Provisioning a Amazon Web Services instance for SAP BusinessObject BI4.x

This document is part of the series Getting Started with SAP BusinessObjects BI4.x on AWS

You can provision an Amazon Web Services (AWS) instance by selecting a system meeting your sizing requirements as defined in an earlier steps. If you have not yet defined a sizing for your SAP BusinessObjects BI4.x deployment on AWS, please start reading the sizing guidelines available on : Sizing you SAP BusinessObjects BI4.x system for AWS Deployments

Prerequisites:

• An Amazon Web Services account
  Note: When you create an account, you are automatically signed up for all AWS services. However, you will only be charged for the services you use.
• Go through the SAP BusinessObjects What's New Collection to gain insight in what your best version is.
• Understanding the support of deploying an SAP BusinessObjects BI4.x system on AWS as documented in http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1656250
• A sizing estimate as defined in Sizing you SAP BusinessObjects BI4.x system for AWS Deployments
  
• Recommended : Setup your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) connector. The VPC is recommended by Amazon, setting up a VPC is described in the document from SAP HANA ONE (AWS VPC setup) however the steps are equal for any SAP deployment.

Provisioning an AWS Instance

1. Create your VPC (AWS VPC setup) or reuse one you already have in place
2. Ensure you selected the correct region to where you want to deploy your image
   
3. Within the homescreen of AWS, select EC2 for the creation of a new instance
   
   
4. Select "Launch Instance" to startup a new instance
   
5. Select the operating system of your choice which is supported by the SAP BusinessObjects BI version of your choice. To validate supported Operated Systems, please check the Product Availability Report via : https://apps.support.sap.com/sap/support/pam
   
   For the example, a Windows 2012 R2 Base system will be deployed
   
   
6. Select the required instance size. the instance size is key for running a well performing BI4.x deployment and is recommended to be memory optimized. For understanding the translation of Instance Types, please ensure you have executed a correct sizing and translation of ECU into SAPS as described in Sizing you SAP BusinessObjects BI4.1 system for AWS Deployments
   
   For this example I'll deploy the BI4.x system against the memory optimized r3.2xlarge model.
7. Select "Next: Configure Instance Details" as the next step (not "Review and Launch") as we have a few more configurations to take care of during initialization
   
   Within the Configure Instance Details ensure you select the following items correclty
   - Network : Select the VPC as created for step 1
   - Subnet : if you have instances within AWS, ensure you select the same subnet if you want to connect into these AWS instances as well
   - Auto-Assign Public IP : Recommendation is to disable the auto-assign mode as it is recommended to work with a Elastic IP (default auto assigned IP's can changed after restarting your Instance).. We will later assign a Elastic IP to the system
   - Shutdown Behavior : Leave this to Stop, unless you want to have the instance terminated at shutdown (all data will be lost)
   - Optional : Enable Termination Protection
   - Optional : Enable Monitoring (note: additional costs are involved)
   - Optional : Enable EBS-optimized instance (note: additional costs are involved)
   - Optional : Select you instance to be Dedicated (note: additional costs are involved)
   - Optional : Enable the request for Spot Instances
   
   
   
   
8. Select "Next: Add Storage" as the next step (not "Review and Launch") as we have a few more configurations to take care of during initialization
   
   By default a new image is create with a 30Gb Disk. To ensure enough diskspace is available for the deployment of SAP BusinessObjects, we need to add additional capacity.
   
   In the example setup, we'll create / enhance the following disks:
   - Increase capacity in the default disk to 80Gb
   - Add new disk with a capacity of 128Gb (for installing SAP BusinessObjects and future updates)
   - Add new disk with a capacity of 64 Gb (for storing the Windows Page File)
   Note : adding disk capacity influences the costs of your AWS Instance
   
9. Select "Next: Tag Instance" as the next step (not "Review and Launch") as we have a few more configurations to take care of during initialization
   
   In this example setup, We'll not going to add Tags. for details on how to use tags, please read : Tagging Your Amazon EC2 Resources - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
   
10. Select "Next: Configure Security Group" as the next step (not "Review and Launch") to enter the final detail for your initial Instance Creation
    
    Security Groups will configure the firewall settings for your Instance. for details on Security Groups, please read : Amazon EC2 Security Groups for Linux Instances - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. To enable access into the BI Launchpad and Central Management Console of the BI Platform, we have to enable access to the port for the Web Application Server. For enabling communication by the BI Platform into other server hosted within AWS we potentially need to configure the ports for BIP communications.
    
    In this example setup, we create a new security group "BI42" and enable the port 8080 (as we will use the default Tomcat) as well as a port range (6400-6599) for future inter-AWS communication.
    
    Enabling port 8080 or 3389 (RDP) for "Anywhere" is not recommended, but for the sake of the example deployment currently used. Typically you want to have your organizations External or Internal IP ranges being enable for these ports, which can be set via "Custom IP"
    
    The BIP Port Range is being assigned to the IP Range as used by the VPC as being defined in step 1
    
    
11. We are now ready with the initial setup of the Instance and van hit the "Review and Launch" button. This will provide us the overview of settings applied during the previous steps. Review your settings and when OK, "Launch" your image to become created.
    
    
12. During the launch, you will be requested to select an existing key pair of create a new one. The Key Pair is required to connect into your system. for details around the AWS Key Pair, please read : Amazon EC2 Key Pairs - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
    
    In this example setup, we'll create a new Key Pair "BI42@AWS" and download the file to the local machine for later use.
    
    
    
13. After creating / reusing a Key Pair, You'll be able to launch you instance.
    You are informed about the Launch Status and by selecting View Instance, you will be directed to the EC2 Instances listing to validate the progress
    
14. Check if the instance is initializing
    
    
    
    
15. Once Initialized, a public IP has to be assigned to enable the remote access.
    As we selected not to assign a public IP, the instance cannot yet be reached from outside AWS.
    
    
    for deploying the instance against a Public IP and connecting with remote desktop (windows OS), please continue with step 3 in the process available via : Connecting to an AWS instance for SAP BusinessObjects BI4.x
    
    

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