The inner workings of the AA Service (part of APS) for DesignStudio

[andreasja_schneider]

I am looking  for the inner workings of the AA Service, running as part of the APS on the SAP BI BusObjects platform .
From all what I have seen and read the following topics are still not clear to me:

1. When accessing HANA Views via Design Studio and http Connection (not OLAP connection to HANA), does MDAS come into play or DSL?
   
2. What exactly does the AA Service do? Does it just fire the underlying data connections (to access SAP BW/Bex queries or HANA views) in a DesignStudio Dashboard and collects the data, then hands it over to Tomcat (WEB APP Server) for further processing? Or does AA actually do more? If so, what exactly is that more?
   
3. Where is the scripting language BIAL actually parsed and executed when opening a DesignStudio Dashboard? On  the Web Application Server (Tomcat) or in your local web browser or in AA service?
   
4. For OLAP based connection (be that SAP BW OR HANA as a data source), do the mdas.properties file on the SAP BI BusObjects server come into play or do these indeed  ONLY affect Analysis, OLAP?
   
5. Is indeed a max. of 8 GB JAVA Heap space (-XMX parameter) a recommendation for the AA Service? And if I have more users than 15 users (which seem to be the default setting for sessions/users in AA)  should I create additional AA Services? If so, should I create these on the same node/physical machine or only have one AA service per SAP BI BusObjects Node?

Neither the SAP BI Sizing guide, nor the SAP Note for DesignStudio Sizing, nor the SAP BI Tutorial/Process workflow available here http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-60874 seem to provide any insight regarding these more detailed questions.

If anyone could help me out in answering these questions I would appreciate it.

[andreasja_schneider]

Any takers? No one?

Regarding question 2:

I am assuming the AA Service handles the requests to initialize and load data sources, as well as processing context menues such as for the crosstab component incl. sorting, adding/removing of dimensions, Bookmark handling, etc.

[former_member182521]

Hi Andreas,

My two cents.

2. For data source connectivity, Adaptive connectivity service will work Hand in Hand with AA service.

3. To my knowleadge, BIAL executed at the AA service itself rather than in Web browser like traditional jsp executes.

I will further dig in to other questions and revert back if I can.

Thanks

Mani

[andreasja_schneider]

Myself answering question number 1:

1. When accessing HANA Views via Design Studio and http Connection (not OLAP connection to HANA), does MDAS come into play or DSL?

Answer:

For HANA data sources (Calc. Views) neither MDAS nor DSL are necessary. The DesignStudio dashboards will open in  BI Launchpad, refresh and  interaction with crosstabs such as filtering, etc. is possible.

MDAS is necessary if you wanted to create or edit the Connections (OLAP HANA or HTTP HANA) via CMC though!

I tested this on a SAP BI BusObjects 4.2 SP2 platform (Windows Server with DS 1.6 SP2 Server Add-on).

[former_member185603]

I don't know all the answers fro your questions.

2 - If you want to connect to BI platform from Design Studio, Analysis application service is required. And also come in to picture when you are executing the DS application from Launchpad.

4 - Check this KB article for sizing

1177020 - SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio - Sizing Information

Above KB has other information which will clear some of your other questions.

[andreasja_schneider]

Thanks for trying to help, but..

I am sorry. I know this SAP Note 1177020 and to my understanding it does not answer any of my specific questions. Furthermore, I see contradictions in that SAP Note, because at one point it states CPU sizing is based on Navigation steps, but then it says base the sizing on Analysis for OLAP..huh?

Quote from the SAP Note 1177020

• For CPU usage sizing use the general calculation based on navigation steps and concurrent users...
• The sizing recommendation for Design Studio ...is aligned with the recommendation for Analysis Olap ..

So, any takers with expertise caring to help me out, please? The truth is out there.. somewhere..