Setting up the reporting server

The reporting server is the server on which you install BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) platform. You can review the deployment options in Deployment-use-cases.

• Configuring the application server
• Configuring the BusinessObjects server JDBC drivers
• Securing the SAP BusinessObjects BI launch pad
• Where to go from here

Ensure that your reporting server has enough space and meets the following requirements:

• BusinessObjects BI must be installed before installing BMC Decision Support – Database Automation. 

  • The BusinessObjects BI installation requires a server running a 64-bit OS.

  • You can use an existing BusinessObjects BI installation or perform a fresh installation.
  • You must use the same instance of BusinessObjects BI for all BMC Decision Support – BladeLogic Automation Suite products installed in your environment.
  • For information about supported versions of BusinessObjects BI, see System-requirements. 
  • Download and install BusinessObjects BI as follows:
    • To start fresh installation of version 4.1 SP6, open the BO_41_SP6_64_bit_Server_WIN.zip file using Windows Explorer and double-click the setup.exe file located in the BusinessObjectsServer_win folder. 
    • To start upgrading to version 4.1 SP6 from 4.0 SP 2, double-click BO_41_SP6_64_bit_Server_Update_WIN.exe. 
      For detailed installation instructions, refer to the Business Intelligence Platform Installation Guide (Windows) at PDFs. 
  • For information about licensing requirements, see Applying-passwords-or-licensing-requirements.
• The BusinessObjects BI server must be configured to use Enterprise Authentication. See the "Authentication" section in the Business Intelligence Platform Administrator Guide at PDFs for more information.
• The BusinessObjects BI server must be configured to automatically resolve its host name. For instructions, see Configuring the application server.
• Configure the JDBC drivers. 
• Ensure that all services are running. For more information, see Restarting-the-BusinessObjects-services.
• Optionally, download and install SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Client Tools on the BusinessObjects BI server. Client Tools are required to perform miscellaneous tasks, such as creating custom reports or editing existing reports. 
  To start the installation, open the BO_41_SP6_Client_Tools_WIN.zip file using Windows Explorer, and double-click the setup.exe file located in the SBOP_BI_PLAT_4.1_SP6_CLNT_WIN_32_64B_\DATA_UNITS\BusinessObjectsClient folder.

Configuring the application server

The application server must be able to automatically resolve the host name for the BusinessObjects BI server. If the application server is unable to automatically resolve the reporting server's host name, you can manually configure access to the reporting server.

This section describes how to manually configure access to the reporting server for servers with a static IP address or a dynamic IP address by using the Central Management Console. BMC recommends that you use a static IP address, if possible.

For complete information about using the Central Management Console, see the Business Intelligence Platform Administrator Guide at PDFs.

To configure access to a reporting server with a static IP address

1. On the application server, navigate to the Windows\System32\drivers\etc directory.
2. Edit the hosts file in a text editor and add an entry mapping the reporting server IP address to the host name, by using a fully-qualified host name as in the following example.
   10.128.35.39 vw-pun-bda-pt03.pune-labs.bmc.com
3. Save the file.

To configure access to a reporting server with a dynamic IP address

1. Log on to the Central Management Console as an Administrator.
2. Navigate to Servers List.
3. In the right pane, right-click CentralManagementServer and select Properties. 
4. Under Common Settings, in the Host Identifiers section, select the Hostname option (if not selected already) and provide the BusinessObjects BI server host name.
5. Restart the Central Management Server.

Configuring the BusinessObjects server JDBC drivers

Configure the JDBC drivers to ensure that the BusinessObjects BI server has access to the BMC Decision Support – Database Automation data warehouse. 

To configure the JDBC drivers on BusinessObjects server

1. Download the ojdbc14.jar file from the following URL: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/enterprise-edition/jdbc-10201-088211.html

   Note

   This link is an absolute URL to a third-party website. If this URL is not up-to-date, search the third-party website for the JAR file.

