Reporting components

Reporting foundation server

• Central Management Server
• Apache Tomcat web application server
• Services and Servers

BMC Reporting Foundation database server (CMS Database)

Sybase SQL Anywhere

Reporting Foundation Tools

• Business View manager
• Data Federation Administration Tool
• Information Design Tool
• Query as a Web Service Designer
• Report Conversion Tool
• Translation Management Tool
• Universe design tool
• Upgrade Management Tool
• Web Intelligence Rich Client
• Widgets 

Report portal (Business Intelligence Launch Pad)

The report portal is a browser-based interface that you use to connect to the reporting server to view and administer reports.  

The portal, also called Business Intelligence Launch Pad, is the single point of contact for report viewing, for searching for a particular report, 
for determining what reports have already been produced, and for saving reports. You can use the report portal to create categories for reports.  

Because it is browser-based, you can access the reports from any location that has access to the Reporting server. 
Each Business Objects tool contains context-sensitive help.  

You can access the Report Portal (Business Intelligence Launch Pad) using 
the http://hostName:8080/BOE/BI link, where hostName is the BMC Reporting Foundation Server name.

BMC Reporting Foundation database

The BMC Reporting Foundation database is a database that stores information about the Business Objects system and its users.
The primary database, which is maintained by the Central Management Server (CMS), is known as the CMS database. 

Following table displays the supported databases: 

Upgrade Management Tool

The Upgrade management tool (formerly Import Wizard) guides administrators through the process of importing users, groups, 
and folders from previous versions of BusinessObjects system. It also allows you to import and upgrade objects, events, 
server groups, repository objects, and calendars.

Promotion Management

The promotion management application enables you to move business intelligence (BI) resources from one repository to another
for same Business Objects version. The promotion management application is integrated with the Central Management Console.

Business View Manager

You can use the Business View Manager to import Business View XML files that contain database information and metadata.

You can use it to connect to a database and retrieve data in reports.

Central Management Server

The Central Management Server (CMS) is responsible for maintaining a database of information about your BusinessObjects Enterprise system, 
which other components can access as required. The data stored by the CMS includes information about users and groups, 
security levels, BusinessObjects Enterprise content, and servers. 

The CMS also maintains the BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository and information about user actions. 
This data enables the CMS to perform its main tasks:

• 
  
  • Maintaining security
  • Managing servers
  • Managing auditing
  • Managing objects 

You can access the Central Management Console from: 

http://hostName:8080/BOE/CMC where hostName refers to the BMC Reporting Foundation Server.

Web Application Server

The Web Application Server acts as the translation layer between a web browser or rich application, and SAP BusinessObjects system. 

Apache Tomcat 7.0.32 is the default webserver installed.

Services and Servers

A service is a server subsystem that performs a specific function of Reporting Foundation system.

A server is a process at the operating system level (it is called a daemon on some systems) that hosts one or more services.

For example, the Central Management Server (CMS) is a server.

Universe

The universe is a description of the database or a part of the database. It describes the database objects in everyday language 
so that you can create reports without knowing SQL. 

The universe is a collection of objects used as building blocks for the reports. The objects provide a map between the reports and the 
schema of the data source that contains the data to be used in the reports.

The universe uses the mapping information to generate the SQL structures for retrieving the data for each report. 

The universe is provided by the specific BMC reporting solution sets that you use. Consult the user documentation for the 
report solution set for specific information about its universe.

Categories

Categories provide a way of organizing documents. They are like a filing system; you can group like reports into the same category. 
However, you are not limited to one category per report. A report can be assigned to more than one category. 
The BMC reporting solution sets may add categories, and you can add categories.

User groups and users

BMC Reporting Foundation provides the highest-level user, Administrator. The BMC reporting solution sets can add more 
user groups and users, and you can add and delete user groups and users.

Databases and data collection tools

Each BMC reporting solution set either provides a database for storing report data and tools to collect the data as needed, 
or it uses a database and collection tools provided by another solution set. 

For example, BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Reporting contains the database and the Reporting Engine. 
The Reporting Engine retrieves data from BMC ProactiveNet Server and stores in its own database to generate reports.

Reports and report templates

Solution sets might contain predefined reports, also called solution reports. These reports are already 
scheduled so that you can immediately begin using them. 

Solution sets might also contain report templates that enable you to quickly configure reports containing the data that you need.

Web Intelligence Application

The web intelligence application provides a drag-and-drop interface for creating new reports. It also contains graphs and charts and filtering tools.

You can create new web intelligence documents to create reports that present the information that you want to review.