Hi there,
Does anybody have any statistics/percentage breakdown on which hardware platforms are used mostly for Business Objects Deployments (web intelligence and dashboards).
We have approx 250 users and run on WINDOWS for BOXIR2 at moment.
Looking to upgrade to BI 4 in due course and have been asked about possibility of running on SUSE LINUX - want to know how common a platform this is e.g if only small %age of customers use it or not.
Many Thanks
philipo (BOB member since 2005-07-22)
The percentage of customers running on Linux is extremely low. I can’t think of any of my clients from the past 9 years who run on Linux. I guess my primary concern, therefore, would be getting support for such an environment. Yes, you could get support, but the options would be very limited.
Also, keep in mind that troubleshooting the BOE server often includes running the client tools on the server, which isn’t possible if the server is a Linux server.
MichaelWelter 
(BOB member since 2002-08-08)
Hi, philipo, the vast majority of BusinessObjects customers are running the software on Windows servers. we tested XI 3.1 on Red Hat Linux earlier this year and it’s working very well.
With that being said, UNIX and Linux are normally used by large organizations where they have in-house resources for such OS. If you have only 250 users, you are better off using Windows server. Keep in mind that Windows servers are cheaper to buy and Windows administrators are far cheaper to hire than UNIX/Linux administrators.
substring 
(BOB member since 2004-01-16)
Hi,
Thanks for the responses.
The server guys generally have AIX and some LINUX experience - it is those guys pushing for us to move from WINDOWS to running BO4 on the same server as the datawarehouse - currently planned to be IBM kit.
What are your thoughts on having business objects sofwtare running on the data warehouse server?
The theory is the ETL will run during the night and reports will run during day using BO.
philipo (BOB member since 2005-07-22)
It is a very bad idea to run BusinessObjects and data warehouse on the same server. Maintenance and patches are going to be a big nightmare if they are in the same box. Not to mention you are competing the system resources…bad bad bad idea.
I think you need to hire a BusinessObjects Architect to design the system for you because I don’t think your in-house resources understand this.
substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)
I agree with substring, only stronger. 
BOE needs a dedicated server. You don’t want it competing for system resources with the DWH. Don’t do it! You’ll regret it.
MichaelWelter (BOB member since 2002-08-08)
Thanks for responses guys - I should have said same physical box but partitioned into different logical machines to cater for patches etc.
Would there be any advantages to having shared BOE and warehouse on same physical box, different logical machine for each?
I’m thinking in particular reduced network issues as have issues with network latency when on different physical boxes - also the expense of having 2 separate boxes.
philipo (BOB member since 2005-07-22)
Even with partitioning, the DBA will have to bring down the server for their maintenance work on a regular basis. So can you accept such downtime on your BusinessObjects environment? And vice versa? And what about any hardware upgrade?
Keep in mind that BusinessObjects supports virtual server now. So cost should not be a big issue (assuming you are trying to save money). There is really no reason why you need to commingle the software.
Pardon me for saying this. Whoever made this suggestion has never gone through it in real life. It just sounds good in theory. So I still think that you should hire an experienced architect to help you on this design and deployment. 
substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)
Thanks again for your suggestion.
What about network latency - apart form placing separate machines on same part of network and array fetch size parameter is there anything else which can be done to improve this part?
I accept your arguments but one of key criterai will be speed the results are returned to a user and it has been suggested queries accessing a database/warehouse on same machine will return significantly faster than ones accessing database on dedicated warehouse server due to not having to go over the network With BO4 being pure web-based environment and no DESKI the guys are trying to eliminate the networl from being a bottleneck.
philipo (BOB member since 2005-07-22)
If your network is well designed, and the servers are on the same network, you should see no noticeable difference in speed.
MichaelWelter (BOB member since 2002-08-08)
Thanks - will push this to the network guys to ensure optimised as much as possible.
philipo (BOB member since 2005-07-22)
if you’re using virtual machines, you really need to run a physical cluster- for the reasons specified above.
That said, Ive noticed that linux-based support is by far better than windows support. Probably has something to do with the amount of non-windows knowledge required, but I digress. The Linux support reps are usually subject matter experts and speak english in an unbroken manner (enough said).
Ok, for a windows vs linux/unix comparison.
Although Windows is much easier to administrate, linux is much better in regards to memory management, stability, and system security. An item of note is that SAP actually deploys BOBJ Explorer Accelerated (blade edition) 2.0 on blades running SUSE Enterprise Linux 11. This is part of the reason I use SEL. Setup is simple, fault tolerant, and pretty straightforward. Firewall setup is straightforward, and as long as you’re good with a command line, you can setup an enterprise in a relatively short amount of time.
Additionally, if you do a baseline server install… with just what you need, you will indeed notice a difference in speed and memory utilization… vs Windows server 200x.
As with the windows deployment of BOE 3.x and earlier, the linux deployment is only available in the 32-bit flavor. 
However, 4.0 and later is 64-bit only. 
Ruune 
(BOB member since 2007-08-13)
Thanks for this - if SAP itself uses i, then this would be a good case for using it as well especially if memory management etc better.
philipo (BOB member since 2005-07-22)
how many users, reports, etc are you going to be serving? Also, will your dashboards be connected to live aggregated data?
Ruune (BOB member since 2007-08-13)
I’m currently working at a client where they have BO XI 3.1 installed on Linux and we’ve had no end of problems. Things like Crystal Reports getting corrupted for no obvious reason after they’ve been running successfully, the WebI processing servers are constantly failing and not restartting correctly, etc.
Personally, I would not recommend installing on Linux.
-Dell
hilfy (BOB member since 2007-04-16)
I’ve seen this happen in windows as well… what do your logfiles say? have you tried verbose logging?
Ruune (BOB member since 2007-08-13)
I’ve been working with BO for years and haven’t ever seen this volume of problems on a windows install. I’m just here building reports, so I don’t have access to the server where BO is installed to check the logs. I do know that the staff here have been working with SAP support to try to resolve the issues, but this has been going on for months.
-Dell
hilfy (BOB member since 2007-04-16)
A few hundred users, thousands of reports and dashboards will access live agggregataed data/materialized views.
philipo (BOB member since 2005-07-22)
Hi,
In my organization recently changed from Boxi R2 over Windows to BOXI 3.1 SP3 on Linux.
My feelings are good, especially with regard to stability. But there are things to consider:
.Good luck!
pattern (BOB member since 2010-09-22)