2. Copy the JAR file to the BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) server's hard drive (for example, you might copy it under D:\Program Files\SAP Business Objects).
3. Locate and edit the Oracle.sbo file and modify the settings for each database type as follows (the file is usually located in the BusinessObjects BI installation directory, for example D:\Program Files (x86)\SAP Business Objects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\dataAccess\connectionServer\jdbc).

   1. For all versions of Oracle, find Oracle 11 and locate the <JDBCDriver> tag. If the <classpath> tag already exists inside the <JDBCDriver> tag, change the path in the <Path> tag to the one where you have copied the ojdbc14.jar file. 
      If the <classpath> tag does not exist in the <JDBCDriver> tag, go to step b. A sample file without the <classpath> tag looks like the following. 

      <DataBase Active="Yes" Name="Oracle 11">
                 <JDBCDriver>
                     <!--  Uncomment and edit the following lines
                           to define java classes required by JDBC driver
                      &lt;ClassPath&gt;
                          &lt;Path&gt;your jar or class files directory&lt;/Path&gt;
                      &lt;/ClassPath&gt;
                       -->
                      ...
                 </JDBCDriver>
                  ...
      </DataBase>
      

   2. Replace the content in the <JDBCDriver> tag with the following content:

      <DataBase Active="Yes" Name="Oracle 11">
                 <JDBCDriver>
                    <ClassPath>
                            <Path>
                                D:\program files\Business Objects\ojdbc14.jar
                             </Path>
                    </ClassPath>
                </JDBCDriver>
                  ...
      </DataBase>
      
      

      D:\program files\Business Objects indicates the path where you have copied the ojdbc14.jar file.

4. Save and close the file.
5. Restart the BusinessObjects services.

Securing the SAP BusinessObjects BI launch pad

BMC recommends to follow these steps to make the SAP BusinessObjects BI launch pad web application more secure:

• Use SSL certificates for the SAP BusinessObjects Tomcat. Perform the following steps to apply SSL certificates to the BusinessObjects Tomcat:
  1. Stop Tomcat.
  2. Enable SSL for Tomcat by uncommenting the entry for the SSL connector in the server.xml file, which is located at %TOMCAT_HOME%\conf\server.xml by default.

  3. In the server.xml file, add the correct file path of the keystore and truststore and use TLSv1.2 version for the sslEnabledProtocols property. The following example shows a sample file with the keystore and truststore path:

     <Connector port='8443' maxHttpHeaderSize='8192' maxThreads='150' minSpareThreads='25'
     maxSpareThreads='75' enableLookups='false' disableUploadTimeout='true' acceptCount='100' scheme='https'
     secure='true' clientAuth='false' sslProtocol='TLS' sslEnabledProtocols='TLSv1.2' keystoreFile='C:\https\server.ks'
     truststoreFile='C:\https\server.ts'/>
  4. Start Tomcat.
• Do not use the browser auto-complete feature to store the password for SAP BusinessObjects BI launch pad. 
• Do not use IBM WebSphere Application Server 7.x for hosting the SAP BusinessObjects BI launch pad.
• Configure the crossdomain.xml located at %TOMCAT_HOME%\webapps\ROOT to allow access only to domains that are authorized to access the web application. For information refer to tomcat documentation.
• Configure the BusinessObjects web application located at %TOMCAT_HOME%\webapps\BOE by following these steps:
  1. Stop Tomcat.
  2. Create a directory called custom in the following directory: %TOMCAT_HOME%\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\config.
  3. Copy the global.properties and BIlaunchpad.properties files from %TOMCAT_HOME%\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\config\default to %TOMCAT_HOME%\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\config\custom.

  4. Open the global.properties file located at %TOMCAT_HOME%\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\config\custom using notepad, and set properties as follows:

     logon.embed.secret=<secret>
     logon.embed.timeout=1
     persistentcookies.enabled=false

  5. Open the BIlaunchpad.properties file located at %TOMCAT_HOME%\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\config\custom using notepad and set properties as follows. Add a property if it does not exist.

     enforceTopLevelFrame.enabled=true
     logontoken.enabled=false
     logon.allowInsecureEmbedding=false
  6. Start Tomcat.

Where to go from here

Setting-up-the-application-server