How to access VDP from SAP BusinessObjects

How to access VDP from SAP BusinessObjects

Revision 20210726

NOTEThis document is confidential and proprietary of Denodo Technologies. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form by any means without priorwritten authorization of Denodo Technologies.

Copyright © 2022Denodo Technologies Proprietary and Confidential

Denodo Inc.: 525 University Avenue, Suite 31, Palo Alto, CA 94301. USA www.denodo.com

How to access VDP from SAP BusinessObjects20210726

2 of 16

CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................3

2 DENODO CONNECTION SETUP............................................32.1 INSTALLING THE DRIVER................................................................32.2 ADDING THE CONFIGURATION FILES...............................................3

3 CREATING A CONNECTION FROM THE INFORMATION DESIGNTOOL..................................................................................5

4 CREATING A UNIVERSE FROM THE UNIVERSE DESIGN TOOL104.1 LIMITATIONS AND KNOWN ISSUES................................................12

5 CREATING A REPORT FROM AN UNIVERSE WITH WEBINTELLIGENCE RICH CLIENT................................................13

5.1 LIMITATIONS AND KNOWN ISSUES................................................14



3 of 16

1 INTRODUCTION

BusinessObjects supports both JDBC and ODBC access to databases. This documentdescribes the setup using JDBC. The ODBC method does not require any special setting,just pointing to a valid Denodo DSN with the 32 or 64 bit driver depending on theBusinessObjects installation.The configuration steps described in this document have been tested with SAPBusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0.

NOTE for Denodo 7.0 and newer version users: SAP BO versions under 4.2 useJava JDK 7 or lower, this means that you will get a “Unsupported major.minor version52.0” when you connect by using the Denodo 7 JDBC driver. The reason is because theDenodo JDBC driver is compiled for more recent Java versions. To solve this issue amore recent SAP BO version must be used.

2 DENODO CONNECTION SETUPSAP BusinessObjects (BO) allows to define new connection settings for databases thatare not natively supported. This configuration requires adding the JDBC driver for thedatabase and some additional files that specify the connection settings and databasecapabilities.

2.1 INSTALLING THE DRIVER

Copy the Denodo JDBC driver that can be found in the folder<DENODO_HOME>/tools/client-drivers/jdbc/denodo-vdp-jdbcdriver.jar of aDenodo Platform installation to the folder<BO_HOME>/dataAccess/connectionServer/drivers/java.

2.2 ADDING THE CONFIGURATION FILES

The BusinessObjects configuration files for non native databases need to be added tothe following folder: <BO_HOME>/dataAccess/connectionServer/. To create thesefiles the existing configuration files of databases supported by default can be taken asa starting point.It is possible to use the files below as an example depending on the BusinessObjectsversion.

Version Configuration Files

4 SAP BO 4 sample files

4.1 SAP BO 4.1 sample files

4.2 SAP BO 4.2 sample files

Follow the indications below to verify they will work with your configuration, someadditional changes might be needed depending on the specific version or environment.


https://community.denodo.com/kb/files/SAP_BO_4.zip

https://community.denodo.com/kb/files/SAP_BO_4_2.zip

https://community.denodo.com/kb/files/SAP_BO_4_1.zip


4 of 16

For instance, in a Unicode environment, you may need another PRM file called anextension file and the following parameters to enclose element names in quotes:

<Parameter Name="DELIMIT_IDENTIFIERS">YES</Parameter><Parameter Name="IDENTIFIER_DELIMITER">”</Parameter><Parameter Name="BACK_QUOTE_SUPPORTED">NO</Parameter>

The required parameters may vary depending on your environment.

See http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-49847 for more information about how to configure anew driver.Several files need to be copied:

● Setup file (<BO_HOME>/dataAccess/connectionServer/setup/vdp_jdbc.setup): thisfile defines that Denodo uses a JDBC connection and points to the specific JDBCconfiguration files required for its configuration.

● JDBC configuration files. Specific files for JDBC connections that are locatedin <BO_HOME>/dataAccess/connectionServer/jdbc. These files containinformation about the specific driver to use and how the corresponding SQL willbe generated. Denodo adds the following files:

○ vdp.sbo: Modify the ClassPath referenced for the Denodo JDBC driver tothe appropriate location where the VDP JDBC driver has been installed.This file should contain the name of the Database. Use “Denodo” asname.

○ vdpen.cod○ vdpen.prm○ vdp.rss○ vdp.prm


https://help.sap.com/viewer/512fca6758c4495bb6a50fe3e1e4b892/4.3.1/en-US/465c85cc6e041014910aba7db0e91070.html

https://help.sap.com/viewer/512fca6758c4495bb6a50fe3e1e4b892/4.3.1/en-US/465c0f2d6e041014910aba7db0e91070.html

https://help.sap.com/viewer/512fca6758c4495bb6a50fe3e1e4b892/4.3.1/en-US/465ca9356e041014910aba7db0e91070.html

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-49847


5 of 16

3 CREATING A CONNECTION FROM THE INFORMATIONDESIGN TOOL

1. Open the “Information Design Tool”.2. Create a new project.3. Right Click on the project name, and click on New > Relational Connection.

4. Give it a name, for example Denodo and click Next.



6 of 16

5. From the Driver Selection dialog, use the “Denodo” JDBC driver, that shouldnow be available after the installation of the configuration files described in thepoint above. If the driver is not shown in the list, either the configuration filesare wrong, e.g. wrong path to the driver, or the files cannot be interpreted dueto DTD/XSD issues.

