Successful SAP BI Project which went live and includes SAP Business Objects ...

Successful SAP BI Project which went live and includes SAP Business Objects 4 over SAP BW 7.1

via Content in SCN by Adir Oren on 4/14/12

BICS present a successful SAP BI Project which went live and includes SAP Business Objects 4 over SAP BW 7.1

Hi All,
In this article we will share with you a success story of one of our SAP BI project using SAP Business Objects 4 over SAP BW 7.1
Customer: SAP Customer running SAP Best Practice
Users: Over 50 Business Intelligence users

Project scope:

1. Implementation of the SAP BI Best Practice with COPA,PP,MM,FI,SD,PUR,IV,PS
2. Enchantment of Info Objects Material, Customer , SD & COPA BI modules
3. Implementation of Organizational KPI's for 6 business  areas 

Architecture:
The Data warehouse is SAP BW, Front end tools is SAP Business Objects 4 web intelligence for management /analysis reports + crystal reports 2011 for transactional reports
BW-We have 2 SAP BW 7.1 landscapes: BW Dev acting also as BW QA and BW Production
BO-We have 2 SAP Business Objects landscapes – BO Dev , BO Prod

Authorization concept:
The authorization module includes 3 tiers
Tier1- Data level security coming from SAP BW
Tier2-SAP Business Objects web intelligence technical tool functionality (authorization over what kind of buttons and functionality the BO Webi will present for each user)
Tier3- SAP Business Objects control on the list of folders available for each user
Training:
Training method  was" train the trainer"- we have trained the Customer IT personal , they are responsible for User training.

Challenges:
1.We are the first service companies in the local market who went live with a full SAP BI project using SAP BW & SAP Business Objects 4, we had couple of problems with query performance, which eventually was stable after enhancement of SAP Notes , BO system tuning and last but not least we have established several of key development procedures for Business Object reporting over SAP BW Query as semantic layer.
2.There was several of Web intelligence functionality that wasn't working over BW, some of them we have developed workaround, some of them reported to SAP and will be fixed in FP3 and future development 

Summary:
Project went live as scheduled, SAP Business Objects reporting went live and kicking, good SAP support from SAP locally and globally
For more information
www.bics.co.il | coe@bics.co.il |visit their site SAP BI Center of expertise

Are You Hiding Your Data Sins?

Are You Hiding Your Data Sins?

via Content in SCN by Randy Garrison on 7/31/12

A single source of the truth. A great mantra – but hard to achieve as data types, volumes, and frequency continue to explode. A company that embarks on a campaign to create one source for all its reporting and analysis needs must traditionally undertake a massive enterprise data warehouse project, relying heavily on "extraction" of multiple layers of data from underlying ERP solutions. Business logic is then applied to the data, cleaning it and enhancing its usefulness, in a process referred to as ETL – extract, transform, and load.

The Promises and Perils of ETL
ETL works well in traditional environments where reporting solutions are outside the transaction system – those designed so reporting and analysis functions didn't impair or slow transactional systems. In such systems, users would simply extract the data and then use tools to report and analyze.
Many companies, however, use the ETL "cleansing" process to hide the sins of bad transactional system data. Such an after-the-fact approach creates multiple problems. Data that has been cleansed and changed can be difficult to reconcile with underlying sources. And when you pull together data from multiple sources, cleanse, and report it, it can look fine at a summarized level – but unsummarized, it is still full of outliers or anomalies... useful, but definitely not the same. In addition, ETL-based changes to data rely on predefined (often IT-driven) extraction configurations not visible to the report user. Because the quality of underlying transactional data is hidden, business processes remain less than optimized. Cleaning up such an environment requires costly data management projects.

Finding and Correcting Bad Data
Powerful computing tools can now work with transactional data directly in the data sources, making it possible to quickly spot bad data and trends. The SAP® HANA^TM platform, for example, is an in-memory computing appliance that runs analysis on big data directly from transactional systems. Its speed and power make it possible to analyze data where it resides, without exporting it.

