SAP BPC 5.1 : Heuristic Installation

As a being computer geek, one of the thing I like doing when I have time is installing and trying  softwares especially not  the ones installed with  few clicks. Some of you may already have read my blog which is telling about my NW2004s IDES installation experience. In that blog I was telling how I installed NW2004s IDES on my laptop in 55 hours. After that installation experience I was looking for new tools and time to install and try. Last couple of months I read a lot about SAP BPC and then I decided to install and try it however recently I had a time to install SAP BPC and in this blog    I will share my SAP BPC 5.1 heuristic installation experience without using installation guide

As I mentioned above I read a lot about SAP BPC in the last couple of months and seen that always highlighted for SAP BPC by SAP is "set up by IT and managed by Business". Having this in my mind I decided to install SAP BPC without any installation guides and any other materials just with heuristic way in order to see how it is easy to install, manage and use.

I started installation on w2k3 server with 2gb ram and 80gb disk laptop which I have used for SAP NW2004S IDES installation and in the first screens it asked me which version of MS SQL Server will be used for installation of SAP BPC then I chose MS SQL Server 2005 click next and installation software could not find installed MS SQL server in my laptop. It may sound silly for you but I was thinking that MS SQL server packed with SAP BPC installation files but it is not packed so I cancelled installation and went back and found MS SQL 2005  and started installation of MS SQL Server 2005 and completed installation without any problems.After installing MS SQL 2005 server I started again installation of SAP BPC  and this time installation software was able to locate  SQL Server installation after providing required parameters for installation  installation software started copying files to my laptop but before starting to copy files to my laptop installation gave some warnings which I ignore and installation let me go meanwhile I remembered that IIS  is used by SAP BPC as a web server but not enabled on my w2k3  so I have enabled IIS. Installation interface is clear enough and guiding well for installation. Actually when you provided required parameters for installation then what you need is to wait for completion of the installation. I can say that my installation has been completed in less than an hour installation.

After installation is completed it was time to play with SAP BPC and one hour was enough to discover SAP BPC and it is very easy to use with action panes. While trying to create application set (inforarea) and application (infocube) I was getting database related error and I could not create then I was trying to find the reason for error and I found server manager for SAP BPC where there is a diagnostic option to perform on the installation. After I run diagnostic, I have seen the warnings which I ignored during the installation and  telling my MS SQL Server is not updated then I downloaded latest service packs and applied to my MS SQL and now SAP BPC is working properly and the performance on my laptop is satisfactory.

For BW guys the terms used in SAP BPC may sound quite different at first sight but with taking  some time on SAP BPC easy to get familiar with terms. Comparing to NW2004S installation I can say that installation of SAP BPC is much easier and less time consuming however can be installed without looking at any docs. If you want a guide for SAP BPC I strongly recommend the How to Get Help from SAP Regarding SAP BPC  additionally there are several materials in SDN for SAP BPC that waiting for you.

Hope to blog about new installation experience in soon and thanks to Macir for reminding Heuristic again.