We are not able to leverage SQL Server 2012 Always On capabilities in our Business Objects XI 4.1 sp4 envt. In order to leverage SQL Server 2012 Always On we need to provide additional parameter in the Universe OLEDB Connection’s connection string. But while creating a connection we have standard parameters in the wizard but no option of viewing or editing the connection string. I tried adding this as part of “custom parameters” section of Connection wizard but it didn’t work.
The additional paramter is ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly.
Sorry for digging up an old thread, but this is the one hit for “ApplicationIntent”, so hopefully this info will be useful to others.
We need to pass the ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly in the connection string so that the load balancer knows which cluster node to direct the querie to (our reports generally run on the standby nodes, with the application on the primary).
We’re on 4.2 SP3. I tried various methods (creating generic OLEDB connection and passing it in the provider string, adding it to the custom parameters of the connection in IDT, etc). None of them was working.
I raised a ticket with SAP support and they said it’s not possible. They told me to create an “idea”. One already exists, so please vote for it if you are in need of this functionality also.
It blows my mind that on one of the “leading” BI platforms it’s not possible to pass in parameters for a connection string to a DB… On all the other BI tools I use this is a trivial thing to do. Anyway - please vote
Had a response from SAP support - they are advising to use ODBC.
I’m fairly sure a few years back I was being told by Microsoft / SAP to move everything to OLEDB over and above ODBC as it was the newer technology (and much easier to manage), but now the winds appear to have changed direction and apparently OLEDB is now to be phased out by Microsoft.
From the ODBC connection you can configure the Application Intent. It does however (for us at least) open up a whole other can of worms about DSN management, and I also believe there are some behavioural differences in terms of SSPI and scheduling / publications with SSO I found during testing (I need to revisit this however in more detail).
SAP have created a KBA for this:
2428971 - BI4.x: Connectability with SQL Server 2012 ‘Always On’ availability
Yes, the OLEDB connectivity was just a lot more “portable” with everything in a single string.
It’s possible to deploy DSN’s via GP and other means, but it involves a lot of overhead for us internally as it means involving a lot of different teams, which then ultimately reduces the flexibility of the solution and our ability to be pragmatic as various unexpected scenarios arise.
Anyway, just have to play the hand we’re dealt the best we can…
So, I’ll tag onto this old thread too since Microsoft has announced that they will not be deprecating OLDCB, hopefully Business Objects will update their middleware. I could not get an answer if BI4.2sp5 contains an update for it though.
With that being said, it looks like there are enough parameters in the Generic OLE DB connection to make this work. Probably need to update the oledb.sbo file to specify a newer driver though.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be sufficient documentation on how to do this.
(BOB member since 2005-01-06)
(BOB member since 2002-08-16)