Birst Appliance v5.

21+
Quick Start Guide

Updated: March 2018

 Birst Appliance v5.21 Quick Start Guide

Copyright © 2018, Birst Inc. All rights reserved.

This document contains confidential material proprietary to Birst Inc. Your access to and use of this
confidential material is subject to the terms and conditions of a Birst Inc. nondisclosure agreement,
which has been executed and with which you agree to comply. This document and information and
ideas herein may not be disclosed, copied, reproduced or distributed to anyone outside Birst Inc.
without prior written consent of Birst Inc.

Birst Inc.
45 Fremont St., 18th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
www.birst.com
 Birst Appliance v5.21 Quick Start Guide

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Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1
Requirements for Running the Birst Appliance ............................................................................................ 2
Required Skill Set .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Configuring the Birst Appliance .................................................................................................................... 4
Licensing the Appliance............................................................................................................................. 4
Setting up Sites, Clusters and Servers using the Migration Wizard .......................................................... 5
Setting up Sites, Clusters and Servers Manually ....................................................................................... 7
Configure Settings ................................................................................................................................... 10
Global ................................................................................................................................................... 10
Application ........................................................................................................................................... 11
Logs ...................................................................................................................................................... 12
External ................................................................................................................................................ 13
Miscellaneous....................................................................................................................................... 14
Scripts ................................................................................................................................................... 15
Advanced .............................................................................................................................................. 16
Data Databases ....................................................................................................................................... 17
Starting the Appliance ................................................................................................................................ 18
Logging in to the Birst Application.............................................................................................................. 19
 Birst Appliance v5.21 Quick Start Guide

Introduction
The Birst Appliance provides the industry’s first complete Business Intelligence (BI) suite that is purpose-
built for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery. It overcomes the challenges of traditional on-premise BI
software packages by enabling painless horizontal scalability and upgrades in place. It features proven
technology that is powering Birst’s own Cloud BI offering to hundreds of organizations with thousands
of data warehouses.

As a software appliance, the Birst Appliance encapsulates all its dependencies in a pre-integrated and
self-contained unit. This dramatically simplifies its deployment by freeing IT from having to worry about
resolving potentially complex OS compatibility issues, library dependencies or undesirable interactions
with other applications. Multiple release versions of the Birst Appliance can run at the same time
against the same database and set of users.

This guide describes how to install and configure the Birst Appliance. For information about the Birst
Appliance architecture, deployment options, and sizing guidelines, see the Birst Appliance Operation
Guide.

This guide applies to Birst Appliance versions 5.21 and higher.

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 Birst Appliance v5.21 Quick Start Guide

Requirements for Running the Birst Appliance

This section lists the requirements for running the Birst Appliance.
Hypervisor Any production-quality hypervisor that supports Open Virtualization
Format (OVF), for example, those provided by Microsoft, VMware, Citrix,
Red Hat, SUSE, or Oracle.
Files from Birst  Birst Appliance files
 Admin database files for your database type
 Data database files for your database type
 100 GB disk (C: Drive 60; D: Drive 40)
Resources  Memory: 32 GB
 vCPUs: 8
OS Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard License for 64 bit CPU.
Built-in MS SQL Server 2014 Express database engine with Birst Admin and
Data databases. Install these databases on external server for production
environments
Birst Admin database:
 MS SQL Server 2008 R2 (and above) all editions
Birst Appliance
 Oracle 11g (and above)
VM Supported Birst Data Warehouse database:
RDBMS  MS SQL Server 2008 R2 (and above) all editions
 MSSQL 2014 (and above) Enterprise Edition for Clustered Column
Store Index support
 Oracle 11g (and above)
 Exasol 5.0 (and above)
 Amazon Redshift and Hana Enterprise (external databases)

Metadata CIFS share to host Birst repositories and files. Built-in for quick start.
Share Externalize for production environments
Connectivity to Birst Licensing Servers (IP range 70.42.130.0/24 port 443 )
Network Connectivity
to license the appliance and download periodic updates
NoSQL caching database. Built-in for quick start. Externalize for production
MongoDB
environments – version 3.0 and above
Enables Query and Dashboard logs. Built-in (version 5.27 onwards) for
Elasticsearch quick start. Externalize for production environments – version 1.7.3 only
supported
Enables message queueing. Built-in for quick start. Externalize for
ActiveMQ
production environments – version 5.11 and above

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Required Skill Set

To successfully implement and manage the Birst Appliance, you will need to have experience with the
following roles:

 Database Administrator for your database types.

o Skills and experience to manage and administrator MS SQL Server, Oracle, Redshift, SAP Hana or
Exasol database instances.
 System Administrator to manage the Appliance and hypervisors.
o Birst provides Appliance Training to enable managing the installation and configuration of
multiple appliances using the built-in Admin Center UI. Skills and experience to manage the
environment for the cloud system or hypervisor of choice, e.g. AWS, Azure, VMWare, etc., is
expected before the installation takes place.
 Network and Security Administrator to handle clustered Appliance installations with a load balanced
configuration.
o Birst Appliance Training provides information required to install and scale the appliance.
Network and Security administration skills to set up and maintain related equipment, e.g. load
balancers, physical server hardware, SAN disk storage, and etc. is expected before installation
takes place.

