SAP BI Administrator Engineering, Upgrade & Migration

We are looking for an experienced SAP BI Administrator to manage and support enterprise-scale SAP BusinessObjects BI platform environments, with strong ownership of engineering tasks, SRU activities, platform upgrades, and out-of-place content/data migration. The role is centred on administering and optimizing large BI deployments across application, processing, web, database, and security layers, while ensuring platform stability, high availability, and successful technical transitions.

This position requires hands-on experience with SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.3 and BI 2025, including side-by-side / out-of-place migration, content promotion to a new deployment, and management of platform architecture such as servers, clusters, databases, web application servers, and authentication/SSO integration. SAPs BI 2025 administration and upgrade guidance explicitly covers side-by-side deployments, content export to new deployments, and platform administration across servers, hosts, clusters, databases, web application servers, and SSO/authentication.

Key Responsibilities :

1. SAP BI Platform Administration :

- Administer, monitor, and maintain SAP BusinessObjects BI landscapes across development, QA, pre-production, and production environments, ensuring system health, operational readiness, and performance optimization across large deployments. The BI 2025 administrator guide frames platform administration around servers, hosts, clusters, web application servers, databases, and authentication/single sign-on.

- Manage day-to-day administration of core BI platform services including Central Management Console (CMC) activities, service monitoring, job validation, repository connectivity, and environment health checks.

- Perform server lifecycle tasks such as start/stop/restart, service enablement, node validation, configuration review, capacity planning, and post-change verification across clustered deployments.

2. Engineering / SRU Activities :

- Lead and support SRU-related engineering tasks for SAP BI environments, including technical planning, system readiness checks, environment coordination, execution support, and post-implementation validation.

- Execute structured pre- and post-SRU activities such as :

1. dependency assessment

2. environment inventory

3. object/service validation

4. scheduling verification

5. authentication and connectivity checks

6. rollback/readiness planning

- Work closely with BASIS, infrastructure, database, security, middleware, and application teams to ensure SRU activities are completed with minimum business disruption.

3. BI 4.3 to BI 2025 Upgrade Management :

- Manage and support upgrade projects from SAP BI 4.3 to SAP BI 2025, including planning, impact analysis, component compatibility checks, execution coordination, downtime preparation, and post-upgrade stabilization. SAPs BI 2025 upgrade guide specifically covers upgrade paths, preparation for upgrades, and performing upgrades, including side-by-side deployments and content export to new deployments.

- Participate in out-of-place / side-by-side upgrade approaches where the target BI 2025 environment is built separately and content is migrated in a controlled manner, reducing risk and improving rollback capability. SAPs guidance explicitly identifies side-by-side deployments as a BI 2025 upgrade concept.

- Support technical validation after upgrade, including :

1. CMC access and administrative functions

2. service availability

3. report execution and scheduling

4. security and authentication validation

5. repository and CMS connectivity

6. web-tier availability

7. job and process verification

4. Out-of-Place Content / Data Migration Using PMW :

- Manage out-of-place migration of BI content and related configuration/data using Promotion Management / PMW, moving selected or full content sets from source BI 4.3 to target BI 2025 environments as part of controlled migration waves. SAPs upgrade guidance includes exporting content to a new deployment, and SAP learning content explicitly covers migrating content using Promotion Management.

- Plan and execute migration activities for :

1. folders and reports

2. users and groups

3. security assignments

4. schedules and instances (where applicable)

5. connections and dependent objects

6. universes and platform content

- Validate migration completeness and integrity through reconciliation, smoke testing, user access verification, schedule validation, and report execution testing in the target BI 2025 environment.

- Support cutover, hypercare, and post-migration defect resolution to ensure production readiness and stable adoption.

5. Large Deployment / Server Administration :

- Administer and support large BI deployments covering critical platform/server components such as :

1. Adaptive Processing Server (APS)

2. Adaptive Job Server (AJS)

3. DSL services / related processing services

4. Web Intelligence Processing Server

5. Core Services

6. Analysis Office / Analysis Edition integrations

7. Tomcat

8. SQL Server

9. associated CMS / repository / auditing / web-tier components

- SAPs BI 2025 administration guidance and learning content cover platform architecture and administration across processing servers, web application tier, CMS, repositories, job servers, APS, and Web Intelligence services.

- Configure and optimize Adaptive Processing Server instances, including service placement, sizing, and splitting of APS workloads for better resource utilization and production performance. SAP learning content notes that APS can host many services and that splitting APS for production improves performance and responsiveness.

