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A look at SAP BusinessObjects BI suite

By Allen Bernard

Designed for organizations of all sizes, SAP BusinessObjects BI suite enables business users to view, sort and analyze BI data on any device and across all platforms. The current version, SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1, provides improved interoperability across the BI suite, expanded mobile BI functionalities and data discovery with managed self-service BI.

Additional BusinessObjects BI suite features include the following:

• Uses 64-bit technology to take advantage of modern hardware and memory.
• Improved data connectivity, including support for more than 140 data sources and connectivity to Hadoop Hive, Impala and MongoDB NoSQL DBMS.
• Native SAP HANA platform support.
• Native SAP Business Warehouse support.
• Extensible BI suite using software development kits across the suite, including a mobile BI software developer's kit for custom mobile applications and deployment.
• Enhanced BI mobility to deploy mobile services and manage all security settings directly from the central management console.

Total cost of ownership improvements in this latest version include the following:

• Support for all SAP BI clients on a single platform.
• Cloud-based BI deployment options.
• Near-zero downtime backup method.
• Parallel patching.
• Embedded real-time monitoring.
• An improved auditing engine that collects insights into how people use the product.

The key components of the SAP BusinessObjects BI products suite include:

• Reporting: SAP Crystal Reports, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
• Dashboards and application building: SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio, SAP Dashboards
• Data discovery and visualization: SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, SAP Lumira (stand-alone as well)
• Deployment and administration: SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform

BusinessObjects BI suite runs on Windows, Linux and Unix platforms. Products are available through a licensing model with named user and/or concurrent session-based licenses. Both named users and concurrent session-based licenses include content viewing and content authoring rights.

Licenses for the SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite include Mobile BI capability, SAP Lumira, SAP Lumira Server and a run-time license of SAP HANA for running SAP Lumira Server at no extra charge. SAP doesn't license by hardware metrics. The company offers perpetual software licenses and subscription-based pricing for BI offerings in the cloud.

BusinessObjects is sold directly by SAP and through independent software vendors, resellers, partners and system integrators, and can be purchased as a full suite, with some BI solutions available stand-alone. Contact SAP for pricing. Standard and Enterprise support options are available, as are free full-featured trial versions of SAP BusinessObjects BI suite.