○ If Denodo is not in the list of drivers, one of the causes can be theheaders used in the configuration files. In order to solve the issue editthe following files:

■ vdp.sbo■ vdpen.cod■ vdpen.prm■ vdp.rss■ vdp.prm■ vdp_jdbc.setup

modifying the XML headers and DTD references using the ones from anyof the other database vendors accessed from SAP BusinessObjects suchas Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server. For instance the headers

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

or

<!DOCTYPE Messages SYSTEM "../dbparameters_localization.dtd">

must be replaced with the equivalent ones coming from the equivalentconfiguration files for other databases.



7 of 16

6. Set up the connection parameters. Use “Use specified username andpassword” as authentication mechanism and fill the rest of the parameters theconnection details to the Virtual DataPort server.

7. Click on Test Connection. If everything is correct, a “Test Successful” popupwill show up. Click on Finish to create the connection.

8. Right click again on the project name, and choose New > Data Foundation.



8 of 16

9. Give it a name, and use the option “Single Source”.10. Select the connection created before and click on “Finish”.

11. From the Data Foundation workspace, open the “Connection” tab on the leftside. You should see the Denodo connection and the existing views. You candrag them now onto the “Master” workspace at the right.

12. To check that the data is retrieved correctly, right click on the table and choose

“Show Table Values...”



9 of 16



10 of 16

4 CREATING A UNIVERSE FROM THE UNIVERSE DESIGNTOOL

1. Start the Universe Design Tool. If it is a standalone install, use “Standalone (noCMS)” option for Authentication.

2. Click on File > New to start the universe creation wizard.

3. In the connection section, click on “New…” to define a new connection.4. Give it a name and click on Next.5. Use Denodo as your JDBC driver, and click Next.



11 of 16

6. Set up the connection parameters. Use “Use specified username andpassword” as authentication mechanism and fill the rest of the parameters theconnection details to the Virtual DataPort server. To avoid errors, provide the IPaddress of the VDP server instead of the hostname.

7. Define the connection pool parameters and click on Finish.8. Click on “Test” to make sure the connection works properly.

9. Once the connection is set, it is time to define the Universe. Click on Insert >Tables to open the Table Browser, that will show all the views in the Denododatabase. From there you can drag them onto the work area and to the leftpanel, where they become BO classes. Joins can also be defined in theworkspace using drag and drop between columns.



12 of 16

10. Once it is ready, click on Save.

4.1 LIMITATIONS AND KNOWN ISSUES

1. If you right click on a table in a workspace, and you choose “Table Values” topreview the data, BO may fail with the message:

2. ODBC may return an error sometimes due to a bug in BO and the DSN musthave the same name in both the 32 and the 64 bits DSN managerhttp://scn.sap.com/thread/3362374 .


http://scn.sap.com/thread/3362374


13 of 16

5 CREATING A REPORT FROM AN UNIVERSE WITH WEBINTELLIGENCE RICH CLIENT

1. Start the Web Intelligence Rich Client.2. Select the Universe created in the previous section.3. The Query Panel will pop up. Drag the fields for your report onto the “Result

Objects” area.

4. To test it, click on “Refresh” in the “Data Preview” area at the bottom of thewindow.

5. Once the query is completed, click on “Run Query” to go to the report designsection.



14 of 16

5.1 LIMITATIONS AND KNOWN ISSUES

5.1.1 Error with log4j

Some installations throw an error related to the log4j library when the queries areexecuted.

Database error: (CS) “Java Exception : java.lang.NoSuchMethodError:org.apache.log4j.Logger.isTraceEnabled() Z” . (IES 10901)

In order to solve it, the log4j jar file in the BO installation needs to be updated toversion 1.2.15. To do so, replace the log4j.jar files in following the folders:

● <BO_HOME>/java/lib● <BO_HOME>/java/lib/external

This error only happens with older Denodo versions. In Denodo 7.0 and newer versionsthe JDBC driver is generated in a different way to avoid this problem withdependencies.



15 of 16

5.1.2 Filters with dates

Business Objects uses a date picker when a date field is used as a filter. The format forthe date is specified in the file vdp.prm with the property:

<Parameter Name="USER_INPUT_DATE_FORMAT">'MMM d, yyyy h:mm:ssa'</Parameter>

This format must match the format of the locale configuration in the Virtual DataPortserver. For a specific format the file vdp.prm has to be modified. More details on thespecific formats supported by Business Objects can be found in the “Data AccessGuide” of SAP BO.

Moreover, the SQL query can be manually edited using the “Query Script Viewer”.

Denodo recommends using the TO_DATE function when using dates in the WHERE clause,in order to maximize compatibility with underlying systems.

5.1.3 Issues with Non-ANSI JOIN SyntaxBO by default uses the WHERE clause to specify join conditions. Denodo’s optimizer willwork better when using the ANSI92 join syntax (i.e. ..JOIN ON…). This can be configuredin the BusinessObjects Universe Designer by setting a Universe Parameter.



16 of 16

5.1.4 Multisource Universes do not work

When you try to create a multisource universe in BO where one of the sources isDenodo, the following error message is thrown "This data source is not supportedin multi source-enabled data foundations.”More info about Multisource Universes at http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-38685.

In some environments, adding the Denodo JDBC driver JARs to the BO classpath makesthe Multisource Universes to stop working altogether (whether they involve Denodosources or not). If this happens, remove the denodo-vdp-jdbcdriver.jar file from the BOclasspath, so only the vdp.sbo points to the jar file.. ExportCLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:/opt/bobj41/sap_bobj/enterprise_xi40/dataAccess/connectionServer/jdbc/drivers/denodo/denodo-vdp-jdbcdriver.jar


http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-38685

How to access VDP from SAP BusinessObjects

Documents

Transcript of How to access VDP from SAP BusinessObjects