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 Birst Appliance v5.21 Quick Start Guide

Configuring the Birst Appliance

Launch the Birst Appliance Admin Center by entering the following URL into a web browser from the
Birst Appliance or another PC on the network: http://<ApplianceIP>:8080. When prompted for
credentials, use the default username birstuser and the default password birst@123.
Licensing the Appliance
After reading the End User License Agreement, check the Accept License Agreement box and click
Continue to accept the agreement. Request an activation token on the next screen. If you are not a
registered user with Birst, you may request activation for a trial user – this will activate your appliance
for 3 months, after which the license will expire.

Requesting either registered or trial activation opens up a new screen where the user will be required to
enter a username or an email address in the Username box. When requesting activation for a registered
user, the username or email address must have been registered with Birst prior to making the request.
When requesting trial activation, a valid email address must be entered.

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On submitting the request, an activation token will be sent to the email address on file for the registered
user, or to the email address entered for the trial user. This activation token will need to be entered in
the next screen.

The Birst Admin Center application will open as shown below.

Select “Go to Admin Center Home”.

Setting up Sites, Clusters and Servers using the Migration Wizard

On initial install, the migration process will be executed enabling the creation of a site and cluster and the
addition of a server.

Using the migration wizard,

 Enter a name for the site, an optional description and click “Next”.
 Enter a name for the cluster, an optional description and click “Next”.
 Enter a name for the appliance you are logged in to, an optional description and click “Next”.

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Review your entries and click “Complete Migration”. If necessary, you can go back to previous screens and make
changes before completing the migration. You will also be able to make changes after the migration has been
completed.

Once the migration is complete, you will be on the Home page of the Admin Center. You are now ready to start
making further configuration changes if desired.

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Setting up Sites, Clusters and Servers Manually

In case the migration wizard does not start automatically, the process can be started as described below.
Create a site, or add the appliance VM to an existing site using the “Manage Sites” link on the left. Add a site
using the “+Site” button. Enter Name, Description (optional) and click Create, leaving Settings as Default.

This will create a site in the Site Tree, to which clusters and servers can be added.

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Select the site by clicking on the name. This will bring up the Site Manager page and enable adding clusters and
appliance servers, and set site-level configuration parameters.

In the “Clusters” link at the top, select “+Server” to add appliance servers to the site. This pops up a new
window – “Add Server to Site”.

Enter the name of the server, IP address, and an optional description. The IP address must exist on the
network and the server must be accessible to ping requests.

- If adding the Admin Center appliance as a server, you may enter localhost, 127.0.0.1, or the IP
address of the server.
- A server (identified by its IP address) can be added to the Admin Center just once.

Click “Add Server”. The new server will appear in the list of available servers on the left.

Similarly, select “+Cluster” to add a new cluster to the site, specify a cluster name with an optional
description, and click “Add Cluster”. The new cluster will appear in the list of clusters.

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Point to the server name under “Available Servers” and drag the server over to the cluster name to add
it to the desired cluster. The server will no longer appear in the “Available Servers” list and will be listed
under the selected cluster.

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Configure Settings
Global

Select Settings, Global in Site Manager. Click the Edit button and the appropriate checkboxes to
configure the following items:

o Admin Database: Supply the server FQDN where the Admin database will reside. You can also set the
Username and Password that will be accessing the database. Birst supports both SQL Server and Oracle
databases; this can be specified in the Database Type field. The Admin and Scheduler databases are required
to be on the same server.
o Metadata: Set the server IP address where the shared Birst metadata will reside. By default, this is set to the
local Appliance machine IP: 127.0.0.1. See the “Creating the Metadata Share” section for instructions on
setting up a share directory.
o Server Cache Setting: By default, cache is stored on the local Appliance. To pool cache across your
Appliances, install a separate MongoDB server or cluster.
o File Cache Location: This serves as a pointer to the cache setting defined earlier and enables faster retrieval.

Note: It is recommended that cache be shared only across Birst Appliances having the same version.

