Empowering High Availability BI Operations Through Automation: The BI Validator Advantage

In my role as a Lead in the BI Operations space, I faced a monumental challenge: maintaining uninterrupted operation of the High Availability BI Server, particularly during the demanding month-end close period. We served a user base of over 2000 individuals actively utilizing both standard reports, dynamic dashboards, and the empowering self-service features of the BI server, where users could craft and run their customized reports. However, we faced a significant hurdle: we couldn't predict the types of reports end users would create. Occasionally, these reports contained massive data sets, potent enough to overwhelm the server, leading to unplanned downtimes that disrupted operations and eroded IT infrastructure credibility.

In our quest to address this dilemma, we decided to establish a robust governance structure, a topic I'll delve into further in a subsequent article. The inevitable downside was the unplanned downtime during crucial periods. This downtime not only prevented users from accessing the system but also cast doubt on our IT infrastructure's reliability. It was evident that we needed a solution to determine the root cause and reinforce our infrastructure.

Upon investigation, we identified that the CPU and memory capacities required an upgrade. This led to the implementation of an infrastructure upgrade, but the critical question was how to rigorously test it to mimic the demands of the Financial Close situation. Our treasure trove emerged in the form of BI Validator, empowered by Selenium.

BI Validator's capabilities allowed us to create multiple user sessions running critical reports from diverse geographical locations. This generated enough stress to assess and pinpoint the optimal capacity needed to scale up our infrastructure, meeting the dynamic demands of our valued customers. As a part of our practice, we perform this stress test annually to ensure our infrastructure remains robust and dependable.

In addition to its role in infrastructure scaling, BI Validator became an integral part of our operations. We heavily relied on it to execute regression test scripts, ensuring that our products remained robust and reliable after every major release.

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