Taking Action with SAP HANA
Using SAP HANA, employees can use information and analysis within the context of business processes – then take immediate corrective action. Users can continually monitor and refine a process in real time, identify backlogs and opportunities, and affect performance as it happens – for example, adjusting inventory levels on the fly or authorizing limited-time promotions for in-store customers.

Learn More
Business Analytics Services from SAP can help you right your data sins while crafting an overall information strategy. Our consultants can also speed analysis across your organization using in-memory computing advancements such as SAP HANA.
For more information on how Business Analytics Services from SAP can help unlock the value of your data and support better, faster, data-driven business decisions, visit us online.

Making Business Intelligence Work for You

Making Business Intelligence Work for You

via Content in SCN by Tom Kurtz on 7/26/12

Making Business Intelligence Work for You

Business Intelligence (BI) is a top priority for many companies. Used effectively, it can drive insights into customer behavior, pinpoint new market opportunities, optimize marketing spend, leverage competitive intelligence, and more. Because of the obvious benefits, most companies have evolved from an attitude of "Should I utilize business intelligence?" to "How do I get the most out of business intelligence?"

Yes, choosing BI is a wise move. But once you've made the decision to invest, how should you proceed? How can you ensure that you get the most from your investment? How do you make BI work for you?

Three Approaches for Successful BI Strategies

Over the past decade working with hundreds of customers to enhance their business value, SAP has seen three successful approaches to getting companies started with BI:

1) Holistic BI Strategy

In this approach, you take a step back and evaluate your entire BI strategy in the context of your business. You'll need to identify your business vision, strategies, and related growth initiatives and ensure alignment between your vision and your infrastructure needs. Execute by creating a long-term project roadmap and prioritizing your BI spending.

2) Focused Analytic Solution

If you have a high-value business use case already identified, consider developing an initial analytic solution targeting it. This approach addresses immediate business needs, while creating an opportunity to showcase your success to other parts of the business.

For this focused approach – for example, with a visualization quick start – you'll need to analyze four key areas:

• Metric framework. There are literally hundreds of metrics a company could calculate, monitor, and view. However, certain metrics are relevant to specific strategic initiatives. Identify which metrics are the most applicable to the issue you're addressing, and why. You'll also need to become familiar with how your metrics decompose and who in your organization views that information. For example, if a VP of operations at a retailer cares about COGS, and sees that it is tracking high for a given period, he will probably want to understand why. You may need to investigate a series of submetrics – product cost, landed cost, shrinkage – to fully understand the root causes of the increase in COGS.
• Visualization design patterns. Identifying your metrics framework and who in your organization is viewing the information allows you to understand how that information needs to be presented. Do you have executives who need aggregate information in the form of dashboards or scorecards? Do you have analysts that require drill-down reporting capability? Do you have mobile users that require information displayed on devices?
• Data design patterns. Once you know what you want to see and how to display it, you'll need to determine the data required. This is one of the most important aspects to strong BI; if you don't have a sound data strategy, your BI results will be compromised. What data is available? Where might you have data gaps? And what is the cost of acquiring new data vs. the benefit to the business?
• Solution architecture. Finally, what technical infrastructure is required to support your analytic solution? What are the various server considerations?

3) Architecture Framework

For some IT executives, this is the logical place to start. Begin by determining your infrastructure requirements and gaining an initial technical understanding of the tools you will be deploying. Such a framework will help you better support the business as you get into the planning and implementation stages. You'll need to systematically assess:

• The size of your enterprise deployment
• Security and authentication
• Positioning of BI tools
• Server configuration
• Installation requirements
• Current number of users, types of users, number of concurrent users, forecasted user growth
• Disaster recovery plans, strategies, and backup
• Content integration needs

Any of these three options can be an effective starting point; the choice comes down to where your business is now, and what is required for it to be successful. Regardless of where you start, though, you can – and should – expand to take advantage of one or both of the other options as your BI footprint matures. Perhaps you want to start with an analytic solution to show success, then once that succeeds, drive more sponsorship into a full BI strategy. Or maybe you want to begin by developing your architecture framework as you get your IT story in place, then embark on an analytic solution that solves a specific use case. There are many approaches to BI – ultimately, it's your business, and your decision.