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Application

Select Settings, Application in Site Manager. Click the Edit button and the appropriate checkboxes to
configure the following items:

o Memory: These are automatically managed for you. Leave these as default unless instructed otherwise
by the Birst Support team.
o Time Zone: This section allows you to set the time zone of your Appliance and also sync the time up with
an external time server. Enter a comma separated list if multiple time servers are used.
o Mail: Set various mail properties here:
o Mail Host: The address of the email server. By default, this is the local machine.
o FROM Email address: For any scheduled jobs in Birst, this will be the sender address.
o Bounce Email address: Any failed email from the server will attempt to send to this address.
o FROM address for Birst Alerts: Failures related to Birst extracts (SFDC and Birst Connect) result in an
email to internal Operations group (see Send Birst Alerts To). This will be the sender address.
o From name for Birst Alerts: Name from which the failure message was sent.
o Send Server Alerts To: Typically an internal Operations group where alert emails will be sent when
failures relating to extracts occur.
o Report Schedule Email From: This is the sender address you would like to use for emails containing
scheduled reports.

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o Report Schedule Email Subject: This is the e-mail subject you would like to use for emails containing
scheduled reports.
o Maps: Tile server URL for maps used in the Birst application.

Logs

o Logging: Various log levels can be set for different areas of the application. INFO is the default. DEBUG is
the most granular and consumes the most physical storage. DEBUG Log Level captures the most log
activity, FATAL Log Level the least.
o Elasticsearch Advanced Logging: If an Elasticsearch is available, it can be used for advanced logging and
analysis and its properties can be set here.

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External

Select Settings, External in Site Manager. Click the Edit button and the appropriate checkboxes to
configure the following items:

o Salesforce
o Support URL: Birst support URL and validation password.
o Client ID and Secret Key: Enter the Salesforce.com ID and key for the account – this is provided by
Salesforce.
o Google API Key: Enter the Google API key for extracting data from Google Analytics.
o Google reCAPTCHA: Self-service for resetting passwords directly by users without administrative help.
o Google OpenID Connect: To use OpenID to connect to Birst, enable Google OpenID Connect, and enter
the Google API Client ID and Secret Key.
o AWS
o Redshift Time Bucket Name: This is the S3 bucket where the Time dimension tables will be stored.
o Upload Redshift Bucket Name: This is the S3 bucket where data files will be uploaded into AWS for
processing in Redshift.

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o AWS Access Key ID: This is the AWS ID for Redshift Time Bucket Name.
o AWS Secret Key: This is the AWS key corresponding to AWS Access Key ID.
o Upload Redshift AWS Access Key ID: This is the AWS ID for Upload Redshift Bucket Name.
o Upload Redshift AWS Secret Key: This is the AWS key corresponding to Upload Redshift AWS Access
Key ID.
o NetSuite: Enter the NetSuite Consumer Key and Secret for extracting data from NetSuite.

Miscellaneous

Select Settings, Misc. in Site Manager. Click the Edit button and the appropriate checkboxes to configure
the following items:

o Proxy Server Setting: If a proxy server is being used for the application to access the internet, the server IP
address, port, username and password should be entered here. Access to the internet is required for
licensing the appliance and for downloading updates from Birst.
o Live Access Settings: This section configures the Appliance to allow direct database access without the need
to have Birst Connect running.
o Run Application As: Configure the user and the password for the Birst application. It is recommended to
change the default user birstuser and the default password in your production environment.

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Scripts

Enter the scripts that should be executed before and after deployment of upgrade packages. These scripts should
be in the form of command line executables or batch files.

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Advanced

Advanced settings used for performing specialized tasks. Leave these settings as default unless otherwise
instructed by Birst Support or authorized personnel.

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Data Databases
In the Site Manager page, click on the “Data Databases” link and select the “+Database” button on the right to
add the Data database.

In the “Add Data Database” window, enter the Database Name, Hostname or IP address, Port, Username,
Password and select database type from the list. The database must be online and the username entered is
required to have dbo access to the database.

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Starting the Appliance

When all the changes have been completed, restart services in Server Manager from Status -> Application tab. To
get to the Server Manager, go to the Clusters link in Site Manager, and click on the server name.

Go on the Status tab and the Application page and click on “Restart” for AdminClient service. Next, click “Stop
All” on the top right and wait for services to stop. Click “Start All” and ensure all services have started before
proceeding.

Note: You can return to Birst Admin Center to change the settings at any time by clicking the Birst
Manager icon on the desktop of the Birst Appliance. You can also type the following URL into a web
browser from the Birst Appliance: http://localhost:8080. From an external machine, use the IP of the
Appliance as http://<IP Addresses>:8080. See the Birst Appliance Operation Guide for more information
about using the Birst Admin Center to manage the operation of the Appliance.

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Logging in to the Birst Application

Access the Birst Appliance application using the following information:

 Appliance URL: http://{birstApplianceIP}

 Default username: accountadmin@birst.com
 Default password: birst@123
For information on the operation of the Birst Appliance, including information on monitoring, licensing
and upgrading, refer to the Birst Appliance Operation Guide.

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