding the KEEP_TS parameter to mainatain original Modified Date during promotion, this worked for me when promoting Recurring instances only, but when I include 'All Historical Instances'  the Modified Date of the main report reverts back to the promotion date vs. maintaining the original Modified Date. Is there a setting I'm missing causing this to occur?

I followed these steps.

•  Open PromotionManagementWizard.ini


•  Uncomment #-Dcom.businessobjects.lcm.commit=LEGACY


•  Modify the parameter: -Dcom.businessobjects.lcm.commit=KEEP_TS

Thank You,

S

[rogerperkins]

Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\win64_x64

[si_manb]

Hi, 

I've just setup a new server to migrate to. At the Promotion Management Wizard > Scenario Step stage, how do I populate the server name drop down for the source,  as it isn't a free-type field? 

Currently it only lists the server I'm running the promotion management wizard from.  

Thanks.

[CdnConnection]

    The first time you will need to manually type in the name of Server, once you have actually run the job at least once the name will show up in the drop down list next time.  Initially it only shows the name of the Server where the PMW is run because that is the only server it is aware of.

Ajay

[si_manb]

Hi @CdnConnection 

Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure how i can even initially type the server name in. From the image i posted above. The white fields are free type and they grey fields are select only drop down fields. 

It's also the same when after selecting the temp and log destinations, when logging into a CMS; server name is select only drop down. 

Thanks. 

[CdnConnection]

 The first login is login to the highest version of CMS.  If you migrating from BI 4.2 to BI 4.3, you MUST run the PMW on BI 4.3 server and first login will be to the BI 4.3 server.  See below like with more in-depth overview of PMW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saaia4acbMU

Ajay