Every day, SAP Services helps companies work through critical business decisions like these. Watch our latest World Tour presentation Decide Better: Best Practices with Business Intelligence given by Tom Kurtz, Global Practice Director HANA Services at SAP Consulting at http://tinyurl.com/3za6kmw.

To learn more about how we can help ensure that BI delivers maximum benefits for your business, visit us at www.sap.com/services.

What approach to BI has worked for your organization?

Snapshot Scenario on Stock Data with APD

Snapshot Scenario on Stock Data with APD

via Content in SCN by Volker Schottdorf on 8/1/12

Hi to all!

I recently was asked to share my knowledge of how to implement a snapshot scenario on stock data out of 0IC_C03 with Analysis Process Designer (APD) and here are the steps to take with screen shots of how the objects are implemented in our BW system (7.0) since 2009. All general information about the different approaches for analyzing stock data with cumulative and non-cumulative key figures are perfectly explained in the document "How to Handle Inventory Management Scenarios in BW (NW2004)" and therefore will not be mentioned in this blog of mine here.

Snapshot Scenario with APD on Stock Data of 0IC_C03

1. Create Query for selecting the data out of 0IC_C03 that you want to have in snapshot Cube
2. Implement a DSO (type: direct update) for the data of your snapshot query
3. Implement an analysis process with APD (transaction RSANWB) and include an ABAP routine and transformation for mapping source and target fields:
4. Execute the analysis process to insert data to your DSO; Result log:
5. Implement a standard InfoCube and a dataflow from DSO to InfoCube
6. You can update your DSO and InfoCube by Process Chain

ProcessChain: Program to start APD:

ProcessChain: InfoPackage to load data from DSO to InfoCube with OLAP variable for selection of current week:

Partition count contest!

Partition count contest!

via Content in SCN by Lars Breddemann on 4/23/12

Let's have a contest!

One of my last blog posts started off a discussion (e.g. Bala posted his thought in a blog) about the importance of the partitioning feature for a SAP BW installation.

No doubt about it - partitioning is something we use heavily for SAP BW.
Breaking the work down into smaller pieces that are easier to handle is one of the great common problem solving heuristics and it really works wonders in many cases.

Still, partitioning is something that needs to be done right and unfortunately also something that can be done wrong.

Beware, it moves!

What many DBAs and SAP Basis admins don't seem to fully get is that partitioning is not a static thing. Of course, the handling of partitions is very much like dealing with rather fixed stuff as tables and indexes. For the later objects you usally set them up, use them and leave them alone for the rest of the lifetime. Sometimes a reorg may be required, but this pretty much is it.

Partitioned objects on the other hand are usually way more 'vivid' (dynamic, volatile, changing... hard to find a good matching word for this).
These objects change with the data you store in them.
And this data changes over time.
So your partitioned table from yesterday will be a different one than the one of today.

In SAP BW we use partitioning for InfoCubes in two ways:
1. the F-fact tables are partitioned by request.
Every new request that gets loading into the InfoCube is stored in its own partition.
That way, we can easily remove requests e.g. if the data is not correct or during compression/condension.

2. the E-fact table CAN by partitioned by a time-InfoObject.
With that, we can improve query and archiving performance, when these actions are based on a time dimension-InfoObject (which is most often the case).

So far so good.

The problem now is, that the first kind of partitioning is done fully automatic.
Whenever a new request is loaded into an InfoCube, the F-fact table gets a new partition and the data is stored in it.
What doesn't happen fully automatic is that the partitions are removed again.
To remove the partitions from the F-fact table the corresponding request (and all requests that have been loaded before that) needs to be compressed or better condensed into the E-fact table.
Basically this operation does nothing else then adding up the numbers from the F-fact table partition to the E-fact table, stores the result in the E-fact table and then drops the partition from the F-fact table.
Of course, now you cannot remove the data anymore based on the loading request, since it has been summed together with the other data in the E-fact table. On the other hand, now this addition doesn't need to be performed at query runtime anymore and the database can use the partitioning scheme of the E-fact table for a more efficient execution plan.