- Administer Adaptive Job Server and scheduled processing workloads, ensuring scheduled objects execute correctly and required services remain in a running and enabled state. SAP learning content states that when an object is scheduled, an Adaptive Job Server is requested to run the job and administrators must ensure the server is running and enabled.

- Support Web Intelligence Processing Server administration, server grouping, service monitoring, and troubleshooting for report rendering and scheduling activities. SAPs high-availability guidance lists Web Intelligence Processing Server and APS as key processing-tier components to scale for resilience.

- Manage Tomcat-based web application tier administration, deployment validation, service restarts, and post-change testing for launchpad, CMC, and related BI web applications. SAP Help notes that Tomcat can be used as a SAML service provider in BI platform scenarios.

- Coordinate with database teams for SQL Server-backed CMS/audit repository connectivity, performance validation, and upgrade/migration readiness as part of end-to-end platform administration. SAPs administrator guide identifies databases as a core architectural element of the BI platform.

6. High Availability, Performance & Stability :

- Design and support high-availability deployment patterns for the BI processing tier by adding and balancing server instances across critical components such as APS, Web Intelligence Processing Server, Crystal/processing services, and other workload-bearing services. SAP learning content states that BI 2025 processing-tier high availability is achieved by adding more servers and supports load balancing, not active/passive.

- Monitor and resolve issues related to :

1. server failures

2. memory pressure

3. scheduling bottlenecks

4. service unavailability

5. report processing failures

6. authentication interruptions

7. repository access issues

- Perform health checks, housekeeping, and root-cause analysis for incidents affecting production or critical project timelines.

7. Security, Certificate Management & SSO :

- Administer and support authentication, certificate, and identity federation configurations for the BI platform, including SAML 2.0, trusted authentication, certificate/keystore handling, IdP metadata updates, and security validation during migrations and upgrades. SAP Help documents BI platform configuration as a SAML service provider, including properties changes, IdP metadata handling, and optional keystore generation.

- Configure and maintain SAML 2.0-based SSO for BI applications such as BI Launchpad, OpenDocument, and CMC, including application property updates and validation of SSO entry points. SAP Help notes that SAML enablement is controlled through application property files for Fiori BI, OpenDocument, and CMC.

- Manage integration with Ping Identity / PingID / PingOne or equivalent Identity Providers through SAML 2.0, including metadata exchange, ACS/entity configuration, signing certificate alignment, and assertion mapping as part of enterprise SSO enablement. SAPs Ping Identity integration guidance describes configuring PingOne as a SAML application, mapping ACS URL / Entity ID, and using signing certificates / metadata.

- Support certificate-related administration for BI and connected services, including generation/import/update of certificates and trust-store alignment where required for secure integrations. SAP community guidance for BI/HANA SAML scenarios also describes generating certificates from BI platform and importing them into target trust stores.

8. Documentation, Governance & Project Coordination :

- Prepare and maintain technical documentation for :

1. SRU runbooks

2. upgrade plans

3. migration execution steps

4. PMW deployment logs

5. server topology

6. SSO/certificate configuration

7. validation and rollback procedures

- Support change management, release governance, issue tracking, and audit-ready documentation for all major platform engineering activities.

- Provide clear status reporting to project managers, architects, technical leads, and business stakeholders throughout upgrade and migration programs.

Required Skills & Experience :

Technical Skills :

- Strong experience in SAP BusinessObjects BI platform administration

- Hands-on expertise with SAP BI 4.3 and BI 2025

- Experience in SRU / platform engineering activities

- Proven experience in BI 4.3 to BI 2025 upgrade planning and execution. SAPs BI 2025 upgrade documentation explicitly covers upgrade paths, preparation, and performing upgrades.

- Experience with side-by-side / out-of-place migration and content export to new deployments. SAPs upgrade guide explicitly includes side-by-side deployments and exporting content to your new deployment.

- Experience using Promotion Management / PMW for controlled movement of BI content across environments. SAP learning content covers migrating content using Promotion Management.

- Strong administration experience across :

1. Adaptive Processing Server

2. Adaptive Job Server

3. Web Intelligence Processing Server

4. core services

5. Tomcat

6. SQL Server-backed repositories

7. clustered / large deployment landscapes

- Experience with SAML 2.0, trusted authentication, certificate management, IdP metadata, and Ping Identity / PingID / PingOne integration.

Preferred Skills :

- Exposure to Analysis Office / Analysis Edition integration

- Experience with BI web-tier deployment and Tomcat configuration

- Experience with enterprise security / identity federation

- Familiarity with CMS / Audit repository management

- Knowledge of high-availability and load-balancing design for BI processing tiers. SAP learning guidance notes that BI 2025 HA in the processing tier is achieved by adding additional servers and using load balancing.