Our performance is good - so what's the hassle about?

Besides performance issues, having many partitions can lead to multiple problems:

• usually aggregate tables tend to have even more partitions than their basic cubes (for technical reasons), so there is a multiplication effect
• DDL statements that are generated for the F-fact tables can become too large for export/import/migrations or reorganisations on DB level.
• Index creation can become very slow for so many partitions, since all indexes on F-fact tables are also locally partitioned, again a multiplication factor.
• during attribute change runs a high number of partitions can lead to crahes as explained in notes
  #1388570 - BW Change Run
  #903886 - Hierarchy and attribute change run
• It may even happen, that it's not even possible anymore to perform change runs or compression of requests, if there are too many partitions!

For all these reasons there's a recommendation out for a long time now:

COMPRESS! COMPRESS! COMPRESS!

Note #590370 - Too many uncompressed request (f table partitions)
I really don't know how many support messages have already been closed by simply compressing the requests.
And because of that and because it's so simple to figure out whether or not there are F-fact tables with too many partitions (usually not more than 20 - 30 are recommended) I decided to start a little competition here.
Just run the following little SELECT command on your BW database to get a list of F-fact tables that have more than 50 partitions:
\

select table_name, substr(table_name, 7) infocube_name, partition_count  \  from user_part_tables  \  where table_name like '/BI_/F%'  \  and partition_count >50  \  order by partition_count desc;  \    \  -----------------------------------------------  \  |TABLE_NAME     |INFOCUBE_NAME|PARTITION_COUNT|  \  -----------------------------------------------  \  |/BIC/FZ123456  |Z123456      |         8.279 |  <<< come on, beat this :-)  \  |/BIC/F123456784|123456784    |           999 |  \  |/BIC/FTPEDBIF5X|TPEDBIF5X    |           636 |  \  |/BI0/F0RKG_IC3 |0RKG_IC3     |           375 |  \  |/BIC/F100197   |100197       |           334 |  \  |/BIC/FRSTTREP01|RSTTREP01    |           281 |  \  |/BIC/FRS_C5    |RS_C5        |           253 |  \  |/BIC/F100184   |100184       |           238 |  \  |/BIC/F100183   |100183       |           238 |  \  [...]  \  -----------------------------------------------  \    \  

\
(be aware that this statement obviously does only work for InfoCubes tables in the standard name schema /BIC/, /BI0/, /BI... - you can of course adapt it to your naming scheme).
If you like to, just post your TOP partition count into the comments section - would be interesting to see, what extreme examples come up...
Although there's no price to win, you might at least get awareness that there is something to keep an eye onto in your BW database.

What's new in SAP NetWeaver 7.3 - A Basis perspective Part-I

What's new in SAP NetWeaver 7.3 - A Basis perspective Part-I

via Content in SCN (Author : Ishteyaque Ahmad )

Some folks will say that not all features are introduced in 7.3 some of them were introduced in 7.1 and 7.2, but author wanted to increase number of features in this blog so included them as well :). Beside it will be helpful to those who haven't got chance to work with 7.1 or 7.2 and directly started working with 7.3.

So lets begin...

1. SAP NetWeaver 7.3 Goes Green : With NW7.3 you can save more energy from architectural perspective, you can get details of it here, I find it interesting.

http://scn.sap.com/community/sustainability/green-it/blog/2011/06/06/sap-netweaver-73-goes-green

2. SAP NetWeaver 7.3 – Lean Avatar: In the process integration, a Java-only, lightweight advanced adapter engine is now available for NetWeaver 7.3, eliminating the need to run SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP NetWeaver PI) as a dual stack. 

From SAP NetWeaver 7.30, customers can reduce their hardware needs as a result of common deployment options for all Java usage types, including enterprise portals, SAP NetWeaver BW, and SAP NetWeaver 

Composition Environment (SAP NetWeaver CE), with one unified Java application server. 

NetWeaver Portal 7.3 uses half as much memory on average to execute navigations. 

NetWeaver Portal 7.3 server node starts up much faster than 7.01, with improvement of 33% in average. 

3. Instances Naming convention : As of SAP NetWeaver 7.1, the concept and naming of SAP system instances has changed. The terms "central instance" and "dialog instance" are no longer used. Instead, the SAP system consists of the following instances:

Application server instances 

Application server instances can be installed as "primary application server instance" (PAS) or "additional application server instances" (AAS).

Central services instance 

Database instance 

4. The Central Services Instance ABAP - ASCS: The central services instance for ABAP (ASCS instance) is now installed with every SAP ABAP system distribution option:

❶ Standard System ❷ Distributed System ❸High-Availability System

The enqueue replication server instance (ERS instance) can now be installed together with the central services instance for every installation :

Standard System (optional) 

Distributed System (optional) 

High-Availability System (mandatory) 

At the time of SCS installation if we can select the above option it will install ERS instance as well.

5. The Central Services Instance ABAP - ASCS: With new Installation Master for ABAP+Java, SAPInst does not provide option for separate ASCS and SCS Instance. Though it can be separated manually after installation on different host.

6. Split Off ASCS Instance: SAPInst now has an option to "Split Off ASCS Instance"

With the option Split Off ASCS Instance from Existing Primary Application Server Instance, you can split off an central services instance for ABAP (ASCS instance) from the primary application server instance of an existing ABAP system or ABAP+Java (dual-stack) system.

7. Solution Manager Key: As of SAP NetWeaver 7.3, Solution-Manager-Key at the time of Installation is not asked/required by SAPInst. Even in previous installation people found out the way to generate the Solution Manager Key out of SolMan System.

8. Start Profile Merged : As of SAP NetWeaver 7.3, Start Profile has been removed as separate file.

In earlier versions of NetWeaver there were 1 Default profile per SAP system, 1 Start profile per Instance and 1 Instance profile per instance.

Now the Start profile contents are merged with Instance profile. With help of new Instance profile SAP processes are started and at the same time instance specific parameters are read.

This removed total number of profile files. 1 Default profile per SAP System, 1 instance profile per instance. 

Now Profile Directory will look neater !!

9. JSPM (Java Support Package Manager) Initial credential requirement changed: While starting JSPM – SDM password is not being prompted, Instead you need to provide Java Admin User ID and password. 

While deploying and upgrading components it needs restart of just Java and sometime complete SAP restart, for which Admin User ID at OS level and its password is asked. 

SDM is replaced with JSPM and directory SDM is altogether removed.

Un-deployment of SCA's/EAR files are not possible using JSPM. You have to use NWDI for this purpose. 

No support for PAR files. All portal applications are now EAR (Enterprise Archive) based, PAR migration tool for converting PAR files to EAR files 

10. JCMON changed menu

After NetWeaver 7.01 JCMON menu 20: Local Administration Menu is non functional.

And you will able to see which state of different components/nodes. Unlike previous version we didn't find refresh option here, so go back and come to this menu again for recent view.

11. Visual Admin Vs NWA: As of SAP NetWeaver 7.1, Visual Admin has been replaced with NWA

12. Support Pack Stack

Earlier in NetWeaver 7.0, For a Support Pack Stack the release level of BW component was generally 2 release ahead of the ABAP and Basis component.

Now all components are released on same level.

Author :  Ishteyaque Ahmad 

How to transport changes to very large ODSes in SAP BW

How to transport changes to very large ODSes in SAP BW

n almost all BW systems which have been live for 3-4 years , it is a standard sight to see the following :

1. ODSes like Delivery Items , Material Movements etc having millions of entries ( this of course depends on the usage of these functions in SAP )

Very often a change request comes along which requires an enhancement to these ODSes and in lieu of the the time this would take - a lot of sister ODSes spring up all around these mega ODSes leading to a proliferation of Infosets and cubes and Multiproviders.. which in turn lead us into very difficult data modeling choices

Read more at : http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/27892

SAP BW 7.3 Hierarchy Framework – a real-life example

SAP BW 7.3 Hierarchy Framework – a real-life example

Introduction

So what do you when your client asks you to activate the customer hierarchy in reporting? Simple your say, you deep dive into ECC, look for the 0CUSTOMER hierarchy DataSource and activate. You do a quick RSA3 check and receive....no data.

Your day just became a little more interesting. After some investigation you find out your client did not implement “Classification” and therefore has no hierarchy on 0CUSTOMER. They do however have a hierarchy on the logistical view of the customer. As 0CUSTOMER is part of your data model you decide not to introduce 0CUST_SALES, but instead load it to your 0CUSTOMER object.

Read more at : http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/27798

All about SAP HANA – composite post

SAP HANA – composite post Martin Maruskin I'm very well aware that there are already initiatives to get all information about HANA into single place. Therefore consider this blog as yet another HANA blog. As I started similarly with SAP BW 7.3 I try to collect all relevant information sources about in this case SAP HANA here. BTW: What’s HANA? In short it is in-memory solution from SAP. It stands for High-Performance Analytic Appliance and basically it is appliance (plus its software components) that can absorb large volumes of data (e.g. tera bytes) into its “operational” memory. The reason why it is so high performant is that all the data is in memory not stored in hard drives. It can be set up on top of SAP ERP or BW system (plus non SAP databases) without necessity to materialize data via transformations as in contrary to current DWH solutions. HANA bundles several components: in-memory computing engine, real-time replication service, data modeling and data services. As it is delivered as appliance it is depended currently on few vendors are supported: Fujitsu, HP, and IBM. Basically we can say that HANA successor of SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator as moving forward into in-memory computing. Here HANA acts as persistence mechanism for SAP NetWeaver BW. HANA components: 1. The core of HANA is called SAP In-Memory Computing Engine (IMCE or ICE, also called as NewDB or BAE). It is an engine kind of in memory database which uses row/column/object based database technology to store data. It is for parallel data processing using state-of-the art CPU possibilities. 2. HANA Studio (client app, or Studio Repository, Eclipse based editor connected to a HANA Server backend) consists of: 2.1 Administration console - administer and monitor database 2.2 Information modeler - data modeling 2.3 Lifecycle mngt - provides an HANA stack update using SAP Software Update Manager (SUM) 3. HANA Load Controller -resides in SAP HANA, coordinates the entire replication process: It starts the initial load of source system data to the IMDB in SAP HANA, and communicates with the Sybase Replication Server to coordinate the start of the delta replication 4. Host Agent -handles login authentication between source system and target system 5. Sybase Replication Server -accepts data from Replication Agent, distributes and applies this data to the target database using ECDA/ODBC for connectivity. Current versions: SAP HANA 1.0 SP02 - as of 12th June 2011 in general availability Operating system: //only following one: 64-bit SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP1 operating system Upcoming version: Nov 2011 - SAP starts rump up program for their customers to run BW-on-HANA as its database Read more at : http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/28011

BW 7.30: Dataflow Copy Tool: How to use Dataflow Copy tool to speed up the development activity

Dataflow Copy Tool: How to use Dataflow Copy tool to speed up the development activity

As you know creating a data flow takes considerable development time. This affects TCO aspects of the project. To reduce the total cost of development activity, BW 7.3 release supports the copying of existing BW 7.x data flows, i.e. data sources, data targets, transformations and also process chains.

This blog, would like to explain how to use Dataflow Copy tool (wizard based tool). You will also understand how to copy an existing BW 7.x data flow and create data flows. This will help you to decrease the overall time of your development.

It present you with sample navigation, using this wizard based tool.

Read it more at : http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/27918